Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 1, 1894 - Miscellanies, Volume I

THE COAST OF FIFE
The triple town of Anstruther Wester, Anstruther
Easter, and Cellardyke, all three Royal Burghs — or
two Royal Burghs and a less distinguished suburb, I
forget wliich — Ues continuously along the seaside,
and boasts of either two or three separate parish
churches, and either two or three separate harbours.
These ambiguities are painful ; but the fact is (al-
though it argues me uncultured), I am but poorly
posted up on Cellardyke. My business lay in the
two Anstruthers. A tricklet of a stream divides
them, spanned by a bridge ; and over the bridge at
the time of my knowledge, the celebrated Shell
House stood outpost on the west. This had been
the residence of an agreeable eccentric ; during his
fond tenancy, he had illustrated the outer walls, as
high (if I remember rightly) as the roof, with elabo-
rate patterns and pictures, and snatches of verse in
the vein of ea^egi monumentum ; shells and pebbles,
artfully contrasted and conjoined, had been his
medium ; and I hke to think of him standing back
upon the bridge, when all was finished, drinking in
the general effect, and (hke Gibbon) already lament-
ing his employment.
The same bridge saw another sight in the seven-
teenth century. Mr. Thomson, the * curat ' of
Anstruther Easter, was a man highly obnoxious to
the devout : in the first place, because he was a
' cm-at '; in the second place, because he was a person
of irregular and scandalous life ; and in the third
place, because he was generally suspected of deaHngs
with the Enemy of Man. These three disquahfica-
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