'Will you?' says I; 'well, I believe you are an honest man; if
you will, I shall be glad of it; I'll pay you in reason.' 'Why,
look ye, mistress,' says he, 'I won't be out of reason with you,
then; if I carry you to Colchester, it will be worth five shillings
for myself and my horse, for I shall hardly come back to-night.'
In short, I hired the honest man and his horse; but when we
came to a town upon the road (I do not remember the name
of it, but it stands upon a river), I pretended myself very ill,
and I could go no farther that night but if he would stay there
with me, because I was a stranger, I would pay him for himself
and his horse with all my heart.
This I did because I knew the Dutch gentlemen and their
servants would be upon the road that day, either in the
stagecoaches or riding post, and I did not know but the drunken
fellow, or somebody else that might have seen me at Harwich,
might see me again, and so I thought that in one day's stop
they would be all gone by.
We lay all that night there, and the next morning it was not
very early when I set out, so that it was near ten o'clock by
the time I got to Colchester. It was no little pleasure that I
saw the town where I had so many pleasant days, and I made
many inquiries after the good old friends I had once had there,
but could make little out; they were all dead or removed.
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