“Onward!” is again the word, and ascending a short incline, we find ourselves on the top of another of the four great Gates of the city. We are now exactly opposite to where we set out, and have, therefore, at least half completed our circuit of the city. The West, or as it is more usually termed, the WATER GATE (from the Dee having originally flowed up to its portals), is like the East and North Gates, a modern structure, having replaced the old and unsightly archway in 1789, as appears by an inscription on the west side. The custody of Chester Gates was at one time a privilege much courted by the high and mighty in the land. Thus the sergeantship of the East Gate has belonged since the time of Edward I. to the ancestors of the present Lord Crewe, of Crewe; the North Gate during that period has been in charge of the citizens; the Water Gate, on which we are now standing, in custody of the Stanleys, Earls of Derby; while the Bridge Gate, to which we shall presently come, belonged to the Earls of Shrewsbury, inheriting from their ancestors, the Troutbecks and Rabys, sergeants thereof in the fourteenth century. Below us lies a plain of sweetest verdure and most inviting beauty; and by way of diversifying our subject, we will now step down from the Gate and Walls, and find ourselves, in another chapter, treading the green sward of the old Roodeye. CHAPTER IV. The Walls, continued.—The Roodeye.—Chester Races.—The Castle of the Olden Time, and the Castle of To-day.—The Grosvenor Bridge.—Cæsar’s Tower.—Handbridge and Edgar’s Cave.—Bridgegate.—Dee Mills and Bridge.—Causeway.—Queen’s Park and Wishing Steps.—The Newgate and its Traditions.—The East Gate. WELL, here we are, on a beautiful meadow, eighty-four acres in extent, clad in Nature’s own mantle of brightest green, and bearing the euphonious name of the ROODEYE. This splendid pasture, now so cheerful to look upon, has not always worn the same gay aspect. In ages past and gone—when the Saxon and the Norman held sway over the land—when colossal Liverpool was but a simple fishing-hamlet—the infant commerce of England was borne along the surging billows of the Dee, up to the very Walls of Chester. In those days the spacious lawn before us was covered with water at every tide, save only a bank or eye of land near the centre, which being surmounted by a plain substantial stone cross, acquired the name of the ROODEYE, or the _Island of the Cross_. Are you fond of legends?—Here then is one that may gratify your taste.