No sooner had they gone out than a brewer’s cart drew up at the door, and the brewer’s men came into the smithy carrying between them a great barrel full of bruinbier.
“Smetse,” said his wife, “this is too much! Master brewers, this is not for us; we do not like beer at all, we drink water. Take this barrel to one of our neighbours, it is no concern of ours, I tell you.”
None the less the brewer’s men took down the barrel of bruinbier into the cellar, came up again, and went out to fetch others, and placed them alongside the first to the number of twenty. The good wife, trying to stop them, was pushed aside, while Smetse could not speak for laughing, and could only draw her to his side, and so prevent her from hurting herself on the barrels, which the men were carrying from street to cellar with marvellous speed and dispatch.
“Oh,” she wailed, “let me be! This is too much, Smetse! Alas! Now we are worse than beggars, we are debtors, Smetse: I shall go and throw myself into the river, my man. To run up debts to fill a famished stomach, that is shame enough; but to do so from simple gluttony, that is unbearable deceit. Canst thou not be content with bread and water got honestly with thy two hands? Art thou then become such a delicate feeder that thou must have cakes, fine cheeses, and full barrels? Smetse, Smetse, that is not like a good man of Ghent, but rather like a Spanish rogue. Oh, I shall go and drown myself, my man!”
“Wife,” said Smetse, troubled at seeing her in such distress, “do not weep. ’Tis all ours, my dear, duly, and by right.”
“Ah,” she said moaning, “’tis an ill thing to lose in this wise in your old age that honesty which was your only crown.”
While the smith was endeavouring, but in vain, to console her, there entered a vintner followed by three-and-thirty porters, each carrying a basket full of bottles containing precious wines of great rarity, as was shown by the shape of those said bottles.
When the good wife saw them she was overcome with despair, and her courage failed her: “Come in,” she said in a piteous voice, “come in, master vintners; the cellar is below. You have there a goodly number of bottles, six score for certain. That is none too much for us who are wealthy, wealthy of misery, vermin, and lice; come in, my masters, that is the door of the cellar. Put them all there, and more besides if you will.”
And giving Smetse a push: “Thou art happy, no doubt,” said she, “for ’tis a fine sight for a drunkard, such as thou art, to see all this good wine coming into the house without payment. Ah, he laughs!”
“Yes, wife,” said Smetse, “I laugh with content, for the wines are ours, ours the meats, ours the loaves and cheeses. Let us make merry over it together.” And he tried to embrace her: but she, shaking herself free: “Oh, oh,” she said, “he runs up debts, he tells lies, he laughs at his shame: he has all the vices, none is wanting.”