'Church was already given to Geoffry Ridell, my soul was struck 'with sorrow because I had laboured in vain. Coming home, 'therefore, I sat me down secretly under the Shrine of St. Ed'mund, fearing lest our Lord Abbot should seize and imprison 'me, though I had done no mischief; nor was there a monk 'who durst speak to me, nor a laic who durst bring me food 'except by stealth."

Such resting and welcoming found Brother Samson, with his worn soles, and strong heart! He sits silent, revolving many thoughts, at the foot of St. Edmund's Shrine. In the wide Earth, if it be not Saint Edmund, what friend or refuge has he? Our Lord Abbot, hearing of him, sent the proper officer to lead him down to prison, and clap 'foot-gyves on him' there. Another poor official furtively brought him a cup of wine; bade him "be comforted in the Lord." Samson utters no complaint; obeys in silence. Our Lord Abbot, taking counsel of it, banished me to Acre, and there I had to stay long.'

Our Lord Abbot next tried Samson with promotions; made him Subsacristan, made him Librarian, which he liked best of all, being passionately fond of Books: Samson, with many thoughts in him, again obeyed in silence; discharged his offices to perfection, but never thanked our Lord Abbot,-seemed rather as if looking into him, with those clear eyes of his. Whereupon Abbot Hugo said, Se nunquam vidisse, He had never seen such a man; whom no severity would break to complain, and no kindness soften into smiles or thanks :—a questionable kind of man!

In this way, not without troubles, but still in an erect clearstanding manner, has Brother Samson reached his forty-seventh year; and his ruddy beard is getting slightly grizzled. He is endeavouring, in these days, to have various broken things thatched in; nay perhaps to have the Choir itself completed, for he can bear nothing ruinous. He has gathered heaps of lime and sand;' has masons, slaters working, he and Warinus monachus noster, who are joint keepers of the Shrine; paying out the money duly, furnished by charitable burghers of St. Edmundsbury, they say. Charitable burghers of St. Edmundsbury? To me

* Jocelini Chronica, p. 36.

Jocelin it seems rather, Samson, and Warinus whom he leads, have privily hoarded the oblations at the Shrine itself, in these late years of indolent dilapidation, while Abbot Hugo sat wrapt inaccessible; and are struggling, in this prudent way, to have the rain kept out!*-Under what conditions, sometimes, has Wisdom to struggle with Folly; get Folly persuaded to so much as thatch out the rain from itself! For, indeed, if the Infant govern the Nurse, what dexterous practice on the Nurse's part will not be necessary.

It is a new regret to us that, in these circumstances, our Lord the King's Custodiars, interfering, prohibited all building or thatching from whatever source; and no Choir shall be completed, and Rain and Time, for the present, shall have their way. Willelmus Sacrista, he of 'the frequent bibations and some things not to be spoken of;' he, with his red nose, I am of opinion, had made complaint to the Custodiars; wishing to do Samson an ill turn:-Samson his Subsacristan, with those clear eyes, could not be a prime favourite of his! Samson again obeys in silence.

*Jocelini Chronica, p. 7.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CANVASSING.

Now, however, come great news to St. Edmundsbury: That there is to be an Abbot elected; that our interlunar obscuration is to cease; St. Edmund's Convent no more to be a doleful widow, but joyous and once again a bride! Often in our widowed state had we prayed to the Lord and St. Edmund, singing weekly a matter of 'one-and-twenty penitential Psalms, on our knees in the Choir,' that a fit Pastor might be vouchsafed us. And, says Jocelin, had some known what Abbot we were to get, they had not been so devout, I believe !—Bozzy Jocelin opens to mankind the floodgates of authentic Convent gossip; we listen, as in a Dionysius' Ear, to the inanest hubbub, like the voices at Virgil's Horn-Gate of Dreams. Even gossip, seven centuries off, has significance. List, list, how like men are to one another in all centuries;

'Dixit quidam de quodam, a certain person said of a certain 'person, "He, that Frater, is a good monk, probabilis persona; 'knows much of the order and customs of the church; and though not so perfect a philosopher as some others, would make 'a very good Abbot. Old Abbot Ording, still famed among us, 'knew little of letters. Besides, as we read in Fables, it is bet'ter to choose a log for king, than a serpent never so wise, that 'will venomously hiss and bite his subjects."-" Impossible!" ' answered the other: "How can such a man make a sermon in 'the Chapter, or to the people on festival days, when he is with' out letters? How can he have the skill to bind and to loose, 'he who does not understand the Scriptures? How-?"'

And then another said of another, alius de alio, "That Frater 'is a homo literatus, eloquent, sagacious; vigorous in discipline; 'loves the Convent much, has suffered much for its sake." To

'which a third party answers, "From all your great clerks good 'Lord deliver us! From Norfolk barrators, and surly persons, 'That it would please thee to preserve us, We beseech thee to 'hear us, good Lord!" Then another quidam said of another quodam, "That Frater is a good manager (husebondus);" but was 'swiftly answered, "God forbid that a man who can neither read 'nor chant, nor celebrate the divine offices, an unjust person 'withal, and grinder of the faces of the poor, should ever be 'Abbot !" One man, it appears, is nice in his victuals. Another is indeed wise; but apt to slight inferiors; hardly at the pains to answer, if they argue with him too foolishly. And so each aliquis concerning his aliquo,—through whole pages of electioneering babble. For,' says Jocelin, 'So many men, so many minds.' Our Monks at time of blood-letting, tempore minutionis,' holding their sanhedrim of babble, would talk in this manner: Brother Samson, I remarked, never said anything; sat silent, sometimes smiling; but he took good note of what others said, and would bring it up, on occasion, twenty years after. As for me Jocelin, I was of opinion that 'some skill in Dialectics, to distinguish true from false,' would be good in an Abbot. I spake as a rash Novice in those days, some conscientious words of a certain benefactor of mine; and behold, one of those sons of Belial' ran and reported them to him, so that he never after looked at me with the same face again! Poor Bozzy!—

cases.

Such is the buzz and frothy simmering ferment of the general mind and no-mind; struggling to make itself up,' as the phrase is, or ascertain what it does really want; no easy matter, in most St. Edmundsbury, in that Candlemas season of the year 1182, is a busily fermenting place. The very clothmakers sit meditative at their looms; asking, Who shall be Abbot? The sochemanni speak of it, driving their ox-teams afield; the old women with their spindles and none yet knows what the days will bring forth.

The Prior, however, as our interim chief, must proceed to work; get readyTwelve Monks,' and set off with them to his Majesty at Waltham, there shall the election be made. An election, whether managed directly by ballot-box on public hustings, or indi

rectly by force of public opinion, or were it even by open alehouses, landlords' coercion, popular club-law, or whatever clectoral methods, is always an interesting phenomenon. A mountain tumbling in great travail, throwing up dustclouds and absurd noises, is visibly there; uncertain yet what mouse or monster it will give birth to.

Besides it is a most important social act; nay, at bottom, the one important social act. Given the men a People choose, the People itself, in its exact worth and worthlessness, is given. A heroic people chooses heroes, and is happy; a valet or flunkey people chooses sham-heroes, what are called quacks, thinking them heroes, and is not happy. The grand summary of a man's spiritual condition, what brings out all his herohood and insight, or all his flunkeyhood and horn-eyed dimness, is this question put to him, What man dost thou honour? Which is thy ideal of a man; or nearest that? So too of a People: for a People too, every People, speaks its choice, were it only by silently obeying, and not revolting,-in the course of a century or so. Nor are electoral methods, Reform Bills and such like, unimportant. A People's electoral methods are, in the long-run, the express image of its electoral talent; tending and gravitating perpetually, irresistibly, to a conformity with that: and are, at all stages, very significant of the People. Judicious readers, of these times, are not disinclined to see how Monks elect their Abbot in the Twelfth Century how the St. Edmundsbury mountain manages its midwifery; and what mouse or man the outcome is.