The only two points where the walls of Lincoln city were ever “joined,” in any way whatever, “with those of the castle,” are the two which I have mentioned in p. 35, viz., the north-western and the south-western angles of the castle enclosure. At the former of these two points stood, we know, the West Gate of the medieval city; and this Professor Oman (_Art of War in the Middle Ages_, p. 410) considers to have been the blocked gate of the poet’s story. I have said in my text that the blocked gate “seems” to have been the West Gate, because it is quite possible that there may have been a gate opening from the city at the other junction-point of the two walls, immediately to the south of the castle ditch. Unfortunately there is no evidence whether a gate at this point ever existed or not. Two considerations arising out of the poet’s story may seem at first glance to raise a slight presumption in favour of the hypothesis that a gate did exist there, and was the one which he had in mind. I think however that in both cases the presumption is more apparent than real. 1. The poet represents Peter as setting out on his reconnaissance in the city from the keep of the castle. He must, as M. Meyer says (_Hist. G. le Mar._, vol. iii. p. clix), have issued from the small door opening at the south-western angle of the keep. He would therefore, on reaching the further side of the ditch, find himself close to the southern junction-point of the castle wall and the city wall. If there was a gate at this point, and if it was the blocked one, his discovery of it and his return to the castle might have been effected in a few minutes, without difficulty or danger. If, on the other hand, the blocked gate was the West Gate proper, he could not have seen it from the city without going all round the southern, eastern, and northern sides of the castle, by a route answering roughly to the present Drury Lane, Bailgate, and Westgate, right through the heart of the city, and he must have returned by the same lengthy and frequented way to the door in the keep whence he had set out; an adventure which it seems hardly possible he could have achieved in safety, except under one condition. That condition, however, we may surely take for granted; it seems matter of course that before he ventured outside the castle walls he would disguise himself so as to look like an ordinary citizen going about his ordinary business in the city. In that case the longer expedition might be quite practicable, and really attended with very little risk. Moreover, if the blocked gate was the West Gate, Peter must have known of its existence before he entered the castle at all, for in going from the host to the sally-port he would pass before the outer side of the West Gate; and this would go far to account for his eagerness to explore the city--in other words, to ascertain what was on the inner side of a blocked-up gate whose outer side had already attracted his notice.