Page:Sussex archaeological collections, volume 9.djvu/233

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within a twelvemonth, and, by the appearance of it, I suppose it to be myself.

"15th.- I left the following letter for Mr. John Langham:-

"'This is humbly to intreat the faivour that you will please, at the first agreeable opportunity, to know of Mr. Tapsell, whether he shall make any alteration in his furnace clerks; if he should, please to inform him that it is my desire to serve him in that capacity. The reason for endeavouring to leave Mayfield, is on account of some disagreeable alterations the trustees are making in the school.

"'Sir, your very humble servant.'

"27th.- I was told this day that old Kent, by reason of his having been treated by his cousin John Collins, yesterday at the Star, got very drunk, at 12 o'clock at night, which occasioned him to be absent from divine service this day forenoon.

"Saturday, 29th.- Went to Beale's, to read the newspaper. Mr. Olive said that he and Samuel Young, last Saturday night, were with old Kent, at the Forge, and that he paid his reckoning freely; that towards 10 o'clock in the morning they had him home, and that, notwithstanding the old woman's scolding, they staid drinking a bottle or two of the old man's beer and left him on the bed extremely drunk.

"August 2.- The Wadhurst gentlemen came to play a cricket with those of Mayfield, when the former beat the latter by 106.

"Sunday, Sept. 17th.- The old man met the children, and heard some of them say the Lord's Prayer.

"Dec. 14th.- The two old men, Kent and Edwards, came to school, and attended while the boys went through the Exposition and Catechism, and also reading the prayers. I delivered to him the abstract I had made of the Christian Schoolmaster Instructed; he promised to return it to me in a little time.

"8th Jan. 1759.- Left at Ruth Levett's a pair of stays of my mother; on coming away, she told me that she was, the Saturday before, at old Kent's; whilst she was there, old Sawyer came in to whom old Kent said he might take away his book again, meaning my manuscript; that the old woman had read it over to him, and that it was the **** nonsense