AT THE CITY GATES 53 
clothing, and a whole flying squadron of them 
are shrilling vindictively about his ears. Nothing 
will come of it, he knows, if only he can keep 
still, But the tendency to turn and flee, or at 
least to beat off these minatory atoms with wildly 
waving arms, is all but irresistible for the novice. 
It is only their way, he is assured, of expressing 
or of satisfying their curiosity; and, this being 
done, they fly off harmlessly enough to give a 
good report of him to the ruling powers within 
the hive. But he knows that this report is 
sometimes anything but good. At least, there 
are a few luckless individuals in the world who 
dare not venture within a dozen yards of a bee- 
hive without being set upon unmercifully, and 
chased by an angry squad of these tart virgins 
for the space of a quarter-mile. Moreover, in 
certain states of the weather—when thunder is 
about, and the air is tense and still—bees will 
often sheath their barbed daggers in any human 
skin, even that of their owner, who has gone 
among them daily all the season unmolested. 
There is, therefore, a fateful element of chance 
in all near watching of beehives, a sensation of 
being under fire—fine discipline enough, but, for 
the timorous, hardly to be reckoned among the 
easy joys of existence, 
These first deterrents, however, being happily 
overcome, the watcher is sure to be caught up, 
sooner or later, in the sheer fascination of the 
