restrained myself from saying anything, but do think never to see this
woman--at least, to have her here more, but by and by I did give her money
to buy lace, and she promised to wear no more white locks while I lived,
and so all very good friends as ever, and I to my business, and she to
dress herself. Against noon we had a coach ready for us, and she and I to
White Hall, where I went to see whether Sir G. Carteret was at dinner or
no, our design being to make a visit there, and I found them set down,
which troubled me, for I would not then go up, but back to the coach to my
wife, and she and I homeward again, and in our way bethought ourselves of
going alone, she and I, to go to a French house to dinner, and so enquired
out Monsieur Robins, my perriwigg-maker, who keeps an ordinary, and in an
ugly street in Covent Garden, did find him at the door, and so we in; and
in a moment almost had the table covered, and clean glasses, and all in
the French manner, and a mess of potage first, and then a couple of
pigeons a la esterve, and then a piece of boeuf-a-la-mode, all exceeding
well seasoned, and to our great liking; at least it would have been
anywhere else but in this bad street, and in a perriwigg-maker's house;
but to see the pleasant and ready attendance that we had, and all things
so desirous to please, and ingenious in the people, did take me mightily.
Our dinner cost us 6s., and so my wife and I away to Islington, it being a
fine day, and thence to Sir G. Whitmore's house, where we 'light, and
walked over the fields to Kingsland, and back again; a walk, I think, I
have not taken these twenty years; but puts me in mind of my boy's time,
when I boarded at Kingsland, and used to shoot with my bow and arrows in
these fields. A very pretty place it is; and little did any of my friends
think I should come to walk in these fields in this condition and state
that I am. Then took coach again, and home through Shoreditch; and at
home my wife finds Barker to have been abroad, and telling her so many
lies about it, that she struck her, and the wench said she would not stay
with her: so I examined the wench, and found her in so many lies myself,