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both for my estate and to dine with one who has dined with the King and can tell stories of the court and the nation’s great. But where thedinner be no better than our own — and often worse, for our orchards, gardens, fields be as good as any in the county — and the conversation offers no more than the price of wool or the rising of the river or the chance of snow, there is little to tempt me out.
    Indeed this day I was content with Susanna and Dr Hall, who came to support my wife during the tooth pulling and joined us this morning to dine, and stayed to supper; both have wit and sense. Even Judith seemed content, with no complaining. Her closer friendship with Miss Catherine must do her good, for it be weeks now since she complained that I have not yet found a husband for her.
    We played at cards after dinner, while the cold wind prowled at our windows, and then snapdragon, flicking raisins of the sun from the burning brandy, till Dr Hall burnt his cuffs, and Susanna, laughing, told him he must mend them himself, for was it not a doctor’s art to mend?
    Tomorrow morning I am invited to discuss poor relief this winter with the Lord Sheriff of the county, no doubt to dine after. I think we will discuss not the giving of alms and soup, but hunting and London gossip; and this a way of one so high inviting me to share his table without my wife. She is a good wife, but does not shine in company.
    Though my wife keeps to her room, she instructed the servants well, and this day before the surgeon came set the maids to picking mushrooms in the woods for pickling; the men to husking chestnuts and seeing them well stored for winter.
    Our carrots, beets, skirrets, root celery, turnips, sweet Canada potatoes and parsnips are dug and stored within our cellar, and one sack of Virginia potatoes too, which I grew to like in my London days. My wife will not let our daughters eat them, for she says they are the Devil’s crop,not mentioned in the Bible. The asparagus in the beds heated by manure do well, with white stems that I much enjoy, and the hot beds of endives and salletting are well set too . . .
    Enough! And why do I prattle of manure beds when matters of such substance mock my dreams? You are a coward, man! Lamb heart and primrose metalled, unable to set down your deepest heart. Yet I have done so, in play and poem, opened my secret heart to royalty, to nobles and to ten thousand common men, calling it a fiction. Surely I can write and call it ‘truth’ now?
    For Judyth’s name and those long-flung days are brighter than the autumn sun that sails sad beyond my window. Days of fiercest joy open in my mind, and yet those days contain my deepest sin, that snarls still about my conscience; and worse, my father’s sin, how he who gave me most did sell me too. Can one still love a man, and honour him, and yet in old age still not forgive? Is that why my pen halts now?
    I will write of Judyth, and of my father too. But conscience doth make cowards of us all. I cannot write it yet.
    Dinner: a haunch of mutton; roast steaks with gravy; pigeons of our own fattening; a pie of venison and one of apple; a dish of peas and chestnuts; sallet of endive, radish, sorrel, cabbage lettuce; aniseed comfits; strong cheese; butter with saffron and liquorice; wafers; October beer and ale to drink. Supper: white soup; a chicken pie with spinach; Canada potato fritters; plain butter; maslin bread; new ale.
    Bowels: continue well, and waters frothy, which Dr Hall tells me is from much ale.

Wednesday, 11th November 1615, Martinmas, St Martin’s Day
    Today be filled with the lowing of cattle, protesting geese and screaming pigs, their fortune bloody death then tasty ham, as all but breeding stock are killed and hung for winter. In the forecourt of New Place, we roast an ox for my tenants all to dine, as today be also the quarter-day for rent and settlement. The air be thick with the smell of fresh bread piled upon the