give her none, not daring any more to appear in the business, having too
much trouble lately therein. By and by to the office, where we sat all
the morning; in great trouble to see the Bill this week rise so high, to
above 4,000 in all, and of them above 3,000 of the plague. And an odd
story of Alderman Bence's stumbling at night over a dead corps in the
streete, and going home and telling his wife, she at the fright, being
with child, fell sicke and died of the plague. We sat late, and then by
invitation my Lord Brunker, Sir J. Minnes, Sir W. Batten and I to Sir G.
Smith's to dinner, where very good company and good cheer. Captain Cocke
was there and Jacke Fenn, but to our great wonder Alderman Bence, and
tells us that not a word of all this is true, and others said so too, but
by his owne story his wife hath been ill, and he fain to leave his house
and comes not to her, which continuing a trouble to me all the time I was
there. Thence to the office and, after writing letters, home, to
draw-over anew my will, which I had bound myself by oath to dispatch by
to-morrow night; the town growing so unhealthy, that a man cannot depend
upon living two days to an end. So having done something of it, I to bed.

11th. Up, and all day long finishing and writing over my will twice, for
my father and my wife, only in the morning a pleasant rencontre happened
in having a young married woman brought me by her father, old Delkes, that
carries pins always in his mouth, to get her husband off that he should
not go to sea, 'une contre pouvait avoir done any cose cum else, but I did
nothing, si ni baisser her'. After they were gone my mind run upon having
them called back again, and I sent a messenger to Blackwall, but he
failed. So I lost my expectation. I to the Exchequer, about striking new
tallys, and I find the Exchequer, by proclamation, removing to
Nonesuch.--[Nonsuch Palace, near Epsom, where the Exchequer money was kept
during the time of the plague.]--Back again and at my papers, and putting
up my books into chests, and settling my house and all things in the best