He talked so; but he was in very cheerful spirits; and before he left me at the door of the lodgings I had got an order from him to admit me everywhere within reason.  It was something of a surprise to me to see how dearly this man—­whose name was so evil spoken of, and, I fear with good cause enough—­yet loved his master.

* * * * *

On Tuesday morning I was up again very early, and round at His Majesty’s lodgings.  I went up by the other way and into the great antechamber; and there I met with one of the physicians who was just come from the consultation that twelve of them had held together.  He was a very communicative fellow and told me that six of them had been with His Majesty all night, and that His Majesty had slept pretty well; and that—­to encourage him, I suppose!—­ten more ounces of blood had been taken from his neck.  He was proceeding to speak of some new remedies—­and mentioned an anti-spasmodic julep of Black Cherry Water that had been prescribed, when another put out his head and called to him from the Bedchamber; and he went away back into it with an important air.

All that day too I never left Whitehall.  There were great crowds in all the streets and outside the gates, I heard, but their demeanour was very quiet and sorrowful; and prayers were said all day long in the churches.  When I went back to the antechamber in the evening I saw my Lord Bishop of Ely there, and heard from one of the pages that he was to spend that night in His Majesty’s room.  So I gathered from that that the physicians were not very confident even yet, though couriers had been sent out again to-day to bear the news of the King’s happy recovery; and I was, besides, in two minds, when I saw the Bishop there, as to what I should do about a Catholic priest.  If I had seen His Royal Highness then, I think I should have said something to him upon it; but the Duke was in the Bedchamber; and there I dared not yet penetrate.

* * * * *

On the Wednesday morning, when I went early to inquire, I heard that again His Majesty had slept well, and that the physicians were well satisfied; I saw no one but a man of Mr. Chiffinch’s, who told me that; and that Dr. Ken, my Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells, was with the King; and I went away content:  but when I went back again, for the third time that day, just before supper-time, I saw from the faces in the antechamber that all was not so well.  Yet I could get nothing out of anyone, and did not wish to press too hard lest I should be turned out altogether.  I saw my friend of yesterday, whose name I have never yet learned, hurrying across the end of the chamber into another little room where the physicians had their consultations—­(it was, I think, my Lord Ailesbury’s dressing-room)—­but I was not in time to catch him; so I went away again in some little dismay, yet not greatly alarmed even now.  The Bishop, I thought, could at least do him no great harm.