good cautions for me not using it too much nor obliging him to fear by
prying into his secrets, which it were easy for me to do. Thence to my
Lord Bruncker, at Greenwich, and Sir J. Minnes by appointment, to looke
after the lodgings appointed for us there for our office, which do by no
means please me, they being in the heart of all the labourers and workmen
there, which makes it as unsafe as to be, I think, at London. Mr. Hugh
May, who is a most ingenuous man, did show us the lodgings, and his
acquaintance I am desirous of. Thence walked, it being now dark, to Sir
J. Minnes's, and there staid at the door talking with him an hour while
messengers went to get a boat for me, to carry me to Woolwich, but all to
no purpose; so I was forced to walk it in the darke, at ten o'clock at
night, with Sir J. Minnes's George with me, being mightily troubled for
fear of the doggs at Coome farme, and more for fear of rogues by the way,
and yet more because of the plague which is there, which is very strange,
it being a single house, all alone from the towne, but it seems they use
to admit beggars, for their owne safety, to lie in their barns, and they
brought it to them; but I bless God I got about eleven of the clock well
to my wife, and giving 4s. in recompence to George, I to my wife, and
having first viewed her last piece of drawing since I saw her, which is
seven or eight days, which pleases me beyond any thing in the world, to
bed with great content but weary.

22nd. Up, and after much pleasant talke and being importuned by my wife
and her two mayds, which are both good wenches, for me to buy a necklace
of pearle for her, and I promising to give her one of L60 in two years at
furthest, and in less if she pleases me in her painting, I went away and
walked to Greenwich, in my way seeing a coffin with a dead body therein,
dead of the plague, lying in an open close belonging to Coome farme, which
was carried out last night, and the parish have not appointed any body to
bury it; but only set a watch there day and night, that nobody should go