which is but about three miles distant. The country between Melrose and
that place is not in the least beautiful, nor very noteworthy,--one or
two old irregular villages; one tower that looks principally domestic,
yet partly warlike, and seems to be of some antiquity; and an undulation,
or rounded hilly surface of the landscape, sometimes affording wide
vistas between the slopes. These hills, which, I suppose, are some of
them on the Abbotsford estate, are partly covered with woods, but of
Scotch fir, or some tree of that species, which creates no softened
undulation, but overspreads the hill like a tightly fitting wig. It is a
cold, dreary, disheartening neighborhood, that of Abbotsford; at least,
it has appeared so to me at both of my visits,--one of which was on a
bleak and windy May morning, and this one on a chill, showery morning of
midsummer.
The entrance-way to the house is somewhat altered since my last visit;
and we now, following the direction of a painted finger on the wall, went
round to a side door in the basement story, where we found an elderly man
waiting as if in expectation of visitors. He asked us to write our names
in a book, and told us that the desk on the leaf of which it lay was the
one in which Sir Walter found the forgotten manuscript of Waverley, while
looking for some fishing-tackle. There was another desk in the room,
which had belonged to the Colonel Gardiner who appears in Waverley. The
first apartment into which our guide showed us was Sir Walter's study,
where I again saw his clothes, and remarked how the sleeve of his old
green coat was worn at the cuff,--a minute circumstance that seemed to
bring Sir Walter very near me. Thence into the library; thence into the
drawing-room, whence, methinks, we should have entered the dining-room,
the most interesting of all, as being the room where he died. But this
room seems not to be shown now. We saw the armory, with the gun of Rob
Roy, into the muzzle of which I put my finger, and found the bore very
large; the beautifully wrought pistol of Claverhouse, and a pair of
pistols that belonged to Napoleon; the sword of Montrose, which I
grasped, and drew half out of the scabbard; and Queen Mary's iron
jewel-box, six or eight inches long, and two or three high, with a lid
rounded like that of a trunk, and much corroded with rust. There is no
use in making a catalogue of these curiosities. The feeling in visiting
Abbotsford is not that of awe; it is little more than going to a museum.
I do abhor this mode of making pilgrimages to the shrines of departed
great men. There is certainly something wrong in it, for it seldom or
never produces (in me, at least) the right feeling. It is an odd truth,
too, that a house is forever after spoiled and ruined as a home, by
having been the abode of a great man. His spirit haunts it, as it were,
with a malevolent effect, and takes hearth and hall away from the nominal
possessors, giving all the world the right to enter there because he had
such intimate relations with all the world.
We had intended to go to Dryburgh Abbey; but as the weather more than
threatened rain, . . . . we gave up the idea, and so took the rail for
Berwick, after one o'clock. On our road we passed several ruins in
Scotland, and some in England,--one old castle in particular, beautifully
situated beside a deep-banked stream. The road lies for many miles along
the coast, affording a fine view of the German Ocean, which was now blue,
sunny, and breezy, the day having risen out of its morning sulks. We
waited an hour or more at Berwick, and J----- and I took a hasty walk
into the town. It is a rough and rude assemblage of rather mean houses,
some of which are thatched. There seems to have been a wall about the
town at a former period, and we passed through one of the gates. The
view of the river Tweed here is very fine, both above and below the
railway bridge, and especially where it flows, a broad tide, and between
high banks, into the sea. Thence we went onward along the coast, as I
have said, pausing a few moments in smoky Newcastle, and reaching Durham
about eight o'clock.