I sighed, and the bee-master sighed also, with a profundity that made his chair creak, well-seasoned as it was.  Then he said, “But I’ll say this, Master Jack, next to going to such places the reading about ’em must come.  A penny a week’s a penny a week to a poor man, but I reckon I shall have to make shift to take in those numbers myself.”

Isaac did not take them in, however, for I used to take ours down to his cottage, and read them aloud to him instead.  He liked this much better than if he had had to read to himself—­he said he could understand reading better when he heard it than when he saw it.  For my own part I enjoyed it very much, and I fancy I read rather well, it being a point on which Mrs. Wood expended much trouble with us.

“Listen, Isaac,” said I on my next visit; “this is what I meant about the barge”—­and resting the Penny Number on the arm of my chair, I read aloud to the attentive bee-master—­“’Goldsmith describes from his own observation a kind of floating apiary in some parts of France and Piedmont.  They have on board of one barge, he says, threescore or a hundred beehives——­’”

“That’s an appy-ary if ye like, sir!” ejaculated Master Isaac, interrupting his pipe and me to make way for the observation.

“Somebody saw ‘a convoy of four thousand hives——­’ on the Nile,” said I.

The bee-master gave a resigned sigh.  “Go on, Master Jack,” said he.

“‘—­well defended from the inclemency of an accidental storm,’” I proceeded; “’and with these the owners float quietly down the stream; one beehive yields the proprietor a considerable income.  Why, he adds, a method similar to this has never been adopted in England, where we have more gentle rivers and more flowery banks than in any other part of the world, I know not; certainly it might be turned to advantage, and yield the possessor a secure, though perhaps a moderate, income.’”

I was very fond of the canal which ran near us (and was, for that matter, a parish boundary):  and the barges, with their cargoes, were always interesting to me; but a bargeful of bees seemed something quite out of the common.  I thought I should rather like to float down a gentle river between flowery banks, surrounded by beehives on which I could rely to furnish me with a secure though moderate income; and I said so.

“So should I, sir,” said the bee-master.  “And I should uncommon like to ha’ seen the one beehive that brought in a considerable income.  Honey must have been very dear in those parts, Master Jack.  However, it’s in the book, so I suppose it’s right enough.”

I made no defence of the veracity of the Cyclopaedia, for I was thinking of something else, of which, after a few moments, I spoke.

“Isaac, you don’t stay with your bees on the moors.  Do you ever go to see them?”

“To be sure I do, Master Jack, nigh every Sunday through the season.  I start after I get back from morning church, and I come home in the dark, or by moonlight.  My missus goes to church in the afternoons, and for that bit she locks up the house.”