I saw the man in his garden early next morning: a tall
fellow, hardly yet on the wrong side of thirty, dressed in
loose-fitting tweed coat and corduroys. A row of bee-hives stood
along his side of the party wall, and he had taken the farthest one,
which was empty, off its stand, and was rubbing it on the inside with
a handful of elder-flower buds, by way of preparation for a new
swarm. Even from my bed-room window I remarked, as he turned his
head occasionally, that he was singularly handsome. His movements
were those of a lazy man in a hurry, though there seemed no reason
for hurry in his task. But when it was done, and the hive replaced,
his behaviour began to be so eccentric that I paused in the midst of
my shaving, to watch.
He passed slowly down the line of bee-hives, halting beside each in
turn, and bending his head down close to the orifice with the exact
action of a man whispering a secret into another's ear. I believe he
kept this attitude for a couple of minutes beside each hive--there
were eight, besides the empty one. At the end of the row he lifted
his head, straightened his shoulders, and cast a glance up at my
window, where I kept well out of sight. A minute after, he entered
his house by the back door, and did not reappear.
At breakfast I asked my landlady if our neighbour were wrong in his
head at all. She looked astonished, and answered, "No: he was a
do-nothing fellow--unless you counted it hard work to drive a
carrier's van thrice a week into Tregarrick, and home the same night.
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