Jcdbiirgh Abbey. 273 



a prodigious flock of pea-fowl came from the woods 

 around to be fed. 



I now went to the vicinity of Kelso to visit my 

 brother and sister-in-law, General and Mrs. Elliot, 

 who lived on the banks of the Tweed. We went to 

 Jedburgh, the place of my birth. After many years 

 I still thought the valley of the Jed very beautiful ; 

 I fear the pretty stream has been invaded by manu- 

 factories : there is a perpetual war between civiliza- 

 tion and the beauty of nature. I went to see the spot 

 from whence I once took a sketch of Jedburgh Abbey 

 and the manse in which I was born, which does not 

 exist, I believe, now. When I was a very young girl 

 I made a painting from this sketch. Our next 

 excursion was to a lonely village called Yetholm, in 

 the hills, some miles from Kelso, belonging to the 

 gipsies. The " king " and the other men were absent, 

 but the women were civil, and some of them very 

 pretty. Our principal object in going there was to 

 see a stone in the wall of a small and very ancient 

 church at Linton, nearly in ruins, on which is carved 

 in relief the wyvern and wheel, the crest of the 

 Somervilles. 



From Kelso I went to Edinburgh to spend a few 

 days with Lord Jeffrey and his family. No one who 

 had seen his gentle kindness in domestic life, and 

 the warmth of his attachment to his friends, could 



