Up with my workmen and then about 9 o’clock took horse with both the Sir Williams for Walthamstow, and there we found my Lady and her daughters all.
And a pleasant day it was, and all things else, but that my Lady was in a bad mood, which we were troubled at, and had she been noble she would not have been so with her servants, when we came thither, and this Sir W. Pen took notice of, as well as I. After dinner we all went to the Church stile, and there eat and drank, and I was as merry as I could counterfeit myself to be. Then, it raining hard, we left Sir W. Batten, and we two returned and called at Mr. — and drank some brave wine there, and then homewards again and in our way met with two country fellows upon one horse, which I did, without much ado, give the way to, but Sir W. Pen would not, but struck them and they him, and so passed away, but they giving him some high words, he went back again and struck them off their horse, in a simple fury, and without much honour, in my mind, and so came away.
Home, and I sat with him a good while talking, and then home and to bed.
A horse in a bad mood
is a hard horse, a high horse—
simple fury without much mind.
I sat with him a good while,
talking home and bed.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 18 April 1661.