XLII
The next day, which was the day of the execution, the neighbours, out of pity for their suffering, came and shut up Soetkin and Nele and Ulenspiegel in Katheline’s cottage. For they could not bear that they should see the terrible sight of the burning. Yet it had been forgotten that the far-off cries of the tormented one would reach the cottage, and that those within would be able to see through the windows the flames of the fire.
Katheline, meanwhile, went wandering through the town, wagging her head and crying out continually:
“Make a hole! Make a hole! My soul wants to get out!”
At nine of the clock Claes was led out of his prison. He was dressed in a shirt only, and his hands were tied behind his back. In accordance with the sentence that had been passed upon him, the pile was set up in the rue Notre Dame, with a stake in the midst, just in front of the hoarding of the Town Hall. When they arrived there the executioner and his assistants had not yet completed the work of stacking the wood. Claes stood patiently in the midst of his tormentors watching while the work was finished, and all the time the provost on his horse, with the officers of the tribunal and the nine foot-soldiers that had been summoned from Bruges, had the greatest difficulty in keeping order among the people. For they murmured one to another, saying that it was cruelty thus to do to death unjustly a man like Claes, a poor man and already old in years, and one that was so gentle, so forgiving, and such a good and steady workman.
Suddenly they all fell upon their knees and began to pray, for the bells of Notre Dame were heard tolling for the dead.
Katheline also was among the crowd, right in the front, mad as she was. Fixing her eye on Claes and the pile of wood, she wagged her head and cried continually:
“Fire! Fire! Dig a hole! My soul wants to get out!”
When Nele and Soetkin heard the sound of the tolling they crossed themselves. But Ulenspiegel did not cross himself, saying that he would never pray to God after the same fashion as those hangmen. But he ran about the cottage, trying to force open the doors or jump from the windows. But they were shut and fastened well.