treet, becoming
increasingly rich in overhanging storeys and curious sixteenth and
seventeenth century fronts. One's eye glances rapidly from side to
side, until, on the left, an exceedingly narrow turning gives a
peep--such a peep as no other city can give unless it be Rouen--of the
Cathedral's western towers rising above a sumptuously enriched stone
gateway framed by tall, timbered houses, which nod towards one another
in the neighbourly fashion of old cronies. It might be that the modern
pilgrim, whose course is thus arrested by the vision he sees in this
cleft called Mercery Lane, might have had some intention of going
straight through the city to St. Martin's Church outside the walls to
the east; but, if so, he is a strong man who resists the appeal of
that narrow way belonging altogether to the world of romance. He
stands for a moment transfixed, and then plunges into the opening,
forgetful of his original purpose in the vivid reality before him. He
walks down the lane trodden century after century by countless
pilgrims and enters the Cathedral precincts through the weather-worn
gateway, Prior Goldstone II. built between 1507 and 1517.

From the archway the first near vision of the vast pile is unfolded,
nearly the whole of the south side being visible. Immediately opposite
are the two western towers, the nearer one finished in 1451 and the
further rebuilt seventy years ago. The heavily buttressed nave, in the
same Perpendicular style, stretches away to the transept, where the
eye mounts up higher and higher until it rests on the clustered
pinnacles of the _campanilis Angeli_--the Angel Tower, as Prior
Molashe by some happy inspiration chose to call the imposing feature
he added to his priory church. Beyond the south-west transept appears
the plain Norman work of the larger and more massive transept to the
east, with its beautiful staircase tower built into the inner angle, a
part of Conrad's "glorious" choir. The remaining eastern parts of the
Cathedral are not visible from this point, but as one walks
eastwards--the other way is closed by the Archbishop's Palace--St.
Anselm's Tower and Trinity Chapel with its corona, or semicircular
extension, successively appear. Armed even with such brief information
as that given in the preceding chapter, one gazes on these weathered
cliffs of wrought stone with quickened breath, reading into the
Transitional Norman work the strange story of the historic murder
which brought