268 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 
sun shines : you know it has always shone, change- 
less as Time itself. 
With such a faith—unfounded and therefore 
uncontestable—I came under the glow of one 
brave June morning, threading field after field of 
blossoming clover until I stood at the gate of the 
bee-garden over against the hill. With its name 
I had long been familiar, for in the county paper 
there was always the little five-line advertisement, 
quaintly worded, announcing honey for sale. But 
I had never yet seen it, nor, indeed, ever set foot 
in this part of the good Sussex land. So, on this 
brimming June morning, giving rein for once to 
the indolent Shank’s mare of moods that is fated 
to carry me, I set out into the bright sloth, the 
joyous hastelessness, of the day; and came at 
length to my destination—to the bee-garden that 
nestles under the green Downland hills, 
It was girt about with a tall hedge of hawthorn, 
smothered in snowlike blossom, with just that rosy 
tinge upon it which is the first hectic of decay. 
Beyond the hedge I could see, stretching aloft, 
green apple-boughs, whose full-blown posies were 
alive with the desperate humming energy of count- 
less bees. There was a blue wisp of smoke trail- 
ing idly away from a chimney-stack, all that could 
be seen of the snug thatched cottage within; and 
there were voices, a leisurely baritone, a sudden 
peal of laughter high-pitched and obviously a 
woman’s, and now and then a bar or two of an 
