, 1890-10-02
AFOOT IN SCOTLAND.
Among the Ruins of the
Famous Melrose Abbey,
ITS CLOCK TOWER AND BELL
Beauties and Attractions of Dry
burg Abbey-Ruin Merged
Into Eiysium.

ST. BoswELIs, Scotland Aug. %.
When you stand among the
ruins of great temples of the past,
whether the outgrowth Of hero
worship, Of pure patriotism, or of
religious alteration and zeal, your
entire consciousness Is swept by
overwhelming though almost in
deflnable emotion. From the har-
monies or discords of these effects
there Is sometimes caught and crys-
tallized from thrill Of feeling an
emphatic perception aud conviction.
Melrose Abbey, roofless to the sky,
and Dryburgh Abbey, so nearly lev
eled that great trves 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, ma
cure inexorably demands 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
it's sadly solemn bell measuring Off
the hours of irrevocable decadence;
and you will know 1t at Dryburg
when you contemplate the fact that
80 little remains of the vast and
magnificent pile that the very tomb
of Scott must soon be obliterated
through the march of surrounding
decay. Both of these once tremen-
dous structures are ut the threshold
of annihilation. Only the spiritual
aspiration, In kind, that created
them remains. Scott's dust mingles
with Dryburgh's verdure-covered
heaps Of crumbled sandstone. But
the intellectual, the spiritual, legacy
he left to the world is immortal.
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.
MELRosE ABBEY.
There is no doubt that Melrose
Abbey is yearly visited by more
strangers and pilgrims from foreign
lands than any other great abbey,
castle or palace In Scotland, not ex-
ceptilg Holyrood Palace, Ia Edin-
burgh; and briefly recalling its en-
vironment and history will have in
terest to many. The vale of Mel
rose lying In the very heart of the
valley of the Tweed, just below the
confluence Of Gala Water, the Var
row. Etrick Water and the river
Tweed, is perhaps seven miles long.
The Tweed gently curves around it
from Abbotsford on the west to the
vicliity of Drygrange on the east,
bordering and intersecting central
spaces OF about n mile in breadth,
surprisingly rich in pastures,
groves, orchards, hamlets and man
sioDs. These are protected by
heights picturesquely diversi-
fled with tender recesses
and wooded braes; while
Immediately behind the town,
TO the south, rise those weird, Mons
TreInontium of the Romans, the
Eildon hills. Tradition has Ii that
they once formed single cone.
which was cleft In three during an
ecstasy of rage on the part of Scot
lands once famous wizard-a real
character of flesh and blood and
authenticated black-art power-Sir
Michael scott. They are noble
heights, around and between which
banners oI mist are forever floating,
as If still signaling the olden Roman
hosts, the Picis and the Druids they
once knew. Sixteen grand terraces
rib their lofty sides, recalling those
marvellous nature-riddles of the
North. the weird and wondrous
parallel roads of lone and far Glen
roy.
The village of Melrose itself Ia n
compact little mass of curious old
houses on the ancient highway
between Edinburgh aud Jedburgh.
The latter 10 the waspish old border
town once called Jedhart where, In
border days, they hung all grade of
strangers falling into their hands be-
fore they tried them; from which
genial custom the expression "Jed-
hart' or "Scotch justice" had its
origin. Here and there an occa-
sional modern edifice contrasts
strangely with the bald, blackened
and crazy structures about them;
and the latter squat in shrinking
groups. patched with glorious carv-
tngs stolen from the old abbey, like
q lot of bedrsggled mendicants clad
In the iinery of u ruined patron.
HISTORY OF THE ABBEY.
One quaint, pretty street runs
away from the hamlet toward the
manufacturing town Of Galashie
to the west, as If ashamed of the
squalor OF Its company; blank,
drear, deserted triangular open
space In the center of the village
renders 1t impossible for you to get
into or out of IL without suffering
espionage and levies; market cross
ns old as the abbey itself rears its
gray and grizzled column i'm a
dreary corner of the town; three or
four thoroughfares shut in 10y ram.
shackle houses merge into one which
leads across the Tweed into near
Gattonside, the oldest and
sleepiest housing of odd and
leepy folk in all Scotland;
and perched above all, not IL thou.
sand feet from the abbey itself, is a
smart railway station looking COLI
temptuously down upon the hud-
died dreariness and decay below.