The Schoolboy: Saint-Leons 



den ; there are pear-trees reputed to give pears, real 

 pears, more or less good to eat when they have 

 ripened on the straw all through the late autumn. 

 In our imagination, it is a spot of perpetual de- 

 light, a paradise, but a paradise seen the wrong 

 way up: instead of contemplating it from below, 

 we gaze at it from above. How happy they must 

 be with so much space and all those pears! 



We look at the hives, around which the hover- 

 ing Bees make a sort of russet smoke. They stand 

 under the shelter of a great hazel. The tree has 

 sprung up all of itself in a fissure of the wall, 

 almost on the level of our currant-bushes. While 

 it spreads its mighty branches over the notary's 

 hives, its roots, at least, are in our soil. It be- 

 longs to us. The trouble is to gather the nuts. 



I creep along astride the strong branches pro- 

 jecting horizontally into space. If I slip, or if the 

 support breaks, I shall come to grief in the midst 

 of the angry Bees. I do not slip, and the support 

 does not break. With the crooked stick which 

 my brother hands me, I bring the finest clusters 

 within my reach. I soon fill my pockets. Mov- 

 ing backwards, still straddling my branch, I re- 

 cover terra firma. O wondrous days of litheness 

 and assurance, when, for a few filberts, on a per- 

 ilous perch we braved the abyss ! 1 



I confess I love this little sketch of the 

 garden, which gives evidence of a singular 



1 Souvenirs, vin., pp. 126, 127 ; Bramble-Bees, chap, 

 xiii, "The Halicti." 



41 



