glas, who lived in the reign of David II., and
was called the "Flower of Chivalry." One performance of this "Flower" is
rather characteristic of the times. It seems the king made one Ramsey
high sheriff of Teviotdale. The Earl of Douglas chose to consider this
as a personal affront, as he wanted the office himself. So, by way of
exhibiting his own qualifications for administering justice, he one day
came down on Ramsey, _vi et armis_, took him off his judgment seat,
carried him to one of his castles, and without more words tumbled him
and his horse into a deep dungeon, where they both starved to death.
There's a "Flower" for you, peculiar to the good old times. Nobody could
have doubted after this his qualifications to be high sheriff.

Having looked all over the abbey from, below, I noticed a ruinous
winding staircase; so up I went, rustling along through the ivy, which
matted and wove itself around the stones. Soon I found myself looking
down on the abbey from a new point of view--from a little narrow stone
gallery, which threads the whole inside of the building. There I paced
up and down, looking occasionally through the ivy-wreathed arches on the
green, turfy floor below.

It seems as if silence and stillness had become a real presence in these
old places. The voice of the guide and the company beneath had a hushed
and muffled sound; and when I rustled the ivy leaves, or, in trying to
break off a branch, loosened some fragment of stone, the sound affected
me with a startling distinctness. I could not but inly muse and wonder
on the life these old monks and abbots led, shrined up here as they were
in this lovely retirement.

In ruder ages these places were the only retreat for men of a spirit too
gentle to take force and bloodshed for their life's work; men who
believed that pen and parchment were better than sword and steel. Here I
suppose multitudes of them lived harmless, dreamy lives--reading old
manuscripts, copying and illuminating new ones.

It is said that this Melrose is of very ancient origin, extending back
to the time of the Culdees, the earliest missionaries who established
religion in Scotland, and who had a settlement in this vicinity.
However, a royal saint, after a while, took it in hand to patronize, and
of course the credit went to him, and from, him Scott calls it "St.
David's lonely pile." In time a body of Cistercian monks were settled
there.

According to all accounts the abbey has raised