Diary, Aug/Sep 1666 | Page 6

church very full, which is a surprising consideration; but I did
not see her. So home, and had a good dinner, and after dinner with my
wife, and Mercer, and Jane by water, all the afternoon up as high as
Morclaeke with great pleasure, and a fine day, reading over the second
part of the, "Siege of Rhodes," with great delight. We landed and
walked at Barne-elmes, and then at the Neat Houses I landed and
bought a millon, --[melon]--and we did also land and eat and drink at
Wandsworth, and so to the Old Swan, and thence walked home. It
being a mighty fine cool evening, and there being come, my wife and I
spent an houre in the garden, talking of our living in the country, when
I shall be turned out of the office, as I fear the Parliament may find
faults enough with the office to remove us all, and I am joyed to think
in how good a condition I am to retire thither, and have wherewith very
well to subsist. Nan, at Sir W. Pen's, lately married to one Markeham, a
kinsman of Sir W. Pen's, a pretty wench she is.

6th. Up, and to the office a while, and then by water to my Lady
Montagu's, at Westminster, and there visited my Lard Hinchingbroke,
newly come from Hinchingbroke, and find him a mighty sober
gentleman, to my great content. Thence to Sir Ph. Warwicke and my

Lord Treasurer's, but failed in my business; so home and in
Fenchurch-streete met with Mr: Battersby; says he, "Do you see Dan
Rawlinson's door shut up?" (which I did, and wondered). "Why," says
he, "after all the sickness, and himself spending all the last year in the
country, one of his men is now dead of the plague, and his wife and one
of his mayds sicke, and himself shut up;" which troubles me mightily.
So home; and there do hear also from Mrs. Sarah Daniel, that
Greenwich is at this time much worse than ever it was, and Deptford
too: and she told us that they believed all the towne would leave the
towne and come to London; which is now the receptacle of all the
people from all infected places. God preserve us! So by and by to
dinner, and, after dinner in comes Mrs. Knipp, and I being at the office
went home to her, and there I sat and talked with her, it being the first
time of her being here since her being brought to bed. I very pleasant
with her; but perceive my wife hath no great pleasure in her being here,
she not being pleased with my kindnesse to her. However, we talked
and sang, and were very pleasant. By and by comes Mr. Pierce and his
wife, the first time she also hath been here since her lying-in, both
having been brought to bed of boys, and both of them dead. And here
we talked, and were pleasant, only my wife in a chagrin humour, she
not being pleased with my kindnesse to either of them, and by and by
she fell into some silly discourse wherein I checked her, which made
her mighty pettish, and discoursed mighty offensively to Mrs. Pierce,
which did displease me, but I would make no words, but put the
discourse by as much as I could (it being about a report that my wife
said was made of herself and meant by Mrs. Pierce, that she was grown
a gallant, when she had but so few suits of clothes these two or three
years, and a great deale of that silly discourse), and by and by Mrs.
Pierce did tell her that such discourses should not trouble her, for there
went as bad on other people, and particularly of herself at this end of
the towne, meaning my wife, that she was crooked, which was quite
false, which my wife had the wit not to acknowledge herself to be the
speaker of, though she has said it twenty times. But by this means we
had little pleasure in their visit; however, Knipp and I sang, and then I
offered them to carry them home, and to take my wife with me, but she
would not go: so I with them, leaving my wife in a very ill humour, and
very slighting to them, which vexed me. However, I would not be

removed from my civility to them, but sent for a coach, and went with
them; and, in our way, Knipp saying that she come out of doors without
a dinner to us, I took them to Old Fish Streete, to the very house and
woman where I kept my wedding dinner, where I never was since, and
there I did give them a