He was a clever and courageous bee-master, and “took” all my neighbours’ swarms as well as my own, my gardener not being persona grata to bees.  The job is not a popular one, and he would, when accompanied by the owner, always ask, “Will you hold the ladder or hive ’em?” The invariable answer was, “Hold the ladder.”  He firmly believed in the necessity of telling the bees in cases where the owner had died, the superstition being that unless the hive was tapped after dark, when all were at home, and a set form of announcement repeated, the bees would desert their quarters.  I had an alarming experience once with bees when cycling between Ringwood and Burley in the New Forest, my present home.  As I passed a house close to the road, a swarm crossed my path, rising from their hive just as I reached the hedge before the garden.  There was a mighty humming, and I felt the bees, with which I was colliding, striking my hands and face with some violence.  I expected a sting each moment, but my greatest fear was lest the queen should have settled on my coat amongst the bees it had collected, and that presently I should have the whole swarm in possession.  It was dangerous to stop, so I raced on some distance, dismounted, discarded my coat, shaking off my unwelcome fellow-travellers, and I was much surprised to find that none of them retaliated.

Bell was an excellent brewer, and with good malt and some of our own hops could produce a nice light bitter beer at a very moderate cost.  In years when cider was scarce we supplemented the men’s short allowance with beer, 4 bushels of malt to 100 gallons; and for years he brewed a superior drink for the household, which, consumed in much smaller quantities and requiring to be kept longer, was double the strength.  His methods were not scientific, and he scorned the use of a “theometer,” his rule being that the hot water was cool enough for the addition of the malt when the steam was sufficiently gone off to allow him “to see his face” on the surface.

Owing to his having lived so long in such a quiet place, and the limited outlook which his surroundings had so far afforded, Bell was somewhat wanting in the sense of proportion, and when I had a field of 10 acres planted with potatoes, he told me quite seriously that he doubted if the crop could ever be sold, as he didn’t think there were enough people in the country to eat them!  I remember a parallel incident at the first auction sale of stock ever held at Chipping Campden, a lovely old town and, for centuries now long past, a leading centre of the Cotswold wool trade.  The pens, in the wide spaces between the road and the footways, were, as I stood watching, rapidly filling with fat sheep, and, I suppose, the scene being so novel and so animated, the interest of the inhabitants was greatly excited, as they stood in little groups at the house doors looking on.  I heard an ancient dame marvelling at the numbers of sheep collected—­probably