I got my elbows comfortably into the gap in the hedgerow, the better to enjoy the scene. The garden was completely surrounded by the hawthorn-hedge, a glowing wreath of white, against which shone masses of blooming lilac and laburnum and red garden-may. The little cottage at the back of the shop stood up to its window-sills in bright colour, every old-fashioned flower crowding about it. The winding red-tiled paths ran between borders of the same rich living hues. And beyond in the orchard, splashed over with blue-grey shadows and quivering gold, as the sunshine filtered through the leaves, were innumerable hives, old-fashioned skeps of straw, each with its little chanting company of bees. The old cobbler spied me in the hedgerow gap, and beckoned me to join him. He was without hat or coat, and wore his leather apron. A half-mended boot thrown down on the path showed how hastily he had been summoned from work. As I came up, he managed somehow to extract from the saucepan an exultant, almost jeering tune. ‘Ah, ha!’ cried he, blinking up at his whirligig property, ‘can ye show th’ like o’ that ’n?—you as keeps bees in patent machines? Naun like straw, there be; as I allers telled ye! These yere new-fangled boxes!—ye’ll ha’ ne’er a swarm this side o’ Corp Christian, I’ll lay a pot o’ six!’ It wanted still four or five days to the date of the great Roman festival of Corpus Christi in Stavisham, which annually drew all village sightseers from far and near. I reflected sadly, and rather shamefacedly, that not only was a swarm from my modern, roomy frame-hives little to be expected during that interval, but that it was the last thing I had hitherto desired. Working at home among my trim, up-to-date hives, with all the latest scientific methods in apiculture at my finger-tips, it seemed a fine thing to possess bees that had almost forgotten how to swarm, and that could bring me in a double or treble harvest of honey. But here in the beautiful old bee-garden, I began dimly to perceive another side to the argument. Whether courage or ignorance had led him to resist the tide of progress in beekeeping that has all but engulfed this gentlest, most picturesque of village crafts, the old cobbler might be right after all. My honey was better and more abundant than his; but it might well be dear at the price.