Edinburgh about noon.  By motor, we were out of the city about three o’clock, and though we covered more than eighty miles, we were back before lamp-lighting time.  The road to Dryburgh Abbey runs nearly due south from Edinburgh, and the country through which we passed was hardly so prosperous looking as the northeastern section of Scotland—­much of it rather rough-looking country, adapted only for sheep-grazing and appearing as if it might be reclaimed moorland.

The tomb of Walter Scott is in Dryburgh Abbey, and with the possible exception of Melrose it probably has more visitors than any other point in Scotland outside of Edinburgh.  The tourist season had hardly begun, yet the caretaker told us that more than seventy people had been there during the day and most of them were Americans.  The abbey lies on the margin of the River Tweed, the silver stream so beloved of Scott, and though sadly fragmentary, is most religiously cared for and the decay of time and weather held in check by constant repairs and restoration.  The many thousands of admission fees every year no doubt form a fund which will keep this good work going indefinitely.  The weather-beaten walls and arches were overgrown with masses of ivy and the thick, green grass of the newly mown lawn spread beneath like a velvet carpet.  We had reached the ruin so late that it was quite deserted, and we felt the spirit of the place all the more as we wandered about in the evening silence.  Scott’s tomb, that of his wife and their eldest son are in one of the chapels whose vaulted roof still remains in position.  Tall iron gates between the arches enclose the graves, which are marked with massive sarcophagi of Scotch granite.  Dryburgh Abbey was at one time the property of the Scott family, which accounts for its use as their burial-ground.  It has passed into other hands, but interments are still made on rare occasions.  The spot was one which always interested and delighted Scott and it was his expressed wish that he be buried there.

We had been warned that the byways leading to the abbey from the north of the Tweed were not very practicable for motors and we therefore approached it from the other side.  This made it necessary to cross the river on a flimsy suspension bridge for foot-passengers only, and a notice at each end peremptorily forbade that more than half a dozen people pass over the bridge at one time.  After crossing the river it was a walk of more than a mile to the abbey, and as we were tempted to linger rather long it was well after six o’clock when we re-crossed the river and resumed our journey.  Melrose is twelve miles farther on and the road crosses a series of rather sharp hills.  We paused for a second glimpse of Melrose Abbey, which has frequently been styled the most perfect and beautiful ecclesiastical ruin in Britain.  We were of the opinion, however, that we had seen at least three or four others more extensive and of greater architectural merit.  Undoubtedly the high praise given Melrose