II.


IT is the patient humble-bee that goes down into the forest of the
mowing-grass. If entangled, the humble-bee climbs up a sorrel stem
and takes wing, without any sign of annoyance. His broad back with
tawny bar buoyantly glides over the golden buttercups. He hums to
himself as he goes, so happy is he. He knows no skep, no cunning
work in glass receives his labour, no artificial saccharine aids
him when the beams of the sun are cold, there is no step to his
house that he may alight in comfort; the way is not made clear for
him that he may start straight for the flowers, nor are any sown
for him. He has no shelter if the storm descends suddenly; he has
no dome of twisted straw well thatched and tiled to retreat to.
The butcher-bird, with a beak like a crooked iron nail, drives him
to the ground, and leaves him pierced with a thorn but no hail of
shot revenges his tortures. The grass stiffens at nightfall (in
autumn), and he must creep where he may, if possibly he may escape
the frost. No one cares for the humble-bee. But down to the
flowering nettle in the mossy-sided ditch, up into the tall elm,
winding in and out and round the branched buttercups, along the
banks of the brook, far inside the deepest wood, away he wanders
and despises nothing. His nest is under the rough grasses and the
mosses of the mound, a mere tunnel beneath the fibres and matted
surface. The hawthorn overhangs it, the fern grows by, red mice
rustle past.

It thunders, and the great oak trembles; the heavy rain drops