and would have spurred him on, he would say, "No need to wait
for us. Let him eat in the Lord's name;" and to his friends, "It is
better for the king to eat without us, than for our humility to pass the
Eternal King's order unfulfilled." Near Argentan, in Normandy, he once
found a new grave by the roadside and learnt that a beggar-boy lay
there. The priest had let him lie there, because there was no fee and no
one would carry him to the church-yard. Hugh was deeply grieved, said
the office himself, and rattled that priest pretty smartly to his bishop
for denying Christian burial to the penniless and needy.

Once while the cathedral works were being carried on, a mason engaged on
the fabric asked him for pontifical shrift for a brother who had just
died. It was winter, and the feast of St. Stephen. Hugh promptly gave
the absolution, and then asked if the body were yet buried. When he
learnt that it was only being watched in a somewhat distant church, he
ordered three horses instantly, one for himself, one for his outrider,
and one for his chaplain; but as only two were to be had he sent the
chaplain on ahead, himself followed with a monk and a couple of servers,
and devoutly buried not only the mason's brother, but five other bodies.
Another time, when the Archdeacon of Bedford gave a large and solemn
feast to the dignified clergy--who, by the way, seldom shine in these
narratives--the bishop so wearied them by his funereal delays that they
explained their impatience to him not without some tartness of reproof.
His only reply was, "Why do you not recall the voice of the Lord, who
said with His holy lips, My meat is to do the will of My Father in
heaven?" Another time, again, one hot spring when there was a general
meeting of magnates, he heard that one of the prelates was dead.{16} The
man was an outrageous guzzler and toper, but Hugh prayed earnestly for
him, and then asked where he was to be buried. The now unromantic spot
of Bermondsey was to be the burying ground, and the funeral was on the
very day and hour of the Westminster gathering, in which matters deeply
interesting to Lincoln were to be handled. No one of the bishops or
abbots would stir out for their detected dead fellow, but "to desert him
in his last need" was impossible to his saintlier brother. He must be
off to bury the man, council or no council. The body had been clad in an
alb and chasuble. Its face was bare and black, and the gross frame was
burstin