His Majesty’s equerries were certainly not selected for their brilliant attainments, or their powers of conversation, or even for their polished manners. One of these gentlemen, a Colonel Goldsworthy, whom Miss Burney had not before seen, arrived for his turn of duty at the end of September. ‘He seems to me,’ says the Diary, ‘a man of but little cultivation or literature, but delighting in a species of dry humour, in which he shines most successfully, by giving himself up for its favourite butt.’ He soon began to warn Fanny of the discomforts of winter service in the ill-built and ill-contrived Queen’s Lodge. ‘Wait till November and December, and then you’ll get a pretty taste of them.... Let’s see, how many blasts must you have every time you go to the Queen? First, one upon 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. One thing,’ he added, ‘pray let me caution you about—don’t go to early prayers in November; if you do, that will completely kill you!... When the Princesses, 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[78] 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!’ That the King was considerate to his attendants, the following story by the same elegant wit will testify. It was told after a hard day’s hunting: “‘After all our labours,’ said he, ‘home we come, with not a dry thread about us, sore to the very bone, and forced to smile all the time, and then: “‘Here, Goldsworthy!’ cries his Majesty; so up I comes to him, bowing profoundly, and my hair dripping down to my shoes. ‘Goldsworthy, I say,’ he cries, ‘will you have a little barley-water?’ “‘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! 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!’”