Spencer continued in Cambridge, and read, or idled, as the tone of his mind directed, until the 31st of July, 1818. This morning he set off, at half-past five, in the _Rising Sun_, for Birmingham; he falls in with a brilliant Etonian, who recounts the progress of things at his old school; and has to sleep in what he calls "the most uncomfortable and uncivil inn I have ever seen." He sets off on another coach next morning for Shrewsbury, and finds, to his agreeable surprise, that Fremantle travelled by the inside of the same vehicle. They both travel together into Wales, having first procured a supply of candles, tea, and other commodities for housekeeping, which they did not hope to find at hand where they were going to. After many long stages, up-hill and down-hill, among Welsh mountains, and strange fellow-travellers, they arrive at Towyn, at ten o'clock at night on the 2nd of August, having been nearly three days performing a journey which can now be accomplished in a few hours. Towyn is a little town in Merionethshire, situated on the sea coast, on a neck of land formed by a graceful little creek, into which the River Doluny empties itself, and a kind of sloping arm of the channel. Here Spencer and Fremantle took up their residence for the long vacation, in a nice little house for which they paid ten guineas a month. They had the whole premises to themselves, with a waiting-man named Davis, and a maid Kitty. Their mode of life was very regular. They rose early, bathed in the sea, which rolled its waves against their premises, breakfasted, and studied till two o'clock. It was customary with them then to go out exploring with dog and gun until dinner, dine at five, take another stroll, and read again until they thought it time to take tea, {46} and chat until bed-time. Each in turn was steward for a week; they purchased their own provisions in the little town, thus making a regular home there for the term of their stay. They read pretty well for the first week or two; afterwards they got so fond of brisk air and the adventures they came across in their daily walks, that the reading became less agreeable, and soon irksome. The first adventure recorded in the journal is the following. They were both returning home after a two hours' vain pursuit of game, and came across a gouty old gentleman, who asked them a number of impertinent questions. He then asked them to dine, but finding out on inquiry that he was "a notorious blackguard," although great in lands and money, they politely declined his invitation. Another time they rode a great way up the country and stopped at a pretty place, which they found, to their chagrin, not to be a fairy castle exactly, but "a grand shop for gossip, kept by two old ladies, assisted by a third," at whose qualifications in point of age the reader is left to make guesses. Another day they went out to shoot, and met another serious adventure, which is thus noted: "I got an