But the whole exterior of the building, except here and
there a buttress, and one old patch of gray stones, seems to have been
renewed within a very few years with red freestone; and, really, I think
it is all the more beautiful for being new,--the ornamental parts being
so sharply cut, and the stone, moreover, showing various shadings, which
will disappear when it gets weatherworn. There is a very large and fine
east window, of recent construction, wrought with delicate stone tracery.
The door of the south transept stood open, though barred by an iron
grate. We looked in, and saw a few monuments on the wall, but found
nobody to give us admittance. The portal of this entrance is very lovely
with wreaths of stone foliage and flowers round the arch, recently
carved; yet not so recently but that the swallows have given their
sanction to it, as if it were a thousand years old, and have built their
nests in the deeply carved recesses. While we were looking, a little
bird flew into the small opening between two of these petrified flowers,
behind which was his nest, quite out of sight. After some attempts to
find the verger, we went back to the hotel. . . . .
In the morning my wife and J----- went back to see the interior of the
cathedral, while I strayed at large about the town, again passing round
the castle site, and thence round the city, where I found some
inconsiderable portions of the wall which once girt it about.
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