was older and understood the language, call'd them all great
fools. . . ."

On the tutor's return they begged to have his company at dinner, at their
inn: but he declined, kept the young man to dine with him, and next day
invited the family to luncheon. They accepted, fully expecting (after the
austerity of his discourse) to be starved: "and the girles drank
chocolette at no rate in the morning, for fear of the _worst_." But they
were by no means starved. "It was very pleasant," the squire confesses,
"to see, when we came, the _constrain'd_ artifice of an unaccustomed
complement." There were silver tankards 'heaped upon one another,'
'napkins some twenty years younger than the rest,' and glasses 'fit for a
_Dutchman_ at an _East-India Return_.' The dinner was full enough for
ten. "I was asham'd, but would not disoblige him, considering with myself
that I should put this man to such a charge of forty shillings at least,
to entertain me; when for all his honest care and pains he is to have but
forty or fifty shillings a quarter; so that for one whole quarter he must
doe the drudgery to my son for nothing." After dinner, our good squire
strolled off to a public bowling-green, "that being the onely recreation I
can affect." And "coming in, I saw half a score of the finest youths the
sun, I think, ever shined upon. They walked to and fro, with their hands
in their pockets, to see a match played by some scholars and some
gentlemen fam'd for their skill. I gaped also and stared as a man in his
way would doe; but a country ruff gentleman, being like to _lose_, did
swear, at such a rate that my heart did grieve that those fine young men
should _hear_ it, and know there was such a thing as swearing in the
kingdom. Coming to my lodging, I charged my son never to go to such
publick places unless he resolved to quarrel with me."

And so, having settled the lad and fitted him up with good advice,
the father, mother, and sisters returned home. But the squire, being
summoned to Oxford shortly after to "sit in _parliament_" (presumably in
the last Parliament held at Oxford, in March, 1681), took that opportunity
to walk the streets and study the demeanour of the "scholars." And this
experiment would seem to have finally satisfied him. "I walk'd the
streets as late as most people, and never in ten days ever saw any scholar
rude or disordered: so that as I grow old, and more engaged to speak the
_truth_, I do repent of the _