porter for their kindness to us, we spent some time in a solemn
meeting, to return our thankful acknowledgment to the Lord, both for
his preservation of us in prison and deliverance of us out of it;
and then taking a solemn farewell of each other, we departed with
bag and baggage. And I took care to return my hammock to the owner,
with due acknowledgment of his great kindness in lending it me.

Being now at liberty, I visited more generally my friends that were
still in prison, and more particularly my friend and benefactor
William Penington, at his house, and then went to wait upon my
Master Milton, with whom yet I could not propose to enter upon my
intermitted studies until I had been in Buckinghamshire, to visit my
worthy friends Isaac Penington and his virtuous wife, with other
friends in that country.

Thither therefore I betook myself, and the weather being frosty, and
the ways by that means clean and good, I walked it throughout in a
day, and was received by my friends there with such demonstration of
hearty kindness as made my journey very easy to me.

I had spent in my imprisonment that twenty shillings which I had
received of Wm. Penington, and twenty of the forty which had been
sent me from Mary Penington, and had the remainder then about me.
That therefore I now returned to her, with due acknowledgment of her
husband's and her great care of me, and liberality to me in the time
of my need. She would have had me keep it; but I begged of her to
accept it from me again, since it was the redundancy of their
kindness, and the other part had answered the occasion for which it
was sent: and my importunity prevailed.