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