Tramp Tales of Europe

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PART III. INCIDENTS AT BALLOCH AND AYR.?THE ANECDOTE OF LOCH LOMOND.?STIRLING AND EDINBURGH.?NIGHT IN THE SHADOW OF MELROSE ABBEY. A TRAMP FROM MELROSE TO DRYBURGH ABBEY AND AB- BOTTSFORD.?FROM MELROSE TO LONDON, WITH A GLIMPSE OF THE METROPOLIS. After Cooper had pulled me together from the distractions of...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PART III. INCIDENTS AT BALLOCH AND AYR.?THE ANECDOTE OF LOCH LOMOND.?STIRLING AND EDINBURGH.?NIGHT IN THE SHADOW OF MELROSE ABBEY. A TRAMP FROM MELROSE TO DRYBURGH ABBEY AND AB- BOTTSFORD.?FROM MELROSE TO LONDON, WITH A GLIMPSE OF THE METROPOLIS. After Cooper had pulled me together from the distractions of the morning we took a cab and drove at once to the St. Enoch's Hotel where I bade that loyal friend good-bye. That morning I left for Ayr. I was charmed with the country. The hayfields, which had been freshly mowed were set about with pleasant hedgerows and large white farm houses could be seen from the car window, gleaming in the vistas of meadow and woodland some distance away. Ayr is a characteristic Scotch town which has stuck to the old traditions in one storied houses with thatch roof, and which has kept the memory of William Wallace green in an ancient clock tower and statue. I walked out to the Burns Cottage, which is very much as it was in 1759, when the light peeped in at the narrow windows on the morning of the poet's birth. From the cottage I went down to cross the Bonnie Doone by the Old Brig and I had the key stane where Tarn O'Shanter's mere lost her tail, pointed out to me by a venerable native. Alloway Kirk, the scene of the witches' dance in Tarn O'Shanter, lies near the Doone in great decay and Cutty Sark and her followers must soon seek other quarters for their nocturnal festivities. The Doone has the tawny color of the Connecticut and Massachusetts rivers and, although Hawthorne likes it best, is not so attractive in appearance as the mountain streams of Tennessee and Alabama. Crossing by the Old Brig in the course of the morning I wandered for some distance up the narrow road and stopped contemplatively at the brow of the hill u...