ing in three years'
time, meanwhile paying Templars to do it for him. All this comes out in
driblets after Nones, and brings us to 1171 A.D., brother Hugh being
aged about one and thirty. When the old monk died Hugh was given another
old man to wait upon--Peter, the Archbishop of Tarentaise, who came
there often for retreat and study. This renowned old man had been a
friend of St. Bernard, and was a great stickler and miracle worker for
Alexander III., and he was a delegate to make peace between Henry and
Louis, when he died in 1174. Hugh found his quotations, compiled any
_catena_ he wished to make, retrieved saintly instances, washed his
feet, walked with him, and sat with him on a seat between two large fir
trees, which seat "miraculously grew no higher, as the trees grew." In
this manner Hugh knew and was known of the outside world, for Archbishop
Peter was a man of large following and acquaintance.

And now Hugh is made, wincingly, the procurator or bursar of the Grande
Chartreuse, after he has spent eight years there, and is plunged in a
sea of worldly business. The prior makes good use of his tact, business
capacity, and honourable nature. He had thought and read to some
purpose, for he ruled the lay brothers with diligence, and instructed
the monks with great care, stirring up the sluggish and bitting the
heady into restfulness. He did his worldly work vigorously, and turned
it swiftly to spiritual gain. He had strong wine of doctrine for the
chapter-house, milk for the auditorium. The secular people, if they were
rich, he taught not to trust in riches; if they were poor, he refreshed
them with such rations as the Order allowed. If he had nothing else, he
always had a kind and cheery word to give. Among the travellers must
have been many noble postmen, who carried letters in their hands and
messages in their heads from Henry to Humbert of Maurienne, who held the
keys of all the Alpine roads to Italy and Germany and whose infant
daughter was betrothed to the boy John Lackland with dowries disputable,
whereat Henry junior rebels, and makes uncommon mischief. The
procurator was keen and accurate in his work. He never mislaid the
books, forgot, fumbled, or made a "loiter," _morantia_, as they called
it, when the office halted or was unpunctual. The lay brethren did not
have to cough at any trips in his reading, which was their quaint way of
rebuking mistakes.

Henry II. was reconciled in 1172 and his crusade was to