another had it; whereupon the poor Monk, coming to know it,
looked mere despair for some days; till, Lanfranc the noble
Archbishop, questioning his secret from him, nobly made the sum
_seven_ shillings, and said, Never mind!


One Monk of a taciturn nature distinguishes himself among these
babbling ones: the name of him Samson; he that answered
Jocelin, "_Fili mi,_ a burnt child shuns the fire." They call him
'Norfolk _Barrator,'_ or litigious person; for indeed, being of
grave taciturn ways, he is not universally a favourite; he has
been in trouble more than once. The reader is desired to mark
this Monk. A personable man of seven-and-forty; stout-made,
stands erect as a pillar; with bushy eyebrows, the eyes of him
beaming into you in a really strange way; the face massive,
grave, with 'a very eminent nose;' his head almost bald, its
auburn remnants of hair, and the copious ruddy beard, getting
slightly streaked with grey. This is Brother Samson; a man
worth looking at.

He is from Norfolk, as the nickname indicates; from Tottington
in Norfolk, as we guess; the son of poor parents there. He has
told me, Jocelin, for I loved him much, That once in his ninth
year he had an alarming dream;--as indeed we are all somewhat
given to dreaming here. Little Samson, lying uneasily in his
crib at Tottington, dreamed that he saw the Arch Enemy in person,
just alighted in front of some grand building, with outspread
bat-wings, and stretching forth detestable clawed hands to grip
him, little Samson, and fly off with him: whereupon the little
dreamer shrieked desperate to St. Edmund for help, shrieked and