the startling,
overpowering effect; or listen again to Mendelssohn's trio without a
thrill.

But we must go on. In only one place is the way perilous--just under the
great window in the north transept; for there the passage does narrow to
a ledge; and the Clerk of the Works, who always accompanies these
wanderings in high places, bids the untried hands be careful. Once past
the window all is plain sailing again. We make our way round, above the
Confessor's Chapel, and see his coffin lying in his shrine. We pass
great rooms where all sorts of _debris_ from the building are kept--old
oaken chairs, bits of stone carving, paraphernalia for the coronation or
for any great ceremony. We walk under the painted glass windows that we
have watched, shining like jewels at the end of the apse, when we are at
service in the choir. Then comes another door, another narrow stair, and
we find ourselves in the strangest place of all. We are on the roof of
Henry the Seventh's chapel. Overhead the great rafters are piled,
supporting the outer roof; and as we advance a whirr and a rush of wings
startle our nerves which are perhaps a little on edge by this time.
There is nothing to alarm us however, for it is we who have startled
some of the flock of pigeons who live up in the roofs of the Abbey.
Hundreds of them congregate here, and get their living down in the great
restless city below, especially in Palace Yard. The cabmen on the
cabstand there, waiting for the members to come out of the House of
Parliament, are greatly attached to the Abbey pigeons. I have often
watched a rough, gruff "cabby" fetch a pailful of water and set it down
near his hansom for the pretty birds, who flutter fearlessly, bridling
and cooing, on to the edge, and dip their pink bills in the cool water,
and then hop down and peck up the oats the cab-horse has dropped from
his nose-bag. One would think that nowhere could birds be safer than in
the sanctuary of Westminster. But alas! they have enemies who respect
sanctuary far less than King Richard the Third. The vast roofs of the
Abbey are infested by a breed of fierce half-wild cats. They have lived
up there for years, and cannot be exterminated; and not only are they a
perfect pest and plague to all dwellers in the cloisters, but they get
their living by preying on the poor dear Abbey pigeons.

[Illustration: EXTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL OF HENRY THE SEVENTH.]

However, we did not climb all this height to talk of cats an