Chapter 2


At six the next morning they had breakfast. Abel was busy making a hive
for the next summer's swarm. When he made a coffin, he always used up
the bits thus. A large coffin did not leave very much; but sometimes
there were small ones, and then he made splendid hives. The white
township on the south side of the lilac hedge increased as slowly and
unceasingly as the green township around the distant churchyard. In
summer the garden was loud with bees, and the cottage was full of them
at swarming-time. Later it was littered with honey-sections; honey
dripped from the table, and pieces of broken comb lay on the floor and
were contentedly eaten by Foxy.

Whenever an order for a coffin came, Hazel went to tell the bees who
was dead. Her father thought this unnecessary. It was only for folks
that died in the house, he said. But he had himself told the bees when
his wife died. He had gone out on that vivid June morning to his hives,
and had stood watching the lines of bees fetching water, their shadows
going and coming on the clean white boards. Then he had stooped and
said with a curious confidential indifference, 'Maray's jead.' He had
put his ear to the hive and listened to the deep, solemn murmur within;
but it was the murmur of the future, and not of the past, the
preoccupation with life, not with death, that filled the pale galleries
within. Today the eighteen hives lay under their winter covering, and
the eager creatures within slept. Only one or two strayed sometimes to
the early arabis, desultory and sad, driven home again by the frosty
air to await the purple times of honey. The happiest days of Abel's
life were those when he sat like a bard before the seething hives and