yet,--sensitive and impressionable--one whom the Jesuits of the
sixteenth century would have trained to be a 'staff' in their hands to
be turned this way and that in the interests of the Church.

Gradually, however, he forgot his scruples in the charm of his
surroundings, the good cheer, and his superior's conversation; he helped
himself joyfully as the claret went swiftly about, and joined with
delight in converse about the great past of the cathedral.

''Tis a thousand pities,' said the 'Golden Canon,' 'to diminish in any
way the dignity of the bishop and the dean and chapter, since reverence
for the established order of the State is fast dying out.

'Now just as it is thought well to maintain the dignity of the judges
on assize by the attendance of the High Sheriff with his javelin men and
trumpeters, so it is needful to keep up the estates of the bishops and
the deans and chapters.

'In the old days of the great prince bishops,' continued the 'Golden
Canon,' 'the successor of St. Cuthbert was in reality a greater power
than the successor of St. Augustine. For myself I had rather have
reigned and ruled between Tees and Tyne than have lived in Lambeth
Palace. I should have had regal powers in regard to jurisdiction,
coinage, Chancery, Admiralty dues, and so forth, and when I journeyed to
London, on my way to my palace in the Strand, would have lain at my
various palaces on my way up.

'Then again as lord of many manors throughout the Palatinate I should
have had all the old feudal dues coming in to my treasury--waifs and
strays, treasure trove, deodands----'

'And merchet of women?' queried his cousin mischievously.

'Ay,' replied the 'Golden Canon' with a responsive twinkle in his eye,
'"merchet of women" also, but as an antiquary I must tell ye that it's
not what you two young men would wish it to be----'

He glanced at the blushing face of the Minor Canon, and the eager
visage of the undergraduate, and bade them fill their glasses yet again,
while they had the chance, for the Chapter's binn of _Laffite_ was now
running very low in its deep cellar.

'No,' he went on regretfully, ''twas not the _Droit de Seigneur_ which
we have all read of, and perhaps envied, but a fine upon marriage--a
feudal due exercised over women, as over all property on the feudal
lord's manor. Not but that I take it occasionally the Prince Bishop may
have indulged himself in what Richelieu styled "the honest man's
recreation," yet t