brother, who is since dead (the Bishop), who when he
should come to be Bishop of Winchester, which he was
promised (to which bishoprick at present there is
no house), he did intend to dwell here. Besides,
with the good husbandry in making his bricks and other
things I do not think it costs him so much money as
people think and discourse. By and by to dinner,
and in comes Mr. Creed. I saluted Mr. Gauden’s
lady, and the young ladies, he having many pretty
children, and his sister, the Bishop’s widow;
who was, it seems, Sir W. Russel’s daughter,
the Treasurer of the Navy; who by her discourse at
dinner I find to be very well-bred, and a woman of
excellent discourse, even so much as to have my attention
all dinner with much more pleasure than I did give
to Mr. Creed, whose discourse was mighty merry in
inveighing at Mr. Gauden’s victuals that they
had at sea the last voyage that he prosecuted, till
methought the woman began to take it seriously.
After dinner by Mr. Gauden’s motion we got
Mrs. Gauden and her sister to sing to a viall, on which
Mr. Gauden’s eldest son (a pretty man, but a
simple one methinks) played but very poorly, and the
musique bad, but yet I commended it. Only I do
find that the ladies have been taught to sing and
do sing well now, but that the viall puts them out.
I took the viall and played some things from one of
their books, Lyra lessons, which they seemed to like
well. Thus we pass an hour or two after dinner
and towards the evening we bade them Adieu! and took
horse; being resolved that, instead of the race which
fails us, we would go to Epsum. So we set out,
and being gone a little way I sent home Will to look
to the house, and Creed and I rode forward; the road
being full of citizens going and coming toward Epsum,
where, when we came, we could hear of no lodging,
the town so full; but which was better, I went towards
Ashted, my old place of pleasure; and there by direction
of one goodman Arthur, whom we met on the way, we
went to Farmer Page’s, at which direction he
and I made good sport, and there we got a lodging in
a little hole we could not stand upright in, but rather
than go further to look we staid there, and while
supper was getting ready I took him to walk up and
down behind my cozen Pepys’s house that was,
which I find comes little short of what I took it
to be when I was a little boy, as things use commonly
to appear greater than then when one comes to be a
man and knows more, and so up and down in the closes,
which I know so well methinks, and account it good
fortune that I lie here that I may have opportunity
to renew my old walks. It seems there is one
Mr. Rouse, they call him the Queen’s Tailor,
that lives there now. So to our lodging to supper,
and among other meats had a brave dish of cream, the
best I ever eat in my life, and with which we pleased
ourselves much, and by and by to bed, where, with
much ado yet good sport, we made shift to lie, but
with little ease, and a little spaniel by us, which
has followed us all the way, a pretty dogg, and we
believe that follows my horse, and do belong to Mrs.
Gauden, which we, therefore, are very careful of.