Cobbler and Bee-Keeper. »

Evening Post, Volume LIV, Issue 99, 23 October 1897, Page 2 (Supplement)

Cobbler and Bee-Keeper. »

' Lsb me show you my bees.* The invitation comes from a tall young man dressed in a flannel shirt, the sleeves turned up. He leads us into his garden, where he shows us his bees, hard at work in square wooden hives, with all manner of contrivances. They look exactly like factory hands at work— as quiet and steady over their work, as regular in their movements. Bees, it is quite clear, must take a delight in building the honeycomb and filling it with honey. Then he takes us to a workshop, where he shows us how the honey is extracted from the comb by a kiud of turbine ; how it is refined ; how the beeswax is made. You have no idea of the interest which attaches to every process of beekeeping and honey- getting. After a bit this young man fell to talking about the bees ; how he would follow them on a Sunday morning to see where they go, how far, and what they like best, and how he watches their habits and their ways ; and how they have rewarded him with innumerable stings. He has two trades, this young man. One is that of cobbling ; he soles and heels the boots of the rustics. I look (says Sir W. Besant in ' The Queen') at his face ; it is filled with an unmistakable refinement which one does not often find in a villager ; his eyes are gentle and meditative ; his whole expression is that of a man who thinks. Boots and leather, soling and heeling, do not lend such an expression to the face ; they often turn a cobbler into a politician, but not into a philosopher ; this refinement, this look of meditation, this gentle voice and gentle manner, is the reward of Nature, bestowed invariably on those who study her in any of her countless works and ways.