The Bee-Master ot Warnlow. 



gone, and the night air had no longer the keen tooth of 

 winter in it. The bee-master held up his hand. 



" Listen ! " he said. • " Don't you hear anything?" 

 I strained my ears to their utmost pitch. A dog barked 

 forlornly in the distant village. Some night-bird went past 

 overhead with a faint jangling cry. But the slumbering 

 bee-city around us was as silent and still as death. 



" When you have lived among bees for forty years," 

 said the bee-master, plodding on again, " you may get ears 

 as long as mine. Just reckon it out. The wind has 

 changed; that curlew knows the warm weather is coming; 

 but the bees, huddled together in the midst of a double- 

 walled hive, found it out long ago. Now, there are between 

 three and four hundred hives here. At a very modest com- 

 putation, there must be as many bees crowded together on 

 these few acres of land as there are people in the whole of 

 London and Brighton combined. And they are all awake, 

 and talking, and telling each other that the cold spell is 

 past. That is what I can hear now, and shall hear — down 

 in the house yonder — all night long." 



64 



