deed in any strict sense St. Edmunds has none; no national
chronicle was ever penned in its _scriptorium_ such as that which flings
lustre round its rival, St. Albans; nor is even a record of its purely
monastic life preserved such as that which gives a local and
ecclesiastical interest to its rival of Glastonbury. One book alone the
abbey has given us, but that one book is worth a thousand chronicles. In
the wandering, gossipy pages of Jocelyn of Brakeland the life of the
twelfth century, so far as it could penetrate abbey walls, still glows
distinct for us round the figure of the shrewd, practical, kindly,
imperious abbot who looks out, a little travestied perhaps, from the
pages of Mr. Carlyle.

It is however to an incident in this abbot's life, somewhat later than
most of the events told so vividly in 'Past and Present,' that I wish to
direct my readers' attention. A good many eventful years had passed by
since Sampson stood abbot-elect in the court of King Henry; it was from
the German prison where Richard was lying captive that the old abbot was
returning, sad at heart, to his stately house. His way lay through the
little town that sloped quietly down to the abbey walls, along the
narrow little street that led to the stately gate-tower, now grey with
the waste of ages, but then fresh and white from the builder's hand. It
may have been in the shadow of that gateway that a group of townsmen
stood gathered to greet the return of their lord, but with other
business on hand besides kindly greeting. There was a rustling of
parchment as the alderman unfolded the town-charters, recited the brief
grants of Abbots Anselm and Ording and Hugh, and begged from the Lord
Abbot a new confirmation of the liberties of the town.

As Sampson paused a moment--he was a prudent, deliberate man in all his
ways--he must have read in the faces of all the monks who gathered round
him, in the murmured growl that monastic obedience just kept within
bounds, very emphatic counsel of refusal. On the other hand there was
the alderman pleading for the old privileges of the town--for security
of justice in its own town-mote, for freedom of sale in its market, for
just provisions to enforce the recovery of debts--the simple, efficient
liberty that stood written in the parchment with the heavy seals--the
seals of Anselm and Ording and Hugh. "Only the same words as your
predecessor used, Lord Abbot, simply the same words"--and then came the
silvery j