shrub,
tore off a good-sized bough, and joined in the task of beating down the
bees.

It is pretty sport to fight either bees or wasps in this way, but it
requires a great deal of courage, especially as the insects are sure to
get the best of it, as they did in this case, putting their enemies to
flight, their place of refuge being the tool-house, into whose dark
recesses the bees did not attempt to come.

"Much stung, Dan'l!" said Peter.

"Much stung, indeed! I should think I am. Offle!"

"You got it much, youngster?" said Peter.

"I've got three stings," replied Dexter, who had escaped without further
harm.

"And I've got five, I think," said Peter. "What was you doing to 'em,
Dan'l!"

"Doin' to 'em!" growled Dan'l, who was stamping about and rubbing
himself, and looking exceedingly like the bear in the old fable. "I
wasn't doin' nothin' to 'em. One o' the hives have been threatenin' to
swarm again, and I was just goin' by, when they come at me like a swarm
o' savidges, just as if some one had been teasing them." Dexter was
rubbing the back of his neck, and feeling horribly guilty, as he asked
himself whether he had not better own to having disturbed the hive; but
there was something so unpleasantly repellent about the old gardener,
and he was looking so suspiciously from one to the other, that the boy
felt as if he could not speak to him.

If it had been Peter, who, with all his roughness, seemed to be tolerant
of his presence, he would have spoken out at once; but he could not to
Dan'l, and he remained silent.

"They stings pretty sharp," said Peter, laughing. "Blue-bag's best
thing. I shall go up and get Maria to touch mine up. Coming?"

"Nay, I'm not coming," growled Dan'l. "I can bear a sting or two of a
bee without getting myself painted up with blue-bags. Dock leaves is
good enough for me."

"And there aren't a dock left in the garden," said Peter. "You found
fault with me for not pulling the last up."

So Peter went up to the house to be blue-bagged, Dan'l remained like a
bear in his den, growling to himself, and Dexter, whose stings still
throbbed, went off across the lawn to walk off the pain, till it was
time to go to Sir James's.

"Who'd have thought that the little things could hurt so much!"

Then the pain began to diminish till it was only a tingle, and the spots
where the stings went in were round and hard, and now it was that
Dexter's conscience began to prick him as sha