The pulpit was yet unoccupied; but round the four sides of the great altar were many persons kneeling in prayer. Five streams of brilliantly-coloured sunlight fell from the south aslant the great church, from the five vaulted chapels which Johne Skayer and Johne of Stone, two cunning masons, built during the provostry of that "good man and noble," the Laird of Netherliberton. Then the church was without other seats than those cushions and stools which were borne by servants, or by cavaliers for the use of the ladies they accompanied. Many a group in velvet cloaks and high ruffs, with satin trains and hoods of crammasie; many a moustachioed and belted man, half noble and wholly soldier, many a shaven friar, and many a sweet young girl with that fair hair so famed in Scottish song (the golden hair which Raphael loved so well), were kneeling before the lesser altars, of which that great temple, "our mother kirk of old St. Giles," boasted not less than forty. The most magnificent were those of the Holy Blood, the Holy Cross de Lucano, Nostre Domine, St. Michael de Monte Tomba, Our Lady of Piety, and St. Eloi, the most eastern shrine, which belonged to the gallant craftsmen, as being that of their peculiar patron. Behind it they had placed a window, whereon were painted the elephant and crowned hammer of the principal corporation; and before it hung a beautiful lamp of silver, which was said to have been brought by them from the sack of Jerusalem, and the light of which was never extinguished. The most beautifully-decorated columns of the church are four, where this altar stood. Like the branches of a forest, the ribs of the groined roof sprung away aloft into the dusky clerestory, through the deep windows of which fell many a flake of light of every rainbow hue, revealing many a grotesque carving and many a grim old head. "Many a scutcheon and banner riven" decorated the side chapels, and many a sword and helmet were rusting above the tombs of departed valour. Many marble statues of saints and warriors, of mitred abbots and good old citizens, were standing there in niches, with their hands clasped in one eternal prayer; for there now lie the dead of more than seven hundred years, with the wise Moray, and Montrose the loyal; for many a proud peer and valiant warrior, the faithful and the false, the just and the unjust, the impious and the true, the beautiful and the deformed, all blent in one common and undistinguishable dust, have mouldered beneath the pavement of its deep vaults and solemn aisles.