We and the World, Part I | Page 4

my hand
was first and foremost, and mischief or amusement of every kind, by
earth, air, or water, was planned for us by me.
Now and then, however, Jem could crow over me. How he did deride
me when I asked our mother the foolish question--"Have bees
whiskers?"
The bee who betrayed me into this folly was a bumble of the utmost
beauty. The bars of his coat "burned" as "brightly" as those of the tiger
in Wombwell's menagerie, and his fur was softer than my mother's
black velvet mantle. I knew, for I had kissed him lightly as he sat on
the window-frame. I had seen him brushing first one side and then the
other side of his head, with an action so exactly that of my father
brushing his whiskers on Sunday morning, that I thought the bee might
be trimming his; not knowing that he was sweeping the flower-dust off
his antennæ with his legs, and putting it into his waistcoat pocket to
make bee bread of.
It was the liberty I took in kissing him that made him not sit still any
more, and hindered me from examining his cheeks for myself. He
began to dance all over the window, humming his own tune, and before

he got tired of dancing he found a chink open at the top sash, and sailed
away like a spot of plush upon the air.
I had thus no opportunity of becoming intimate with him, but he was
the cause of a more lasting friendship--my friendship with Isaac Irvine,
the bee-keeper. For when I asked that silly question, my mother said,
"Not that I ever saw, love;" and my father said, "If he wants to know
about bees, he should go to old Isaac. He'll tell him plenty of queer
stories about them."
The first time I saw the bee-keeper was in church, on Catechism
Sunday, in circumstances which led to my disgracing myself in a
manner that must have been very annoying to my mother, who had
taken infinite pains in teaching us.
The provoking part of it was that I had not had a fear of breaking down.
With poor Jem it was very different. He took twice as much pains as I
did, but he could not get things into his head, and even if they did stick
there he found it almost harder to say them properly. We began to learn
the Catechism when we were three years old, and we went on till long
after we were in trousers; and I am sure Jem never got the three words
"and an inheritor" tidily off the tip of his tongue within my
remembrance. And I have seen both him and my mother crying over
them on a hot Sunday afternoon. He was always in a fright when we
had to say the Catechism in church, and that day, I remember, he shook
so that I could hardly stand straight myself, and Bob Furniss, the
blacksmith's son, who stood on the other side of him, whispered quite
loud, "Eh! see thee, how Master Jem dodders!" for which Jem gave
him an eye as black as his father's shop afterwards, for Jem could use
his fists if he could not learn by heart.
But at the time he could not even compose himself enough to count
down the line of boys and calculate what question would come to him.
I did, and when he found he had only got the First Commandment, he
was more at ease, and though the second, which fell to me, is much
longer, I was not in the least afraid of forgetting it, for I could have
done the whole of my duty to my neighbour if it had been necessary.

Jem got through very well, and I could hear my mother blessing him
over the top of the pew behind our backs; but just as he finished, no
less than three bees, who had been hovering over the heads of the
workhouse boys opposite, all settled down together on Isaac Irvine's
bare hand.
At the public catechising, which came once a year, and after the second
lesson at evening prayer, the grown-up members of the congregation
used to draw near to the end of their pews to see and hear how we
acquitted ourselves, and, as it happened on this particular occasion,
Master Isaac was standing exactly opposite to me. As he leaned
forward, his hands crossed on the pew-top before him, I had been a
good deal fascinated by his face, which was a very noble one in its
rugged way, with snow-white hair and intense, keenly observing eyes,
and when I saw the three bees settle on him without his seeming to
notice it, I cried, "They'll sting you!" before I thought