AN EQUERRY'S DUTIES AND DISCOMFORTS.
His account of his own hardships and sufferings here, in the discharge of his duty, is truly comic. “How do you like it, ma'am?” he says to me, “though it's hardly fair to ask you yet, because you know almost nothing of the joys of this sort of life. But wait till November and December, and then you'll get a pretty taste of them! Running along in these cold passages, then bursting into rooms fit to bake you, then back again into all these agreeable puffs!—Bless us! I believe in my heart there's wind enough in these passages to carry a man of war! And there you'll have your share, ma'am, I promise you that! you'll get knocked up in three days, take my word for that.”
I begged him not to prognosticate so much evil for me.
“O ma'am, there's no help for it!” cried he; “you won't have the hunting, to be sure, nor amusing yourself with wading a foot and a-half through the dirt, by way of a little pleasant walk, as we poor equerries do! It's a wonder to me we outlive the first month. But the agreeable puffs of the passages you will have just as completely as any of us. Let's see, how many blasts must you have every time you go to the queen? First, one upon your opening your door; then another, as you get down the three steps from it, which are exposed to the wind from the garden door downstairs; then a third, as you turn the corner to enter the passage; then you come plump upon another from the hall door; then comes another, fit to knock you down, as you turn to the upper passage; then, just as you turn towards the queen's room, comes another; and last, a whiff from the king's stairs, enough to blow you half a mile off!”
“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, 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 thing in my life! barley water after a whole day's hard hunting!”
“And pray did you drink it?”
“I drink it?—Drink barley water? no, no; not come to that neither. But there it was, sure enough!—in a jug fit for a sick room, just such a thing as you put upon a hob in a chimney, for some poor miserable soul that keeps his bed! just such a thing as that!—And, 'Here, Goldsworthy,' says his majesty, 'here's the barley water.'”
“And did the king drink it himself?”
“Yes, God bless his majesty! but I was too humble a subject to do the same as the king!—Barley water, quoth I!—Ha! ha!—a fine treat truly! Heaven defend me! I'm not come to that, neither!—bad enough too, but not so bad as that.”