"That fellow is privily drinking up all my old Cyprus wine and Malvoisie.
And the other priests, the Plebian here--do you know their worldly and
base souls? They take up no cross, neither mortify the flesh by holy
fasting, but cherish and feed it as the lost heathen do. Are they holy
men following in the footsteps of the Crucified Lord? All that brings
them to me is a care for my oblations and gifts. I know them, I know
them all, the whole lot of them here in Nuremberg. As the city is, so
are the pastors thereof! Which of them all mortifies himself? Is there
any high court held here? To win the blessing of a truly lordly prelate,
a man must journey to Bamberg or to Wurzburg. Of what avail with the
Blessed Virgin and the Saints are such as these ruddy friars?
Fleischmann, Hellfeld, nay the Dominican prior himself--what are they?
Why, at the Diet they walked after the Bishop of Chiemsee and Eichstadt.
In the matters of the city--its rights, alliances, and dealings--they had
indeed a hand; there is nought so dear to them--in especial to
Fleischmann--as politics, and they are overjoyed if they may but be sent
on some embassy. Aye, and they have done me some service, as a merchant
trader, whensoever I have desired the safe conduct of princes and
knights; but as to charging them with the safe conduct of my soul, the
weal or woe of my immortal spirit!--No, no, never! Aye, Margery, for I
have been a great sinner. Greater power and more mighty mediation are
needed to save and deliver me, and behold, my Margery, meseems--hear me
Margery--meseems a special ruling of Heaven hath sent.... When is it
that his Eminence Cardinal Bernhardi will return from England?"

Hereupon I saw plainly what was in the wind. I answered him that his
Eminence purposed to return hither in three or four months' time; he
sighed deeply: "Not for so long--three months, do you say?"

"Or longer," quoth I, hastily; but he, forgetting the Friar, cried out as