ined. Could not stay at home with them
alone. We had the Skenes and Allan, and amused ourselves till ten
o'clock.

_June_ 15.--This being the day long since appointed for our cruise to
Fife, Thomas Thomson, Sir A. Ferguson, Will Clerk, and I, set off with
Miss Adam, and made our journey successfully to Charlton, where met Lord
Chief-Baron and Lord Chief-Commissioner, all in the humour to be happy,
though time is telling with us all. Our good-natured host, Mr. A.
Thomson, his wife, and his good-looking daughters, received us most
kindly, and the conversation took its old roll, in spite of woes and
infirmities. Charlton is a good house, in the midst of highly-cultivated
land, and immediately surrounded with gardens and parterres, together
with plantations, partly in the old, partly in the new, taste; I like it
very much; though, as a residence, it is perhaps a little too much
finished. Not even a bit of bog to amuse one, as Mr. Elphinstone said.

_June_ 16.--This day we went off in a body to St. Andrews, which Thomas
Thomson had never seen. On the road beyond Charlton saw a small cottage
said to have been the heritable appanage of a family called the _Keays_
[?]. He had a right to feed his horse for a certain time on the
adjoining pasture. This functionary was sent to Falkland with the fish
for the royal table. The ruins at St. Andrews have been lately cleared
out. They had been chiefly magnificent from their size--not their extent
of ornament. I did not go up to St. Rule's Tower as on former occasions;
this is a falling off, for when before did I remain sitting below when
there was a steeple to be ascended? But the rheumatism has begun to
change that vein for some time past, though I think this is the first
decided sign of acquiescence in my lot. I sat down on a grave-stone, and
recollected the first visit I made to St. Andrews, now thirty-four years
ago. What changes in my feeling and my fortune have since then taken
place! some for the better, many for the worse. I remembered the name I
then carved in Runic characters on the turf beside the castle-gate, and
I asked why it should still agitate my heart. But my friends came down
from the tower, and the foolish idea was chased away.[531]

_June_ 17.--Lounged about while the good family went to church. The day
is rather cold and disposed to rain. The papers say that the Corn Bill
is given up in consequence of the Duke of Wellington having carried the
amendment in the Hou