Hebrews. He had nothing for it but to shrink away from them;
get back into his warm flannels, into his warm delusions again.
Happily, before it was quite too late, he bethought him of
pilgriming to St. Thomas of Canterbury. He set out, with a fit
train, in the autumn days of the year 1180; near Rochester City,
his mule threw him, dislocated his poor kneepan, raised incurable
inflammatory fever; and the poor old man got his dismissal from
the whole coil at once. St. Thomas a Becket, though in a
circuitous way, had _brought_ deliverance! Neither Jew usurers,
nor grumbling monks, nor other importunate despicability of men
or mud-elements afflicted Abbot Hugo any more; but he dropt his
rosaries, closed his account-books, closed his old eyes, and lay
down into the long sleep. Heavy-laden hoary old Dominus Hugo,
fare thee well.

One thing we cannot mention without a due thrill of horror:
namely, that, in the empty exchequer of Dominus Hugo, there was
not found one penny to distribute to the Poor that they might
pray for his soul! By a kind of godsend, Fifty shillings did, in
the very nick of time, fall due, or seem to fall due, from one of
his Farmers (the _Firmarius_ de Palegrava), and he paid it, and
the Poor had it; though, alas, this too only _seemed_ to fall
due, and we had it to pay again afterwards. Dominus Hugo's
apartments were plundered by his servants, to the last portable
stool, in a few minutes after the breath was out of his body.
Forlorn old Hugo, fare thee well forever.