Gone to Earth | Page 4

little fox,
she was living up to her faith as few do; when she gathered flowers and

lay in the sun, she was dwelling in a mystical atmosphere as vivid as
that of the saints; when she recoiled from cruelty, she was trampling
evil underfoot, perhaps more surely than those great divines who
destroyed one another in their zeal for their Maker.
Chapter 2
At six the next morning they had breakfast. Abel was busy making a
hive for the next summer's swarm. When he made a coffin, he always
used up the bits thus. A large coffin did not leave very much; but
sometimes there were small ones, and then he made splendid hives.
The white township on the south side of the lilac hedge increased as
slowly and unceasingly as the green township around the distant
churchyard. In summer the garden was loud with bees, and the cottage
was full of them at swarming-time. Later it was littered with
honey-sections; honey dripped from the table, and pieces of broken
comb lay on the floor and were contentedly eaten by Foxy.
Whenever an order for a coffin came, Hazel went to tell the bees who
was dead. Her father thought this unnecessary. It was only for folks that
died in the house, he said. But he had himself told the bees when his
wife died. He had gone out on that vivid June morning to his hives, and
had stood watching the lines of bees fetching water, their shadows
going and coming on the clean white boards. Then he had stooped and
said with a curious confidential indifference, 'Maray's jead.' He had put
his ear to the hive and listened to the deep, solemn murmur within; but
it was the murmur of the future, and not of the past, the preoccupation
with life, not with death, that filled the pale galleries within. Today the
eighteen hives lay under their winter covering, and the eager creatures
within slept. Only one or two strayed sometimes to the early arabis,
desultory and sad, driven home again by the frosty air to await the
purple times of honey. The happiest days of Abel's life were those
when he sat like a bard before the seething hives and harped to the
muffled roar of sound that came from within.
All his means of livelihood were joys to him. He had the art of
perpetual happiness in this, that he could earn as much as he needed by

doing the work he loved. He played at flower shows and country
dances, revivals and weddings. He sold his honey, and sometimes his
bees. He delighted in wreath-making, gardening, and carpentering, and
always in the background was his music--some new air to try on the
gilded harp, some new chord or turn to master. The garden was almost
big enough, and quite beautiful enough, for that of a mansion. In the
summer white lilies haunted it, standing out in the dusk with their
demure cajolery, looking, as Hazel said, like ghosses. Goldenrod
foamed round the cottage, deeply embowering it, and lavender made a
grey mist beside the red quarries of the path. Then Hazel sat like a
queen in a regalia of flowers, eating the piece of bread and honey that
made her dinner, and covering her face with lily pollen.
Now, there were no flowers in the garden; only the yew-tree by the gate
that hung her waxen blossom along the undersides of the branches.
Hazel hated the look of the frozen garden; she had an almost
unnaturally intense craving for everything rich, vivid, and vital. She
was all these things herself, as she communed with Foxy before starting.
She had wound her hair round her head in a large plait and her old
black hat made the colour richer.
'You'm nigh on thirty miles to go there and back, unless you get a lift,'
said Abel.
'A lift? I dunna want never no lifts!' said Hazel scornfully.
'You'm as good a walker as John of No Man's Parish,' replied Abel,
'and he walks for ever, so they do say.'
As Hazel set forth in the sharp, fresh morning, the Callow shone with
radiant brown and silver, and no presage moved within it of the snow
that would hurtle upon it from mountains of cloud all night.
When Hazel had chosen her dress--a peacock blue serge--and had put it
on there and then in the back of the shop, curtained off for this purpose,
she went to her aunt's.
Her cousin Albert regarded her with a startled look. He was in a

margarine shop, and spent his days explaining that Margarine was as
good as butter. But, looking at Hazel, he felt that here was
butter--something that needed no apology, and created its own demand.
The bright blue made