ight! For Justice and Reverence _are_ the
everlasting central Law of this Universe; and to forget them, and have
all the Universe against one, God and one's own Self for enemies, and
only the Devil and the Dragons for friends, is not that a 'lameness'
like few? That some shining armed St. Edmund hang minatory on thy
horizon, that infinite sulphur-lakes hang minatory, or do not now
hang,--this alters no whit the eternal fact of the thing. I say, thy
soul is lamed, and the God and all Godlike in it marred: lamed,
paralytic, tending towards baleful eternal death, whether thou know it
or not;--nay hadst thou never known it, that surely had been worst of
all!--

Thus, at any rate, by the heavenly Awe that overshadows earthly
Business, does Samson, readily in those days, save St. Edmund's
Shrine, and innumerable still more precious things.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] See Lyttelton's _Henry II._, ii. 384.

[20] _Jocelini Chronica_, p, 52.

CHAPTER XV.

PRACTICAL-DEVOTIONAL.

Here indeed, by rule of antagonisms, may be the place to mention that,
after King Richard's return, there was a liberty of tourneying given
to the fighting-men of England: that a Tournament was proclaimed in
the Abbot's domain, 'between Thetford and St. Edmundsbury,'--perhaps
in the Euston region, on Fakenham Heights, midway between these two
localities: that it was publicly prohibited by our Lord Abbot; and
nevertheless was held in spite of him,--and by the parties, as would
seem, considered 'a gentle and free passage of arms.'

Nay, next year, there came to the same spot four-and-twenty young men,
sons of Nobles, for another passage of arms; who, having completed the
same, all rode into St. Edmundsbury to lodge for the night. Here is
modesty! Our Lord Abbot, being instructed of it, ordered the Gates to
be closed; the whole party shut in. The morrow was the Vigil of the
Apostles Peter and Paul; no outgate on the morrow. Giving their
promise not to depart without permission, those four-and-twenty young
bloods dieted all that day (_manducaverunt_) with the Lord Abbot,
waiting for trial on the morrow. 'But after dinner,'--mark it,
posterity!--'the Lord Abbot retiring into his _Talamus_, they all
started up, and began carolling and singing (_carolare et cantare_);
sending into the Town for wine; drinking, and afterwards howling
(_ululantes_);--totally depriving the Abbot and Convent of their
afternoon's nap; doing all this in derision of the Lord Abb