what they
have with more love and quiet. So (John Bowles coming to see us before
we go) we took horse and got early to Baldwick; where there was a fair,
and we put in and eat a mouthfull of pork, which they made us pay 14d.
for, which vexed us much. And so away to Stevenage, and staid till a
showre was over, and so rode easily to Welling, where we supped well,
and had two beds in the room and so lay single, and still remember it
that of all the nights that ever I slept in my life I never did pass a
night with more epicurism of sleep; there being now and then a noise of
people stirring that waked me, and then it was a very rainy night, and
then I was a little weary, that what between waking and then sleeping
again, one after another, I never had so much content in all my life,
and so my wife says it was with her.

24th. We rose, and set forth, but found a most sad alteration in the
road by reason of last night's rains, they being now all dirty and
washy, though not deep. So we rode easily through, and only drinking at
Holloway, at the sign of a woman with cakes in one hand and a pot of ale
in the other, which did give good occasion of mirth, resembling her to
the maid that served us, we got home very timely and well, and finding
there all well, and letters from sea, that speak of my Lord's
being well, and his action, though not considerable of any side, at
Argier.--[Algiers]--I went straight to my Lady, and there sat and talked
with her, and so home again, and after supper we to bed somewhat weary,
hearing of nothing ill since my absence but my brother Tom, who is
pretty well though again.

25th. By coach with Sir W. Pen to Covent Garden. By the way, upon my
desire, he told me that I need not fear any reflection upon my Lord for
their ill success at Argier, for more could not be done than was done.
I went to my cozen, Thos. Pepys, there, and talked with him a good
while about our country business, who is troubled at my uncle Thomas
his folly, and so we parted; and then meeting Sir R. Slingsby in St.
Martin's Lane, he and I in his coach through the Mewes, which is the
way that now all coaches are forced to go, because of a stop at Charing
Cross, by reason of a drain there to clear the streets. To Whitehall,
and there to Mr. Coventry, and talked with him, and thence to my Lord
Crew's and dined with him, where I was used with all imaginable kindness
both from him and her. And I see that he is afraid that my Lord's
reputac