ad of the race which fails us, we would go to Epsum. So we
set out, and being gone a little way I sent home Will to look to the
house, and Creed and I rode forward; the road being full of citizens
going and coming toward Epsum, where, when we came, we could hear of no
lodging, the town so full; but which was better, I went towards Ashted,
my old place of pleasure; and there by direction of one goodman Arthur,
whom we met on the way, we went to Farmer Page's, at which direction he
and I made good sport, and there we got a lodging in a little hole we
could not stand upright in, but rather than go further to look we staid
there, and while supper was getting ready I took him to walk up and down
behind my cozen Pepys's house that was, which I find comes little short
of what I took it to be when I was a little boy, as things use commonly
to appear greater than then when one comes to be a man and knows more,
and so up and down in the closes, which I know so well methinks, and
account it good fortune that I lie here that I may have opportunity to
renew my old walks. It seems there is one Mr. Rouse, they call him the
Queen's Tailor, that lives there now. So to our lodging to supper, and
among other meats had a brave dish of cream, the best I ever eat in my
life, and with which we pleased ourselves much, and by and by to bed,
where, with much ado yet good sport, we made shift to lie, but with
little ease, and a little spaniel by us, which has followed us all the
way, a pretty dogg, and we believe that follows my horse, and do belong
to Mrs. Gauden, which we, therefore, are very careful of.

26th (Lord's-day). Up and to the Wells,

[Epsom medicinal wells were discovered about 1618, but they did not
become fashionable until the Restoration. John Toland, in his
"Description of Epsom," says that he often counted seventy coaches in
the Ring (the present racecourse on the Downs) on a Sunday evening;
but by the end of the eighteenth century Epsom had entirely lost its
vogue.]

where great store of citizens, which was the greatest part of the
company, though there were some others of better quality. I met many
that I knew, and we drank each of us two pots and so walked away, it
being very pleasant to see how everybody turns up his tail, here one
and there another, in a bush, and the women in their quarters the like.
Thence I walked with Creed to Mr. Minnes's house, which has now a very
good way made to it