FOR an hour after the departure of the Bee Master’s partner, to whom the Master had so tenderly referred as the “little Scout,” James MacFarlane sat and stared at the whitewashed panel of fence over which the child had disappeared. First a whimsical smile played over his features as he recalled the straight forward humour, the businesslike attitude, the flashes of tenderness, and the ruthless acceptance of facts following each other so rapidly in the mentality of the youngster.

Then he seriously pondered, for a few minutes, on whether this peculiar small person really was a boy or really was a girl. The only definite conclusion he arrived at was that sometimes he was a boy and sometimes she was a girl.

His mind travelled on to the thing that was always foremost. What was it the youngster had said about Death? That there were several ways? What he had been facing for the past two years was Death, and the pitiful thing about it for him was that he had never faced it so imminently nor so surely as at that minute. His aching bones reminded him of his weakness every time he moved. His swollen feet cried out whenever he bore his weight on them, and as for the burning in his left side, he had carried ​Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/111 ​Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/112 ​Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/113 ​Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/114 ​Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/115 ​Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/116 ​Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/117 ​Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/118 ​Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/119 ​Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/120 ​Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/121 ​Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/122 ​Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/123 ​Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/124 ​Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/125 ​Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/126 ​Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/127 ​Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/128 ​Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/129 ​Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/130 ​more strength than he had known he could muster. He had collected some broken pieces of rock and fitted them in differently and farther to the left than there had been an accessible seat. Wrapped in the overcoat, he dropped on the seat and faced the eternal verities of sky and sea. No land was intruding. It was the bowl of the sky closing down; the smooth wash of the sea rolling in; and away in the distance a faint red glow marked the spot where the sun threw its light on a world that was steadily turning from it.

There Jamie did some more thinking. He was having plenty of mental exercise in those days. He still thought Death, but at least he had a manlier thought in facing it. And when he thought Life, he did not think of himself, or upbraid his government, or pity other wounded men. He thought merely of that one thing he might possibly do and what it might possibly be that would give him some justification, when he faced his Maker, for the spending of his latter days.