I get him some church promotion, or send him to sea as a
chaplain, where he may study, and earn his living. Then walked round
about our Greene, to see whether, in case I cannot buy out my uncle
Thomas and his son's right in this house, that I can buy another place
as good thereabouts to build on, and I do not see that I can. But this,
with new building, may be made an excellent pretty thing, and I resolve
to look after it as soon as I can, and Goody Gorum dies. By this time it
was almost noon, and then my father and I and wife and Willet abroad, by
coach round the towne of Brampton, to observe any other place as good
as ours, and find none; and so back with great pleasure; and thence
went all of us, my sister and brother, and W. Hewer, to dinner to
Hinchingbroke, where we had a good plain country dinner, but most kindly
used; and here dined the Minister of Brampton and his wife, who is
reported a very good, but poor man. Here I spent alone with my Lady,
after dinner, the most of the afternoon, and anon the two twins were
sent for from schoole, at Mr. Taylor's, to come to see me, and I took
them into the garden, and there, in one of the summer-houses, did
examine them, and do find them so well advanced in their learning,
that I was amazed at it: they repeating a whole ode without book out of
Horace, and did give me a very good account of any thing almost, and did
make me very readily very good Latin, and did give me good account of
their Greek grammar, beyond all possible expectation; and so grave and
manly as I never saw, I confess, nor could have believed; so that they
will be fit to go to Cambridge in two years at most. They are both
little, but very like one another, and well-looked children. Then in to
my Lady again, and staid till it was almost night again, and then took
leave for a great while again, but with extraordinary kindness from
my Lady, who looks upon me like one of her own family and interest. So
thence, my wife and people by the highway, and I walked over the park
with Mr. Shepley, and through the grove, which is mighty pretty, as is
imaginable, and so over their drawbridge to Nun's Bridge, and so to my
father's, and there sat and drank, and talked a little, and then parted.
And he being gone, and what company there was, my father and I, with
a dark lantern; it being now night, into the garden with my wife, and
there went about our great work to dig up my gold. But, Lord! what a
tosse I was for some time