"They were blest beyond compare, When they held their trysting there, Among thae greenest hills shone on by the sun; And then they wan a rest, The lownest and the best, I' Traquair kirkyard when a' was dune. "Now the birks to dust may rot, Names o' lovers be forgot, Nae lads and lasses there ony mair convene; But the blithe lilt o' yon air Keeps the bush aboon Traquair, And the love that ance was there, aye fresh and green." PLATE 17 DRYBURGH ABBEY AND SCOTT'S TOMB FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH PAINTED BY JAMES ORROCK, R.I. (_See pp. 35, 39, 91, 92, 103_) [Illustration] Traquair House--possibly Scott's Tully-Veolan, "pallid, forlorn, stricken all o'er with eld," claims to be the oldest inhabited house in Scotland. It certainly looks it. The great gate, flanked with the huge Bradwardine Bears, has not been opened since the '45. There seems no reason to question the legend. It is not so "foolish" as Mr. Lang supposes. Innerleithen, Scott's "St. Ronan's," is near at hand, and the peel of Elibank--a mere shell. Harden's marriage to Muckle-mou'ed Meg Murray was not quite accounted for in the traditional way, however,--a choice between the laird's dule-tree and the laird's unlovely daughter. The legend is not uncommon to German folk-lore. At Ashestiel, thrice renowned, Scott spent the happiest years of his life (1804-1812), writing "Marmion," the "Lady of the Lake," and the first draft of "Waverley." In many respects the place is more important to students of Scott than Abbotsford itself. Yet for a thousand who rush to Abbotsford only a very few find their way up here. Yair, a Pringle house, and Fairnalee, comfortable little demesnes, lie further down the Tweed. At the latter, Alison Rutherford wrote her version of the "Flowers of the Forest"--"I've seen the smiling of Fortune beguiling." Abbotsford was Cartley Hole first--not Clarty--which is a mere vulgar play on the original. From a small villa about 1811 it has grown to the present noble pile. After Scott's day, Mr. Hope Scott did much for the place. But it is of Sir Walter that one thinks. What a strenuous life was his here! What love he lavished on the very ground that was dear to him--in a double sense! And what longing for home during that vain sojourn under Italian skies! "To Abbotsford; let us to Abbotsford!"--a desire now echoed on ten thousand tongues year by year from all ends of the earth. Behind Abbotsford are the Eildons, the "Delectable Mountains" of Washington Irving's visit, "three crests against a saffron sky" always in vision the wide Border over. Scott said he could stand on the Eildons and point out forty-three places famous in war and verse. "Yonder," he said, "is Lammermoor and Smailholm; and there you have Galashiels, and Torwoodlee, and Gala Water; and in that direction you see Teviotdale and the Braes of Yarrow, and Ettrick stream winding along like a silver