XLIII
In Katheline’s cottage Soetkin stood leaning against the wall, with her head hanging down and her hands clasped together. She held Ulenspiegel in her arms, speechless and without a tear. Neither did Ulenspiegel say anything. It made him afraid to feel the burning fever that raged in the body of his mother.
The neighbours, returning from the place of execution, came to the cottage and told how Claes had made an end of his sufferings.
“He is in glory,” said the widow.
“Pray for him,” said Nele, putting her rosary into the hands of Ulenspiegel. But he would make no use of it, giving as his reason that the beads had been blessed by the Pope.
At last night came, and Ulenspiegel urged his mother to go to bed, telling her that he himself would sit up and keep watch in the room. But Soetkin said that there was no need for him to do that. Let him sleep also, for the young have need of a good night’s rest. So Nele prepared two beds for them in the kitchen, and after that she left them.
Mother and son stayed up together while what remained of the wood fire burned itself out in the grate. Then Soetkin retired to her bed, and Ulenspiegel did likewise, listening to his mother sobbing to herself under the bedclothes.
Outside in the silence of the night the wind made a murmuring sound in the trees by the canal. It was like the far-off sound of waves, and it meant that autumn was coming soon. Also, there were great eddies of dust that beat against the cottage windows.
Now it seemed to Ulenspiegel that he saw the figure of a man going to and fro in the room, and he thought he heard the sound of footsteps coming and going in the kitchen. But when he looked he no longer saw the man, and listening he no longer heard those footsteps, but only the sound of the wind as it whistled in the chimney and Soetkin crying under the bedclothes.