The Book of Margery Kempe Book II, Chapters 6-10 Summary

Chapter 6

Kempe and her escort now make for Aachen, Germany (about 363 miles from Wilsnack) on their way to Calais, on the coast of France.
Kempe has a bad time with her escort and a bunch of wicked men, including a monk, who are very rude to her.
Kempe and her escort stop at a monastery to pray, and of course, Kempe starts weeping and wailing. People don't understand it, and she has to defend her behavior.
But the men abandon Kempe, anyway. She is verbally abused by wicked priests until she finds a "good wife" who takes care of her.
God tells Kempe to head on over to the church in the morning, where she finds a group of poor people who will let her travel with them. Problem? They have "vermin."
Kempe quickly finds herself infested and bitten from head to toe. Something's gotta give.

Kempe and her lice (or are they fleas?) arrive in Aachen, where she meets up with a "worthy woman" who feeds her and appears to like her.
But just when Kempe thinks she has an escort to Calais, and perhaps England, the lady takes off in a hurry with her retinue.
Kempe has to settle for travelling with an unfortunate set of Londoners who have been robbed of most of their money. They have to travel quickly, before they run out of coin.
Kempe befriends the most miserable of this group—a friar who lost all his money—and pays him to keep her company, since she can't walk very quickly.
Kempe and the friar have a rough time of it, since they can't find places to eat or sleep on the way.
Soon, Kempe ditches the friar for pilgrims riding in a wagon. She gets along well until she catches up with the "worthy woman" who ditched her back in Aachen.
Thinking it was all a mistake, and the woman will now welcome her back, Kempe presents herself to her old "friend."
The woman wants nothing to do with Kempe and promptly abandons her. Happily, the friar catches up to her and escorts her all the way to Calais.
Kempe tells us that she is in constant fear of being raped or violated by every man she meets and can hardly sleep at night because of it. (She leaves the friar out of this, since he is so kind).

Kempe receives a good welcome in Calais. She is well fed and cleaned up, given clothes by kind people.
Yet when it's time to arrange a ship to take her over the English Channel and back to Dover, Kempe finds that her companions want nothing to do with her (remember this from her Jerusalem trip?).
So Kempe uses her wits, finds out what ship her companions will sail on, and books her passage on that ship. But the group pulls a fast one and gets on another ship at the last moment. They really don't want to be stuck on a boat with her.
For some reason, Kempe just can't let it go. Though she is already on the first ship, she decides to leave all her belongings and follow the group to the new ship.
Her companions are dismayed to see her, but Kempe decides she will be the bigger person. She prays to God that she won't vomit in front of them, because she doesn't want to annoy them more.
But karma comes into play here. Kempe remains perfectly well on the waves, but her companions puke their guts up.
Kempe takes it like a boss: she cares for her miserable companions, just to show how charitable her heart really is.
But the gesture is lost on these ingrates. When they land, they leave Kempe in the lurch. She finds a poor man to take her to Canterbury on his horse.

By the time she gets to London, Kempe is a wreck. She has nothing good to wear, and she really doesn't want anyone to recognize her there.
But they do. They actually recall a very embarrassing little proverb about her that has been passed around since Kempe "came out" as a woman of religion.
Kempe is mortified by this, but she gets on just fine. She finds friends to feed, clothe, and shelter her, and she has a chance to get a little of her own back on the people who've been slandering her.
Kempe tells us that she spends her time in London correcting people who are living wicked lives. And she spends a lot of time sobbing and weeping because she has wonderful, direct conversations with God.
The curates of the London churches won't have any of this, so Kempe is tossed from most houses of worship.

Kempe bumps into the hermit who was supposed to take her to see her daughter-in-law off at the ship and then see her back to Lynn again. He is not pleased to see Kempe.
Because Kempe had disobeyed her confessor's instructions and gone all the way to Danzig, everyone is angry with her.
The hermit will not accompany Kempe to Lynn, because he wants no more trouble. That is, until she offers him money to do the job.
When she gets home, Kempe has some work to do to make people like her again, including her confessor. But it all works out, and the resilient mystic gets back on track.
Kempe ends the book with an extensive prayer. She wants to instruct us on how to pray by giving an example of how she did it when she began to live a spiritual life.