habitations were scattered upon the land; and beyond them, rising steadily to the sky-line, the regions of the Moor revealed their larger attributes, wider expanses, more savage and abrupt configurations of barren heath and weathered tor.  The day passed gradually from gloom to brightness, and the distance, already bathed in light, gleamed out of a more sombre setting, where the foreground still reflected the shadows of departing clouds, like a picture of great sunshine framed in darkness.  But the last vapours quickly vanished; the day grew very hot and, as the sky indicated noon, all things beneath Clement’s eyes were soaked in a splendour of June sunlight.  He watched a black thread lying across a meadow five miles away.  First it stretched barely visible athwart the distance green; in half an hour it thickened without apparent means; within an hour it had absorbed an eighth part at least of the entire space.  Though the time was very unusual for tilling of land, Hicks knew that the combined operations of three horses, a man, and a plough were responsible for this apparition, and he speculated as to how many tremendous physical and spiritual affairs of life are thus wrought by agents not visible to the beholder.  Thus were his own thoughts twisted back to those speculations which now perpetually haunted them like the incubus of a dream.  What would Will Blanchard say if he woke some morning to find his secret in John Grimbal’s keeping?  And, did any such thing happen, there must certainly be a mystery about it; for Blanchard could no more prove how his enemy came to learn his secret than might some urban stranger guess how the dark line grew without visible means on the arable ground under Gidleigh.

From these dangerous thoughts he was roused by the sight of a woman struggling up the steep hill towards him.  The figure came slowly on, and moved with some difficulty.  This much Hicks noted, and then suddenly realised that he beheld his mother.  She knew his haunt and doubtless sought him now.  Rising, therefore, he hastened to meet her and shorten her arduous climb.  Mrs. Hicks was breathless when Clement reached her, and paused a while, with her hand pressed to her side, before she could speak.  At length she addressed him, still panting between the syllables.

“My heart’s a pit-pat!  Hurry, hurry, for the Lard’s sake!  The bees be playin’[9] an’ they’ll call Johnson if you ban’t theer directly minute!”

[9] Playing = swarming.

Johnson, a thatcher, was the only other man in Chagford who shared any knowledge of apiarian lore with Clement.

“Sorry you should have had the journey only for that, mother.  ’Twas so unlikely a morning, I never thought to hear of a swarm to-day.  I’ll start at once, and you go home quietly.  You’re sadly out of breath.  Where is it?”

“To the Red House—­Mr. Grimbal’s.  It may lead to the handlin’ of his hives for all us can say, if you do the job vitty, as you ’m bound to.”