Introduction
On Sunday 14th July, 1667, Samuel Pepys took his party for a woodland walk in Epsom, near the home of his cousin John. Much to Samuel’s chagrin, he managed to get them lost, so they never found the pleasant woodland paths he had been looking forward to. And indeed, it seemed that things were fated to get worse before they got better.
AT last got out of the wood again; and I, by leaping down the little bank, coming out of the wood, did sprain my right foot, which brought me great present pain, but presently, with walking, it went away for the present, and so the women and W. Hewer and I walked upon the Downes,* where a flock of sheep was; and the most pleasant and innocent sight that ever I saw in my life — we find a shepherd and his little boy reading, far from any houses or sight of people, the Bible to him; so I made the boy read to me, which he did,* with the forced tone that children do usually read, that was mighty pretty, and then I did give him something, and went to the father, and talked with him; and I find he had been a servant in my cozen Pepys’s house,* and told me what was become of their old servants. He did content himself mightily in my liking his boy’s reading, and did bless God for him, the most like one of the old patriarchs* that ever I saw in my life, and it brought those thoughts of the old age of the world in my mind for two or three days after.
* The Epsom Downs. The action takes place near the home of Richard Evelyn, of Woodcote Park near Epsom. His wife Elizabeth was daughter and heir of George Mynne, Esq., of Horton in Epsom, and both the houses and the adjoining wood belonged to her. Samuel is accompanied by his pretty wife Elizabeth (then twenty-six, some seven years his junior) and his chief clerk William Hewer. Also present was Mrs Turner. Pepys knew two Mrs Turners: one was his cousin Jane, but this one was the wife of a clerk in the Navy Office, Thomas Turner.
* A useful corrective to the assumption that before State-mandated education at the end of the Victorian era, all children of the labouring classes were mired in illiteracy.
* Samuel’s ‘cozen’ (cousin) was John Pepys, who lived in the village of Ashted near Epsom; it was a house Samuel remembered for its plentiful mulberries.
* That is, Old Testament figures such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses, traditionally depicted as manly figures with luxuriant beards and flowing robes.
Précis
In his diary for July 14th, 1667, Samuel Pepys recounted a Sunday stroll in the Epsom countryside with his wife and two friends. While walking off a sprain, Pepys came across a shepherd, teaching his little boy to read the Bible. The diarist had the boy read out a passage, very creditably, and then engaged the father in conversation. (59 / 60 words)
In his diary for July 14th, 1667, Samuel Pepys recounted a Sunday stroll in the Epsom countryside with his wife and two friends. While walking off a sprain, Pepys came across a shepherd, teaching his little boy to read the Bible. The diarist had the boy read out a passage, very creditably, and then engaged the father in conversation.
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