The baker, after delivering his bread in at the window, and I, after fastening our skiff to the shutter-hook, waited the return of Fogin, who had launched himself into a tub to shave Matthew, who had perched himself on the coroneted top of a tall Queen Anne’s chair, and drawn his feet as much under him as possible, and then, with the palms of his hands flat upon his knees to keep the balance true, was prepared to suck in Fogin’s tales in the tub during his shave. Tom retailed all the scandal he had been able to collect during the preceding week from the surrounding villages; how Dolly _alias_ Matthew Booth, a half-witted fellow, was stoutly caned by old John Adams, the astronomical schoolmaster, for calling him “a moon-hauler,”--how Mr. Wigston trespassed on Miss Thoxley’s waste,--of the sisters Tatham being called the “wax dolls” of Edmonton, whose chemises Bet Nun had declared only measured sixteen inches in diameter,--of old Fuller, the banker, riding to Ponder’s End with a stone in his mouth to keep it moist, in order to save the expense of drink,--upon Farmer Bellows’s and old Le Grew’s psalm-singing,--of Alderman Curtis and his Southgate grapery, and of his neighbour, a divine gentlem--_man_, I had very nearly called him, who had horsewhipped his wife. 1791. I remember on a midsummer morn of this year making one of a party of pleasure, consisting of the worthy baronet Sir James Lake, the elder John Adams,[243] schoolmaster of Edmonton, Samuel Ireland,[244] author of the _Thames_, _Medway_, etc. We started from my cottage at Edmonton, and took the road north. The first house we noticed was an old brick mansion at the extreme end of the town, erected at about the time of King Charles I., opposite butcher Wright’s. This dilapidated fabric was let out in tenements, and the happiest of its inmates was a gay old woman who lived in one of its numerous attics. She gained her bread by spinning, and as we ascended she was singing the old song of “Little boy blue, come blow me your horn” to a neighbour’s child, left to her care for the day. “Well, Mary,” quoth the a-b-c-darian, “you are always gay; what is your opinion of the lads and lasses of the present time, compared with those of your youthful days?” “I’ faith,” answered Mary, “they are pretty much the same.” She was then considerably beyond her eightieth year. We then proceeded to Ponder’s End, where I conducted my fellow-travellers to a field on the left, behind the Goat public-house, to see “King Ringle’s Well,” but why so called even Mr. Gough has declared he was unable to discover.[245] The next place we visited consisted of extensive moated premises, called “Durance,” on the right of the public road. This house, as tradition reported, had been the residence of Judge Jeffreys; and here it is said that he exercised some severities upon the Protestants.[246]