But the chief object of interest in Salisbury was the fine cathedral, with its magnificent Decorated Spire, the highest and finest in England, and perhaps one of the finest in Europe, for it is 404 feet high, forty feet higher, we were informed, than the cross on the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.  This information rather staggered my brother, for he had an exalted opinion of the height of St. Paul’s, which he had visited when he went to the Great Exhibition in London in 1862.

On that occasion he had ascended the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral from the inside by means of the rickety stairs and ladders provided for that purpose, and had reached the golden ball which supported the cross on the top, when he found it already occupied by two gentlemen smoking cigars, who had arrived there before him, and who kindly assisted him into the ball, which, although it only appeared about the size of a football when seen from the city below, was big enough to hold four men.  They also very kindly offered him a cigar, which he was obliged to decline with thanks, for he did not smoke; but when they told him they came from Scotland, he was not surprised to find them there, as Scotsmen even in those days were proverbial for working their way to the top not only of the cathedrals, but almost everywhere else besides.  The “brither Scots” were working to a previously arranged programme, the present item being to smoke a cigar in the golden ball on the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral.  When my brother began the descent, he experienced one of the most horrible sensations of his life, for hundreds of feet below him he could see the floor of the cathedral with apparently nothing whatever in the way to break a fall; so that a single false step might have landed him in eternity, for if he had fallen he must have been dashed into atoms on the floor so far below.  The gentlemen saw he was nervous, and advised him as he descended the ladder backwards not to look down into the abyss below, but to keep his eyes fixed above, and following this excellent advice, he got down safely.  He always looked back on that adventure in the light of a most horrible nightmare and with justification, for in later years the Cathedral authorities made the Whispering Gallery the highest point to which visitors were allowed to ascend.

We did not of course attempt to climb the Salisbury spire, although there were quite a number of staircases inside the cathedral, and after climbing these, adventurous visitors might ascend by ladders through the timber framework to a door near the top; from that point, however, the cross and the vane could only be reached by steeple-jacks.  Like other lofty spires, that of Salisbury had been a source of anxiety and expense from time to time, but the timber used in the building of it had been allowed to remain inside, which had so strengthened it that it was then only a few inches out of the perpendicular.  When a new vane was put on in 1762 a small box was discovered in the ball to which the vane was fixed.  This box was made of wood, but inside it was another box made of lead, and enclosed in that was found a piece of very old silk—­a relic, it was supposed, of the robe of the Virgin Mary, to whom the cathedral was dedicated, and placed there to guard the spire from danger.  The casket was carefully resealed and placed in its former position under the ball.