There was nobody to forbid, so they started on a tour of inspection. The places they wanted to look at were those that ordinary church-goers never have a chance of seeing. They peeped into the choir vestry, and Verity gave rather a gasp at the sight of an array of white surplices hanging on the wall like a row of ghosts. They went down a narrow flight of damp steps into a dark place where the coke was kept, they peered into a dusty recess behind the organ, and into a room under the tower, where spare chairs were stored. All this was immensely interesting, but did not quite content them. Verity's ambition soared farther. Very high up on the wall, above the glorious pillars, and just under the clerestory windows, was a narrow passage called the Nuns' Ambulatory. It had been built in the long-ago ages to provide exercise for the sisters in the adjoining convent, to which a covered way had originally led. "Just think of the poor dears parading round there on wet days when they couldn't walk in their own garden!" said Verity, turning her head almost upside down in her efforts to scan the passage. "I wonder if they ever felt giddy." "There's a balustrade, of course, but I prefer our modern gym. I believe there's a walk all over the roof too. Athelstane went up once. He said it was like being on the top of a mountain, and you could look all over the town." "What's that queer stone box thing on the wall?" asked Verity, still gazing upwards. Ingred followed the line of her friend's eye to a point above the pillars but below the Nuns' Ambulatory. Here, built out like an oriel window, was a curious closed-in-gallery of stone, pierced in places by tiny frets. It seemed to have nothing to do with the architecture of the Abbey, and indeed to be a sort of excrescence which had been added to it at some later date. It spoilt the beauty of line, and would have been better removed. "Oh, that's the peep-hole!" said Ingred, lowering her head, for it was painful to stretch her neck in so uncomfortable a position. "It was put up in the seventeenth century, when the whole place was full of those old-fashioned high pews. People were very dishonest in those days, and thieves used to come to church on purpose to pick pockets. So they always used to keep somebody stationed up there, looking down through the holes over the congregation to see that no purses were taken during the service. Nice state of things, wasn't it?" "Rather! But I'd love to go up there. I say, the verger's still at his tea. Shall we try?" "Right-o! I'm game if you are!"