From this point we wander into the Choir, and admire the tall carved spires of oak, blackened by the airs of six centuries. A verger turns up the seats to show us the quaint carvings of an age when humour did not seem distasteful in churches--here is a pig playing the fiddle, another chanting, and a third blowing the trumpet. In the centre of the pavement lies the sphinx of the Cathedral--rude, archaic, enigmatical. It has been surmised to be the tomb of some royal Saxon, or of Bishop de Blois. Winchester men continue to swear it is that of Rufus, who was “buried in the choir,” but that king’s bones seem, from an inscription on one of the neighbouring coffers, to have been chested and perched up by Fox. Everything about it is a puzzle. The rebels in the Civil War broke it open and found a silver chalice, a gold ring, and pieces of cloth of gold, within it. This has led to the supposition that De Blois rested here. In 1868 it was again opened, and one of the vergers told me he had handled the bones, had seen beside them the arrow-head with which the king was killed, and had remarked what an excellent set of teeth he possessed. Remains of cloth of gold and other tissues were discovered, and seven gold Norman braids finely worked, as we can see in the library, where they are preserved.[76] [Illustration: The Choir from the Nave.] The altar screen must have been most effective when the figures remained. Dean Kitchin has given a tantalizing account of it, and during the Civil War a wall was built before it. But throughout the last century, the niches were filled with modern vases, the gift of an excellent prebendary, Master Harris, whose zeal was greater than his taste. Leaving the learned to fight the dusty battle of Rufus and De Blois, we make our way to the iron gate, and each deposit the silver obolus to admit us to the realms of the departed. Here a group of visitors is waiting, and we look up at the interesting Norman work in the south transept. There are good reasons for supposing that the transepts were not built continuously--a change of plan can be traced--and it would seem that there was at one time an intention of placing a couple of towers at the end of each transept. The great central tower also was erected later--after Walkelin’s death. [Sidenote: Isaak Walton.]