ss. When they hesitated, he upbraided
them with want of faith and of sense, because they could not obey orders
or see the force of them. When he journeyed and crowds came to be
confirmed themselves or to present their little ones, he would get off
his horse at a suitable spot and perform that rite. Neither tiredness,
weakness, haste, rough ground, nor rain would induce him to confirm from
the saddle. A young bishop afterwards, with no possible excuse, would
order the frightened children up among restive horses. They came weeping
and whipped by insolent attendants at no small risk--but his lordship
cared nothing for their woe and danger. Not so dear Father Hugh. He took
the babes gently and in due order, and if he caught any lay assistants
troubling them would reproach them terribly, sometimes even thrashing
the rascals with his own heavy hand. Then he would bless the audience,
pray for the sick, and go on with his journey.

He was passionately fond of children, not only because they were
innocent, but because they were young: and he loved to romp with
them--anticipating by nearly seven centuries the simple discovery of
their charm, and he would coax half words of wondrous wit from their
little stammering lips. They made close friends with him at once, just
as did the mesenges or blue tits who used to come from woods and
orchards of Thornholm, in Lindsey, and perch upon him, to get or to ask
for food.{5}

There is a story of a six months' old infant which jumped in its
mother's arms to see him, waved its armlets, wagged its head, and made
mysterious wrigglings (hitherto unobserved by bachelor monks) to greet
him. It dragged his hand with its plump palm to its mouth as if to kiss
it, although truth compels biographer Adam to acknowledge the kiss was
but a suck. "These things are marvellous and to be deeply astonished
at," he says. Hugh gave the boy apples or other small apposites (let us
hope it was not apples, or the consequences of such gross ignorance
would be equally marvellous), but the child was too interested in the
bishop to notice the gifts. The bishop would tell how while he was still
Prior he once went abroad to the Carthusian Chapter and stopped with
brother William at Avalon. There his nephew, a child who could not even
speak, was laid down upon his bed and (above the force of nature)
chuckled at him--actually chuckled. Adam expected these two to grow up
into prodigies and heard good of the latter, but the f