ormer he lost
sight of--a little low-born boy in Newark Castle. Hugh used to put his
baby friends to school when they grew older. Benedict of Caen was one of
these, and he slipped off Roger de Roldeston's horse into a rushing
stream, but was miraculously not drowned: and Robert of Noyon was
another whom he picked up at Lambeth in the archbishop's train and put
to school with the nuns at Elstow.

These tender passages are to be contrasted with quite other sides to
the man. Once an old rustic arrived late for a roadside confirmation.
The bishop was in the saddle and trotting off to another place near,
when the old fellow bawled after him that he, too, wished to be
bishopped. Hugh more than once bade him hurry with the rest to the next
place, but the man sat plump on the ground and said it was the bishop's
fault and not his if he missed that Grace. The prelate looked back, and
at last pulled up, turned his horse, rode back, and was off saddle
again, and had the rite administered swiftly; but having laid holy hands
upon him, he laid also a disciplinary one, for he boxed the old fellow's
ears pretty smartly, which spanking some would have us to believe was a
technical act of ritual, a sort of _accolade_ in fact. The same has been
suggested about the flogging of forester Godfrey; for the mere resonance
of these blows it seems, is too much for the tender nerves of our
generation. Another bumpkin with his son once ran after the bishop's
horse. The holy man descended, opened his chrism box, and donned his
stole, but the boy had been confirmed already. The father wanted to
change the boy's name; it would bring him luck. The bishop, horrified at
such paganism, asked the boy's name. When he heard that it was John he
was furious. "John, a Hebrew name for God's Grace. How dare you ask for
a better one? Do you want him called 'hoe' or 'fork'? For your foolish
request, take a year's penance, Wednesday's Lenten diet and Friday's
bread and water."{6}

He was hardly abreast of his very legal time in reverence for the
feudal system. One of his tenants died and his bailiffs seized the best
thing he had, to wit, an ox, as heriot due to the lord. The poor widow
in tears begged and prayed for her ox back again, as the beast was
breadwinner for her young children. The seneschal of the place chimed
in, "But, my lord, if you remit these and similar legal dues, you will
be absolutely unable to hold the land at all." The bishop heard him and
leap