XLVIII
Six months passed, and the devil lover came no more. Nevertheless Katheline did not live without hope of seeing her Hanske again.
Soetkin meanwhile had given up her work altogether, and was always to be found sitting huddled up in front of the fire; and her cough never left her. Nele provided the choicest and most sweetly smelling herbs, but no remedy had any power over her. As for Ulenspiegel, he never left the cottage for fear that his mother might die while he was out.
At last there came a time when the widow could neither eat nor drink without being sick. The surgeon (who also carried on the trade of a barber) came to bleed her, and when the blood had been taken away she was so enfeebled that she could not leave her chair. And at last the evening came when she cried out, all wasted with pain:
“Claes! Husband! And Tyl, my son! Thanks be to God for He taketh me!”
And with a sigh she died.
Katheline did not dare to watch by that bed of death, so Nele and Ulenspiegel kept watch together, and all night long they prayed for her that was gone.
As the dawn broke a swallow came flying in by the open window.
Nele said: “The bird of souls! It is a good omen. Soetkin is in heaven!”
The swallow flew three times round the room, and departed with a cry. Then there came a second swallow, larger it was and darker than the first. It fluttered around Ulenspiegel, and he said:
“Father and mother, the ashes beat upon my breast. Whatsoever you command me, that will I do.”
And the second swallow went off with a cry, just as the first had done. And Ulenspiegel saw thousands of swallows skimming over the fields. And the sun rose.
And Soetkin was buried in the cemetery of the poor.