t
ways; and watched farther with suspicion: but discerned
gradually that there was nothing wrong, that there was much the
opposite of wrong.

Chapter XI

The Abbot's Ways

Abbot Samson shewed no extraordinary favour to the Monks who had
been his familiars of old; did not promote them to offices,--
_nisi essent idonei,_ unless they chanced to be fit men! Whence
great discontent among certain of these, who had contributed to
make him Abbot: reproaches, open and secret, of his being
'ungrateful, hard-tempered, unsocial, a Norfolk _barrator_
and _paltenerius.'_

Indeed, except it were for _idonei,_ 'fit men,' in all kinds, it
was hard to say for whom Abbot Samson had much favour. He loved
his kindred well, and tenderly enough acknowledged the poor part
of them; with the rich part, who in old days had never
acknowledged him, he totally refused to have any business. But
even the former he did not promote into offices; finding none of
them _idonei._ 'Some whom he thought suitable he put into
situations in his own household, or made keepers of his country
places: if they behaved ill, he dismissed them without hope of
return. In his promotions, nay almost in his benefits, you would
have said there was a certain impartiality. 'The official person
who had, by Abbot Hugo's order, put the fetters on him at his
return from Italy, was now supported with food and clothes to the
end of his days at Abbot Samson's expense.'

Yet he did not forget benefits; far the reverse, when an
opportunity occurred of paying them at his own cost. How pay
them at the public cost;--how, above all, by _setting fire_ to
the public, as we said; clapping 'conflagrations' on the public,
which the services of blockheads, _non-idonei,_ intrinsically
are! He was right willing to remember friends, when it could be
done. Take these instances: 'A certain chaplain who had
maintained him at the Schools of Paris by the sale of holy water,
_quaestu aquae benedictae;_--to this good chaplain he did give a
vicarage, adequate to the comfortable sustenance of him. 'The
Son of Elias, too, that is, of old Abbot Hugo's Cupbearer, coming
to do homage for his Father's land, our Lord Abbot said to him in
full court: "I have, for these seven years, put off taking thy
homage for the land which Abbot Hugo gave thy Father, because
that gift was to the damage of Elmswell, and a questionable one:
but now I must profess myself overcome; mindful of