In one of the southern side-chapels will be found a verger, from whom it is well worth while to obtain access to the roof of the Chapel. This is reached by a wide spiral stairway in the north-western turret. Our first goal is a small door (the key of which should be specially asked for) leading into a narrow loop-holed passage, from which we can scramble into the space between the two roofs of the Chapel. We are here on the top of the fan vaulting which we have so much admired from below, and can note with what wondrous skill its huge stones are dovetailed into one another with the round keystone boss in the centre of each span. Above, and only just above, our heads are the mighty beams of Spanish chestnut composing the upper roof, the long vista being lighted by a small grated window at either end. Returning to the staircase it does not take many steps more to bring us to the roof proper, with its open-work parapets and long leaden slope. This should be climbed to get the full benefit of the view, and those gifted with steadiness of head and sureness of foot will do well to make their way along the ridge from end to end, for each has its own beauties to show. To the West we see below us the great lawn, and the court of Clare, and the river, and the delicious verdure of the Backs, amid which rise the red walls of the Ladies' College at Newnham, and the adjoining Anglican foundation of Selwyn; while beyond is the open country, bounded by the low chalk upland stretching from Madingley Hill on the North to Barrington Hill on the South. The spire, so conspicuous on the summit of this range, is that of Hardwicke Church. To the South we can distinguish the places already described, (the little glass dome of the Fitzwilliam Museum, and the graceful spire of Our Lady's Church, being conspicuous objects,) and, beyond, the distant range of the East-Anglian Heights from the furthest north-east to the furthest south-west, that form the watershed of the wide valley of the Cam. To the East, the tower of the University Church, Great St. Mary's, raises its turrets almost to the level of our feet, and we look down on a maze of Cambridge house-roofs bright with the variegated tiling which is their special and beautiful characteristic. Beyond them the near promontory of the Gog Magog Hills juts out from the East-Anglian Heights on which lies Newmarket. To the North come College after College, Clare, Trinity Hall, Caius, Trinity, St. John's, Magdalene; while the University Library and the Senate House lie nearer still. Due north, across these, and across the wide-flung plain beyond them, the plain of the Southern Fenland, we can, if the day be clear, discern on the far horizon the shadowy towers of Ely Cathedral, fifteen miles away as the crow flies. CHAPTER IV