342 A Walk from 



public and private wars which cover such a space of 

 of the country's life as an independent nation. The 

 Douglas family especially with several of its branches 

 found a resting-place for their dust within these walls. 

 Built and rebuilt, burnt and reburnt, mutilated, dis- 

 membered, consecrated and desecrated make up the 

 history of Jthis celebrated edifice, and that of its like, 

 from Land's End to John O'Groat's. It is a slight but 

 a very appreciable mitigation of these destructive acts 

 that it was ruined artistically ; just as some enthusiastic 

 castle and abbey-painter would have suggested. 



Although I spent the night at Melrose, it was a dark 

 and cloudy one, so that I could not see the abbey by 

 moonlight a view so much prized and celebrated. 

 The next day I literally walked from morning till 

 evening among the tombstones of antiquity and monu- 

 ments of Scotch history invested with an interest which 

 will never wane. In the first place, I went down the 

 Tweed a few miles and crossed it in a ferry-boat to see 

 Dryburgh Abbey. Here, embowered among the trees 

 in a silver curve of the river, stands this grand monu- 

 ment of one of the most remarkable ages of the world. 

 Within an hour's walk from Melrose, and four or five 

 years only after the completion of that edifice, the 

 foundations of this were laid. It is astonishing. We 

 will not dwell upon it now, but make a separate 



