“Yes, to be sure,” says the simple creature, “and his mother was a born lady, and—­”

“Tuts, ma’am,” the captain here interrupted.  “I was not alluding to his pedigree.  The boy has suffered torment for months without breathing a word of it to betray his schoolfellows; from that I deduce that he has the spirit of a gentleman, and I want no further proof.”

“’Tis time the boy was abed,” says my father.  “Run away, lad.”

I got up at once to go, guessing that my father wished to have some private talk with Captain Galsworthy.  My ears were tingling, I confess, with his praise of me, and my heart throbbed with delight and pride at the thought of being the captain’s pupil.  I could not sleep for thinking of it.  I imagined all manner of scenes in which I should some day figure, and saw myself already holding off five enemies at once with my flashing sword.  These visions haunted my dreams when at last I slept, and it was after a bout of especial fierceness that I found myself lying awake, in a great heat and breathlessness.

And then I was aware of an actual sound—­a sound which no doubt had entered into my dreams as the clash of arms.  It was a soft and regular tapping, a ghostly sound to hear at dead of night, and like to scare a boy of quick imagination.  I lay for some moments in a state bordering on panic, unable to think, much less to act.

Tap, tap, tap—­so it went on, like the ticking of the great clock on the stairs, only louder and more substantial.  It ceased, and I held my breath, wondering whether I should hear it again.  Then it recommenced, and I was about to spring from my bed and run to tell Mistress Pennyquick when a sudden thought held me:  What would Captain Galsworthy think if he knew I had fled from a sound?  Would he regard me as the right stuff of which to make a man?

The captain’s good opinion was worth so much to me now that I crushed down my fears and sat up in bed (yet keeping a tight clutch upon the blanket), and tried to use my reason.

The tapping, I reflected, must be caused by some person or thing.  A ghost is a spirit, and insubstantial, and I had never heard that the ghost which some of the townsfolk (chiefly servant maids) had seen in St. Alkmund’s Churchyard had done more at any time than glide silently among the tombs.  And even as I decided that the sound must have a natural cause, I had startling confirmation of my conclusion in a new sound—­nothing else than a sneeze, sudden, and short, and stifled.  The tapping ceased, and while I was still trying to collect my wits I heard a groan, and immediately afterwards a voice calling my name, and then a new tapping, only quicker.

It was now clear to me that some one was at my window, though, seeing that my room was some twenty feet above the ground, I was at a loss to imagine how the tapper had mounted there.

My fears now being merged in surprise, I got out of bed, stole to the window, and pulled the blind an inch aside.