] the outside, which is an old abbey
just like Hinchingbroke, and as good at least, and mightily
finely placed by the river; and he keeps the grounds about it,
and walls and the house, very handsome: I was mightily pleased
with the sight of it. Thence to Maydstone, which I had a mighty
mind to see, having never been there; and walked all up and down
the town, and up to the top of the steeple and had a noble view,
and then down again: and in the town did see an old man beating
of flax, and did step into the barn and give him money, and saw
that piece of husbandry, which I never saw; and it is very
pretty. In the street also I did buy and send to our inne, the
Bell, a dish of fresh fish. And so having walked all round the
town, and found it very pretty as most towns I ever saw, though
not very big, and people of good fashion in it, we to our inne
and had a good dinner; and a barber came to me and there trimmed
me, that I might be clean against night to go to Mrs. Allen. And
so staying till four o'clock we set out, I alone in the coach
going and coming: and in our way back I light out of the way to
see a Saxon monument, as they say, of a King, which is of three
stones standing upright, and a great round one lying on them, of
great bigness, although not so big as those on Salisbury Plain.
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