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, that I was
glad to be rid of her, and so resolved having her go away to-morrow. So
my wife and W. Hewer and I to supper, and then he and I to my chamber to
begin the draught of the report from this office to the Duke of York in
the case of Mr. Carcasse, which I sat up till midnight to do, and then
to bed, believing it necessary to have it done, and to do it plainly,
for it is not to be endured the trouble that this rascal hath put us to,
and the disgrace he hath brought upon this office.

13th. Up, and when ready, to the office (my wife rising to send away
Barker, according to our resolution last night, and she did do it with
more clothes than have cost us L10, and 20s. in her purse, which I did
for the respect I bear Mr. Falconbridge, otherwise she had not deserved
half of it, but I am the more willing to do it to be rid of one that
made work and trouble in the house, and had not qualities of any honour
or pleasure to me or my family, but what is a strange thing did always
declare to her mistress and others that she had rather be put
to drudgery and to wash the house than to live as she did like a
gentlewoman), and there I and Gibson all the morning making an end of my
report against Carcasse, which I think will do our business, but it is
a horrid shame such a rogue should give me and all of us this trouble.
This m