as it was a case of first come first served, and there was the danger
that the best would be snapped up before an intending buyer could have
his choice. Bell's face was wreathed in smiles when he came in and
unloaded a pocketful of sovereigns on my study table, saying, when
trade was brisk, "I could sell myself if I was little pigs!"

Many and anxious were the deliberations we held in the early days of
my farming; the whole system of the late tenant was condemned by my
theoretical and Bell's practical knowledge, but they did not
invariably coincide, and, after a long discussion on some particular
point, he would yield, though I could see that he was not convinced,
with, "Well, I allows you to know best."

When, a few years later, I introduced hop-growing as a complete
novelty on the farm, he regarded it at first as an extravagant and
unprofitable hobby, akin to the hunters my predecessor kept. He
"reckoned," he said, that my hop-gardens were my "hunting horse," and
I heard that my neighbours quoted the old saw about "a fool and his
money." Bell was not so enlightened as to be quite proof against local
superstitions; I had to consult his almanac and find out when the
"moon southed," and when certain planets were in favourable
conjunction, before he would undertake some quite ordinary farm
operations.

He was a clever and courageous bee-master, and "took" all my
neighbours' swarms as well as my own, my gardener not being _persona
grata_ to bees. The job is not a popular one, and he would, when
accompanied by the owner, always ask, "Will you hold the ladder or
hive 'em?" The invariable answer was, "Hold the ladder." He firmly
believed in the necessity of telling the bees in cases where the owner