Vol.1 f.001 recto (Chapter 1) (Example of work in progress)

[Some text has been cut off at the top of the page - perhaps the novel's title, or Master Humphrey's Clock. This is followed by double underlining that survives. Ink from the false start on the verso is also visible.]

[In another hand - ???udge]
Chapter I

In the year 1775, there stood upon the borders of Epping
Forest at a distance of about sixteen twelve miles from London
measuring from the Standard in Cornhill, or rather from the
spot on or near to which the Standard [???? ??????] was in used to be in
days of yore, a house of public entertainment called the
Maypole; a fact which which fact was demonstrated to all such travellers as all of the Maypole itself [???] the sign being
[????] and [?????? ????? ?] intelligible to those who could neither
read nor write ( and sixty five years ago (and at that time a (vast number both of
poor persons[???] travellers and stay-at-homes were in this condition) by the emblem reared
[???] [by?] on the road side over against the house, which [?????], if
not of [????] those goodly proportions which Maypoles were wont to [???????] present
[?????] in old times, was a fair ash [??] young ash higher?
than [??? ????] height [??] thirty feet in height and straight
as any arrow that any ever English yeoman drew.
The Maypole -- by which term from henceforth is meant
the house, itself and not its sign -- the Maypole was an
old London red brick house building with more gable ends than a