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 the kindness thy Father did me when I was
in bonds; because he sent me a cup of the very wine his master had
been drinking, and bade me be comforted in God."'

'To Magister Walter, son of Magister William de Dice, who wanted the
vicarage of Chevington, he answered: "Thy Father was Master of the
Schools; and when I was an indigent _clericus_, he granted me freely
and in charity an entrance to his School, and opportunity of learning;
wherefore I now, for the sake of God, grant to thee what thou
askest."' Or lastly, take this good instance,--and a glimpse, along
with it, into long-obsolete times: 'Two _Milites_ of Risby, Willelm
and Norman, being adjudged in Court to come under his mercy, _in
misericordia ejus_,' for a certain very considerable fine of twenty
shillings, 'he thus addressed them publicly on the spot: "When I was a
Cloister-monk, I was once sent to Durham o