two heavy stones in the creel can make the ballast effectual. A story is told of an old fishwife who was 'stotting' home in this condition, when she wandered from her right path and got on to the beach, where she stumbled and fell. As drunkenness prevented her from rising, she lay where she was, and at length fell asleep. The tide began to make,' and in due time had risen until it had approached the drunken fishwife, and sprinkled her face. She was snoring, with her mouth open, but awoke on tasting the unaccustomed fluid, and exclaimed, in a deprecatory tone, 'Hey, Jenny, you're changing the drink on us noo " It is scarcely necessary to say that the Christie Johnstones of real life are enabled to drink ardent spirits in quantities proportioned to the fatigue they undergo and the burdens they carry. 'Males and females,' says Mr. Reade, suck whiskey like milk, and are quarrelsome in proportion; the men fight (round handed), the women fleicht or scold in the form of a tea-pot-the handle fixed, and the spout sawing the air.' An anecdote is told of Dr. Johnstone, once the minister of North Leith, who had rebuked a Newhaven fisherman, Adam Lucksie by name, for his ignorance in scriptural matters. Adam promised amendment, and the minister left a catechism for the joint benefit of Mr. and Mrs. Lucksie. But Adam, the very next day, relapsed into his former habits; and returning home drunk, fell and hurt his face. At this crisis the minister was seen approaching, and was received by Jenny Lucksie, who was busily engaged in mending a net, having placed her husband safely in bed and out of sight. Where was her gude man ?' ''Deed, then, he was awa' fishing.' 'Ha'ye read the catechis?' 'Deed, then, I ha'. The minister thought he would put this assertion to the test. Weel, THE CAUSE OF ADAM'S FALL. 6 319 Jenny, then ye'll tell me, What was the cause o' Adam's fall?' Jenny forgot her first parent in her husband, and replied, 'Deed, sir, it was naething else than the drink. Adam, my mon, ye'd better show yersell, for the doctor kens a' aboot it; them clashing deevils o' neebors hae telt him o' yer fa'!' CHAPTER XXXII. MELROSE MEMORIES. 'Discovery of Melrose Abbey-A Ready-made Quarry- MONG the many places that the genius of Sir A Walter Scott may be said, in a measure, to have discovered, Melrose ought to be included. For, until January 1805, when the publication of 'The Lay of the Last Minstrel' had so fully and faithfully set Melrose before the public, that far-famed glorious ruin,' as Burns called it, was excessively glorious, but anything but far-famed. Of course full descriptions of it were to be found in typographical and historical works; but to the general British public it was comparatively unknown, and, as a tourist's 'lion,' it had not yet attracted attention. Unfortunately, like too many other similar buildings in Scotland, it had attracted attention as a ready-made quarry, from whence its sculptured stones could be transported to the laird's new farmstead with less expense than new stone could be excavated. The greed of gain overbalanced the love for a national memorial, and bade fair to scatter among cow-sheds and bullock-hovels a mine of the most perfect architectural NEW SHRINE FOR PILGRIM-TOURISTS. 321 6 wealth. Happily, Sir Walter Scott arose and discovered Melrose. His 'Lay' opened the eyes of the public, and if anything else had been needed to complete the cure of the national ophthalmia, it would have been effected through the medium of The Abbot' and 'Monastery,' which made the million readers of the Waverley novels intimate with Kennaquahair and St. Mary's. This, however, was fifteen years later than 'The Lay,' to which alone may be assigned the honour of having made Melrose far more famous than it had ever been in the days of its greatest prosperity. A year before The Lay' was published, Sir Walter had removed his summer residence from Lasswade to Ashestiel, on the banks of the Tweed, where, as Lockhart says, 6 a more beautiful situation for the residence of a poet could not be conceived.' His day-dreams then were but limited; they were (probably) embodied in the lowly bower' mentioned in the concluding lines of The Lay,' and had not soared to the ambitious structure of Abbotsford. Lasswade had brought him near to Roslin, and Ashestiel had placed him within a few miles of Melrose; and, naturally enough, the celebrities of either place were introduced into his first great poem. To the circumstance of his residence at Ashestiel, we probably owe that minute description of 'St. David's ruin'd pile,' which is so well known. It denoted a new shrine for thousands of pilgrim-tourists, who shortly flocked to the spot to realise with the eye of sense the beauties that the great Wizard of the North had brought before their mind's eye with the magic spell of genius; and now Melrose, his loved haunt, lying midway between his two earthly homes of Abbotsford and Dryburgh, is the convenient centre of a triple attraction for the quick-recurring throngs of visitors Y whom the railway carries to within a few yards of the Abbey. In fact, it is this visible nearness of the railway (as in the case of Furness Abbey) that is a sad drawback upon the solitude and quiet that are so much in harmony with ecclesiastical ruins; added to which, the town of Melrose shoulders its streets and buildings close up to the Abbey,* which is kept in such an uncomfortable state of neatness, that the idea of ruin and desolation can scarcely be maintained. Melrose is certainly the trimmest of ruins; not a blade of grass or single stone is suffered to interfere with that perfection of neatness to which, by misdirected care, it has been brought. All the scattered fragments of sculptured work have been zealously gathered together and piled up into pseudoaltars, before which (to speak in a figure) the guide worships, and to which he directs the visitor's attention with an evident expectation of receiving that visitor's gratitude, instead of (possibly) inspiring him with a desire to kick these structures over, and restore the idea of Melrose being a real ruin instead of a modernantique. While I am about it, I will liberate my spirit, and get rid of my grumblings against Melrose. Messrs. Billings & Burns say, 'All the tourists in Scotland who are put into the proper groove for seeing "what one should see," are as infallibly sure to find themselves at Melrose, as the traveller on a railway line to reach the first station. Not that they carry away any very distinct *Artists get over this difficulty, per saltum, by omitting the town. Thus, David Roberts' view of Melrose Abbey, from the S.E., which has been engraved in The Gallery of Modern Artists, 1836, and elsewhere, shows the Abbey standing in a wooded waste, backed by a range of hills, and with nothing to indicate a human habitation. |