"Here," he announced.
"Fetch a ladder, and bring one of the new hives—the one I rubbed with elder-buds the day before yesterday. Tristram, run to the house for my gloves and a board. Quick, I say—here, somebody kick that one-eyed dawdler! What the plague? Haven't there been kings enough in England these last fifty years that you waste a good afternoon on the look-out for the newest?"
"You'll be careful of my arch, Captain?" the landlord hazarded nervously. "His Majesty'll be coming along presently—"
"I'll be careful of my bees. D'ye want me to leave them there till he passes, and maybe to lose the half of my swarm down the nape of his royal neck? I can't help their wearing the orange: they were born o' that colour, which is more than you can say, landlord, or any man Jack here present. But I can prevent their swarming and buzzing in his Majesty's path like any crowd of turncoats. Ah, here comes Tristram with the ladder! Set it here, my boy. Take care—don't run a hole through King William—leave that to his new friends. So— now pull on the gloves and step up, while I come after with the hive!"
Tristram, having fixed the ladder firmly a little to the right of the swarm, began to ascend. Captain Barker, giving orders to Narcissus to stand by with the flat board, took the empty hive, and holding it balanced upside-down in the hollow of his palm, was preparing to follow on Tristram's heels, when an interruption occurred.
Round the corner of the road from Harwich town came a red-coated captain, riding on a grey charger, and behind him a company of foot marching eight abreast, with a sergeant beside them.
"Hullo!" cried the Captain, halting his company and riding forward. He was a thin and foppish young gentleman in a flaxen wig, and spoke with a high sense of authority, having but recently sacrificed the pleasures of his coffee-house and a fine view of St. James's Park to seek even in the cannon's mouth a bubble reputation that promised to be fashionable.
"Hullo! what's the meaning of this?"
"Bees," answered Captain Barker shortly. "Narcissus, is the board ready?"
"Do you know, sir, that his Majesty is shortly expected along here?"