The fashionable patrons of the drama must have been shocked not only at the sight of the butchers’ business, but also at that of the iron fastenings of various heights and sizes to hold the hands and feet of vagrants during flogging, all of which were placed close to the entrance of the theatre. The cries of suffering culprits would have formed a discordant accompaniment to the harmonies of the orchestra.[70] We now approach the Cathedral, through the avenue of tall lime trees. Enthusiasts say they were planted by Charles II., and let us hope that was the case, for he is the last monarch around whom there is any halo of romance. He had certainly a design to connect the Palace with the Cathedral by means of an avenue. But the tradition which points to one of the larger elms on the south side of the Cathedral as having been planted by his hand, appears to me more credible. [Sidenote: West Front.] “What an immense west window,” exclaimed Mr. Hertford. “It seems to monopolize all the façade and to be out of proportion to the stone-work around it--a very large picture in a very narrow frame.” “This was the work of Bishop Edington,” I observed, “begun about 1345. He did not like the ‘dim religious light’ of the Middle Ages.” What a different front did the Norman knights here behold; something as stern and cold as their own iron armour. A vast blank face of masonry rose before them, broken only by a few plain, round-headed windows, without even a pane of glass to reflect the setting sun.[71] There is proof from excavations, and some remains in the wall of the garden on the south, that some kind of portico was commenced in front of the present façade, with a tower forty feet square at either end, but that the work was abandoned a few feet above ground. The interior was also severe. The pillars indeed were about the same size and height as those we now see--their Norman terminations still remain under the roof--and the eight westernmost on the south side have not been even re-cased, but only slightly chiselled into rounder form. But they did not originally break into graceful fans upon the vaulting, nor were there between them lofty arches crowned with ornamental windows. No; the spaces were occupied by three tiers of low, round arches, producing a monotonous effect, such as we still see in the transepts. The vaulting of the side aisles was also low and heavy, supporting the deep triforium gallery. The whole structure had a Spartan simplicity and strength characteristic of a rude age. It terminated eastward in an apse under the place where now glows the stained-glass window of Bishop Fox.[72] [Illustration: _In the North Transept._] Such was the building to which the body of Rufus “dropping blood” was brought by night in a peasant’s cart, and where it was buried with little lamentation. Seven years afterwards the great tower fell, because, as the monks thought, it could not bear to have such a wicked man buried under it. [Sidenote: The Nave.]