into _peat_; lies sleek and
buried,--and a most feeble bog-grass of Dilettantism all the crop we
reap from it! That also was frightful waste; perhaps among the saddest
our England ever saw. Why will men destroy noble Forests, even when in
part a nuisance, in such reckless manner; turning loose four-footed
cattle and Henry-the-Eighths into them! The fifth part of our English
soil, Dryasdust computes, lay consecrated to 'spiritual uses,' better
or worse; solemnly set apart to foster spiritual growth and culture of
the soul, by the methods then known: and now--it too, like the
four-fifths, fosters what? Gentle shepherd, tell me what!

FOOTNOTES:

[13] _Jocelini Chronica_, p. 31.

[14] Ibid. p. 21.

CHAPTER XII.

THE ABBOT'S TROUBLES.

The troubles of Abbot Samson, as he went along in this abstemious,
reticent, rigorous way, were more than tongue can tell. The Abbot's
mitre once set on his head, he knew rest no more. Double, double toil
and trouble; that is the life of all governors that really govern: not
the spoil of victory, only the glorious toil of battle can be theirs.
Abbot Samson found all men more or less headstrong, irrational, prone
to disorder; continually threatening to prove _un_governable.

His lazy Monks gave him most trouble. 'My heart is tortured,' said he,
'till we get out of debt, _cor meum cruciatum est_.' Your heart,
indeed;--but not altogether ours! By no devisable method, or none of
three or four that he devised, could Abbot Samson get these Monks of
his to keep their accounts straight; but always, do as he might, the
Cellerarius at the end of the term is in a coil, in a flat
deficit,--verging again towards debt and Jews. The Lord Abbot at last
declares sternly he will keep our accounts too himself; will appoint
an officer of his own to see our Cellerarius keep them. Murmurs
thereupon among us: Was the like ever heard? Our Cellerarius a cipher;
the very Townsfolk know it: _subsannatio et derisio sumus_, we have
become a laughingstock to mankind. The Norfolk barrator and paltener!

And consider, if the Abbot found such difficulty in the mere economic
department, how much in more complex ones, in spiritual ones perhaps!
He wears a stern calm face; raging and gnashing teeth, _fremens_ and
_frendens_, many times, in the secret of his mind. Withal, however,
there is a noble slow perseverance in him; a strength of 'subdued
rage' calculated to subdue most things: always, in the long-run, h