“Mere healthy breezes,” I cried, and assured him I did not fear them.

“Stay till Christmas,” cried he, with a threatening air, “only stay till then, and let’s see what you’ll say to them; you’ll be laid up as sure as fate! you may take my word for that.  One thing, however, pray let me caution you about—­don’t go to early prayers in November; if you do, that will completely kill you!  Oh, ma’am, you know nothing yet of all these matters! only pray, joking apart, let me have the honour just to advise you this one thing, or else it’s all over with you, I do assure you!”

It was in vain I begged him to be more merciful in his prophecies; he failed not, every night, to administer to me the same pleasant anticipations.

“Why the princesses,” cried he, “used to it as they are, get regularly knocked up before this business is over; off they drop, one by one:—­first the queen deserts us; then Princess Elizabeth is done for; then princess royal begins coughing; then Princess Augusta gets the snuffles; and all the poor attendants, my poor sister at their head, drop off, one after another, like so many snuffs of candles:  till at last, dwindle, 431

dwindle, dwindle—­not a soul goes to the chapel but the king, the parson, and myself; and there we three freeze it out together!”

One evening, when he had been out very late hunting with the king, he assumed so doleful an air of weariness, that had not Miss Port exerted her utmost powers to revive him, he would not have uttered a word the whole night; but when once brought forward, he gave us more entertainment than ever, by relating his hardships.

“After all the labours,” cried he, “of the chase, all the riding, the trotting, the galloping, the leaping, the—­with your favour, ladies, I beg pardon, I was going to say a strange word, but the—­the perspiration—­and—­and all that—­after being wet through over head, and soused through under feet, and popped into ditches, and jerked over gates, what lives we do lead!  Well, it’s all honour! that’s my only comfort!  Well, after all this, fagging away like mad from eight in the morning to five or six in the afternoon, home we come, looking like so many drowned rats, with not a dry thread about us, nor a morsel within us—­sore to the very bone, and forced to smile all the time! and then after all this what do you think follows?—­’Here, Goldsworthy,’ cries his majesty:  so up I comes to him, bowing profoundly, and my hair dripping down to my shoes; ‘Goldsworthy,’ cries his majesty.  ‘Sir,’ says I, smiling agreeably, with the rheumatism just creeping all over me ! but still, expecting something a little comfortable, I wait patiently to know his gracious pleasure, and then, ‘Here, Goldsworthy, say !’ he cries, ’will you have a little barley water?’ Barley water in such a plight as that!  Fine compensation for a wet jacket, truly!—­barley water!  I never heard of such a tiling in my life! barley water after a whole day’s hard hunting!”