And I must confess, though it be to my discredit, that Master Rushworth and his wife wearied me with over long exercises of prayer such as they thought fitted for the occasion, not remembering my tender years. It may easily be concluded therefore that I was sufficiently glad to depart from London. And for the journey itself, it was, as I have said, delightful beyond all compare. We set out on the nineteenth of June, being, as I remember, a Saturday, for Robert, though he had all things ready, would not begin his journey on a Friday, a scrupulousness at which I was not a little offended, being above all things desirous to depart. That night we lay at Richmond, and the day following also, being a Sunday, on which day William Beasley was steadfast not to travel. He would say that, if a man cared not for his own soul, knowing it not to be worth a groat, he should have regard to his beast, which must be priced at twenty shillings at the least. We travelled without any mischance save that at Bray, where the river is more than ordinary shallow, William Beasley's son having had the rudder in charge, ran the barge on a shoal, and would have had a great whipping from his father but that I took the blame on myself; which was indeed but fair, for I was distracting the lad with my talk when he needed all his wits for his work. At some of the ferries we had to serve ourselves, for the ferrymen would not venture themselves near to those that might be bringing, as they thought, the infection of the disease from London. And when we would buy anything from the town and villages, as eggs and milk, or the like, we left the money at an appointed place (the custom having grown up in former visitations), dropping it into a bowl of water; and the country folk afterwards brought their goods. And then, with a "God save you!" given and returned, we went on our way. 'Twas a doleful thing to be so shunned, as if we had been lepers; yet I could not blame the people, knowing that the plague had been carried down from London to the utter destruction of many villages. For a village, if it once take the infection, will often, for lack of ministration to the sick, suffer worse than the town. But once only did the riverside people show us any hostility; and this was at Wallingford, where they stoned us from the bridge, but without doing any considerable hurt.