Sir S. had managed very clearly about not letting us stop to look at the town of Burns's death until we'd seen the place of his birth and traced out the path of his life-story; but he couldn't contrive the same kind of trip for Sir Walter Scott's country without going over the whole road twice. Besides, he wanted us to see Melrose by moonlight, and said it would be "incomparably better than Sweetheart Abbey." But I knew it wouldn't be better for me, and I didn't quite forgive him for thinking it possible, now that we had got so mixed up with irrelevant people.
We had to go to Jedburgh first, the place farthest south; then to Dryburgh; then flashing through Melrose to Abbotsford, where Scott died as well as lived; and then back to Melrose for the night. That was his plan; and I still supposed that we were to go on somewhere else next day--Sunday--not arriving in Edinburgh till Monday. But it seems that Sir S. had made up his mind to a different programme, though he said nothing about it then.
Things happened to the boys' car on the way to Jedburgh, though the road was good, and only undulating. Basil said that, as a matter of fact, he had "ill-wished" them and their auto, and as "thoughts are things," he had created the nail on which their tire came to grief. "Somerled and I want to be the only ones," he added mysteriously. "We'll have no interlopers." Which would have made me think him rather a frivolous person, after all, if he hadn't been so well up in the lore of the road, and known so many interesting things about Jedburgh, the county town of Roxburghshire.
"If we curse a mere nail on a white velvet road-surface nowadays," said he, "think what the roads must have been like when Jedburgh had a royal castle, and kings and queens were travelling about from one of their houses to another! Think what Queen Mary must have had to endure, even bringing things down to modern times, comparatively. She stayed in Jedburgh town, in an old house in Queen Street--came for assizes, I think. Then, while she was there, bored to death, she heard that Bothwell was 'sick of a wound' at Hermitage Castle, over twenty miles distant. In an hour she was on her palfrey and off to see him, falling into a morass on the way. But she got back again that night, rather than her good subjects should say she neglected their affairs. She fell ill with fever after her exertions. What wouldn't she have given for a motor-car? But how she would have been bumped and bruised if she'd had one, though the roads were grand then compared to the state they'd fallen into after the Romans marched out of Scotland. Imagine the early kings and queens with their processions passing where we pass now; and armies returning from battle with their prisoners; and bands of pilgrims going to some sacred shrine; and robber hordes moving at night; and wild-beast shows on the way from one fair to another. Can't you see the panorama?"