“Nor herb, nor floweret, glistened there,
But was carved in the cloister-arches fair”;
of the vaulted roof, where
“The key-stone that locked each ribbéd aisle
Was a fleur-de-lys or a quatrefeuille”;
and of the pillars, with their clustered shafts, that
“With base and with capital flourished around
Seem’d bundles of lances which garlands had bound”.
It must have been a labour of love to frame this marvellously carved casket, in which are laid the ashes of kings and prelates. Here rest the chiefs of the once mighty House of Douglas, and, not far away, of the English Warden who desecrated their tombs and was overtaken and slain at Ancrum Moor; among minor clans “Ye race of ye House of Zair”—Kerrs and Pringles; and, later in date but of the same stubborn and trusty Border stuff, Tom Purdie, the reclaimed poacher and faithful watchdog and factotum of the Laird of Abbotsford. The prayer of John Morvo, inscribed on the wall of the south transept,
“I pray to God and Marie baith