Some of the border hills were striking, especially the Cowden Knowe,
which ascends into a prominent and lofty peak. Such villages as we
passed did not greatly differ from English villages. By and by we came
to the banks of the Tweed, at a point where there is a ferry. A carriage
was on the river-bank, the driver waiting beside it; for the people who
came in it had already been ferried across to see the Abbey.
The ferryman here is a young girl; and, stepping into the boat, she
shoved off, and so skilfully took advantage of the eddies of the stream,
which is here deep and rapid, that we were soon on the other side. She
was by no means an uncomely maiden, with pleasant Scotch features, and a
quiet intelligence of aspect, gleaming into a smile when spoken to; much
tanned with all kinds of weather, and, though slender, yet so agile and
muscular that it was no shame for a man to let himself be rowed by her.
From the ferry we had a walk of half a mile, more or less, to a cottage,
where we found another young girl, whose business it is to show the
Abbey. She was of another mould than the ferry-maiden,--a queer, shy,
plaintive sort of a body,--and answered all our questions in a low,
wailing tone. Passing through an apple-orchard, we were not long in
reaching the Abbey, the ruins of which are much more extensive and more
picturesque than those of Melrose, being overrun with bushes and
shrubbery, and twined about with ivy, and all such vegetation as belongs,
naturally, to old walls.
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