CHAPTER XXIV 
THE YELLOW PERIL IN HIVELAND 
I the hedgerow that surrounds the bee-garden 
the wrens and robins have been singing all the 
morning long. Still a few pale sulphur buds remain 
on the evening-primroses. The balsams make a 
glowing patch of majenta by the garden gate. 
Over the door porch of the old thatched cottage 
purple clematis climbs bravely; and the nasturtiums 
still flaunt their scarlet and gold in the sunny angle 
of the wall. But, for all the colour and the music, 
the hot sun, and the serene blue air overhead, you 
can never forget that it is October. If the towering 
elm-trees by the lane-side showed no fretting of 
amber in their greenery, nor the beeches sent down 
their steady rain of russet, there would still be one 
indubitable mark of the season—the voice of the 
hives themselves. 
Rich and wavering and low in the sweet autumn 
sunlight, it comes over to you now with the very 
spirit of rest in every halting tone. There is work, 
of a kind, doing in the bee-garden. A steady tide 
of bees is stemming out from and home to every 
hive. But there is none of the press and busy 
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