The 'steel-clenched postern door,' through which the monk and the knight now entered the chancel, stands nearly intact. Its three arches rest on graceful pilasters surmounted by capitals, with carved foliage so delicate that a straw can be passed behind the stalks of the leaves. We found it interesting upon entering this door to note the accuracy of the poet's descriptions, which the guide quoted with great fluency. The pillars supporting the lofty roof spread out to form the great arches, seeming to be 'bundles of lances which garlands had bound.'
We stood beneath this arched roof for a long time to admire the beautiful East Window, and the guide quoted:—
The moon on the East oriel shone
Through slender shafts of shapely stone
By foliaged tracery combined.
It is almost impossible to realize that these long and slender shafts are really carved out of stone and that the work was done many centuries ago. Scott accounts for it poetically:—
Thou wouldst have thought some fairy's hand
Twixt poplars straight the osier wand
In many a freakish knot had twined,
Then framed a spell when the work was done,
And changed the willow wreaths to stone.
Beneath the window lies the heart of Robert Bruce. It had been the desire of the monarch that his heart be interred in the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. After his death the body was buried beneath the high altar of the church at Dunfermline, but the heart was taken out and committed to the keeping of James, Lord Douglas, who undertook to carry it to the Holy Land. But James was defeated and killed by the Saracens, and the heart of his royal master was taken to Melrose and buried there. This was as it should be, for the heart of Bruce, figuratively speaking, was always in Melrose. After the destruction of the abbey in 1322 by Edward II on his retreat from Scotland, Bruce made a grant of £2000 sterling, a sum equivalent to about £50,000 in the money of to-day. Because of this munificence the abbey was rebuilt in all the beauty and perfection which Gothic architecture could suggest, so that even in ruins it is still a structure of graceful magnificence. In 1384, the abbey was again destroyed, but later restored. In 1544, 1545, and finally a century later under the Reformation, the abbey suffered serious damage from which it never recovered.
The grave of Michael Scott which Deloraine was sent to open was pointed out to us, as it is to all visitors, but in reality its exact position is not known. Johnny Bower, an old guide of whom Scott was very fond, discovered the position of the grave by noting the direction of the moonbeams through the oriel window. 'I pointed out the whole to the Shirra,' said he, 'and he couldna' gainsay but it was varra clear.' 'Scott,' says Washington Irving, who tells the story, 'used to amuse himself with the simplicity of the old man and his zeal in verifying every passage of the poem, as though it had been authentic history, and always acquiesced in his deductions.'
Like all other visitors we wanted to see the abbey properly, and that, according to the poet, could only be done by moonlight.
If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight.