with that word they pricked along the road: And soon it fell, that entering the town’s end, To which this Sumner shaped him for to wend, They saw a cart that loaded was with hay, The which a carter drove forth on his way. Deep was the mire, and sudden the cart stuck: The carter, like a madman, smote and struck, And cried, “Heit, Scot; heit, Brock! What! is’t the stones? The devil clean fetch ye both, body and bones: Must I do nought but bawl and swinge all day? Devil take the whole—horse, harness, cart, and hay.”

The Sumner whispered to the fiend, “I’ faith, We have it here. Hear’st thou not what he saith? Take it anon, for he hath given it thee, Live stock and dead, hay, cart, and horses three!”

“Nay,” quoth the fiend, “not so;—the deuce a bit. He sayeth; but, alas! not meaneth it: Ask him thyself, if thou believ’st not me; Or else be still awhile, and thou shalt see.”

Thwacketh the man his horses on the croup, And they begin to draw now, and to stoop. “Heit there,” quoth he; “heit, heit; ah, matthywo. Lord love their hearts! how prettily they go! That was well twitched, methinks, mine own grey boy: I pray God save thy body, and Saint Eloy. Now is my cart out of the slough, pardie.”

“There,” quoth the fiend unto the Sumner; “see, I told thee how ’twould fall. Thou seest, dear brother, The churl spoke one thing, but he thought another. Let us prick on, for we take nothing here.”

And when from out the town they had got clear, The Sumner said, “Here dwelleth an old witch, That had as lief be tumbled in a ditch And break her neck, as part with an old penny. Nathless her twelve pence is as good as any, And I will have it, though she lose her wits; Or else I’ll cite her with a score of writs: And yet, God wot, I know of her no vice. So learn of me, Sir Fiend: thou art too nice.”

The Sumner clappeth at the widow’s gate. “Come out,” he saith, “thou hag, thou quiver-pate: I trow thou hast some friar or priest with thee.”  “Who clappeth?” said this wife; “ah, what say ye? God save ye, masters: what is your sweet will?”  “I have,” said he, “of summons here a bill: Take care, on pain of cursing, that thou be To-morrow morn, before the Archdeacon’s knee, To answer to the court of certain things.”

“Now, Lord,” quoth she, “sweet Jesu, King of kings, So help me, as I cannot, sirs, nor may: I have been sick, and that full many a day. I may not walk such distance, nay, nor ride, But I be dead, so pricketh it my side. La! how I cough 

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