“Oh! put not your trust in princes nor in any child of man:  for there is no help in them.”

In such a mood then—­not wholly Christian, I will admit!—­I came into the King’s closet, to take my leave of him, on that Saturday night, the last day of January, in the year of Salvation sixteen hundred and eighty-five.

He was standing up when I entered his private closet, with a very serious look on his face; and, to my astonishment, took a step towards me, holding out both his hands.  I will not deny that I was moved; but I had determined to be very stiff.  So I saluted him in the proper manner, very carefully and punctually, kneeling to kiss his hand, and then standing upright again.  A little spaniel barked at me all the time.

“There! there!  Mr. Mallock,” he said.  “Sit you down! sit you down!  There are some amends due to you.”

I seated myself as he bade me; and he leaned towards me a little from his own chair, with one leg across the other.  I saw that he limped a little as he went to his chair; and learned afterwards that he had a sore on his heel from walking in the Park.

“There are some amends due to you,” he said again:  “but first I wish to tell you how very truly I grieve at the sorrow that has come on you, and in my service too, as I understand.”

(Ah! thought I:  then Mr. Chiffinch has made that plain enough.) He spoke with the greatest feeling and gravity; but the next moment he near ruined it all.

“Ah! these ladies!” he said.  “How they can torment a man’s heart to be sure!  How they can torture us and yet send us into a kind of ecstasy all at once!  We hate them one day, and vow never to see them again, and yet when they die or leave us we would give the world to get them back again!”

For the moment I felt myself all stiff with anger at such a manner of speaking, and then once more a great pity came on me.  What, after all, does this man, thought I, know of love as God meant it to be?

“Well, well!” he said.  “It is of no use speaking.  I know that well enough.  And it was that very cousin, I hear, that was Maid to Her Majesty!”

“Yes, Sir,” said I, very short.

I wondered if he would say next that that circumstance made it all the sadder; but he was not gross enough for that.

“Well,” he said, “I will say no more on that point.  I am only grieved that it should have come upon you in my service; and I wish to make amends.  I already owed you a heavy debt, Mr. Mallock; and this has made it the heavier; and before saying any more I wish to tell you that I am heartily sorry for my suspicions of you.  They were real enough, I am ashamed to say:  I should have known better.  But at least I have got rid of Hoskyns; and he hath gone to the devil altogether, I hear.  He had a cunning way with him, you know, Mr. Mallock.”

He spoke almost as if he pleaded; and I was amazed at his condescension.  It is not the way of Kings to ask pardon very often.