, and rainy dirty weather, I knew not what to do; but to walk out
with Mr. Batelier, myself resolving to go home on foot, and leave the
women there. And so did; but at the Savoy got a coach, and come back and
took up the women; and so, having, by people come from the fire,
understood that the fire was overcome, and all well, we merrily parted,
and home. Stopped by several guards and constables quite through the
town, round the wall, as we went, all being in armes. We got well home
. . . . Being come home, we to cards, till two in the morning, and
drinking lamb's-wool.

[A beverage consisting of ale mixed with sugar, nutmeg, and the pulp
of roasted apples. "A cupp of lamb's-wool they dranke unto him
then." The King and the Miller of Mansfield (Percy's "Reliques,"
Series III., book ii., No. 20).]

So to bed.

10th. Up and to the office, where Sir W. Coventry come to tell us that
the Parliament did fall foul of our accounts again yesterday; and we must
arme to have them examined, which I am sorry for: it will bring great
trouble to me, and shame upon the office. My head full this morning how
to carry on Captain Cocke's bargain of hemp, which I think I shall by my
dexterity do, and to the King's advantage as well as my own. At noon with
my Lord Bruncker and Sir Thomas Harvy, to Cocke's house, and there Mrs.
Williams and other company, and an excellent dinner. Mr. Temple's wife;
after dinner, fell to play on the harpsicon, till she tired everybody,
that I left the house without taking leave, and no creature left standing
by her to hear her. Thence I home and to the office, where late doing of
business, and then home. Read an hour, to make an end of Potter's
Discourse of the Number 666, which I like all along, but his close is most
excellent; and, whether it be right or wrong, is mighty ingenious. Then
to supper and to bed. This is the fatal day that every body hath
discoursed for a long time to be the day that the Papists, or I know not
who, had designed to commit a massacre upon; but, however, I trust in God
we shall rise to-morrow morning as well as ever. This afternoon Creed
comes to me, and by him, as, also my Lady Pen, I hear that my Lady Denham
is exceeding sick, even to death, and that she says, and every body else
discourses, that she is poysoned; and Creed tells me, that it is said that
there hath been a design to poison the King. What the meaning of all
these sad signs is, th