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.
Now, shortly after daybreak upon May morning, 1691--which fell on a Friday--his Majesty King William the Third set out from Kensington for Harwich, where a squadron of five-and-twenty sail, under command of Rear-Admiral Rooke, lay waiting to escort him to The Hague, there to open the summer campaign against King Lewis of France.
This expedition raised his Majesty's spirits for more than one reason.