When I was ready to set forth, my friend Isaac Penington was so kind to send a servant with a brace of geldings to carry me as far as I thought fit to ride, and to bring the horses back. I, intending to go no farther that day than to Wycombe, rode no farther than to Beaconsfield town’s end, having then but five miles to walk. But here a new exercise befell me, the manner of which was thus:
Before I had walked to the middle of the town I was stopped and taken up by the watch. I asked the watchman what authority he had to stop me, travelling peacefully on the highway: he told me he would show me his authority, and in order thereunto, had me into a house hard by, where dwelt a scrivener whose name was Pepys. To him he gave the order which he had received from the constables, which directed him to take up all rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars. I asked him for which of these he stopped me, but he could not answer me.
I thereupon informed him what a rogue in law is, viz., one who for some notorious offence was burnt on the shoulder; and I told them they might search me if they pleased, and see if I was so branded. A vagabond, I told them, was one that had no dwelling-house nor certain place of abode; but I had, and was going to it, and I told them where it was. And for a beggar, I bade them bring any one that could say I had begged or asked relief.
This stopped the fellow’s mouth, yet he would not let me go; but, being both weak-headed and strong-willed, he left me there with the scrivener, and went out to seek the constable, and having found him, brought him thither. He was a young man, by trade a tanner, somewhat better mannered than his wardsman, but not of much better judgment.
He took me with him to his house, and having settled me there, went out to take advice, as I supposed, what to do with me; leaving nobody in the house to guard me but his wife, who had a young child in her arms.
She inquired of me upon what account I was taken up, and seeming to have some pity for me, endeavoured to persuade me not to stay, but to go my way, offering to show me a back way from their house which would bring me into the road again beyond the town, so that none of the town should see me or know what was become of me. But I told her I could not do so.
Then having sat awhile in a muse, she asked me if there was not a place of Scripture which said Peter was at a tanner’s house. I told her there was such a Scripture, and directed her where to find it.
After some time she laid her child to sleep in the cradle, and stepped out on a sudden, but came not in again for a pretty while.
I was uneasy that I was left alone in the house, fearing lest if anything should be missing I might be suspected to have taken it; yet I durst not go out to stand in the street, lest it should be thought I intended to slip away.
But besides that, I soon found work to employ myself in; for the child quickly waking, fell to crying, and I was fain to rock the cradle in my own defence, that I might not be annoyed with a noise, to me not more unpleasant than unusual. At length the woman came in again, and finding me nursing the child, gave me many thanks, and seemed well pleased with my company.