barrators and surly persons, That it would please thee to
preserve us, We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord!" Then another
_quidam_ said of another _quodam_, "That _Frater_ is a good manager
(_husebondus_);" but was swiftly answered, "God forbid that a man who
can neither read nor chant, nor celebrate the divine offices, an
unjust person withal, and grinder of the faces of the poor, should
ever be Abbot!"' One man, it appears, is nice in his victuals. Another
is indeed wise, but apt to slight inferiors; hardly at the pains to
answer, if they argue with him too foolishly. And so each _aliquis_
concerning his _aliquo_,--through whole pages of electioneering
babble. 'For,' says Jocelin, 'So many men, as many minds.' Our Monks
'at time of blood-letting, _tempore minutionis_,' holding their
sanhedrim of babble, would talk in this manner: Brother Samson, I
remarked, never said anything; sat silent, sometimes smiling; but he
took good note of what others said, and would bring it up, on
occasion, twenty years after. As for me Jocelin, I was of opinion that
'some skill in Dialectics, to distinguish true from false,' would be
good in an Abbot. I spake, as a rash Novice in those days, some
conscientious words of a certain benefactor of mine; 'and behold, one
of those sons of Belial' ran and reported them to him, so that he
never after looked at me with the same face again! Poor Bozzy!--

Such is the buzz and frothy simmering ferment of the general mind and
no-mind; struggling to 'make itself up,' as the phrase is, or
ascertain what _it_ does really want: no easy matter, in most cases.
St. Edmundsbury, in that Candlemas season of the year 1182, is a
busily fermenting place. The very clothmakers sit meditative at their
looms; asking, Who shall be Abbot? The _sochemanni_ speak of it,
driving their ox-teams afield; the old women with their spindles: and
none yet knows what the days will bring forth.

* * * * *

The Prior, however, as our interim chief, must proceed to work; get
ready 'Twelve Monks,' and set off with them to his Majesty at Waltham,
there shall the election be made. An election, whether managed
directly by ballot-box on public hustings, or indirectly by force of
public opinion, or were it even by open alehouses, landlords'
coercion, popular club-law, or whatever electoral methods, is always
an interesting phenomenon. A mountain tumbling in great travail,
throwing up dustclouds and absu