maundering over his business of lop and top, or grubbing among the ditches, had grown as gnarled and horny as an ancient root, and was scarcely distinguishable till you came right upon him, when his little brown dog flew out from the hedge and barked; and there was another chubby old man, a dealer in fruit, who drove about the country, a long ladder swaying out of the back of his cart. This old man was intimate with every orchard of the country-side, whether apple, cherry, damson, or plum, and could tell you the harvest gathered in bushel measures for any year within his memory; but although all fruits came within his province, the apples had his especial affection, and he never referred to them save by the personal pronouns, “Ah, Winter Queening,” he would say, “she’s a grand bearer,” or “King of the Pippins, he’s a fine fellow,” and for Chase, whom he had taken under his protection, he would always produce some choice specimen from his pocket with a confidential air, although, as he never failed to observe, “May wasn’t the time for apples.” Let Mr. Chase only wait till the autumn—he would show him what a Ribston or a Blenheim ought to be; “But I shan’t be here in the autumn, Caleb,” Chase would say, and the old man would jerk his head sagely and reply as he whipped up the pony, “Trees with old roots isn’t so easily thrown over,” and in the parable that he only half understood Chase found an obscure comfort. These were his lane-made friendships. He knew the man who cut withes by the brook; he knew the gang and the six great shining horses that dragged away the chained and fallen trees upon an enormous wain; he knew the boys who went after moorhen’s eggs; he knew the kingfisher that was always ambushed somewhere near the bridge; he knew the cheery woman who had an idiot child, and a husband accursed of bees. “Bees? no, my husband couldn’t never go near bees. He squashed up too many of them when he was a lad, and bees never forget. Squashed ’em up, _so_, in his hand. Just temper. Now if three bees stung him together he’d die. Oh, surely, Mr. Chase, sir. We went down into Sussex once, on a holiday, and the bees there knew him at once and were after him. Wonderful thing it is, the sense beasts have got. And memory! Beasts never forget, beasts don’t.”