When Burns came to Kelso in the spring of 1787, and stood upon the bridge which preceded Rennie's fine piece of work, he is said to have reverently uncovered his head and breathed a prayer to the Almighty. A less religious nature than his might well have been moved to the devotional mood, for there can be few scenes so charged with inspiring and exalting influences. If Leyden did not quite hit the mark in saying of the Tweed here that she "her silent way majestic holds," it is only because she chants as she goes: august her course certainly is, for she rolls broad and brisk, and flows into queenly curves. On the one hand is Sir George Douglas's place, Springwood Park, the entrance dignified by some glorious bronze beeches; on the other are the stately ruins of the Abbey; and beyond, the town, neat and clean, gleaming white in the sunshine. Up stream, full in front, stands the palatial Floors Castle, not far from where the Teviot pours its hurrying tide into the Tweed; below bridge the spacious current ripples between thickly wooded banks. The town itself has many interests, modern as well as ancient. For some months towards the end of last century a boy, slightly lame, and much given to poring over old romances, attended the old grammar-school adjacent to the abbey, and still carried on there, though in a new building; and here began that acquaintance with the Ballantynes which was to have such ruinous issues. With another true minstrel also, though one who sings in a lower key, the town has associations. The Free Church, one of the white spired edifices visible from the bridge, was built for Horatius Bonar, who during a long ministry here wrote some sacred songs which men will not soon let die. Against the Free Church nothing need be urged except its newness; but the parish church--octagonal, with a huge slated roof, divided into as many sections--is a building of simply audacious uncouthness, a sight to make "sair eyes." It has been said to be the ugliest parish church in Scotland, and the statement might be amplified and still remain true. During the eighteenth century the parishioners were pleased to commend themselves to the divine mercy in the dismantled abbey, a low vault having been thrown over the transept; while right overhead, under a roof of thatch, certain of their fellows were all the while enduring the rigours of human justice. This felicitous arrangement survived until about 1771, when one Sunday the falling of a lump of plaster from the roof sent the congregation scampering out with the words of an oracular prophecy attributed to Thomas the Rhymer ringing in their ears. Then they set up this detestable building, fashioned in the style of an auction mart, within a stone's-throw of the venerable walls in which they were too superstitious to longer assemble themselves together!