Now his faithful Boswell gives elaborate details of Hugh's long dying, not knowing that his work would speak to a generation which measures a man's favour with God by the oily slipperiness with which he shuffles off his clay coil. It was a case of hard dying, redoubled paroxysms, fierce fever, and bloody flux, and dreadful details. He would wear his sackcloth, and rarely change it, though it caked into knots which chafed him fiercely. But, though the rule allowed, he would not go soft to his end, however much his friends might entreat him to put off the rasping hair. "No, no, God forbid that I should. This raiment does not scrape, but soothe; does not hurt, but help," he answered sternly. He gave exact details of how he was to be laid on ashes on the bare earth at the last with no extra sackcloth. No bishops or abbots being at hand to commend him at the end, the monks of Westminster were to send seven or eight of their number and the Dean of St. Paul's a good number of singing clerks. His body was to be washed with the greatest care, to fit it for being taken to the holy chapel of the Baptist at Lincoln, and laid out by three named persons and no others. When it reached Lincoln it was to be arrayed in the plain vestments of his consecration, which he had kept for this. One little light gold ring, with a cheap water sapphire in it, he selected from all that had been given him. He had worn it for functions, and would bear it in death, and have nothing about him else to tempt folk to sacrilege. The hearers understood, foolishly, from this that he knew his body would be translated after its first sepulture, and for this reason he had it cased in lead and solid stone that no one should seize or even see his ornaments when he was moved. "You will place me," he said, "before the altar of my aforesaid patron, the Lord's forerunner, where there seems fitting room near some wall, in such wise that the tomb shall not inconveniently block the floor, as we see in many churches, and cause incomers to trip or fall." Then he had his beard and nails trimmed for death. Some of his ejaculations in his agonies are preserved. "O kind God, grant us rest. O good Lord and true God, give us rest at last." When they tried to cheer him by saying that the paroxysm was over he said, "How really blessed are those to whom even the last judgment day will bring unshaken rest." They told him his judgment day would be the day when he laid by the burden of the flesh. But he would not have it. "The day when I die will not be a judgment day, but a day of grace and mercy," he said. He astonished his physicians by the robust way in which he would move, and his manly voice bated nothing of its old power, though he spoke a little submissively. The last lection he heard was the story of Lazarus and Martha, and when they reached the words, "Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died," he bade them stop there. The funeral took up the tale where the reader left off, "I am the Resurrection and the Life."