Melrose is one of the delightful spots of Scotland; for I believe that Sir Walter Scott worshipped the god of nature, and his heart was full when he revelled in the beautiful scenery around Melrose. On arrival we will visit Melrose Abbey first. This is the ruin of an old church or convent.

They will show you the stone on which Sir Walter used to sit in meditation. Many of the rich and beautiful thoughts found in his works might have originated here.

After looking over this historical relic, we will engage a jolly Scotchman with his carriage to drive us to Abbotsford, some two and one-half miles, the home of Sir Walter Scott. Here you leave your carriage in the main road, take a pathway that leads down into a beautiful dell embowered with trees, and you soon see the home of Scott; and you will decide that the architect had a mind of his own, and has reared a building with some oddities, yet which, with its towers, angles, and surroundings, is a thing of beauty.

A little west of the house is the meandering brook with its silver stream as it goes rippling and singing its way onward. It is said that this little stream gave this noted Scotchman a great deal of enjoyment as he listened to its music wafted by the breeze to his library and study rooms where he spent so much of his time.

The place is owned by Sir Walter Scott’s granddaughter, and is kept just as he left it, and must be yielding her a good return, as every one that enters pays an English shilling for the privilege. You will find a very pleasant young lady there that will show you through the house, giving all the information wished for; and it is a perfect museum of itself, filled with relics presented to the great author by kings, princes, and nobles.

Here you can look over his library of twenty thousand volumes, here you see his chair and desk just as he left them, also the last suit of clothes he wore, with his white stove-pipe hat, Scotch plaid trowsers, shoes, say No. 8, but with more breadth than length.

The swords and implements of war seem to have a large share in the exhibition. Whether this was Sir Walter’s taste or the taste of his friends that presented them, I am not able to say, but am of the impression that the rod and gun, with his favorite dog, Maida, and in company with his Highland chief, Rob Roy, spending his leisure hours among the hills and valleys of Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond, is where Sir Walter found his enjoyment and recreation, and relief from hours of toil. Not only that, but in these simple amusements he found the inspiration that is seen in his works that we are enjoying to-day.

After drinking our fill of the scenes and surroundings of a lifetime, we will retrace our steps to the place where we left our carriage, and return to Melrose. We then drive to Dryburgh, some four miles, where rest the ashes of Sir Walter Scott and family.

After three-quarters of an hour’s drive you will halt on the bank of a small river, where you find a suspension foot-bridge. You cross this, turn to your right, and a walk of twenty minutes, and you will find yourself in a meandering pathway, with the beautiful trees of Scotland all about you. You will say at once that this is a retreat for lovers; and you soon come to the ruins of an old abbey, in which is the tomb of Sir Walter and others.

The keeper of the place will tell you that Scott used to spend hours in this retreat with his wife, when she was his best girl; and no doubt it became one of the dearest spots on earth to him, and was probably the reason why his earth’s journey was ended here.

As the sun seems to be dropping down in the western sky, we will return to Melrose and take the train for Edinburgh, where we spend the night, and take an early start in the morning, June 28, for Glasgow, going through the Trossachs. The train leaves about eight in the morning. So we have time for breakfast, and bid our cousins at Edinburgh good-by, and receive a cordial invitation to come again, to which our hearts say Yea and Amen.

Our train is soon sweeping us through the beautiful scenery of Scotland. We go through Stirling, a place of beauty, with its ruined castle, where we might spend a day with profit; but time is limited, and we pass on to where we leave the train at Callander, taking coaches for Loch Katrine, some half-mile or more this side of the boat landing. We stop at the charming Hotel Trossachs for lunch; and, if you have the time, it will pay you to stop over a day.

Good fishing is near at hand, the scenery delightful, the hotel the personification of neatness, the cuisine excellent. But our coach is ready, and we bid good-by to one of the loveliest spots in Scotland, and go to the landing, where we find “Rob Roy” waiting for us.

This is a nice little skipper, and will carry some seventy-five persons, if necessary, and is a much better boat in fair than foul weather. But we were fortunate, it being one of June’s bright, charming days; and all went merry as a marriage bell.

Probably Loch Katrine and her surroundings were never more charming in appearance than this day that we saw her. If you are expecting to see high and rugged mountains along her shores, you will be disappointed. The highest elevation is only little more than a thousand feet.

This, to a New Englander, is rather a tame affair; but, like Lake George, the scenery fills your soul with admiration. The shores are not abrupt, but gradually recede, with foliage to the top of the hills; and in many places the slopes are so gradual that the Highlanders have their dwellings near the shore, with their fields and flocks climbing back upon the mountains.

There seems to be a great variety of trees and foliage upon these mountains, which give different shades of coloring. This, as you go sailing down the lake, passing Ellen Isle and Silver Strand, will give you a charming picture. “Rob Roy” is about one and one-half hours in reaching Stronach Lochar, near the lower end of the lake, where we find coaches to take us to Inversnaid, where we take a larger steamer on the waters of Loch Lomond.

Loch Katrine was the little sister with her coquettish beauty. Loch Lomond is more stately and dignified, but comely in appearance. At Inversnaid there is a fine hotel; but we had satisfied the inner man at the Hotel Trossachs. Therefore, we spent our time in admiring the beauties of Inversnaid and surroundings, which is near the upper end of Loch Lomond.

In some forty-five minutes after our arrival by coach we find ourselves on board of a very comfortable steamer, with her prow headed down the lake, commencing a three hours’ ride for the lower end of the lake, where we take a car-ride of twenty miles to Glasgow.

As we pursued our journey, we found the lake somewhat narrow, giving us beautiful scenery on our right; and on our left we passed Rob Roy’s cave, also his prison where he held his victims until he secured ransom money. You will see at our left where the city of Glasgow has tunnelled under the mountains, and taken their supply of water, a distance of thirty-four miles, costing millions.

Queen Victoria attended the opening of this great enterprise. Farther on Ben Lomond looms up to a height of over three thousand feet, and is the Mount Washington of that region. Birch, ash, oak, and in many places the heather cover the sides of the hills and mountains with charming effect. As we pass on the last hour of our sail, Loch Lomond is much wider and filled with beautiful islands. About four o’clock we tie up at the pier, and take a train for Glasgow, reaching our hotel at half-past five.

June 27, Thursday morning, we start out to investigate Glasgow, a city of five hundred thousand inhabitants, with suburbs of nearly another half million. The Clyde passes through the city. This river is the promoter of Glasgow, or, if you prefer, you can call Glasgow the offspring of the Clyde.

It is the great ship-building port of the world. The river is not wide, but is deep, so they can slide in the largest boats that plough the ocean, and steam them down into the Atlantic. We will now step on board a small steamer that plies up and down the Clyde, and go down the river some five miles. On your right and left the staging poles and masts look like a forest; and, when you hear the clanging of hammers and chisels upon the heavy steel plates as they are being fitted, you will decide at once that the man that can make the most noise is the best fellow, and that every man’s effort is crowned with success.

We pass the yard where they have been and are building yachts that have competed, and are to continue to compete, for the national cup. We also pass the abattoir where they butcher nothing but American cattle.

Before they turned the prow of the steamer up the river, they pointed out to us the town of Paisley, where the famous Paisley shawls originated; but the day of that article has gone by, and they are making other goods now.

But what will surprise you in taking this trip is the hundreds of acres of ship-yards on the banks of the Clyde. This has brought in an immense amount of money, and made Glasgow what she is to-day, the great manufacturing city of Scotland.

The sewerage of the city empties into the Clyde, and the impurities are making them trouble; and they are devising ways to take care of it elsewhere, which will be a blessing to those that are on or near the river.

We enjoyed our stay in Glasgow, though it was a short one, leaving in the afternoon for Manchester, where we spent the night, going through to London the next day, feeling that our trip to Scotland was a decided success.

Saturday night found us nicely located and everything in running order at the Hotel Metropole in London.

Sunday we go to hear Joseph Parker preach his twenty-fifth anniversary sermon, also to Westminster Abbey to hear Canon Farrar. There it was Flower Sunday, and children took part in the services, and everything was in keeping with the flowery kingdom. Monday morning we will put in an appearance there again, as you will find it an immense building and a perfect burying-ground of itself; and whoever preaches there preaches to the dead and the living,—which class is the best listeners is a question.

The crypt is full of dead men’s bones; and the main part is the last resting-place of many heroes, princes, and nobles. You will see many inscriptions speaking of their honors and gallant deeds. One of the honored ones fell at Ticonderoga. Perhaps Ethan Allen could give us the circumstances. Westminster Abbey is old and honored, and is one of the great attractions of London.

From here you had better go to St. Paul’s cathedral. There is the last resting-place of the late General Gordon. Many a noted man in silent manner will speak to you there, and you will be interested in hunting for the heroes of olden times.

The architecture of this building is grand. You can revel in churches in London any length of time if your taste runs that way.

But you may weary of these things; and we will take up temporal and material things, and go to the Bank of England, the great financial institution of London. There you will see them dropping the bags of gold into strong boxes, strapped with iron, then lifted with blocks and pulleys to a platform, where they are shipped to the four corners of the earth. They informed us that the week before they had shipped twenty-five million to France. They seem to be doing business on a large scale. You will see every day late in the afternoon one hundred or more soldiers marching from the barracks to the bank, and they remain in and on top of the building through the night.

From here you can go to the Thames. This will give you an idea of the manufacturing of London, which is located on the banks of this river.

Then go some eight miles up the Thames, and you reach Hampton Court, where you can visit the palace with all its fine paintings, and see the regal splendor of the kings, see one of the largest grape-vines in the world with its twenty-five hundred bunches of grapes to tempt your palate, also a wistaria of about the same proportion.

From there take a carriage, and drive through the two-thousand-acre park, strewn with English oaks and beeches and a variety of trees with beautiful deer seen in all directions. In going through this park, you will visit the mammoth conservatories, with tropical plants and flowers in great variety.

You can return to your hotel by rail or boat, as you may choose. You are probably weary, as all sight-seers usually are when the shades of eve close in upon them.

We shall want to go to the Tower and prison, and see the relics and implements of execution and torture of olden times.

In that section of London you see the beef-eaters, with their pleated bell-topped hats and peculiar dress. These are the old retired soldiers, and it is considered quite an honor for the queen to send one of these men with you on any expedition.