Under the Greenwood Tree Part 23

He had scarcely been there a minute when he beheld a sort of procession advancing from the door in his front. It consisted first of Enoch the trapper, carrying a spade on his shoulder and a lantern dangling in his hand; then came Mrs. Day, the light of the lantern revealing that she bore in her arms curious objects about a foot long, in the form of Latin crosses (made of lath and brown paper dipped in brimstone--called matches by bee-masters); next came Miss Day, with a shawl thrown over her head; and behind all, in the gloom, Mr. Frederic s.h.i.+ner.

d.i.c.k, in his consternation at finding s.h.i.+ner present, was at a loss how to proceed, and retired under a tree to collect his thoughts.

"Here I be, Enoch," said a voice; and the procession advancing farther, the lantern's rays illuminated the figure of Geoffrey, awaiting their arrival beside a row of bee-hives, in front of the path. Taking the spade from Enoch, he proceeded to dig two holes in the earth beside the hives, the others standing round in a circle, except Mrs. Day, who deposited her matches in the fork of an apple-tree and returned to the house. The party remaining were now lit up in front by the lantern in their midst, their shadows radiating each way upon the garden-plot like the spokes of a wheel. An apparent embarra.s.sment of Fancy at the presence of s.h.i.+ner caused a silence in the a.s.sembly, during which the preliminaries of execution were arranged, the matches fixed, the stake kindled, the two hives placed over the two holes, and the earth stopped round the edges. Geoffrey then stood erect, and rather more, to straighten his backbone after the digging.

"They were a peculiar family," said Mr. s.h.i.+ner, regarding the hives reflectively.

Geoffrey nodded.

"Those holes will be the grave of thousands!" said Fancy. "I think 'tis rather a cruel thing to do."

Her father shook his head. "No," he said, tapping the hives to shake the dead bees from their cells, "if you suffocate 'em this way, they only die once: if you fumigate 'em in the new way, they come to life again, and die o' starvation; so the pangs o' death be twice upon 'em."

"I incline to Fancy's notion," said Mr. s.h.i.+ner, laughing lightly.

"The proper way to take honey, so that the bees be neither starved nor murdered, is a puzzling matter," said the keeper steadily.

"I should like never to take it from them," said Fancy.

"But 'tis the money," said Enoch musingly. "For without money man is a shadder!"

The lantern-light had disturbed many bees that had escaped from hives destroyed some days earlier, and, demoralized by affliction, were now getting a living as marauders about the doors of other hives. Several flew round the head and neck of Geoffrey; then darted upon him with an irritated bizz.

Enoch threw down the lantern, and ran off and pushed his head into a currant bush; Fancy scudded up the path; and Mr. s.h.i.+ner floundered away helter-skelter among the cabbages. Geoffrey stood his ground, unmoved and firm as a rock. Fancy was the first to return, followed by Enoch picking up the lantern. Mr. s.h.i.+ner still remained invisible.

"Have the craters stung ye?" said Enoch to Geoffrey.

"No, not much--on'y a little here and there," he said with leisurely solemnity, shaking one bee out of his s.h.i.+rt sleeve, pulling another from among his hair, and two or three more from his neck. The rest looked on during this proceeding with a complacent sense of being out of it,--much as a European nation in a state of internal commotion is watched by its neighbours.

"Are those all of them, father?" said Fancy, when Geoffrey had pulled away five.

"Almost all,--though I feel one or two more sticking into my shoulder and side. Ah! there's another just begun again upon my backbone. You lively young mortals, how did you get inside there? However, they can't sting me many times more, poor things, for they must be getting weak. They mid as well stay in me till bedtime now, I suppose."

As he himself was the only person affected by this arrangement, it seemed satisfactory enough; and after a noise of feet kicking against cabbages in a blundering progress among them, the voice of Mr. s.h.i.+ner was heard from the darkness in that direction.

"Is all quite safe again?"

No answer being returned to this query, he apparently a.s.sumed that he might venture forth, and gradually drew near the lantern again. The hives were now removed from their position over the holes, one being handed to Enoch to carry indoors, and one being taken by Geoffrey himself.

"Bring hither the lantern, Fancy: the spade can bide."

Geoffrey and Enoch then went towards the house, leaving s.h.i.+ner and Fancy standing side by side on the garden-plot.

"Allow me," said s.h.i.+ner, stooping for the lantern and seizing it at the same time with Fancy.

"I can carry it," said Fancy, religiously repressing all inclination to trifle. She had thoroughly considered that subject after the tearful explanation of the bird-catching adventure to d.i.c.k, and had decided that it would be dishonest in her, as an engaged young woman, to trifle with men's eyes and hands any more. Finding that s.h.i.+ner still retained his hold of the lantern, she relinquished it, and he, having found her retaining it, also let go. The lantern fell, and was extinguished. Fancy moved on.

"Where is the path?" said Mr. s.h.i.+ner.

"Here," said Fancy. "Your eyes will get used to the dark in a minute or two."

"Till that time will ye lend me your hand?" Fancy gave him the extreme tips of her fingers, and they stepped from the plot into the path.

"You don't accept attentions very freely."

"It depends upon who offers them."

"A fellow like me, for instance." A dead silence.

"Well, what do you say, Missie?"

"It then depends upon how they are offered."

"Not wildly, and yet not careless-like; not purposely, and yet not by chance; not too quick nor yet too slow."

"How then?" said Fancy.

"Coolly and practically," he said. "How would that kind of love be taken?"

"Not anxiously, and yet not indifferently; neither blus.h.i.+ng nor pale; nor religiously nor yet quite wickedly."

"Well, how?"

"Not at all."

Geoffrey Day's storehouse at the back of his dwelling was hung with bunches of dried h.o.r.ehound, mint, and sage; brown-paper bags of thyme and lavender; and long ropes of clean onions. On shelves were spread large red and yellow apples, and choice selections of early potatoes for seed next year;--vulgar crowds of commoner kind lying beneath in heaps. A few empty beehives were cl.u.s.tered around a nail in one corner, under which stood two or three barrels of new cider of the first crop, each bubbling and squirting forth from the yet open bunghole.

Fancy was now kneeling beside the two inverted hives, one of which rested against her lap, for convenience in operating upon the contents. She thrust her sleeves above her elbows, and inserted her small pink hand edgewise between each white lobe of honeycomb, performing the act so adroitly and gently as not to unseal a single cell. Then cracking the piece off at the crown of the hive by a slight backward and forward movement, she lifted each portion as it was loosened into a large blue platter, placed on a bench at her side.

"Bother these little mortals!" said Geoffrey, who was holding the light to her, and giving his back an uneasy twist. "I really think I may as well go indoors and take 'em out, poor things! for they won't let me alone. There's two a stinging wi' all their might now. I'm sure I wonder their strength can last so long."

"All right, friend; I'll hold the candle whilst you are gone," said Mr.

s.h.i.+ner, leisurely taking the light, and allowing Geoffrey to depart, which he did with his usual long paces.

He could hardly have gone round to the house-door when other footsteps were heard approaching the outbuilding; the tip of a finger appeared in the hole through which the wood latch was lifted, and d.i.c.k Dewy came in, having been all this time walking up and down the wood, vainly waiting for s.h.i.+ner's departure.

Fancy looked up and welcomed him rather confusedly. s.h.i.+ner grasped the candlestick more firmly, and, lest doing this in silence should not imply to d.i.c.k with sufficient force that he was quite at home and cool, he sang invincibly--

"'King Arthur he had three sons.'"

"Father here?" said d.i.c.k.

"Indoors, I think," said Fancy, looking pleasantly at him.

d.i.c.k surveyed the scene, and did not seem inclined to hurry off just at that moment. s.h.i.+ner went on singing--

"'The miller was drown'd in his pond, The weaver was hung in his yarn, And the d--- ran away with the little tail-or, With the broadcloth under his arm.'"