But the constable still doubting, growled, but more softly, I thought, "Now what good is all this litter; who shall carry me? My deputies, who are themselves tired, cannot carry me all these miles to Lancaster."
"Nay," replied I, "but we six Brethren are young and strong and we will take hold of the poles and carry thee as far as we are able, after which thy deputies may relieve us until we regain our breath and strength when we shall again take thee on."
He sat up and said slowly and still doubtfully: "Do ye mean to say ye will do this for me?"
"That we will cheerfully," we all assured him; "though thou hast not treated us over kindly it is not in our minds to remember what thou hast said and done."
"You are not up to some trick?"
"Thou hast good reason to believe we be men of our word," I replied somewhat stiffly; "my brethren are not given to trickery."
The deputy having now returned, my brethren and I took the first turn and hoisting to our shoulders the long poles extending beyond the framework on which our constable sat in royal state, we trudged along quietly but cheerfully, even though our burden was not a light one, our neighbors, the deputies, under the direction of the still distrustful constable, attending to it that we departed not from our proper course, which none of us had the slightest intention of doing. Yet I must record that the human heart, as the Holy Book sayeth in its omniscient wisdom, is a deceitful thing, even in the best of us; for we had not gone far with our rude conveyance when we came to a most foul and dirty pool directly in our way. Brother Martin, being so small and slight and by reason thereof in great danger of destroying the evenness of the litter—which of course would not have been well for the choleric temper of the constable—was placed at my corner, in front of me, so borrowing from my height and strength that the litter would carry more evenly, and also our beloved little tailor be not overly taxed by the burden.
But surely the Evil One doth ever find an easy entrance to idle minds, wherefore we of the Kloster always made it our rule to be busy as far as in us lay. Now in our anxiety to save our Brother Martin from undue labor, we had made the mistake of leaving too little on his shoulders, wherefore instead of having his mind on pious things, he was bent upon evil toward the constable; for it grieves me to say that as we came to this filthy pool and were about to step over it, Brother Martin turned his head about and gave me a sly look and made a motion of his body as of dropping our end of the lifter, which foul deed, had we done it at this juncture would most surely have dropped the majesty of the law into this slimy pool. In truth, so powerful is the mere suggestion of evil to our weak, sinful natures that ere I fully thought what I was about, I had responded by bobbing down a trifle, but recalling myself in due time, straightened up sternly, giving Brother Martin such a withering glance as made him faithful for the rest of the journey, if not for the remainder of his days.
Fortunately, our constable never knew how near he was to a ducking, and as we stepped carefully over the pool—at which he looked with some apprehension—and proceeded thoughtfully on our way, very seldom relieved by the deputies—for whom the farther we had come the more the heat of their persecuting zeal had abated—I could see assurance in the constable's features that we were rising higher and higher in his regard.