Piety

Up about four o’clock, and settled some private business of my own, then made me ready and to the office to prepare things for our meeting to-day.
By and by we met, and at noon Sir W. Pen and I to the Trinity House; where was a feast made by the Wardens, when great good cheer, and much, but ordinary company. The Lieutenant of the Tower, upon my demanding how Sir H. Vane died, told me that he died in a passion; but all confess with so much courage as never man died. Thence to the office, where Sir W. Rider, Capt. Cocke, and Mr. Cutler came by appointment to meet me to confer about the contract between us and them for 500 tons of hemp. That being done, I did other business and so went home, and there found Mr. Creed, who staid talking with my wife and me an hour or two, and I put on my riding cloth suit, only for him to see how it is, and I think it will do very well. He being gone, and I hearing from my wife and the maids’ complaints made of the boy, I called him up, and with my whip did whip him till I was not able to stir, and yet I could not make him confess any of the lies that they tax him with. At last, not willing to let him go away a conqueror, I took him in task again, and pulled off his frock to his shirt, and whipped him till he did confess that he did drink the whey, which he had denied, and pulled a pink, and above all did lay the candlestick upon the ground in his chamber, which he had denied this quarter of a year. I confess it is one of the greatest wonders that ever I met with that such a little boy as he could possibly be able to suffer half so much as he did to maintain a lie. I think I must be forced to put him away. So to bed, with my arm very weary.

My ready rage, a creed
I put on to see
how it is: thin whip, rock
and candle on the ground.
Denied wonder, I suffer
to maintain a lie.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 21 June 1662.

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