The Portland daily press., 1886-01-27
OUR FOREIGN LETTER.
eclal correspondence Of the Press.

Especial correspondence of the PREssJ
MELRosE, DRYBURGH AND ABBoTsFoRD.
The poets of the past and present have
sung the praises of Melrose and Dryburgh.
Everybody wanders up and down their desert
ed aisles by moonlight, when the shadows
suggest weird fancies and enhance the scene
with wondrous charms They both must have
been very beautiful, as the ruins show some
of the exquisite figures of the Saviour and the
apostles, and most delicate carvings of plants
and animals upon the pilasters. Enough of
the fretted and sculptured roof at Melrose is
preserved to make it quite possible for
student of architecture to reconstruct the
whole in his imagination. A bell still
hangs in one of the arches of Melrose Abbey,
and when we heard its soft accents on the
evening air we wondered that it should be
left to swing out an unanswered call to YES
pers for all these centuries.
At Melrose the Abbey Hotel standing close
to the gate of the ruins, and partly built out
of the old material, lisa cosy, home-like place.
The former landlord, a naturalist and scien-
fist, has embellished this queer little inn
with great variety of birds, beasts and
natural curiosities. Our driver chose
charming circular drive to take us from Mel
rose to Dryburgh, over picturesque suspen-
sion bridge across the Tweed, where the lazy
angler whiled away his summer afternoon,
little caring whether the salmon would bite
or not, as he stretched himself upon the bank
and inhaled the sweet breath of the wood
land flowers. We entered the grounds of
Dryburgh through long avenue of stately
trees, whose trunks and the walls on either
side, were festooned with ivies. Up to this
time we had gathered sprigS and cuttings
from each old ruin, until we had collected
so many we feared our friends would fail to
distinguish the peculiar fragrance of each
spot. Enchanting, as the. landscape in
dream, these places may be, still the loneliness
is so oppressive within these walls, which
seem only fit to shelter the young sparrows
and to echo back the screech of the owl and
the caw-caw of the raven, that we marvelled
the dying could wish to be placed or the liv-
ing could bear to consign their loved dead to
such forsaken and forlorn tombs of the past.
Walter Scott and all his family rest here in
one corner of st. Mary's aisle. The place is
jealousy protected from the tread of the
relic-destroyer, the tourist of the nineteenth
century, by an open iron railing, which per-
mits one to gaze upon the tablets. Loving
hands may strew flowers in vain to take
away one iota of the feeling of desolation
and hopeless death that envelopes such
mass of crumbling ruins, upon which Times
busy fingers perpetually carve one text,
"dust unto dust"
From the grave of Scott we went to Alb
bottsford, his beloved home Every niche
ard corner spoke of its owner, and was
crowded with Illustrations of his successful
life. The place is an earthly paradise to the
antiquarian. Were we to give you cata-
logue of the contents of its archives you
would think us as unlzind and tantalizing,
since you cannot see them now, as we dubbed
the guide churlish and mercenary. We know
there are rogues and scamps who go to such
places, and we know, too, we do not look
like them. A man is not fit for his position
who has not wit enough to tell honest folks,
and to know decent man could never en-
terrain such iniquity in his heart as to injure
or purloin the meanest of these household
idols If child innocently tarried mo-
ment to take a second look he would call out
in the gruffest tones, Come along, out of
herev The books, the favorite seat in the
window, the study table strewn with letters
and manuscripts, the pen, the canes, the
clothes and the hat, made it impossible to re-
alize the former occupant might not step in
at any moment, and when the door opened
you turned to apologize for your intrusion
into his sanctum.
Walter Scott was a dear lover of antiqui-
ties, and had the means and rare opportunity
TO qet possession of the choicest in the king
dom. There was armor of every age and
every clan, Waterloo relics, Rob Roy's purse,
Flora Macdonald bag, the mistletoe chest,
the little pocket utensils Scott used as
child. and multitudinous portraits and curl
osities. There was a sad picture of Queen
Mary's head in charger, taken after her ex-
ecution, and near that hung cross OF ebony
and pearl which she wore to the scanola'
little miss fell to sobbing and signing at the
sight of these visible signs OF suffering,
winch object lesson affected her more deeply,
ana persuaded in that, which argument ana
phllosophy had failed, of the wisdom OF
Gods appointed lot in life for each of his
children. The glitter of the crown Jewels,
all the paraphernalia of nobility, and the
spacious castles had made the little child
miserable and discontinued that she was
not of royal lineage She quite wore out our
patience with her questionings of Provi-
dence; "Why wasn't queen? 1 would
be a good queen. Can't ever be queen?
Wouldn't the people like TO have me for
their queen?" and so on We had utter