might
be valued in the home department. I went into a shop, where an auld wife
soon appeared, who, in reply to my inquiries, told me, that the said
little tubs and pails were made of plum tree wood from Dryburgh Abbey,
and, of course, partook of the sanctity of relics. She and her husband
seemed to be driving a thriving trade in the article, and either plum
trees must be very abundant at Dryburgh, or what there are must be
gifted with that power of self-multiplication which inheres in the wood
of the true Cross. I bought them in blind faith, however, suppressing
all rationalistic doubts, as a good relic hunter should.

I went up into a little room where an elderly woman professed to have
quite a collection of the Melrose relics. Some years ago extensive
restorations and repairs were made in the old abbey, in which Walter
Scott took a deep interest. At that time, when the scaffolding was up
for repairing the building, as I understood, Scott had the plaster casts
made of different parts, which he afterwards incorporated into his own
dwelling at Abbotsford. I said to the good woman that I had understood
by Washington Irving's account, that Scott appropriated _bona fide_
fragments of the building, and alluded to the account which he gives of
the little red sandstone lion from Melrose. She repelled the idea with
great energy, and said she had often heard Sir Walter say, that he would
not carry off a bit of the building as big as his thumb. She showed me
several plaster casts that she had in her possession, which were taken
at this time. There were several corbels there; one was the head of an
old monk, and looked as if it might have been a mask taken of his face
the moment after death; the eyes were hollow and sunken, the cheeks
fallen in, the mouth lying helplessly open, showing one or two
melancholy old stumps of teeth. I wondered over this, whether it really
was the fac-simile of some poor old Father Ambrose, or Father Francis,
whose disconsolate look, after his death agony, had so struck the gloomy
fancy of the artist as to lead him to immortalize him in a corbel, for a
lasting admonition to his fat worldly brethren; for if we may trust the
old song, these monks of Melrose had rather a suspicious reputation in
the matter of worldly conformity. The impudent ballad says,--

"O, the monks of Melrose, they made good, kail
On Fridays, when they fasted;
They never wanted beef or ale
As long as their neighbors' l