“Take heed! they are getting excited, and may sting,” he said, warning the others, as he came down, surrounded by a vast cloud that was eddying on all sides of him, and buzzing and humming. On reaching the ground, he raised up the sieve as carefully and as solemnly as though it had been a Monstrance. Yanek, swinging the thurible, accompanied him; Ambrose followed, now ringing, now sprinkling the bees. And thus they went in procession to the priest’s apiary, behind his house, where stood in a separate enclosure some scores of hives, all humming as loud as if each of them were about to swarm. While the priest was getting his bees into their new hive, Yanek, now very tired and hungry, slipped away quietly home. They all rejoiced exceedingly to see him, and the noise and fuss made over him cannot be described. When the first outburst was over, they made him sit down to table, bringing him all sorts of good things, enticing and pressing and teasing him to eat, till the whole house echoed to the din and bustle, all wanting to be by the lad’s side or doing something for him. In the midst of this hubbub, in dropped Gregory, the Voyt’s brother, to ask them anxiously if they had seen Roch anywhere. But they had not. “Nowhere can I find him,” he said in distress, and, without staying to talk, went on to another cabin to seek for him. Scarcely had he left them, when the priest sent for Yanek. He lingered and delayed going as long as he could, but of course had to go at last. His Reverence, who was sitting on the porch, embraced him like a father, and, making him sit down by his side, said with great affability: “I am glad you have come: we shall say our breviary together.—But do ye know how many swarms of bees I have this year? Fifteen! And as vigorous as any of the old ones; some have already filled a quarter of the hive with honey. And I had more swarms; but I had told Ambrose to watch for the swarming, and he fell asleep, the blockhead! and where are the bees now?—In the woods and the forests!—And then the miller stole one from me; he did, I say! They flew on to a pear-tree of his, and he claimed them for his own, and would not hear of returning them. Sore about the bull, he is, and that’s his revenge.... The robber!—What, have you heard about Felix?... Ah! these wretches, they sting like wasps!” he broke off all at once, brushing away with his handkerchief the flies that came settling on his bald crown. “All I know is, he’s in the citadel.”