"I begin to see."
"Then, again, should one appear, he can be believed in and walked through. This is a rule without exceptions. If you have reason to believe that a ghost stands before you, your first step would be to make a hole in him to convince yourself."
"But if one should be mistaken?"
"If the apparition gives up the ghost, so to speak, and you find yourself mistaken, I see no harm in owning it. As co-trustee of aggrieved man, I will at any time listen to your apologies. By the by, I have asked Mr. Finch to call upon you to-morrow and explain his theory, among other matters of business. You will understand that I bear no affection towards this boy of yours: on the contrary, I sincerely desire my Sophia to shame him with her attainments. It is a mere matter of my duty towards him; and I'll be obliged if you keep him, as far as possible, out of my sight. Now about those dials—"
Captain Barker understood, but replied only by tightening for a moment the hand that rested on his comrade's sleeve. The old friends moved on beside the flower-borders and fell into trivial converse to hide a joy as deep as that of sweethearts who have quarrelled and now are reconciled.
CHAPTER V.
A SWARM OF BEES.
The green volumes in which, for the next thirteen years, Captain Barker kept accurate chronicle of Tristram's progress, and of every fact, however trivial, that seemed to illustrate it, have since been lost to the world, as our story will show. There were thirty-seven of these volumes; and as soon as one was filled Dr. Beckerleg presented another. It is our duty to take up the tale on the 1st of May, 1691—the very day upon which misfortune stopped Captain Barker's pen and (as it turned out) closed his magnum opus for ever.
Let us record only that during these thirteen years Tristram added so much to his stature as to astonish his friends whenever they looked at him; and that he took little interest in the affairs of the world beyond the privet hedge—affairs which just then were extremely unsettled and disturbed the sleep and appetite of a vast number of people. To begin with, King Charles had died without doing his faithful subjects the honour of explaining whether he did so as a Protestant or a Papist, an uncertainty which caused them endless trouble. The religion of his brother and successor, though quite unambiguous, put them to no less vexation by being incurably wrong; and after four years of heated controversy they felt justified in flocking, more in sorrow than in anger, round the standard of William, Prince of Orange, who agreed with them on first principles and had sailed into Torbay before an exceedingly prosperous breeze. King James having escaped to Saint Germains, King William reigned in his stead, to the welfare of his people and the disgust of Captain Barker and Captain Runacles, who from habit were unable to regard a Dutchman otherwise than as an enemy to be knocked on the head. Moreover, they retained a warm respect for the seamanship of their ejected Sovereign, under whom they had frequently served, when as Duke of York he had commanded the British Fleet.