" So, in a dream, Robert saw himself taken before Our Lady
by two brethren of Abingdon, and thence carried into the very meadow
he had coveted, where "most nasty little boys," turpissimi pueri,
worked their will on him. Thereon Robert was terrified and cried
out, and wakened his wife, who took advantage of his fears, and
compelled him to make restitution to the brethren.
After this vision, Robert gave himself up to pampering the monastery
and performing other good works. He it was who built a bridge over
the Isis, and he restored the many ruined parish churches in Oxford--
churches which, perhaps, he and his men had helped to ruin. The
tower of St. Michael's, in "the Corn," is said to be of his building;
perhaps he only "restored" it, for it is in the true primitive style-
-gaunt, unadorned, with round-headed windows, good for shooting from
with the bow. St. Michael's was not only a church, but a watchtower
of the city wall; and here the old northgate, called Bocardo, spanned
the street. The rooms above the gate were used till within quite
recent times, and the poor inmates used to let down a greasy old hat
from the window in front of the passers-by, and cry, "Pity the
Bocardo birds":
"Pigons qui sont en 1'essoine,
Enserrez soubz trappe voliere,"
as a famous Paris student, Francois Villon, would have called them.
Of Bocardo no trace remains, but St. Michael's is likely to last as
long as any edifice in Oxford.
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