got me to hire her a horse to go along with me. So
I went to my Lady's and elsewhere to take leave, and of Mr. Townsend did
borrow a very fine side-saddle for my wife; and so after all things were
ready, she and I took coach to the end of the town towards Kingsland,
and there got upon my horse and she upon her pretty mare that I hired
for her, and she rides very well. By the mare at one time falling she
got a fall, but no harm; so we got to Ware, and there supped, and to bed
very merry and pleasant.

18th. The next morning up early and begun our march; the way about
Puckridge--[Puckeridge, a village in Hertfordshire six and a half miles
N.N.E, of Ware.]--very bad, and my wife, in the very last dirty place of
all, got a fall, but no hurt, though some dirt. At last she begun, poor
wretch, to be tired, and I to be angry at it, but I was to blame; for
she is a very good companion as long as she is well. In the afternoon we
got to Cambridge, where I left my wife at my cozen Angier's while I
went to Christ's College, and there found my brother in his chamber, and
talked with him; and so to the barber's, and then to my wife again, and
remounted for Impington, where my uncle received me and my wife very
kindly. And by and by in comes my father, and we supped and talked and
were merry, but being weary and sleepy my wife and I to bed without
talking with my father anything about our business.

19th. Up early, and my father and I alone into the garden, and there
talked about our business, and what to do therein. So after I had talked
and advised with my coz Claxton, and then with my uncle by his bedside,
we all horsed away to Cambridge, where my father and I, having left my
wife at the Beare with my brother, went to Mr. Sedgewicke, the steward
of Gravely, and there talked with him, but could get little hopes from
anything that he would tell us; but at last I did give him a fee, and
then he was free to tell me what I asked, which was something, though
not much comfort. From thence to our horses, and with my wife went and
rode through Sturbridge

[Sturbridge fair is of great antiquity. The first trace of it is
found in a charter granted about 1211 by King John to the Lepers of
the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalen at Sturbridge by Cambridge, a fair
to be held in the close of the hospital on the vigil and feast of
the Holy Cross (see Cornelius Walford's "Fairs Past and Present,"
1883, p. 54).]

but the