Two miles above Melrose, a charming walk leads to Abbotsford; redeemed out of a swamp into at least the most memory-filled mansion of all the land. Scott, like the monks, could not leave the silver wash of the Tweed; and, more loving than those who dwelt at Melrose and Dryburgh, he placed his Abbot's House where the rippling sound was within a stone's throw. The Tweed is such a storied stream that as you walk along, sometimes across sheep-cropped meadows, sometimes under the fragant rustling bough and athwart the shifting shadows of oak, ash, and thorn--Puck of Pook's hill must have known the Border country in its most embroidered days--you cannot tell whether or not the deep quiet river is the noblest you have seen, or the storied hills about are less than the Delectable mountains. The name "Tweed" suggests romance--unless instead of having read your Scott you have come to its consciousness through the homespun, alas, to-day too often the factory-spun woolens, which are made throughout all Scotland, but still in greatest length on Tweedside. Dorothy Wordsworth, winsome marrow, who loved the country even better than William, I trow--only why remark it when he himself recognized how his vision was quickened through her companionship?--has spoke the word Tweed--"a name which has been sweet in my ears almost as far back as I can remember anything." The river comes from high in the Cheviot hills, where East and West Marches merge and where-- "Annan, Tweed, and Clyde Rise a' out o' ae hillside." And down to the sea it runs, its short hundred miles of story-- "All through the stretch of the stream, To the lap of Berwick Bay." As you walk along Tweedside, you feel its enchantment, you feel the sorrow of the thousands who through the centuries have exiled themselves from its banks, because of war, or because of poverty, or because of love-- "Therefore I maun wander abroad, And lay my banes far frae the Tweed." But now, you are returned, you are on your way to Abbotsford, there are the Eildons, across the river you get a glimpse of the Catrail, that sunken way that runs along the boundary for one-half its length, and may have been a fosse, or may have been a concealed road of the Romans or what not. Scott once leaped his horse across it, nearly lost his life, and did lose his confidence in his horsemanship. [Illustration: _Abbotsford_] "And all through the summer morning I felt it a joy indeed To whisper again and again to myself, This is the voice of the Tweed."