The glory of the moment dominated one and all.  It was their hour—­a brief, mad ecstasy in short lives of ceaseless toil.  To-day they desisted from their labours, and the wild-flowers of the waste places, and the old-world flowers in cottage gardens were alike forgotten.  Yet their year had already seen much work and would see more.  Sweet pollen from many a bluebell and anemone was stored and sealed for a generation unborn; the asphodels and violets, the velvet wallflower and yellow crocuses had already yielded treasure; and now new honey jewels were trembling in the trumpets of the honeysuckle, at the heart of the wild rose, within the deep cups of the candid and orange lilies, amid the fairy caps of columbines, and the petals of clove-pinks.  There the bees now living laboured, and those that followed would find their sweets in the clover,—­scarlet and purple and white,—­in the foxgloves, in the upland deserts of the heather with their oases of euphrasy and sweet wild thyme.

“Is it a true swarm or a cast?” inquired John Grimbal.

“A swarm, without much question, though it dawned an unlikely day for an old queen to leave the hive.  Still, the weather came over splendid enough by noon, and they knew it was going to.  Where are your butts?  You see, young maiden queens go further afield than old ones.  The latter take but a short flight for choice.”

“There they are,” said Grimbal, pointing to a row of thatched hives not far off.  “So that should be an old queen, by your showing.  Is she there?”

“I fancy so by the look of them.  If the queen doesn’t join, the bees break up, of course, and go back to the butt.  But I’ve brought a couple of queens with me.”

“I’ve seen a good few drones about the board lately.”

“Sure sign of swarming at this season.  Inside, if you could look, you’d find plenty of queen cells, and some capped over.  You’d come across a murder or two as well.  The old queens make short work of the young ones sometimes.”

“Woman-like.”

Hicks admitted the criticism was just.  Then, being now upon his own ground, he continued to talk, and talk well, until he won a surly compliment from his employer.

“You’re a bee-master, in truth!  Nobody’ll deny you that.”

Clement laughed rather bitterly.

“Yes, a king of bees.  Not a great kingdom for man to rule.”

The other studied his dark, unhappy face.  Trouble had quickened Grimbal’s own perceptions, and made him a more accurate judge of sorrow when he saw it than of yore.

“You’ve tried to do greater things and failed, perhaps,” he said.

“Why, perhaps I have.  A man’s a hive himself, I’ve thought sometimes—­a hive of swarming, seething thoughts and experiences and passions, that come and go as easily as any bees, and store the heart and brain.”

“Not with honey, I’ll swear.”

“No—­gall mostly.”

“And every hive’s got a queen bee too, for that matter,” said Grimbal, rather pleased at his wit responsible for the image.