tiones et quaedam tacenda_,'--eheu! We have '_tempora
minutionis_,' stated seasons of blood-letting, when we are all let
blood together; and then there is a general free-conference, a
sanhedrim of clatter. Notwithstanding our vow of poverty, we can by
rule amass to the extent of 'two shillings;' but it is to be given to
our necessitous kindred, or in charity. Poor Monks! Thus too a certain
Canterbury Monk was in the habit of 'slipping, _clanculo_, from his
sleeve,' five shillings into the hand of his mother, when she came to
see him, at the divine offices, every two months. Once, slipping the
money clandestinely, just in the act of taking leave, he slipt it not
into her hand but on the floor, and another had it; whereupon the poor
Monk, coming to know it, looked mere despair for some days; till
Lanfranc the noble Archbishop, questioning his secret from him, nobly
made the sum _seven_ shillings,[7] and said, Never mind!

* * * * *

One Monk, of a taciturn nature, distinguishes himself among these
babbling ones: the name of him Samson; he that answered Jocelin,
"_Fili mi_, a burnt child shuns the fire." They call him 'Norfolk
_Barrator_,' or litigious person; for indeed, being of grave taciturn
ways, he is not universally a favourite; he has been in trouble more
than once. The reader is desired to mark this Monk. A personable man
of seven-and-forty; stout-made, stands erect as a pillar; with bushy
eyebrows, the eyes of him beaming into you in a really strange way;
the face massive, grave, with 'a very eminent nose;' his head almost
bald, its auburn remnants of hair, and the copious ruddy beard,
getting slightly streaked with gray. This is Brother Samson; a man
worth looking at.

He is from Norfolk, as the nickname indicates; from Tottington in
Norfolk, as we guess; the son of poor parents there. He has told me
Jocelin, for I loved him much, That once in his ninth year he had an
alarming dream;--as indeed we are all somewhat given to dreaming here.
Little Samson, lying uneasily in his crib at Tottington, dreamed that
he saw the Arch Enemy in person, just alighted in front of some grand
building, with outspread bat-wings, and stretching forth detestable
clawed hands to grip him, little Samson, and fly-off with him:
whereupon the little dreamer shrieked desperate to St. Edmund for
help, shrieked and again shrieked; and St. Edmund, a reverend heavenly
figure, did come,--and indeed poor little