Morning journal and courier., 1890-09-27
MIR. wAKEMAN,s JOURNRYINGs
At st. Boswells, Scotland-Roofless
Melrose Abbey-visited by Many.
Strangers and Pilgrims From For-
cign Lands-The vnnage or melrosc-
-Ouaiut Streets.


Strangers and Pilgrims From For-
cign Lands-The vInage or Telrosc-
-Quaint Streets.
ST. BoswELLs, Scotland, Aug. %.
To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
When you stand among the ruins of
great temples of the past, whether those
temples were the outgrowth of hero-wor-
ship, of pure patriotism, or of religious
alteration and zeal, your entire conscious
ness is swept by overwhelming though al
most indefinable emotion. From the har-
monies or discords of these effects there is
sometimes caught and crystalized from a
thrill of feeling an emphatic perception
and conviction. Melrose Abbey, roofess
to the sky, and Dryburgh Abbey, SO near
ly leveled that great trees spread strong
arms from its crumbling walls, above all
else tell you this: That which art tears
from natures arms with which to vainly
typify endlessness, nature inexorably de-
mands again. The ideal, the spiritual, in
art and all else, alone survives.
You will have this flashed upon you at
Melrose the moment you see the old clock
in its tower and hear its sadly-solemn bell
| measuring off the hours of irrevocable de-
cadence; and you will know it at Dry
burgh when you contemplate the fact that
SO little remains of the vast and magnifi-
cent pile that the very tomb of Scott must
soon be obliterated through the march of
surrounding decay. Both of these once
| tremendous structures are at the thresh
old of annihilation. Only the spiritual
aspiration, in kind, that created them re-
mains. Scott's dust mingles with Dry
burgh's verdure-covered heaps of crum-
bled sandstone. But the intellectual, the
spiritual, legacy he left to the world is I'M
mortal. And this is not preaching, unless
you wish to call by that name that which
flashes in upon you from out the very
shadows of these glorious old abbey ruins.
There is no doubt that Melrose Abbey is
yearly visited by more strangers and pill
grims from foreign lands than any other
great abbey, castle or palace in Scotland,
not excepting Holyrood Palace in Edin-
burgh; and briefly recalling its environ
ment and history will have interest to
many. The vale of Melrose lying in the
very heart of the valley of the Tweed
just below the confluence of Gala Water
the Yarrow, Etrick Water and the rivel
Tweed, is perhaps seven miles long. The
Tweed gently curves around it from Alb
! botsford on the west to the vicinity o.
Drygrange on the east, bordering and in
tersecting central spaces of about a mill
, in breadth, surprisingly rich in pastures
, groves, orchards, hamlets and mansions
These are protected by heights pictur
esquely diversified with tender recessel
, and wooded braes; while Immediately be
] hind the town, to the south, rise thos'
: weird, Mons Tremontium of the Romans
the Elldon Hills. Tradition has it tina
. they once formed single cone, which wa
: cleft in three, during an ecstacy of rag
a on the part of Scotland's once famou
q wizard-a real character of flesh ans
! blood and authenticated black-art powe
. Sir Michael Scott. They are nobl
Z heights around and between which ban
n ners of mist are forever floating, as if stil
: SIGNALING the olden Roman hosts, the wiz
!. ards. the Picts and the Druids they ono
knew. Sixteen grand terraces rib thei
lofty sides, recalling those marvellous na
ture-riddles of the north, the weird an
O wondrous parallel roads of lone and fa
+ Glenroy.
The village of Melrose itself is CON
pact little mass of curious old houses o
IT the ancient highway between Edinburg
It and Jedburgh. The latter is the waspis
"a old border town once called Jedhar
4 where, in Border days, they hung a
4 grade of strangers falling into their hand
e before they tried them; from which geni'
,f custom the expression "Jedhart" c
a sScotch Justice had its origin. Here an
a. there an occasional modern edifice col
"a trasts strangely with the bald, blackene
,e and crazy structures about them; and Il
f. latter squat in shrinking groups, patche
A. with glorious carvings stolen from the o.
m abbey, like lot of bedraggled mendican
a clad in the finery of ruined patron.
NJ One quaint, pretty street runs ava
n from the hamlet towards the manufactu
ing town of Galashiels, to the west, as
at ashamed of the squalor of its company;
q blank, drear, deserted triangular ops
nd space in the center of the village rende
ar it impossible for you to get into or out
~ It without suffering espionage and leyis