It rained very hard all the day; I was thoroughly soak'd, and by noon
a good deal tired; so I stopt at a poor inn, where I staid all night,
beginning now to wish that I had never left home. I cut so miserable
a figure, too, that I found, by the questions ask'd me, I was
suspected to be some runaway servant, and in danger of being taken
up on that suspicion. However, I proceeded the next day, and got
in the evening to an inn, within eight or ten miles of Burlington,
kept by one Dr. Brown. He entered into conversation with me while I
took some refreshment, and, finding I had read a little, became very
sociable and friendly. Our acquaintance continu'd as long as he
liv'd. He had been, I imagine, an itinerant doctor, for there was no
town in England, or country in Europe, of which he could not give
a very particular account. He had some letters, and was ingenious,
but much of an unbeliever, and wickedly undertook, some years after,
to travestie the Bible in doggrel verse, as Cotton had done Virgil.
By this means he set many of the facts in a very ridiculous light,
and might have hurt weak minds if his work had been published;
but it never was.
At his house I lay that night, and the next morning reach'd Burlington,
but had the mortification to find that the regular boats were gone
a little before my coming, and no other expected to go before Tuesday,
this being Saturday; wherefore I returned to an old woman in the town,
of whom I had bought gingerbread to eat on the water, and ask'd
her advice.
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