THE TWEED AT DRYBURGH. 275 
edifices which, three or four centuries ago, formed the 
strongholds of Christianity on Tweedside. It wants 
the ornateness and beauty, both of design and work- 
manship, which characterise the Gothic structure at 
Melrose ; it does not pretend to cope in altitude and 
stern simplicity with its Norman sister at Kelso, 
nor yet does it affect a comparison with the mas- 
sive and still: tenable walls and coping which 
appertain to its Jeddart colleague; but being 
more impressively a ruin than any of them, it 
has that which none of the others have, or are ever 
likely to have—surroundings which befit its char- 
acter, elevating as well as adorning it. Yews and 
ivies are here in profusion, and venerable orchard 
trees, the products of which it is allowable to imagine 
were partaken of by monks and devotees, not to say 
reivers and Southron invaders, in the olden days. 
And there are oaks of course (for the site of the 
Abbey is said to have been that of a Druidical 
shrine or city—the name itself supports this tra- 
dition), and other growths showing foliage of varied 
hues, in abundance. But the grand attraction—that 
which no doubt moved most the soul of Sir Walter 
Scott when still in the body, to desire as a resting- 
place this God’s-acre—was the elbow of the river 
which clasps it. Climb with me, tired angler, to the 
Braeheads, as they are called, which form the rear 
ground of Lessuden village, and look. down upon the 
