IV

I heard a weird, tom-toming somewhere in the village to-day, and going

forth, soon tracked the sound down to cobbler Bleak’s garden that lay at

the far end of the green.

The old man was ringing his bees. Through a gap in the hawthorn hedge, I

could see him standing under his apple-trees surrounded by the hives, and

beating on a saucepan with a door-key, while the air above was alive with

flashing wings, and resonant with the high shrill music of the swarm.

This was the first swarm of the season, although it was well on in May.

Most of the Windlecombe folk kept a few hives in some odd nook or other

of the garden, and these were nearly all of the ancient straw pattern.

He who could get the earliest swarm was accounted at once the luckiest

and most astute of beemen; and the old cobbler’s face glowed with pride

through its encircling fringe of ragged white hair and whisker, as he

pounded away with his key, never doubting for a moment that the noise

would soon induce the swarm to settle.

But the bees were in no hurry to end this one mad frolic of their

laborious lives. They rose higher and higher into the blue air and

sunshine, drifting to all parts of the compass in turn. They veered out

far over the roadway; swept back towards the cottage, hovering awhile

like a grey cloud over the chimney-tops; took an indecisive turn round

the next garden; reappeared in their old station above the orchard, as

little inclined as ever, apparently, to make a permanent halt. And all

the time their high tremulous music burdened the air, every dog in the

village barked, and every goose quacked its sympathy, and the old cobbler

beat steadily on his pan.

I got my elbows comfortably into the gap in the hedgerow, the better to

enjoy the scene. The garden was completely surrounded by the

hawthorn-hedge, a glowing wreath of white, against which shone masses of

blooming lilac and laburnum and red garden-may. The little cottage at

the back of the shop stood up to its window-sills in bright colour, every

old-fashioned flower crowding about it. The winding red-tiled paths ran

between borders of the same rich living hues. And beyond in the orchard,

splashed over with blue-grey shadows and quivering gold, as the sunshine

filtered through the leaves, were innumerable hives, old-fashioned skeps

of straw, each with its little chanting company of bees.

The old cobbler spied me in the hedgerow gap, and beckoned me to join

him. He was without hat or coat, and wore his leather apron. A

half-mended boot thrown down on the path showed how hastily he had been

summoned from work. As I came up, he managed somehow to extract from the

saucepan an exultant, almost jeering tune.

‘Ah, ha!’ cried he, blinking up at his whirligig property, ‘can ye show

th’ like o’ that ’n?—you as keeps bees in patent machines? Naun like

straw, there be; as I allers telled ye! These yere new-fangled

boxes!—ye’ll ha’ ne’er a swarm this side o’ Corp Christian, I’ll lay a

pot o’ six!’

It wanted still four or five days to the date of the great Roman festival

of Corpus Christi in Stavisham, which annually drew all village

sightseers from far and near. I reflected sadly, and rather

shamefacedly, that not only was a swarm from my modern, roomy frame-hives

little to be expected during that interval, but that it was the last

thing I had hitherto desired. Working at home among my trim, up-to-date

hives, with all the latest scientific methods in apiculture at my

finger-tips, it seemed a fine thing to possess bees that had almost

forgotten how to swarm, and that could bring me in a double or treble

harvest of honey. But here in the beautiful old bee-garden, I began

dimly to perceive another side to the argument. Whether courage or

ignorance had led him to resist the tide of progress in beekeeping that

has all but engulfed this gentlest, most picturesque of village crafts,

the old cobbler might be right after all. My honey was better and more

abundant than his; but it might well be dear at the price.

The swarm was coming lower now, and the wildly flying bees closing their

ranks. Above our heads the air grew dark with them. It was plain that

they would soon be settling. Of a sudden the clanging key-music ceased.

Bleak pointed triumphantly to a bough in a tree hard by. A little knot

of bees had fastened there, no bigger than a clenched fist. But as I

looked it doubled its size with every moment. From all the regions of

sunny air above us the bees thronged towards the cluster. In a short

five minutes hardly one remained on the wing; and in place of the wild

trek-song, a dull, uncanny silence held the air. From the drooping

apple-bough the whole multitude hung together in a dark brown mass,

looking strangely like a huge cigar, as it swayed idly to and fro in the

gentle breeze.

And now the old cobbler went about the work of hiving the swarm in the

old way, punctiliously observing all the traditional rites of the craft.

A jar of ale was brought out, from which we must both drink, to sweeten

our breath for the coming ceremony. Then, having washed his hands, Bleak

set about the dressing of the hive. It was a new skep, one of many he

had himself made during the long winter evenings bygone. He gathered

first a handful of mint and balm and lavender, and with this he carefully

scrubbed out the skep. Then he made a syrup of brown sugar and beer,

wherewith he gave the hive a second thorough dressing. Finally, having

cut two or three leafy boughs of elder, he took the skep with its

baseboard under his arm, and approached the swarm on tiptoe and with

bated breath.

The bees hung in the sunshine, as silent, as inert as ever; except that a

dozen or so were hovering about the cluster, humming a drowsy song. The

note contrasted oddly with the wild merry music of the flying swarm, when

all had seemed mad with excitement, as though they were setting forth on

some fierce neck-or-nothing adventure, instead of the rather tame

business in which they were at present absorbed.

The old beeman stepped warily towards them, and holding the skep mouth

upwards beneath the cluster, gave the branch a vigorous shake. Like so

many blackcurrants, the entire mass of bees rattled down into the hive,

when the baseboard was swiftly clapped over them, and the whole inverted

and placed upon the ground. Waiting a minute or two, the old man then

gently raised one edge of the skep, and propped it up with a stone. A

few hundred bees came tumbling out with a sound like the boiling-over of

a cauldron; but the greater part of the swarm remained within the hive.

Before half an hour had passed, they had completely accepted the

situation, and the worker-bees were lancing busily off in all directions

in search of provender for the new home.

The old cobbler’s prediction that I should have no swarm by Corpus

Christi, fell true enough. Every day I watched until the hours for

swarming had passed by eventlessly. And then, on the great Stavisham

feast-day, in the sunny calm of afternoon, I followed the straggling line

of sightseers by the river-way to the town.

V

A hush is over the little precipitous market-town. The hot May sun beats

down on the waiting lines of people, on the fragrant linden-trees shading

the quiet street, on the fluttering banners and pennants everywhere.

The air is full of dim sound; wild drift of far-off bell-music, the deep

hum and stir of the expectant people, the voice of the wind, sweet and

low, in the green lime labyrinth overhead. Every glance is turned up the

street, where the church of Saint Francis of Assisi lifts its bluff

sandstone tower against the blue. The great west door stands open.

Straining the eye, the nearest watchers can just make out a glint of

altar lights through the cavernous dark within—the rich uncertain glow of

candles given back from a thousand gleaming points of silver chalice and

golden cross and glittering filigree.

And now the last rumbling harmony of the organ dies away. For a moment a

deeper silence than ever fills the Gothic gloom. Then the thin fine note

of a clarinet lifts up its trembling signal in the darkness. The brazen

trombones join in with their passionate, deep-voiced music. The lights

begin to move and dance, growing nearer and stronger. ‘They are

coming!’—to the remotest end of the waiting line the whisper spreads.

Slowly the procession winds its way through the great church door, and

down the precipitous street. First the gilded, jewel-encumbered cross,

borne aloft by a young priest in a black cassock and snowy, deep-laced

surplice. Then the singing multitude of schoolgirls, all in white, with

wreath-crowned veils like so many Lilliputian brides. Now the boys from

the convent seminary in crimson shoulder-sashes, with their fussing

marshals; and the elder women after, in their doleful, decorous black.

Banners swaying; rainbow streamers flying; the shrill child-voices blent

with the sound of the wind in the glad green leaves overhead.

Now the trumpets and clarinets have turned the bend of the street. The

singing gives way to deeper music. More banners come flinging and

flaunting into the sunny vista. The gay procession takes on a darker

tinge. Sisters in black, sisters in brown, sisters in grey; weary faces,

sad faces, comely faces; winter and glowing spring and ripe calm autumn,

all in the same cold livery of sorrow, all with the like abandonment to

destiny so plainly fettering the innate unrule of will.

The musicians pass on: the deep blurring melody fades: the pageant

changes.

Monks and friars now. An old Capuchin father totters by in his rough

brown frock, carrying a candle on a brazen stick. After him a score of

his own degree, all bearing lights that glimmer and blink superfluously

in the sunshine, and all chanting a long slow antiphon in a minor key.

Old men reeking of the cloister, bent nearly double with their weight of

years; sturdy young friars, ruddy-jowled, tonsured, with only half an eye

to their book; suave-faced, grey-headed superiors, eyes in the sky, calm,

transfigured, the vanquished world behind every man’s broad back.

And now a weird, dirge-like note creeps down the sun-bathed street, and a

murmur follows it through the craning, nudging crowd. The end, the

crown, of the pageant is suddenly in view. It is all shining celestial

white now, as the choristers sweep slowly by in their spotless lawn and

lace, chanting their pseudo-requiem as they move. Behind them a bevy of

major priests, of comfortable figure, gorgeously caparisoned. Little

scarlet-robed acolytes walking backwards and strewing the way with

rich-hued flowers; swinging censers vouchsafing their hallow of dim smoke

upon the common air. And then at last—under the great square

baldacchino—the old Roman bishop himself, holding aloft the precious

monstrance, like a glittering captive star.

A vision now of billowing white and gold; and the low, sad chant

swelling, falling; and the languorous fragrance of the incense and the

trampled flowers. Wrapped to the eyes in his heavy, gilt-encrusted cope,

the old priest grasps his cherished burden with all the little might of

his trembling blue-veined hands. His eyes are on the gold-rayed

treasure-casket, held but an inch or two beyond his flushed, illuminated

face. A trance-like stupor seems to be upon him as he moves, guided on

either side by those other two, almost as splendidly robed as himself,

who keep a grip on the fringe of his silken coat, and lead him onward in

his passionate ecstasy, treading thin air, enrapt, magnificent with

other-worldly light.

It is over now. The great canopy has moved on, its bearers keeping

ceremonious step and step. More richly accoutred priests follow in a

holy rear-guard. Then the crowd closes up eagerly behind, and surges

after them, bare-headed, jostling together; catching now and again a

phrase of the mournful melody, and giving it an echo that sobs away into

silence far in the sunny length of the street.

As I stand apart, here in the deep shadow of the convent wall, the

thronging multitude sweeps by, growing thinner with every moment. The

gleaming star of the monstrance sends back a last clear flash of sunlight

as it turns the distant foot of the hill. Soon the straggling human

fringe of the procession vanishes after it. A debris of blossom litters

the long deserted way. Flags and streamers wave their bright hues over

the dusty solitude. The street is forsaken, quiet again; save for the

bells in the upper air, and the wind in the trees.