BEE-KEEPING AND THE SIMPLE LIFE 269 



old song sung in an intermittent, absent-minded 

 way. 



In one of the pauses of this song, I raised the 

 latch of the gate. Its sharp click drew to its full 

 lean height a figure at the end of the garden, 

 which was bending down in the midst of a wilder- 

 ness of hives. As the man came towards me 

 coatless, his rolled-up shirt-sleeves baring wiry 

 brown arms to the hot June sun, I took in all the 

 -busy, quiet picture. The red-tiled, winding path, 

 the sea of old-fashioned garden-flowers on every 

 hand, billows of lilac and red-may and laburnum, 

 shadowy blue deeps of forget-me-not, scarlet tulips 

 amidst them like lighthouses, and drifting shallows 

 of amber mignonette. A decent house stood hard 

 by, its windows bright and clean as diamond- 

 facets. There was a gay flicker of linen on a line 

 beyond. An old dog lolled in a straw-filled barrel. 

 A cat kept company with a milk-jug on the spot- 

 less doorstep. And everywhere there were bee- 

 hives, each of a different harmonious shade of 

 colour, not ranged in stilted rows, but scattered 

 here and there in twos and threes in the orderless 

 order beloved of bees and unsuburban men. 



The bee-master had keen grey eyes, set deep in 

 a sun-blackened, honest face, and the ever-ready 

 tongue of him was that of the beeman all the 

 world over. He was ripe and willing to talk of 

 his work, explaining what he was, and what he 

 had done, as we slowly wandered through his 



