The Brother of Daphne Part 41

The stable clock chimed a quarter past seven.

We entered the kitchen garden in single file.

The hive was as silent as the tomb. It seemed almost wicked to--

All went well until Berry was on the point of lifting the skep.

Suddenly something jumped in the wallflowers by Daphne, and she started against her husband with a little scream. It was a toad. I felt braver. We were not alone. But my pleasure was shortlived. Berry's hand had been upon the skep and the jolt had aroused the bees.

Uprose an angry murmur. I felt instinctively it was an angry one.

My brother-in-law had the 'smoker' in his hand. They told me afterwards that I had gone and given it him. That shows the state I was in. I was not responsible for my actions.

With all speed he applied the nozzle to the mouth of the skep. He was in time to stop the main body, but a few had already emerged.

I stood as if rooted to the spot.

Immediately seven bees alighted on Berry's left hand. I saw them black against the white of his gauntlet. Spellbound I watched him train the 'smoker' upon them one by one. Three rolled slowly off before as many puffs, intoxicated, doubtless, with delight and drunk with ecstasy.

The fourth one he missed. The fifth moved as he was shooting and he missed again. Then he got nervous and tried to please two at once.

The sixth began to buzz and four more arrived.

Berry lost his head and began to shoot wildly. One settled on Daphne's veil and she screamed. The hive began to hum again. With mistaken gallantry, Berry left the bees on his gauntlet and turned to the one on his wife's veil. The next moment she was reeling against the wall in a paroxysm of choking coughs. Some more of the twenty-five thousand began to emerge from the skep, and a moment later I was stung in the lobe of the right ear.

The pain, I may say, was acute, but it certainly broke the spell, and I turned and ran as I have never run before.

Across the garden, down the drive, out of the lodge gates, over a hedge, with eighteen inches to spare, and across country like a thoroughbred.

At last I plunged into a roadside wood almost on the top of a girl.

She stared at me.

"Lie down," I gasped.

"Why?"

"Never mind why. Lie down for your life."

She lay down wonderingly beside me, as I sobbed and panted in the undergrowth.

At last, after cautioning her to keep quiet, I listened long and carefully. The result was satisfactory. My escape was complete.

I turned my attention to the girl. She was sitting up now regarding me with big eyes.

Her hair was almost hidden under a big-brimmed garden hat, but I could see her face properly. Her features were delicate and regular, and her mouth was small and red. Steady grey eyes. She was wearing a soft blue dress of linen, and her brown arms were bare to the elbow. In her hand she had a posy of wild flowers. Little shoes of blue, untanned leather, I think it is. She was slender and lithe to look at, and the flush of health glowed in her cheeks.

"I'm sorry," I said. "It all comes of beeing. If we hadn't been beeing--"

"And yet he doesn't look mad," she said musingly.

"I'm not mad," I said. "I admit that if I had on a bonnet, I should have several bees in it. Happily I lost it at the water jump. I'm a beer."

"A what?" she said, recoiling.

"A beer. At least I was one. Two other beers were with me--busy beers. Stay," I went on, "be of good beer--I mean cheer. I do not refer to the beverage of that name. By 'beer' I mean one actively interested in bees."

She looked more rea.s.sured.

"Why were you running?"

I spread out my hands.

"The beggars were at my heels."

"By which you mean--"

"That the inmates of the hive in which I was just now actively interesting myself, resented such active interest and endeavoured to fall upon me in great numbers."

"And you escaped unhurt?"

"Except that at the outset I was winged in the ear, I have baulked them of their prey. Selah!"

"I had an idea that the person of a beer was sacred."

"So it is, my dear. But these were impious bees, dead to all sense of right and wrong. They've done themselves in this time. Guilty of sacrilege and brawling, they may shortly expect a great plague of toads. It will undoubtedly come upon them. I shall curse them tomorrow morning directly after breakfast."

"Have you really been stung?"

"Every time."

"How exciting."

"Perhaps. But it's very overrated, believe me."

"Let me look."

I submitted readily. After a brief scrutiny my lady announced that she could see the sting. Her fingers dealt very gently with the injured lobe, and by dint of looking out of the far corners of my eyes, I just managed to command a prospect of one grey eye and half the red mouth.

Her lips were parted and she was smiling a little.

"If I didn't love your mouth when you smile, I should be inclined to suggest that it was nothing to laugh about," I said reprovingly.

The grey eye met mine. Then she laid a small cool hand firmly on my chin and pushed it round and away.

"Otherwise I can't see properly," she explained. Then, "I believe I can dig it out," she said quietly.

I broke away at that and looked round. She was quite serious and began to unfasten a gold safety-pin.

"Look here," I said hurriedly. "You're awfully kind; but, you know, as it is in, don't you think perhaps it had better stay in? I mean, after all, a sting in the ear--"

She just waved my head round and began.