nd the exact matter." Hugh
answered, "Good father, and my most kind nurser, the law of sin and
death in my members troubles me even to the death, and except I have thy
wonted help, thy lad will even die." "Yes, I will help thee." The
visitor took a razor in his hand and cut out an internal inflamed
tumour, flung it far away, blessed his patient, and disappeared, leaving
no trace of his surgery in heart or flesh. Hugh told this story in his
last illness to Adam, his chaplain, and added that though after this the
flesh troubled him, its assaults were easy to scorn and to repress,
though always obliging him to walk humbly.

The king's messengers took with them the Bishop of Grenoble and unfolded
their errand. The Charterhouse was horrified, and the prior most of all.
He delayed a reply. The first prior refused the request. The votes
varied. Bovo, a monk who afterwards succeeded to Witham, declared
strongly that it was a divine call, that the holiness of the order might
be advertised to the ends of the earth. Hugh was too large a light to
keep under their bushel. He seems better fitted to be a bishop than a
monk, he said. Hugh was then bidden to speak. He told them that with all
the holy advice and examples about him he had never managed to keep his
own soul for one day, so how could any wise person think him fit to rule
other folk? Could he set up a new house, if he could not even keep the
rules of the old one? This is childishness and waste of time. "Let us
for the future leave such matters alone, and since the business is hard
and urgent do you only occupy yourselves to see that this king's
undertaking be frittered no longer away half done, to the peril of souls
and the dishonour of the holy order, and so from among you or from your
other houses choose a man fit for this work and send him with these men.
Since these are wise, do you too answer them wisely. Grant their desire,
not their request. Give them a man not such as they seek under a
mistake, but such as they devoutly and discreetly demand. It is not
right that men should be heard unadvisedly who mistake the man of their
request and who do not really want to be mistaken in the man's
qualifications. So, in a word, do not grant their request, but cheer
them by bettering it." The prior and Hugh were of one decision. The
former declared point blank that he would not say go, and finally he
turned to the Carthusian Bishop of Grenoble, "our bishop, father, and
brother in