ch
to be made ready; and got Mr. Gibson, whom I carried with me, to go with
me and Mr. Coney, the surgeon, towards Maydston which I had a mighty
mind to see, and took occasion, in my way, at St. Margett's, to pretend
to call to see Captain Allen to see whether Mrs. Jowles, his daughter,
was there; and there his wife come to the door, he being at London,
and through a window, I spied Jowles, but took no notice of he but made
excuse till night, and then promised to come and see Mrs. Allen again,
and so away, it being a mighty cold and windy, but clear day; and had
the pleasure of seeing the Medway running, winding up and down mightily,
and a very fine country; and I went a little out of the way to have
visited Sir John Bankes, but he at London; but here I had a sight of
his seat and house, the outside, which is an old abbey just like
Hinchingbroke, and as good at least, and mighty finely placed by the
river; and he keeps the grounds about it, and walls and the house,
very handsome: I was mightily pleased with the sight of it. Thence to
Maydstone, which I had a mighty mind to see, having never been there;
and walked all up and down the town, and up to the top of the steeple,
and had a noble view, and then down again: and in the town did see an
old man beating of flax, and did step into the barn and give him money,
and saw that piece of husbandry which I never saw, and it is very
pretty: in the street also I did buy and send to our inne, the Bell, a
dish of fresh fish. And so, having walked all round the town, and found
it very pretty, as most towns I ever saw, though not very big, and
people of good fashion in it, we to our inne to dinner, and had a good
dinner; and after dinner a barber come to me, and there trimmed me, that
I might be clean against night, to go to Mrs. Allen. And so, staying
till about four o'clock, we set out, I alone in the coach going and
coming; and in our way back, I 'light out of the way to see a Saxon
monument,

[Kits-Cotty House, a cromlech in Aylesford parish, Kent, on a
hillside adjacent to the river Medway, three and a half miles N. by
W. of Maidstone. It consists of three upright stones and an
overlying one, and forms a small chamber open in front. It is
supposed to have been the centre of a group of monuments indicating
the burial-place of the Belgian settlers in this part of Britain.
Other stones of a similar character exist in the neighbourhood.]

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