British Highways and Byways from a Motor Car / Being a Record of a Five Thousand Mile Tour in England, Wales and Scotland

by Thos. D. Murphy

In Edinburgh we were near the center from which Scott's vast influences radiated. The traditions of Burns overshadowed Southwestern Scotland and the memories of Scott seem to be indentified with the cities, the villages, the solitary ruins, the hills and vales of the eastern coast. We note as we pass along Princess Street, one of the finest thoroughfares in Britain, the magnificent monument to the great author—the most majestic tribute ever erected to a literary man—a graceful Gothic spire, towering two hundred feet into the sky. The city is full of his memories. Here are many of the places he celebrated in his stories, his haunts for years, and the house where he retired after financial disaster to face a self-chosen battle with a gigantic debt which he might easily have evaded by a mere figment of the law.

However, one can hardly afford to take from a motor tour the time which should rightly be given to Edinburgh, for the many attractions of the Athens of the North might well occupy a solid week. Fortunately, a previous visit by rail two years before had solved the problem for us and we were fairly familiar with the more salient features of the city. There is one side-trip that no one should miss, and though we had once journeyed by railway train to Melrose Abbey and Abbottsford House, we could not forego a second visit to these famous shrines and to Dryburgh Abbey, which we had missed before. Thus again we had the opportunity of contrasting the motor car and the railway train. I remembered distinctly our former trip to Melrose by rail. It was on a Saturday afternoon holiday when crowds of trippers were leaving the city, packed in the uncomfortable compartments like sardines in a box—not one in a dozen having a chance to sit. We were driven from Melrose to Abbottsford House at a snail's pace, consuming so much time that a trip to Dryburgh Abbey was out of the question, though we had left Edinburgh about noon. By motor, we were out of the city about three o'clock, and though we covered more than eighty miles, we were back before lamp-lighting time. The road to Dryburgh Abbey runs nearly due south from Edinburgh, and the country through which we passed was hardly so prosperous looking as the northeastern section of Scotland—much of it rather rough-looking country, adapted only for sheep-grazing and appearing as if it might be reclaimed moorland.

The tomb of Walter Scott is in Dryburgh Abbey, and with the possible exception of Melrose it probably has more visitors than any other point in Scotland outside of Edinburgh. The tourist season had hardly begun, yet the caretaker told us that more than seventy people had been there during the day and most of them were Americans. The abbey lies on the margin of the River Tweed, the silver stream so beloved of Scott, and though sadly fragmentary, is most religiously cared for and the decay of time and weather held in check by constant repairs and restoration. The many thousands of admission fees every year no doubt form a fund which will keep this good work going indefinitely. The weather-beaten walls and arches were overgrown with masses of ivy and the thick, green grass of the newly mown lawn spread beneath like a velvet carpet. We had reached the ruin so late that it was quite deserted, and we felt the spirit of the place all the more as we wandered about in the evening silence. Scott's tomb, that of his wife and their eldest son are in one of the chapels whose vaulted roof still remains in position. Tall iron gates between the arches enclose the graves, which are marked with massive sarcophagi of Scotch granite. Dryburgh Abbey was at one time the property of the Scott family, which accounts for its use as their burial-ground. It has passed into other hands, but interments are still made on rare occasions. The spot was one which always interested and delighted Scott and it was his expressed wish that he be buried there.

We had been warned that the byways leading to the abbey from the north of the Tweed were not very practicable for motors and we therefore approached it from the other side. This made it necessary to cross the river on a flimsy suspension bridge for foot-passengers only, and a notice at each end peremptorily forbade that more than half a dozen people pass over the bridge at one time. After crossing the river it was a walk of more than a mile to the abbey, and as we were tempted to linger rather long it was well after six o'clock when we re-crossed the river and resumed our journey. Melrose is twelve miles farther on and the road crosses a series of rather sharp hills. We paused for a second glimpse of Melrose Abbey, which has frequently been styled the most perfect and beautiful ecclesiastical ruin in Britain. We were of the opinion, however, that we had seen at least three or four others more extensive and of greater architectural merit. Undoubtedly the high praise given Melrose is due to the fame which it acquired from the poems and stories of Scott. The thousands of pilgrims who come every year are attracted by this alone, since the abbey had no extraordinary history and no tomb of king or hero is to be found in its precincts. Were it not for the weird interest which the "Lay of the Last Minstrel" has thrown around Melrose, its fame would probably be no greater than that of the abbeys of Jedburgh and Kelso in the same neighborhood. Abbottsford House is only three miles from Melrose, but it is closed to visitors after five o'clock and we missed a second visit, which we should have liked very much. Upon such things the motorist must fully inform himself or he is liable to many disappointments by reaching his objective point at the wrong time.

We returned to Edinburgh by the way of Galashiels, a manufacturing town of considerable size that lay in a deep valley far below the road which we were following along the edges of the wooded hills. This road abounded in dangerous turns and caution was necessary when rounding sharp curves that, in places, almost described a circle. We had a clear right-of-way, however, and reached Edinburgh before nine o'clock. A delightful feature of summer touring in Britain is the long evening, which is often the pleasantest time for traveling. The highways are usually quite deserted and the mellow effect of the sunsets and the long twilights often lend an additional charm to the landscapes. In the months of July and August in Scotland daylight does not begin to fade away until from nine to ten, and in northern sections the dawn begins as early as two or three o'clock. During our entire tour we found it necessary to light our lamps only two or three times, although we were often on the road after nine o'clock. Though Edinburgh has unusually broad and well paved streets, it is a trying place for a motorist. The people make little effort to keep to the sidewalk, but let the fellow who is driving the car do the looking out for them. In no city through which we passed did I find greater care necessary. Despite all this, accidents are rare, owing to the fact that drivers of motor cars in Great Britain have had the lesson of carefulness impressed upon them by strict and prompt enforcement of police regulations.

We left Edinburgh the next forenoon with a view of making Berwick-on-Tweed our stopping place for the evening—not a long distance in miles but a considerable one measured in spots of historical importance. The road much of the way skirts the ocean and is a magnificent highway leading through a number of quaint towns famous in Scotch song and story. Numerous battlefields are scattered along the way, but we found it difficult to locate a battlefield when we passed it, and generally quit trying. In fact, in the days of border warfare the whole south of Scotland was the scene of almost continuous strife, and battles of greater or less importance were fought everywhere with the English in the centuries of fierce hatred which existed between the two nations. The Scots held their own wonderfully well, considering their greatly inferior numbers and the general poverty of their country. The union, after all, was brought about not by conquest but by a Scotch king going to London to assume the crown of the two kingdoms. The famous old town of Berwick-on-Tweed bore the brunt of the incursions from both sides on the eastern coast, as did Carlisle on the west. The town of Dunbar, situated on the coast about midway between Edinburgh and Berwick, was of great importance in border history. It had an extensive and strongly fortified castle, situated on the margin of a cliff overhanging the ocean, and which was for a time the residence of Queen Mary after her marriage with Darnley. Nothing now remains of this great structure save a few crumbling walls of red sandstone, which are carefully propped up and kept in the best possible repair by the citizens, who have at last come to realize the cash value of such a ruin. If such a realization had only come a hundred years ago, a great service would have been done the historian and the antiquarian. But this is no less true of a thousand other towns than of Dunbar. No quainter edifice did we see in all Britain than Dunbar's Fifteenth Century town hall. It seemed more characteristic of an old German town than of Scotland. This odd old building is still the seat of the city government.

Our route from Dunbar ran for a long way between the hills of Lammermoor and the ocean and abounded in delightful and striking scenery. We were forcibly reminded of Scott's mournful story, "The Bride of Lammermoor," as we passed among the familiar scenes mentioned in the book, and it was the influence of this romantic tale that led us from the main road into narrow byways and sleepy little coast towns innocent of modern progress and undisturbed by the rattle of railways trains. No great distance from Berwick and directly on the ocean stands Fast Castle, said to be the prototype of the Wolf's Crag of "Lammermoor." This wild story had always interested me in my boyhood days and for years I had dreamed of the possibility of some time seeing the supposed retreat of the melancholy Master of Ravenswood. We had great difficulty in locating the castle, none of the people seeming to know anything about it, and we wandered many miles among the hills through narrow, unmarked byways, with little idea of where we were really going. At last, after dint of inquiry, we came upon a group of houses which we were informed were the headquarters of a large farm of about two thousand acres, and practically all the people who worked on the farm lived, with their families, in these houses. The superintendent knew of Fast Castle, which he said was in a lonely and inaccessible spot, situated on a high, broken headland overlooking the ocean. It was two or three miles distant and the road would hardly admit of taking the car any farther. He did not think the ruin was worth going to see, anyhow; it had been cared for by no one and within his memory the walls had fallen in and crumbled away. Either his remarks or the few miles walk discouraged me, and after having traveled fully thirty miles to find this castle, I turned about and went on without going to the place at all, and of course I now regret it as much as anything I failed to do on our whole tour. I shall have to go to Fast Castle yet—by motor car.

After regaining the main road, it was only a short run along the edge of the ocean to Berwick-on-Tweed, which we reached early in the evening. I recall no more delightful day during our tour. It had been fresh and cool, and the sky was perfectly clear. For a great part of the way the road had passed within view of the ocean, whose deep unruffled blue, entirely unobscured by the mists which so often hang over the northern seas, stretched away until it was lost in the pale, sapphire hues of the skies. The country itself was fresh and bright after abundant rains, and as haymaking was in progress in many places along the road, the air was laden with the scent of the newly mown grasses. Altogether, it was a day long to be remembered.