ertain
edifices going on at Glemsford. The Abbot, a great builder
himself, disliked the request; could not however give it a
negative. While he lay, therefore, at his Manorhouse of Melford
not long after, there comes to him one of the Lord Bishop's men
or monks, with a message from his Lordship, "That he now begged
permission to cut down the requisite trees in Elmswell Wood," so
said the monk: Elm_swell,_ where there are no trees but scrubs
and shrubs, instead of Elm_set,_ our true _nemus,_ and high-
towering oak-wood, here on Melford Manor! Elmswell? The Lord
Abbot, in surprise, inquires privily of Richard his Forester;
Richard answers that my Lord of Ely has already had his
_carpentarii_ in Elmset, and marked out for his own use all the
best trees in the compass of it. Abbot Samson thereupon answers
the monk: "Elmswell? Yes surely, be it as my Lord Bishop
wishes." The successful monk, on the morrow morning, hastens
home to Ely; but, on the morrow morning, 'directly after mass,'
Abbot Samson too was busy! The successful monk, arriving at Ely,
is rated for a goose and an owl; is ordered back to say that
Elmset was the place meant. Alas, on arriving at Elmset, he
finds the Bishop's trees, they 'and a hundred more,' all felled
and piled, and the stamp of St. Edmund's Monastery burnt into
them,--for roofing of the great tower we are building there!
Your importunate Bishop must seek wood for Glemsford edifices in
some other _nemus_ than this. A practical Abbot!

We said withal there was a terrible flash of anger in him:
witness his address to old Herbert the Dean, who in a too thrifty
manner has erected a wind-mill for himself on his glebe-lands at
Haberdon. On the morrow, after mass, our Lord Abbot orders the
Cellerarius to send off his carpenters to demolish the said
structure _brevi manu,_ and lay up the wood in safe keeping. Old
Dean Herbert, hearing what was toward, comes tottering along
hither, to plead humbly for himself and his mill. The Abbot
answers: "I am obliged to thee as if thou hadst cut off both my
feet! By God's face, _per os Dei,_ I will not eat bread till
that fabric be torn in pieces. Thou art an old man, and shouldst
have known that neither the King nor his Justiciary dare change
aught within the Liberties, without consent of Abbot and Convent:
and thou hast presumed on such a thing? I tell thee, it will not
be without damage to my mills; for the Townsfolk will go to thy
mill,