“How now!” said he, “is it not our intent to better our lives and to go to Einsiedeln? And now see, in heaven’s name wilt thou make a beginning with deceit and blind men’s eyes with falsehood? ‘He that denieth Me before the world him will I deny before My heavenly Father,’ saith Christ. What fainthearted cowards be we! If all Christ’s martyrs and confessors had done the same there would be few saints in heaven. Let us go in God’s name and under His protection whither our holy intent and desires lead us, and let God contrive for us the rest: for so will He bring us in safety where our souls shall find peace.” But when I set before him how man should not tempt God, but suit himself to the times, and use such means as could not be done without, and specially because to go on pilgrimage was an unwonted thing for the Soldatesca, so that if we revealed our purpose we should be accounted rather deserters than pilgrims, which might bring us great trouble and danger: and chiefly how the holy apostle St. Paul, to whom we could not compare ourselves, had wonderfully suited himself to the times and needs of this world, at the last he consented that I should get a pass to go to my regiment. With this we passed out of the town at the shutting of the gates, with a trusty guide, as we would go to Rotweil; but turned off short by a byway and came the same night over the Switzers’ boundary and next morning to a village, where we equipped ourselves with long black cloaks, pilgrims’ staves, and rosaries, and sent our guide home with a good wage.
And here in comparison with other German lands the country seemed to me as strange as if I had been in Brazil or China. I saw how the people did trade and traffic in peace, how the stalls were full of cattle and the farmyards crowded with fowls, geese, and ducks, the roads were used in safety by travellers, and the inns were full of people making merry. There was no fear of an enemy, no dread of plundering, and no terror of losing goods and life and limb; each man lived under his own vine and fig-tree, and that moreover (in comparison with other German lands) in joy and delight, so that I held this land for an earthly Paradise, though by nature it seemed rough as might be. So it came about that all along the road I did but gape at this and that, whereas Herzbruder was praying on his rosary, for which I earned many a reproof from him; for he would have it I should pray without ceasing, to which I could not accustom myself.
But at Zurich he found me out and told me the truth as tartly as might be. For having rested the night at Schaffhausen, where the peas did mightily gall my feet, and I fearing to walk upon them next day, I had them boiled and put into my shoes again, and so came happily to Zurich, while he found himself in sorry plight, and said to me, “Brother, thou hast great favour of God, that notwithstanding the peas in thy shoes thou canst walk so well.” “Yea,” said I, “dear Herzbruder: but I did boil them, or I had not been able so far to walk upon them.”
“God-a-mercy!” says he, “what hast done? Thou hadst better have put them out of thy shoes if thou didst but act a mockery with them. I fear me lest God punish thee and me alike. Take it not evil of me, brother, if I of brotherly love do tell thee in plain German what I have at heart, namely this, that I fear, unless thou dealest otherwise with God, thine eternal salvation standeth in jeopardy: I do assure thee, I love no man more than thee, yet I deny not that if thou betterest not thyself I must scruple to bear such love to thee further.” At which I was struck so dumb with fear that I could not at all recover myself, but freely confessed to him I had put the peas in my shoes not for piety but to please him, that he might take me with him on his journey. “Ah,
