But we visited the Abbey in broad daylight, which wuz better for our two healths at our age. We went to the Abbey Hotel, close by the Abbey, and after a comfortable dinner we went through the little iron gate that leads into the grand and wonderful ruin.
It must have been a sight, a sight, in its early days. But bein’ built in the first place in 1136, it hadn’t ort to be expected to be in the order it would have been if it had been built in 1836, and we’d call that bein’ pretty old in our young country.
Wall, we walked all round amongst the ruins, and the waves of the past swashed up aginst me in a powerful manner.
Here, sez I to myself, is the place where the heart of Robert Bruce is buried. That eager, restless heart that dared so much, and endured so much. Strange, passing strange that that great heart lays dumb and mute, and Samantha Allen and her pardner are a-walkin’ over it.
Here is the grave of the wizard that bold Deloraine visited, as I told Josiah, and he looked down with scornful mean, and sez he—
“He has stopped his wizardin’ now!”
Josiah has no veneration for the occult.
And here lies the Earl of Douglas, and here is the tomb of King Alexander 2nd.
Hero, king, and wizard, all dust, and through the tall, ruined arches the blue sky smiles down on all on ’em alike, and sweet Nater drops on their restin’-places; on grave and monuments the same posies, and flowers, and long sprays of ivy.
Nater is the true democrat; she treats all alike.