r are come. I
expected them to-day, but not so soon. I to them, and am heartily glad
to see them, especially my father, who, poor man, looks very well, and
hath rode up this journey on horseback very well, only his eyesight and
hearing is very bad. I staid and dined with them, my wife being gone by
coach to Barnet, with W. Hewer and Mercer, to meet them, and they did
come Ware way. After dinner I left them to dress themselves and I abroad
by appointment to my Lord Ashly, who, it is strange to see, how prettily
he dissembles his favour to Yeabsly's business, which none in the world
could mistrust only I, that am privy to his being bribed. Thence
to White Hall, and there staid till the Council was up, with Creed
expecting a meeting of Tangier to end Yeabsly's business, but we could
not procure it. So I to my Lord Treasurer's and got my warrant, and
then to Lovett's, but find nothing done there. So home and did a little
business at the office, and so down by water to Deptford and back again
home late, and having signed some papers and given order in business,
home, where my wife is come home, and so to supper with my father, and
mighty pleasant we were, and my wife mighty kind to him and Pall, and
so after supper to bed, myself being sleepy, and my right eye still very
sore, as it has been now about five days or six, which puts me out of
tune. To-night my wife tells me newes has been brought her that Balty's
wife is brought to bed, by some fall or fit, before her time, of a great
child but dead. If the woman do well we have no reason to be sorry,
because his staying a little longer without a child will be better for
him and her.

31st. Waked very betimes in the morning by extraordinary thunder and
rain, which did keep me sleeping and waking till very late, and it being
a holiday and my eye very sore, and myself having had very little sleep
for a good while till nine o'clock, and so up, and so saw all my family
up, and my father and sister, who is a pretty good-bodied woman, and not
over thicke, as I thought she would have been, but full of freckles,
and not handsome in face. And so I out by water among the ships, and to
Deptford and Blackewall about business, and so home and to dinner with
my father and sister and family, mighty pleasant all of us; and, among
other things, with a sparrow that our Mercer hath brought up now for
three weeks, which is so tame that it flies up and down, and upon the
table, and eats and pecks,