AT THE CITY GATES ^ 51 



ancient bee-garden, where the droning music of 

 the hives seems to originate in the thicket of 

 blossoming HIac, and red-may, and veronica, the 

 hives themselves being the last things one noticed 

 in such a tangle of bright-hued flowers. To ex- 

 pect sentiment in the other quarter — a great 

 cindered tract of country, with its long parallel 

 rows of modern hives, all painted in various colours, 

 its dwelling-house that might have been trans- 

 planted bodily from a well-to-do London suburb, 

 and its line of outbuildings, with their bustle of 

 business, and coughing oil-engine, and reverbera- 

 tion of hammer and saw — was to expect something 

 evidently out-of-date and impossible. As well look 

 for art in a Ghetto as to seek reverence for ancient 

 bee-customs in a twentieth-century trading con- 

 cern such as this, established to supply the market 

 for honey just as a Manchester factory turns out 

 calico and corduroy. 



Many lovers of country life, peripatetic artists 

 and chance pedestrians for the most part, came to 

 the village with this notion firmly impressed upon 

 them, and, visiting the old bee-garden and finding 

 the old beautiful things there in abundance, went 

 no farther, and became no wiser. They wandered 

 round the crooked, red-tiled paths of the garden 

 with its ancient proprietor ; stooped under bowers 

 of living gold and purple ; waded through seas of 

 scarlet poppy and blue forget-me-not and tawny 

 mignonette ; came upon old beehives in all sorts 

 4 — 2 



