the Postmaster's house, at the sign of the Crown; his name is _Riggs_.
He was informed who I was, and wherefore I undertook this my pennyless
progress: wherefore he came up to our chamber, and supped with us, and
very bountifully called for three quarts of wine and sugar, and four
jugs of beer. He did drink and begin healths like a horse-leech and
swallowed down his cups without feeling, as if he had had the dropsy, or
nine pound of sponge in his maw. In a word, as he is a post, he drank
post, striving and calling by all means to make the reckoning great, or
to make us men of great reckoning. But in his payment he was tired like
a jade, leaving the gentleman that was with me to discharge the terrible
shot, or else one of my horses must have lain in pawn for his
superfluous calling, and unmannerly intrusion.

But leaving him, I left _Huntington_, and rode on the Sunday to
_Puckeridge_, where Master _Holland_ at the Falcon, (mine old
acquaintance) and my loving and ancient host gave me, my friend, my man,
and our horses excellent cheer, and welcome, and I paid him with, not a
penny of money.

The next day I came to _London_, and obscurely coming within Moorgate, I
went to a house and borrowed money: and so I stole back again to
_Islington_, to the sign of the Maidenhead,[32] staying till Wednesday,
that my friends came to meet me, who knew no other, but that Wednesday
was my first coming; where with all love I was entertained with much
good cheer: and after supper we had a play of the Life and Death of _Guy
of Warwick_,[33] played by the Right Honourable the Earl of _Derby_ his
men. And so on the Thursday morning being the fifteenth of October, I
came home to my house in _London_.

[Decorative thought break]

THE EPILOGUE TO ALL MY ADVENTURERS AND OTHERS.

Thus did I neither spend, or beg, or ask,
By any course, direct or indirectly:
But in each tittle I performed my task,
According to my bill most circumspectly.
I vow to God, I have done SCOTLAND wrong,
(And (justly) against me it may bring an action)
I have not given it that right which doth belong,
For which I am half guilty of detraction:
Yet had I wrote all things that there I saw,
Misjudging censures would suppose I flatter,
And so my name I should in question draw,
Where asses bray, and prattling pies do chatter:
Yet (armed with truth) I publish with my pen,
That there the Almighty doth his blessings heap