ming, 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
only 1,000 or 1,200 all told--and expressing her certainty of the
impossibility of rinding mouths enough to consume such a mass of
mutton. As a matter of fact, there were, I suppose, four or five large
dealers present, any one of whom would have bought every sheep, could
he have seen a fair chance of a possible profit of threepence a head;
to say n