by Thomas Hardy
CHAPTER II: HONEY-TAKING, AND AFTERWARDS
Saturday evening saw Dick Dewy journeying on foot to Yalbury Wood,according to the arrangement with Fancy.
The landscape being concave, at the going down of the sun everythingsuddenly assumed a uniform robe of shade. The evening advanced fromsunset to dusk long before Dick's arrival, and his progress during thelatter portion of his walk through the trees was indicated by the flutterof terrified birds that had been roosting over the path. And in crossingthe glades, masses of hot dry air, that had been formed on the hillsduring the day, greeted his cheeks alternately with clouds of damp nightair from the valleys. He reached the keeper-steward's house, where thegrass-plot and the garden in front appeared light and pale against theunbroken darkness of the grove from which he had emerged, and paused atthe garden gate.
He had scarcely been there a minute when he beheld a sort of processionadvancing from the door in his front. It consisted first of Enoch thetrapper, carrying a spade on his shoulder and a lantern dangling in hishand; then came Mrs. Day, the light of the lantern revealing that shebore in her arms curious objects about a foot long, in the form of Latincrosses (made of lath and brown paper dipped in brimstone--called matchesby bee-masters); next came Miss Day, with a shawl thrown over her head;and behind all, in the gloom, Mr. Frederic Shiner.
Dick, in his consternation at finding Shiner present, was at a loss howto 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 theirarrival beside a row of bee-hives, in front of the path. Taking thespade from Enoch, he proceeded to dig two holes in the earth beside thehives, the others standing round in a circle, except Mrs. Day, whodeposited her matches in the fork of an apple-tree and returned to thehouse. The party remaining were now lit up in front by the lantern intheir midst, their shadows radiating each way upon the garden-plot likethe spokes of a wheel. An apparent embarrassment of Fancy at thepresence of Shiner caused a silence in the assembly, during which thepreliminaries of execution were arranged, the matches fixed, the stakekindled, the two hives placed over the two holes, and the earth stoppedround the edges. Geoffrey then stood erect, and rather more, tostraighten his backbone after the digging.
"They were a peculiar family," said Mr. Shiner, regarding the hivesreflectively.
Geoffrey nodded.
"Those holes will be the grave of thousands!" said Fancy. "I think 'tisrather a cruel thing to do."
Her father shook his head. "No," he said, tapping the hives to shake thedead bees from their cells, "if you suffocate 'em this way, they only dieonce: if you fumigate 'em in the new way, they come to life again, anddie o' starvation so the pangs o' death be twice upon 'em."
"I incline to Fancy's notion," said Mr. Shiner, laughing lightly.
"The proper way to take honey, so that the bees be neither starved normurdered, 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 ashadder!"
The lantern-light had disturbed many bees that had escaped from hivesdestroyed some days earlier, and, demoralized by affliction, were nowgetting a living as marauders about the doors of other hives. Severalflew round the head and neck of Geoffrey; then darted upon him with anirritated bizz.
Enoch threw down the lantern, and ran off and pushed his head into acurrant bush; Fancy scudded up the path; and Mr. Shiner floundered awayhelter-skelter among the cabbages. Geoffrey stood his ground, unmovedand firm as a rock. Fancy was the first to return, followed by Enochpicking up the lantern. Mr. Shiner 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 leisurelysolemnity, shaking one bee out of his shirt sleeve, pulling another fromamong his hair, and two or three more from his neck. The rest looked onduring this proceeding with a complacent sense of being out of it,--muchas a European nation in a state of internal commotion is watched by itsneighbours.
"Are those all of them, father?" said Fancy, when Geoffrey had pulledaway five.
"Almost all,--though I feel one or two more sticking into my shoulder andside. Ah! there's another just begun again upon my backbone. You livelyyoung mortals, how did you get inside there? However, they can't stingme many times more, poor things, for they must be getting weak. They midas well stay in me till bedtime now, I suppose."
As he himself was the only person affected by this arrangement, it seemedsatisfactory enough; and after a noise of feet kicking against cabbagesin a blundering progress among them, the voice of Mr. Shiner was heardfrom the darkness in that direction.
"Is all quite safe again?"
No answer being returned to this query, he apparently assumed that hemight venture forth, and gradually drew near the lantern again. Thehives were now removed from their position over the holes, one beinghanded to Enoch to carry indoors, and one being taken by Geoffreyhimself.
"Bring hither the lantern, Fancy: the spade can bide."
Geoffrey and Enoch then went towards the house, leaving Shiner and Fancystanding side by side on the garden-plot.
"Allow me," said Shiner, stooping for the lantern and seizing it at thesame time with Fancy.
"I can carry it," said Fancy, religiously repressing all inclination totrifle. She had thoroughly considered that subject after the tearfulexplanation of the bird-catching adventure to Dick, and had decided thatit would be dishonest in her, as an engaged young woman, to trifle withmen's eyes and hands any more. Finding that Shiner still retained hishold of the lantern, she relinquished it, and he, having found herretaining it, also let go. The lantern fell, and was extinguished. Fancymoved on.
"Where is the path?" said Mr. Shiner.
"Here," said Fancy. "Your eyes will get used to the dark in a minute ortwo."
"Till that time will ye lend me your hand?" Fancy gave him the extremetips 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 bychance; not too quick nor yet too slow."
"How then?" said Fancy.
"Coolly and practically," he said. "How would that kind of love betaken?"
"Not anxiously, and yet not indifferently; neither blushing nor pale; norreligiously nor yet quite wickedly."
"Well, how?"
"Not at all."
* * * * *
Geoffrey Day's storehouse at the back of his dwelling was hung withbunches of dried horehound, mint, and sage; brown-paper bags of thyme andlavender; and long ropes of clean onions. On shelves were spread largered and yellow apples, and choice selections of early potatoes for seednext year;--vulgar crowds of commoner kind lying beneath in heaps. A fewempty beehives were clustered around a nail in one corner, under whichstood two or three barrels of new cider of the first crop, each bubblingand squirting forth from the yet open bunghole.
Fancy was now kneeling beside the two inverted hives, one of which restedagainst her lap, for convenience in operating upon the contents. Shethrust her sleeves above her elbows, and inserted her small pink handedgewise between each white lobe of honeycomb, performing the act soadroitly and gently as not to unseal a single cell. Then cracking thepiece off at the crown of the hive by a slight backward and forwardmovement, she lifted each portion as it was loosened into a large blueplatter, placed on a bench at her side.
"Bother these little mortals!" said Geoffrey, who was holding the lightto her, and giving his back an uneasy twist. "I really think I may aswell go indoors and take
'em out, poor things! for they won't let mealone. There's two a stinging wi' all their might now. I'm sure Iwonder their strength can last so long."
"All right, friend; I'll hold the candle whilst you are gone," said Mr.Shiner, 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 footstepswere heard approaching the outbuilding; the tip of a finger appeared inthe hole through which the wood latch was lifted, and Dick Dewy came in,having been all this time walking up and down the wood, vainly waitingfor Shiner's departure.
Fancy looked up and welcomed him rather confusedly. Shiner grasped thecandlestick more firmly, and, lest doing this in silence should not implyto Dick with sufficient force that he was quite at home and cool, he sanginvincibly--
"'King Arthur he had three sons.'"
"Father here?" said Dick.
"Indoors, I think," said Fancy, looking pleasantly at him.
Dick surveyed the scene, and did not seem inclined to hurry off just atthat moment. Shiner 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.'"
"That's a terrible crippled rhyme, if that's your rhyme!" said Dick, witha grain of superciliousness in his tone.
"It's no use your complaining to me about the rhyme!" said Mr. Shiner."You must go to the man that made it."
Fancy by this time had acquired confidence.
"Taste a bit, Mr. Dewy," she said, holding up to him a small circularpiece of honeycomb that had been the last in the row of layers, remainingstill on her knees and flinging back her head to look in his face; "andthen I'll taste a bit too."
"And I, if you please," said Mr. Shiner. Nevertheless the farmer lookedsuperior, as if he could even now hardly join the trifling from veryimportance of station and after receiving the honeycomb from Fancy, heturned it over in his hand till the cells began to be crushed, and theliquid honey ran down from his fingers in a thin string.
Suddenly a faint cry from Fancy caused them to gaze at her.
"What's the matter, dear?" said Dick.
"It is nothing, but O-o! a bee has stung the inside of my lip! He was inone of the cells I was eating!"
"We must keep down the swelling, or it may be serious!" said Shiner,stepping up and kneeling beside her. "Let me see it."
"No, no!"
"Just let me see it," said Dick, kneeling on the other side: and aftersome hesitation she pressed down her lip with one finger to show theplace. "O, I hope 'twill soon be better! I don't mind a sting inordinary places, but it is so bad upon your lip," she added with tears inher eyes, and writhing a little from the pain.
Shiner held the light above his head and pushed his face close toFancy's, as if the lip had been shown exclusively to himself, upon whichDick pushed closer, as if Shiner were not there at all.
"It is swelling," said Dick to her right aspect.
"It isn't swelling," said Shiner to her left aspect.
"Is it dangerous on the lip?" cried Fancy. "I know it is dangerous onthe tongue."
"O no, not dangerous!" answered Dick.
"Rather dangerous," had answered Shiner simultaneously.
"I must try to bear it!" said Fancy, turning again to the hives.
"Hartshorn-and-oil is a good thing to put to it, Miss Day," said Shinerwith great concern.
"Sweet-oil-and-hartshorn I've found to be a good thing to cure stings,Miss Day," said Dick with greater concern.
"We have some mixed indoors; would you kindly run and get it for me?" shesaid.
Now, whether by inadvertence, or whether by mischievous intention, theindividuality of the you was so carelessly denoted that both Dick andShiner sprang to their feet like twin acrobats, and marched abreast tothe door; both seized the latch and lifted it, and continued marching on,shoulder to shoulder, in the same manner to the dwelling-house. Not onlyso, but entering the room, they marched as before straight up to Mrs.Day's chair, letting the door in the oak partition slam so forcibly, thatthe rows of pewter on the dresser rang like a bell.
"Mrs. Day, Fancy has stung her lip, and wants you to give me thehartshorn, please," said Mr. Shiner, very close to Mrs. Day's face.
"O, Mrs. Day, Fancy has asked me to bring out the hartshorn, please,because she has stung her lip!" said Dick, a little closer to Mrs. Day'sface.
"Well, men alive! that's no reason why you should eat me, I suppose!"said Mrs. Day, drawing back.
She searched in the corner-cupboard, produced the bottle, and began todust the cork, the rim, and every other part very carefully, Dick's handand Shiner's hand waiting side by side.
"Which is head man?" said Mrs. Day. "Now, don't come mumbudgeting soclose again. Which is head man?"
Neither spoke; and the bottle was inclined towards Shiner. Shiner, as ahigh-class man, would not look in the least triumphant, and turned to gooff with it as Geoffrey came downstairs after the search in his linen forconcealed bees.
"O--that you, Master Dewy?"
Dick assured the keeper that it was; and the young man then determinedupon a bold stroke for the attainment of his end, forgetting that theworst of bold strokes is the disastrous consequences they involve if theyfail.
"I've come on purpose to speak to you very particular, Mr. Day," he said,with a crushing emphasis intended for the ears of Mr. Shiner, who wasvanishing round the door-post at that moment.
"Well, I've been forced to go upstairs and unrind myself, and shake somebees out o' me" said Geoffrey, walking slowly towards the open door, andstanding on the threshold. "The young rascals got into my shirt andwouldn't be quiet nohow."
Dick followed him to the door.
"I've come to speak a word to you," he repeated, looking out at the palemist creeping up from the gloom of the valley. "You may perhaps guesswhat it is about."
The keeper lowered his hands into the depths of his pockets, twirled hiseyes, balanced himself on his toes, looked as perpendicularly downward asif his glance were a plumb-line, then horizontally, collecting togetherthe cracks that lay about his face till they were all in theneighbourhood of his eyes.
"Maybe I don't know," he replied.
Dick said nothing; and the stillness was disturbed only by some smallbird that was being killed by an owl in the adjoining wood, whose crypassed into the silence without mingling with it.
"I've left my hat up in chammer," said Geoffrey; "wait while I step upand get en."
"I'll be in the garden," said Dick.
He went round by a side wicket into the garden, and Geoffrey wentupstairs. It was the custom in Mellstock and its vicinity to discussmatters of pleasure and ordinary business inside the house, and toreserve the garden for very important affairs: a custom which, as issupposed, originated in the desirability of getting away at such timesfrom the other members of the family when there was only one room forliving in, though it was now quite as frequently practised by those whosuffered from no such limitation to the size of their domiciles.
The head-keeper's form appeared in the dusky garden, and Dick walkedtowards him. The elder paused and leant over the rail of a piggery thatstood on the left of the path, upon which Dick did the same; and theyboth contemplated a whitish shadowy shape that was moving about andgrunting among the straw of the interior.
"I've come to ask for Fancy," said Dick.
"I'd as lief you hadn't."
"Why should that be, Mr. Day?"
"Because it makes me say that you've come to ask what ye be'n't likely tohave. Have ye come for anything else?"
"Nothing."
"Then I'll just tell 'ee you've come on a very foolish errand. D'ye knowwhat her mother was?"
"No."
"A teacher in a landed family's nursery, who was foolish enough to marrythe keeper of the same establishment; for I was only a keeper then,though now I've a dozen other irons in the fire
as steward here for mylord, what with the timber sales and the yearly fellings, and the graveland sand sales and one thing and 'tother. However, d'ye think Fancypicked up her good manners, the smooth turn of her tongue, her musicalnotes, and her knowledge of books, in a homely hole like this?"
"No."
"D'ye know where?"
"No."
"Well, when I went a-wandering after her mother's death, she lived withher aunt, who kept a boarding-school, till her aunt married LawyerGreen--a man as sharp as a needle--and the school was broke up. Did yeknow that then she went to the training-school, and that her name stoodfirst among the Queen's scholars of her year?"
"I've heard so."
"And that when she sat for her certificate as Government teacher, she hadthe highest of the first class?"
"Yes."
"Well, and do ye know what I live in such a miserly way for when I've gotenough to do without it, and why I make her work as a schoolmistressinstead of living here?"
"No."
"That if any gentleman, who sees her to be his equal in polish, shouldwant to marry her, and she want to marry him, he sha'n't be superior toher in pocket. Now do ye think after this that you be good enough forher?"
"No."
"Then good-night t'ee, Master Dewy."
"Good-night, Mr. Day."
Modest Dick's reply had faltered upon his tongue, and he turned awaywondering at his presumption in asking for a woman whom he had seen fromthe beginning to be so superior to him.