While Rollo and Jennie were sitting on the stairs, resting from their fatigue, they began to hear, after a time, the voices of Mr. George and Mrs. Holiday, ascending.
"Are we nearly at the top?" said Rollo.
"I don't know," said Mr. George. "Stay till you get rested, and then follow on."
So saying, Mr. George and Mrs. Holiday passed by, ascending the stairs very slowly, step by step, as they had begun.
Rollo and Jennie were not willing to be left behind; so they followed immediately; and after a few more turns they found themselves, to their great joy, at the top of the staircase. They came out in a large garret-like looking room, which was over the south transept of the church. You can see the end of the south transept in the engraving. It is the part which you see projecting from the main body of the church on the right, with a circular portico leading to it. There is a similar circular portico, with circular steps outside, at the entrance to the north transept, on the other side of the church, which, however, is not shown in the engraving.
[Illustration: ST PAUL'S.]
The party passed under a great archway which led towards the centre of the church, and presently they came to another long and garret-like looking hall, or corridor, with great arches of masonry passing over it from one side to the other at regular intervals along its whole length, like the beams and rafters of wood in an ordinary garret. This great vacant space was directly over one of the side aisles of the church.[D]
[D] The reader will recollect, from the description of Westminster Abbey, that the central part of the body of the church is called the nave, and that the parts of each side of the nave, beyond the ranges of columns that border it on the north and on the south, are called the aisles, and that the aisles are not so high usually as the nave. The long, vacant space which our party was now traversing was directly over the south aisle. They were coming towards the spectator, in the view of the church represented in the engraving. You see two towers in the front of the building shown in the engraving. The one on the right hand is on the south, and is called the clock tower. The other tower, which is on the north, is called the belfry. The party were coming along over the south aisle and south transept towards this south tower. If you read this explanation attentively, comparing it with the engraving, and compare the rest of the description with the engraving, you will be able to follow the party exactly through the whole of their ascent.
"What a monstrous long garret!" said Rollo.
"Yes," said Mr. George; "and there is something very curious about this garret, as you call it, which I will explain to you some other time."
Rollo was very willing to have this explanation postponed; for his attention was just now attracted by some curious-looking tools, consisting of axes, hammers, and saws, which were arranged in a very symmetrical manner, in a sort of circle, on the wall near him. There were two or three men in this part of the building, and one of them came forward to show this party which way they were to go. Rollo asked this man what these tools were for. He said they were to be used in case of fire.
The tools were very antique and venerable in their form, and looked as if they might have been hanging where they were untouched for centuries.
"Yes," said Rollo; "and there are some buckets, too, for the same purpose."
So saying, he pointed to a row of buckets which he saw hanging along the wall on the other side.
"Yes," said Jennie; "and there is a little fire engine."
The man who had undertaken to guide them now led the way, and the party followed him, till they came to the clock tower, which is the one that is seen in the engraving in the front of the building, towards the right. Then he conducted them, after passing through various galleries and chambers, to a large and handsome room, with a table and some chairs in the middle of it, and carved bookcases filled with very ancient-looking books all round the sides. As soon as the party had all entered the room the guide turned round towards them, and, in a very formal and monotonous manner, like a schoolboy reciting a speech which he had committed to memory for a declamation, made the following statement:-
"This room is the library room of the dean and chapter. It is fifty
feet long and forty feet wide. The floor is of oak. It is made of
two thousand three hundred and seventy-six square pieces, curiously
inlaid, without a nail or a peg to fasten them together."
After looking about for a little time in this room, in which, after all, there was nothing very remarkable or interesting except the idea that it was situated in one of the towers of St. Paul's, the party were conducted across the end of the church towards the other tower seen in the engraving; that is, the tower on the left, which is used as a belfry. In passing through from one of these towers to the other, the party traversed a sort of gallery which was built here across the end of the church, and which afforded a very commanding view of the whole interior of the edifice. The whole party stopped a moment in this gallery to look down into the church below. They could see through the whole length of it, five hundred feet; and Rollo and Jennie were very much amused at the groups of people that were walking about here and there, like mites, on the marble floor. They could see, at a great distance, the place where the transepts crossed the main building; but of course they could not see far into the transepts. In the same manner they could see the beginning of the dome; but they could not see very far up into it, the view being cut off by the vaulted roof of the nave, which was nearer.
After this our party went to see various other curious places in and near these two great towers. One of these places was called the model room, where there is a very large model of a plan for a church which Sir Christopher Wren, the architect who built St. Paul's, first designed. By most good judges, it is thought to be a better design than the one which was finally adopted. There were, besides this, various other curious models and old relics in this room.
The party also went up into the clock tower, by means of a very narrow, steep, and winding staircase, where there was only room for one to go at a time. The steps were of stone, but they were greatly worn away by the footsteps of the thousands of visitors that had ascended them.
There was a woman at the top of the stairs who had the charge of the clock room. This woman showed the party the wheels of the clock, which were of prodigious magnitude.[E] There were three bells-two that were called the small bells, though they were really very large, and one which was called the large bell. This last, Rollo said, was a monster.
[E] The works of this clock are on such a scale that the pendulum is fourteen feet long, and the weight at the end weighs more than one hundred pounds. The minute hand is eight feet long, and weighs seventy-five pounds.
"The small bells," said the woman, pointing up to the bells, which Rollo and Jennie saw far above their heads, in the midst of a maze of beams and rafters, "chime the quarter hours. The great bell strikes the hours, and tolls in case of the death of any member of the royal family."
"I don't see any thing very remarkable about them," said Rollo to his mother. "They are only three common bells."
"No," replied Mrs. Holiday, "the things themselves that are to be seen are nothing. It is only the curious places that we climb up to to see them, and the thought that we are in the veritable old St. Paul's."
After having talked some little time with the woman about the clock and the bells, and about the visitors that come from day to day to see them, the party descended again, by the dark and narrow stairway, to the great corridor by which they came to this part of the church, in order to visit the parts of the edifice connected with the dome and cupola, which are, in some respects, more interesting than all the rest.