One remark on this building, in Billings’s architectural account of it, interested me; and that is, that it is finished with the most circumstantial elegance and minuteness in those concealed portions which are excluded, from public view, and which can only be inspected by laborious climbing or groping; and he accounts for this by the idea that the whole carving and execution was considered as an act of solemn worship and adoration, in which the artist offered up his best faculties to the praise of the Creator.

[Illustration of gargoyles]

After lingering a while here, we went home to our inn or hotel.  Now, these hotels in the small towns of England, if this is any specimen, are delightful affairs for travellers, they are so comfortable and home-like.  Our snug little parlor was radiant with the light of the coal grate; our table stood before it, with its bright silver, white cloth, and delicate china cups; and then such a dish of mutton chops!  My dear, we are all mortal, and emotions of the beautiful and sublime tend especially to make one hungry.  We, therefore, comforted ourselves over the instability of earthly affairs, and the transitory nature of all human grandeur, by consolatory remarks on the present whiteness of the bread, the sweetness of the butter; and as to the chops, all declared, with one voice, that such mutton was a thing unknown in America.  I moved an emendation, except on the sea coast of Maine.  We resolved to cherish the memory of our little hostess in our heart of hearts, and as we gathered round the cheery grate, drying our cold feet, we voted that poetry was a humbug, and damp, old, musty cathedrals a bore.  Such are the inconsistencies of human nature!

“Nevertheless,” said I to S——­, after dinner, “I am going back again to-night, to see that abbey by moonlight.  I intend to walk the whole figure while I am about it.”

Just on the verge of twilight I stepped out, to see what the town afforded in the way of relics.  To say the truth, my eye had been caught by some cunning little tubs and pails in a window, which I thought might be valued in the home department.  I went into a shop, where an auld wife soon appeared, who, in reply to my inquiries, told me, that the said little tubs and pails were made of plum tree wood from Dryburgh Abbey, and, of course, partook of the sanctity of relics.  She and her husband seemed to be driving a thriving trade in the article, and either plum trees must be very abundant at Dryburgh, or what there are must be gifted with that power of self-multiplication which inheres in the wood of the true Cross.  I bought them in blind faith, however, suppressing all rationalistic doubts, as a good relic hunter should.