sapphire shadow, as we
wandered round the cruciform Gothic ruin, our feet noiseless on the
faded velvet of the grass. Even in the darkest shadow there lay a ruby
flush, like a glow of fire under a thick film of ash; but inside the
Abbey was a soft, gray gloom, as if evening hid in the ruins waiting its
time to come out. The Trinity window, the Calvary window, the window
with the Crown of Thorns, and the east window in the chancel, which Sir
Walter loved best, were all sketched against the sky in tracery of sepia
and burnt amber, as I heard Sir S. saying to Mrs. West. And though I
shouldn't have known what colours to use, because I'm not an artist, I
could see that the tall stone shafts were like slender-trunked trees
crowned with high clusters of branches, as in pictures of desert palms.
I wondered if the men who carved the stone had travelled in the East and
had seen palm trees rising from pale sand, black against a paler sky.
And I wondered, too, if queer knots and fantastic holes in the gray
trunks of oak had not put into men's minds the first idea of gargoyles.

Sir S. and Basil, who have been almost everywhere, agreed that they had
seldom seen such marvellous detail of carving, so many whimsically
planned and exquisitely carried out irregularities, or such lovely,
well-preserved sandstone. That quarry which gave the material for
Melrose and Dryburgh was a treasure-mine, and even the Romans knew and
valued it. I was quite glad to find those two-agreeing about something,
because ever since Basil joined us they have differed politely over
nearly every subject that came up.

We had been deeply occupied with Michael Scott's supposed grave, and the
story of the "dark magic" by which he divided into three, Eildon Hill,
in whose caverns Arthur and his warriors still sleep their enchanted
sleep; and so, when some strangers approached us, we didn't even look
up. A very intelligent custodian, who has written a book about the
Abbey, was showing us round at that moment, and telling things about Sir
Ralph Evers, whom the Douglases killed for revenge, on Ancrum Moor, and
all about the pillar with the "curly green capital." He had saved the
Douglas Heart for the last, as the crowning glory in the history of
Melrose; but when we'd done some sort of justice to everything else, he
marched us into the presbytery where the Heart is buried, and where,
according to his theory, it is commemorated in the carved stone tracery
of the windo