London to JoJm Cf Groat's. 343 



chapter on it when I have seen most of the other ruins 

 of the kind in the kingdom. The French are given to 

 the habit of festooning the monuments and graves of 

 their relatives and friends with immortelles. Nature has 

 hung one of hers to Dryburgh Abbey. It is a yew- 

 tree opposite the door by which you enter the ruins. 

 The year-rings of its trunk register all the centuries 

 that the stones of the oldest wall have stood imbedded 

 one upon the other. The tree is still green, putting 

 forth its leaf in its season. But there is an immortelle 

 hung to these dark, crumbling walls that shall outlive 

 the greenest trees now growing on earth. Here, in a 

 little vaulted chapel, or rather a deep niche in the wall, 

 lie the remains of Sir Walter Scott, his wife and the 

 brilliant Lockhart. How many thousands of all lands 

 where the English language is spoken will come and 

 stand here in mute and pensive communion before the 

 iron gate of this family tomb and look through the 

 bars upon this group of simply-lettered stones ! 



From Dryburgh I walked back to Melrose on the 

 east side of the Tweed. Lost the foot-path, and for 

 two hours clambered up and down the precipitous cliffs 

 that rise high and abrupt from the river. In many 

 places the zig-zag path was cut into the rock, hardly a 

 foot in breadth, overhanging a precipice which a person 

 of weak nerves could hardly face with composure. At 



