dark skies hung over the Cheviots and the Eildon, and over the haughs of Ettrick and Yarrow; the silver Tweed ran leaden, and moaned in its going; there was a keening in the wind.
The road from Abbotsford past Melrose to Dryburgh is—perhaps—the loveliest walk in the United Kingdom; unless it be the road from Coventry past Kenilworth to Stratford. It was by this very way that there passed the funeral train of Scott, the chief carriage drawn by Scott's own horses. Thousands and thousands of pilgrims have followed that funeral train; one goes to Holy Trinity in Stratford, to the Invalides in Paris, but one walks to Dryburgh through the beautiful Tweedside which is all a shrine to Sir Walter.
The road runs away from the river to the little village of Darnick, with its ivy-shrouded tower, across the meadows to the bridge across the river, with the ringing of bells in the ear. For it was ordered on that September day of 1832, by the Provost, "that the church bell shall toll from the time the funeral procession reaches Melrose Bridge till it passes the village of Newstead."
I do not suppose the people of this countryside, who look at modern pilgrims so sympathetically, so understandingly, have ever had time to forget; the stream of pilgrims has been so uninterrupted for nearly a century. Through the market-place of Melrose it passed, the sloping stony square, where people of the village pass and repass on their little village errands. And it did not stop at the Abbey.
The day was thickening into dusk then; it is ripening into sunset glory to-day. And the Abbey looks very lovely, and very lonely. And one wonders if Michael Scot did not call to Walter Scott to come and join the quiet there, and if the dust that once was the heart of Bruce did not stir a little as the recreator of Scotland was carried by.
To the village of Newstead you move on; with the sound of immemorial bells falling on the ear, and pass through the little winding street—and wonder if the early Roman name of Trimontium, triple mountains, triple Eildon, was its first call name out of far antiquity as Scott believed.
Then the road ascends between hedgerows, and begins to follow the Tweed closely—and perhaps you meet pilgrims on Leaderfoot bridge who have come the wrong way. There is a steep climb to the heights of Bemersyde, where on the crest all Melrose Glen lies beautifully storied before you. And here you pause—as did those horses of Scott's, believing their master would fain take one last look at his favourite view.
There is no lovelier landscape in the world, or in Scotland. The blue line of the Cheviots bars back the world, the Dunion, the Ruberslaw, the Eildon rise, and in the great bend of the river with richly wooded braes about is the site of Old Melrose. Small wonder he paused to take farewell of all the country he had loved so well.
The road leads on past Bemersyde village with woodlands on either side, and to the east, near a little loch, stands Sandyknowe Tower.
Near the tower lies the remnant of the village of Smailholm, where Scott was sent out of Edinburgh when only three years old. It is in truth his birthplace, for without the clear air of the Border he would have followed the other Scott children; and without the romance of the Border he might have been merely a barrister.
Sandyknowe is brave in spite of its ruin, for it is built of the very stone of the eternal hills, and has become part of the hills. From its balcony, sixty feet high, a beautiful Scottish panorama may be glimpsed, and here Scott brought Turner to make his sketch of the Border. And here, because a kinsman agreed to save Sandyknowe Tower from the mortality that comes even to stone if Scott would write a ballad and make it immortal, is laid the scene of "Eve of St. John's"—with these last haunting intangible lines—
"There is a nun in Dryburgh bower
Ne'er looks upon the sun;
There is a monk in Melrose tower
He speaketh a word to none."
Then, back to the Tweed, where the river sweeps out in a great circle, and leaves a peninsula for Dryburgh. The gray walls of the ruin lift above the thick green of the trees; yew and oak and sycamore close in the fane.
Druid and Culdee and Roman have built shrines in this lovely spot, but to-day pilgrimage is made chiefly because in the quiet sheltered ruined St. Mary's aisle sleeps Sir Walter. It would make one-half in love with death to think of being buried in so sweet a place.
Dryburgh is also one of St. David's foundations, in the "sacred grove of oaks," the Darach Bruach of the worship that is older than Augustus or Columba. These were white monks that David brought up from Alnwick where his queen had been a Northumbrian princess, and their white cloaks must have seemed, among these old old oaks, but the white robes of the Druids come back again.
It is a well-kept place, vines covering over the crumbling gray stone, kept by the Lords of Buchan. And, perhaps too orderly, too fanciful, too "improved"; one likes better the acknowledged ruin of Melrose, and one would prefer that Sir Walter were there with his kin, instead of here with his kindred. But this is a sweet place, a historic place, begun by Hugh de Moreville, who was a slayer of Thomas à Becket, and was Constable of Scotland. His tomb is marked by a double circle on the floor of the Chapter House, and there is nothing of the Chapter House; it is open to beating rain and scorching sun—fit retribution for his most foul deed.
It is not this remembrance you carry away, but that of St. Mary's aisle, in
"Dryburgh where with chiming Tweed
The lintwhites sing in chorus."
CHAPTER III
BORDER TOWNS
Kelso
t is a very great little country which lies all about Melrose, with never a bend of the river or a turn of the highway or a shoulder of the hill, nay, scarce the shadow of any hazel bush or the piping of any wee bird but has its history, but serves to recall what once was; and because the countryside is so teeming seems to make yesterday one with to-day. The distances are very short, even between the places the well-read traveler knows; with many places that are new along the way, each haunted with its tradition, soon to haunt the traveler, while the people he meets would seem to have been here since the days of the Winged Hats.
Perhaps in order to get into the center of the ecclesiastical country—for after this being a Borderland, and a Scott-land, it is decidedly Abbots-land, even before Abbotsford came into being with its new choice of old title—the traveler will take train to Kelso, or walk there, a scant dozen miles from Melrose.
The journey is down the Tweed, which opens ever wider between the gentle hills that are more and more rounding as the flow goes on to the sea. There is not such intense loneliness; here is the humanest part of the Scottish landscape, and while even on this highway the cottages are not frequent, and one eyes the journeymen with as close inspection as one is eyed, still it is a friendly land. The southern burr—we deliberately made excuse of drinking water or asking direction in order to hear it—is softer than in the North; yet, you would not mistake it for Northumberland. We wondered
