Thus, it was in the year 1560, or 1650, or mayhap 1710--for my memory is not what it hath been and I ever cared little for monkish calendars or such dry-as-dust matter, being active as becometh one who hath to make his way in the world--yet I wot well it was after the Great Plague, which I have great cause to remember, lying at my cozen's in Wardour Street, London, in that lamentable year, eating of gilly flowers, sulphur, hartes tongue and many stynking herbes; touching neither man nor mayd, save with a great tongs steept in pitch; wearing a fine maske of silk with a mouth piece of aromatic stuff--by reason of which acts of hardihood and courage I was miraculously preserved.

This much I shall say as to the time of these happenings, and no more.

I am a plain, blunt man--mayhap rude of speech should occasion warrant---so let them who require the exactness of a scrivener or a pedagogue go elsewhere for their entertainment and be hanged to them! Howbeit, though no scholar, I am not one of those who misuse the English speech, and, being foolishly led by the hasty custom of scriveners and printers to write the letters "T" and "H" joined together, which resembleth a "Y," do incontinently jump to the conclusion the THE is pronounced "Ye,"-- the like of which I never heard in all England.

And though this be little toward those great enterprises and happenings I shall presently shew, I set it down for the behoof of such malapert wights as must needs gird at a man of spirit and action--and yet, in sooth, know not their own letters.
So to my tale.

There was a great frost when my Lord bade me follow him to the water gate near our lodgings in the Strand.