Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/93

Rh From Rosslyn we went by train to Melrose, which, since the publication of Scott's Last Minstrel, has become a favourite haunt of tourists from all parts of the world. But few, however, can "mark it by the pale moon-light," for the moon seldom makes her appearance here, and on the night that we reached the place it was any thing but fair. However, though we saw the Abbey by the "gay beams of lightsome day," we could not fail being impressed with the grandeur of this ruined edifice with its lofty and imposing windows, its venerable ivy-covered walls, its beautifully carved and ornamented columns, its fretted vaults and the lonesome graves all around. After the lapse of ages, after all the ravages of time, and the cruel ravages of war what remains still challenges the admiration of visitors; the outlines are still sharp on account of the hardness of the stone, and the carvings are wonderfully fine.

By the small hamlet of Melrose runs the celebrated Tweed, and the banks of the Tweed arc beautiful indeed; cultivated fields and extensive pasture grounds and green hills with sheep and kine reposing on them, a quiet meandering river sleeping under the shades of evening, a few neat cottages peeping out from among the trees here and there, a lonely bridge on the Tweed, and now and then a lonely villager wending home after the toils of the day;—do not all these suggest ideas of quiet and repose and rural tranquillity,—do not all these call up in your mind a lovely picture?

Next morning we went to see the seal of Sir W. Scott,