“Adieu, Brother Thomas,” I said, as I took the water; and in a few strokes I was across and running up and down on the bank to get myself dry.  “Back!” came his grating voice—­“back! and without your clothes, you wine-sack of Scotland, or I shoot!” and his arbalest was levelled on me.

I have often asked myself since what I should have done, and what was the part of a brave man.  Perchance I might have dived, and swum down-stream under water, but then I had bestowed my bundle of clothes some little way off, and Brother Thomas commanded it from his side of the stream.  He would have waited there in ambush till I came shivering back for hose and doublet, and I should be in no better case than I was now.  Meanwhile his weapon was levelled at me, and I could see the bolt-point set straight for my breast, and glittering in a pale blink of the sun.  The bravest course is ever the best.  I should have thrown myself on the earth, no doubt, and so crawled to cover, taking my chance of death rather than the shame of obeying under threat and force.  But I was young, and had never looked death in the face, so, being afraid and astonished, I made what seemed the best of an ill business, and, though my face reddens yet at the thought of it, I leaped in and swam back like a dog to heel.

“Behold me,” I said, making as brave a countenance as I might in face of necessity.

“Well done, Norman Leslie de Pitcullo,” he snarled, baring his yellow teeth.  “This is the obedience which the young owe to the Church.  Now, ferry me over; you are my boat.”

“You will drown, man,” I said.  “Not while you swim.”

Then, unbuckling his frock, he packed it as he had seen me do, bade me put it on my head, and so stepped out into the water, holding forth his arm to put about my neck.  I was for teaching him how to lay it on my shoulder, and was bidding him keep still as a plank of wood, but he snarled—­

“I have sailed on a boat of flesh before to-day.”

To do him justice, he kept still as a log of wood, and so, yielding partly to the stream, I landed him somewhat further down than the place where my own clothes were lying.  To them he walked, and very quietly picking up my whinger and my raiment that he gathered under his arm, he concealed himself in a thick bush, albeit it was leafless, where no man could have been aware of him.  This amazed me not a little, for modesty did not seem any part of his nature.

“Now,” says he, “fetch over my arbalest.  Lying where I am you have no advantage to shoot me, as, nom de Dieu!  I would have shot you had you not obeyed.  And hark ye, by the way, unwind the arbalest before you cross; it is ever well to be on the safe side.  And be sure you wet not the string.”  He pushed his face through the bush, and held in his mouth my naked whinger, that shone between his shining eyes.