And while “sauer-kraut” she sells you, the landlady tells you
       That there, in those walls all roofless and bare,
     One Simon, a Deacon, from a lean grew a sleek one
       On filling a ci-devant Abbot’s state chair.

     How a ci-devant Abbot, all clothed in drab, but
       Of texture the coarsest, hair shirt and no shoes
     (His mitre and ring, and all that sort of thing
       Laid aside), in yon cave lived a pious recluse;

     How he rose with the sun, limping “dot and go one,”
       To yon rill of the mountain, in all sorts of weather,
     Where a Prior and a Friar, who lived somewhat higher
       Up the rock, used to come and eat cresses together;

     How a thirsty old codger the neighbors called Roger,
       With them drank cold water in lieu of old wine! 
     What its quality wanted he made up in quantity,
       Swigging as though he would empty the Rhine!

     And how, as their bodily strength failed, the mental man
       Gained tenfold vigor and force in all four;
     And how, to the day of their death, the “Old Gentleman”
       Never attempted to kidnap them more.

     And how, when at length, in the odor of sanctity,
       All of them died without grief or complaint,
     The monks of St. Nicholas said ’twas ridiculous
       Not to suppose every one was a Saint.

     And how, in the Abbey, no one was so shabby
       As not to say yearly four masses ahead,
     On the eve of that supper, and kick on the crupper
       Which Satan received, for the souls of the dead!

     How folks long held in reverence their reliques and memories,
       How the ci-devant Abbot’s obtained greater still,
     When some cripples, on touching his fractured os femoris,
       Threw down their crutches and danced a quadrille!

     And how Abbot Simon (who turned out a prime one)
       These words, which grew into a proverb full soon,
     O’er the late Abbot’s grotto, stuck up as a motto,
       “Who Suppes with the Deville sholde have a long spoone!”

     [Footnote 1:  The Prince of Peripatetic Informers, and terror of
     Stage Coachmen, when such things were.]

SABINE BARING-GOULD

(1834-)

The Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould was born in Exeter, England, in 1834.  The addition of Gould to the name of Baring came in the time of his great-grandfather, a brother of Sir Francis Baring, who married an only daughter and heiress of W.D.  Gould of Devonshire.  Much of the early life of Baring-Gould was passed in Germany and France, and at Clare College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1854, taking orders ten years later, and in 1881 becoming rector of Lew Trenchard, Devonshire, where he holds estates and privileges belonging to his family.