We walked, ran, and scrambled to an eminence which commanded a view of Roslin Chapel, the only view, I fear, which will ever gladden my eyes, for the promised expedition to it dissolved itself into mist.  When on the hill top, so that I could see the chapel at a distance, I stood thinking over the ballad of Harold, in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, and the fate of the lovely Rosabel, and saying over to myself the last verses of the ballad:—­

  “O’er Roslin, all that dreary night,
    A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam;
  ’Twas broader than the watchfire’s light,
    And redder than the bright moonbeam.

  It glared on Roslin’s castled rock,
    It ruddied, all the copsewood glen;
  ’Twas seen from Deyden’s groves of oak,
    And seen from cavern’d Hawthornden.

  Seemed all on fire that chapel proud,
    Where Roslin’s chiefs uncoffined lie,
  Each baron, for a sable shroud,
    Sheathed in his iron panoply.

  Seemed all on fire within, around,
    Deep sacristy and altar’s pale;
  Shone every pillar foliage-bound,
    And glimmered, all the dead men’s mail.

  Blazed battlement and pinnet high,
    Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair,
  So will they blaze, when fate is nigh
    The lordly line of high St. Clair.

  There are twenty of Roslin’s barons bold
    Lie buried, within that proud chapelle;
  Each one the holy vault doth hold;
    But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle!

  And each St. Clair was buried there,
    With candle, with book, and with knell;
  But the sea caves rung, and the wild winds sung,
    The dirge of lovely Rosabelle.”

There are many allusions in this which show Scott’s minute habits of observation; for instance, these two lines:—­

  “Blazed battlement and pinnet high,
    Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair.”

Every buttress, battlement, and projection of the exterior is incrusted with the most elaborate floral and leafy carving, among which the rose is often repeated, from its suggesting, by similarity of sound, Roslin.

Again, this line—­

  “Shone every pillar foliage-bound”—­

suggests to the mind the profusion and elaborateness of the leafy decorations in the inside.  Among these, one pillar, garlanded with spiral wreaths of carved foliage, is called the “Apprentice’s Pillar;” the tradition being, that while the master was gone to Rome to get some further hints on executing the plan, a precocious young mason, whom he left at home, completed it in his absence.  The master builder summarily knocked him on the head, as a warning to all progressive young men not to grow wiser than their teachers.  Tradition points out the heads of the master and workmen among the corbels.  So you see, whereas in old Greek times people used to point out their celebrities among the stars, and gave a defunct hero a place in the constellations, in the middle ages he only got a place among the corbels.