subject for a clamjamphrey,' especially as 'the supply exceeded the
demand;' while Malthouse, the tapster, was arguing to Dame Martin that
a murder now and then was a seasonable check to population, without
which the isle of Sheppey would in time be devoured, like a mouldy
cheese, by inhabitants of its own producing. Meanwhile the Baron ate
his oysters and thought no more of the matter.

But this tranquillity of his lordship was not to last. A couple of
Saints had been seriously offended; and we have all of us read at
school that celestial minds are by no means insensible to the
provocations of anger. There were those who expected that St. Bridget
would come in person, and have the friar up again, as she did the
sailor; but perhaps her ladyship did not care to trust herself within
the walls of Shurland Castle. To say the truth, it was scarcely a
decent house for a female saint to be seen in. The Baron's gallantries,
since he became a widower had been but too notorious; and her own
reputation was a little blown upon in the earlier days of her earthly
pilgrimage; then things were so apt to be misrepresented--in short, she
would leave the whole affair to St. Austin, who being a gentleman,
could interfere with propriety, avenge her affront as well as his own,
and leave no loop-hole for scandal. St. Austin himself seems to have
had his scruples, though of their precise nature it would be difficult
to determine, for it were idle to suppose him at all afraid of the
Baron's boots. Be this as it may, the mode which he adopted was at once
prudent and efficacious. As an ecclesiastic, he could not well call the
Baron out--had his boots been out of the question; so he resolved to
have recourse to the law. Instead of Shurland Castle, therefore, he
repaired forthwith to his own magnificent monastery, situate just
without the walls of Canterbury, and presented himself in a vision to
its abbot. No one who has ever visited that ancient city can fail to