gradually, no man heeding it, and disappeared into _peat._

A sorrowful waste of noble wood and umbrage! Yes,--but a
very common one; the course of most things in this world.
Monachism itself, so rich and fruitful once, is now all rotted
into peat; lies sleek and buried,--and a most feeble bog-grass
of Dilettantism all the crop we reap from it! That also was
frightful waste; perhaps among the saddest our England ever saw.
Why will men destroy noble Forests, even when in part a nuisance,
in such reckless manner; turning loose four-footed cattle and
Henry-the-Eighths into them! The fifth part of our English soil,
Dryasdust computes, lay consecrated to 'spiritual uses,' better
or worse; solemnly set apart to foster spiritual growth and
culture of the soul, by the methods then known: and now--
it too, like the four-fifths, fosters what? Gentle shepherd,
tell me what!




Chapter XII

The Abbot's Troubles


The troubles of Abbot Samson, as he went along in this
abstemious, reticent, rigorous way, were more than tongue can
tell. The Abbot's mitre once set on his head, he knew rest no
more. Double, double, toil and trouble; that is the life of all
governors that really govern: not the spoil of victory, only the