The ecclesiastics had taken possession of the best places in the back of the wagon.  They were inseparable brothers, and formed as it were one person, for they behaved like two bodies with one soul.  In this double life, fat Magister Sutor represented the will, lean Stubenrauch reflection and execution.  If the former proposed to be down or sit, eat or drink, sleep or talk, the latter instantly carried the suggestion into execution, rarely neglecting to establish, by wise words, for what reason the act in question should be performed precisely at that time.

Farther towards the front, with his back resting against a chest, lay a fine-looking young Lansquenet.  He was undoubtedly a gay, active fellow, but now sat mute and melancholy, supporting with his right hand his wounded left arm, as if it were some brittle vessel.

Opposite to him rose a heap of loose straw, beneath which something stirred from time to time, and from which at short intervals a slight cough was heard.

As soon as the door in the back of the vehicle opened, and the cold snowy air entered the dark, damp space under the tilt, Magister Sutor’s lips parted in a long-drawn “Ugh!” to which his lean companion instantly added a torrent of reproachful words about the delay, the draught, the danger of taking cold.

When the artist’s head appeared in the opening, the priest paused, for Moor paid the travelling expenses; but when his companion Sutor drew his cloak around him with every token of discomfort and annoyance, he followed his example in a still more conspicuous way.

The artist paid no heed to these gestures, but quietly requested his guests to make room for the boy.

A muffled head was suddenly thrust out from under the straw, a voice cried:  “A hospital on wheels!” then the head vanished again like that of a fish, which has risen to take a breath of air.

“Very true,” replied the artist.  “You need not draw up your limbs so far, my worthy Lansquenet, but I must request these reverend gentlemen to move a little farther apart, or closer together, and make room for the sick lad on the leather sack.”

While these words were uttered, one of the escort laid the still senseless boy under the tilt.

Magister Sutor noticed the snow that clung to Ulrich’s hair and clothing, and while struggling to rise, uttered a repellent “no,” while Stubenrauch hastily added reproachfully:  “There will be a perfect pool here, when that melts; you gave us these places, Meister Moor, but we hardly expected to receive also dripping limbs and rheumatic pains. . . .”

Before he finished the sentence, the bandaged head again appeared from the straw, and the high, shrill voice of the man concealed under it, asked?  “Was the blood of the wounded wayfarer, the good Samaritan picked up by the roadside, dry or wet?”

An encouraging glance from Sutor requested Stubenrauch to make an appropriate answer, and the latter in an unctuous tone, hastily replied:  “It was the Lord, who caused the Samaritan to find the wounded man by the roadside—­this did not happen in our case, for the wet boy is forced upon us, and though we are Samaritans. . . .”