“Never,” said Hessels; and lifting his snout into the air like a baying dog, he cried out: “Devils to the rescue!” But this he did so loudly, and in such screeching wise, that at the sound of his cracked voice blaring out like a trumpet, all the workmen came to see what it was about.
“You do not shout loud enough,” said Smetse, “I will help you.” And he beat him the harder, so that the devil cried the louder.
“See,” said Smetse, “how well this stick makes the little nightingale sing in my plum-tree. He is saying over his lied of love to call hither his fair mate. She will come by and by, my lord; but come down, I pray you, and await her below, for they say that the night dew is deadly at a height from the ground.”
“Baes,” said certain workmen, “is it not my lord Jacob Hessels, the Bloody Councillor, who is perched up there in thy plum-tree?”
“Yes, lads,” answered Smetse, “’tis indeed that worthy man. He seeks high places now as he did all his life, and so also at the end of it, when he swung in the air, putting out his tongue at the passers-by. For that which is of the gallows returns to the gallows, and the rope will take back its own. ’Tis written.”
“Baes,” said they, “can we not help to bring him down?”
“Yes,” said he. And the workmen went off to the smithy.
Meanwhile the devil said nothing, trying all the time to get his seat away from the branch. And he struggled, wriggled about, twisted himself a hundred different ways, and used as levers, to lift himself up, feet, hands, and head, but all in vain.
And Smetse, belabouring him well, said to him: “My lord Councillor, you are fast stuck, it seems, to the saddle; but I will have you out of it, have you out as fast as I can, for if I do not so, beating you with all my strength, you will tear up out of the ground the tree and its roots, and the good folk will see you walking along, dragging a plum-tree from your seat like a tail, which would be a piteous and laughable spectacle for such a noble devil as yourself to make. Give me rather the seven years.”
“Baes,” said the workmen, who had returned from the smithy with hammers and iron bars, “here we are at your orders; what shall we do?”