he set out for England.

At Bellay the incautious canons allowed him to undo a sacred little
bundle which held three fingers of St. John Baptist, which they trusted
him to kiss, although for many years no one had even looked upon such
awful articulations. After confession, absolution, and prayer the bones
were bared, and he touched "the joints which had touched God's holy
head," kissed them, and signed the prostrate worshippers with them with
the holy sign. Then he cut off a good piece of the ancient red cloth
which had covered them and handed it to Adam. Thence he visited three
more Charterhouses. In one of these, Arvieres, he met a man of his own
age, Arthault by name, who had resigned his bishopric and was ending his
days as a holy monk. In full chapter the bishop and the ex-bishop met.
Arthault, knowing Hugh had been at the peace-making between France and
England, asked him to tell them the terms of the peace; but the latter
smiled and said, "My lord father, to hear and carry tales is allowable
to bishops, but not to monks. Tales must not come to cells or cloister.
We must not leave towns and carry tales to solitude." So he turned the
talk to spiritual themes. Perhaps he saw that it is easier to resign a
bishopric than to forsake the world altogether.

The next important place was Clugny, where they read him a chapter from
St. Gregory's "Pastoral Care," and extorted the compliment from him that
their well-ordained house would have made him a Clugniac if he had not
been a Carthusian. Thence he went to Citeaux and said Mass for the
Assumption (August 15th), and passed on to Clairvaux. Here he met John,
the ex-Archbishop of Lyons, who was meditating away the last days of his
life. Hugh asked him what scriptures most helped his thoughts, and the
reply must have struck an answering chord in the questioner, "To
meditate entirely upon the Psalms has now usurped my whole inward being.
Inexhaustible refreshment always comes new from these. Such is fresh
daily, and always delicious to the taste of the inner man." Hugh's
devotion to the Psalms is evidenced by many passages in his life, and
not least by the fact that he divided the whole Psalter among the
members of the Chapter so that it should be recited throughout every
day. His own share included three Psalms, i., ii., and iii., and if the
reader tries to look at these through the saint's eyes he will see much
in them that he has not hitherto suspected to be there.

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