1891.
Aug. 28.
Melrose, Scotland.
  Clear and cool with high wind and a few dashes of rain.
  Started at 10 A.M. for Abbottsford in a landeau. Pretty
drive, the country hilly with patches of woods and fields of
ripe oats, and the swift flowing river. Abbottsford very unlike
what I expected, the grounds exceedingly artificial in the
Italian style. Saw the study, library, gun room and armory. In
the gun room many curious guns, one double barrel (flint-lock)
with one barrel directly over the other. Rob Roy's gun is a
single barrel of beautiful workmanship, the barrel long and ap-
parently oldfashioned Damascus, the stock symetrical. Hedge
Sparrows, Chaffinches and Robins about the house.
  Returned through town. Yellow Hammer in full song by road-
side. Thence to Dryburgh Abbey. Left carriage at river, crossed
foot bridge and walked about three quarters of a mile. Abbey is
very ruinous, deriving its chef beauty from the profusion of ivy
which overruns its crumbling walls. A wild Rabbit feeding in
cloisters startled by our approach. Robins numerous and in full
song. A Wren also singing. Saw a yew tree said to be 700 years
old. Surroundings of Abbey very beautiful, the trees and thick-
ets luxuriant and not offensively trim as its too apt to be the
case in England.
  Back to Melrose at 2 P.M. After lunch spent two hours in