All at once Soetkin and Nele heard Katheline cry out in a loud voice, and their legs gave way beneath them in their terror.
“He is beating her,” said Nele, “he is beating her because of me!”
“Who is it in the house?” cried Ulenspiegel, jumping out of bed. And then, rubbing his eyes, he went stalking up and down the room till at last he found a heavy poker that stood in the corner. He took hold of it, but Nele tried to dissuade him, telling him that there was no one there. But he paid no attention, running to the door and throwing to one side the chairs and tables and the stove that Nele had piled up in front of it. All this time Katheline was crying out from the kitchen, and Nele and Soetkin held Ulenspiegel—the one by the waist, the other by the legs—and tried to prevent him from descending the stairs. “Don’t go down,” they told him. “Don’t go down, Ulenspiegel. There are devils down there.”
“Forsooth,” says he, “Nele’s devil-husband! Him verily will I join in marriage to this long poker of mine! A marriage of iron and flesh! Let me go!”
But they did not loose their hold, hanging on as they were to the landing rail.
And all the time Ulenspiegel was trying to drag them down the staircase, and they the more frightened as they came nearer to the devils below. And they could avail naught against him, so that at last, descending now by leaps and bounds like a snowball that falls from the top of a mountain, he came into the kitchen. And there was Katheline, all exhausted and pale in the light of dawn.
“Hanske,” she was saying, “O Hanske, why must you leave me? Is it my fault if Nele is naughty?”
Ulenspiegel did not take any notice of her, but straightway opened the door of the shed, and finding no one there, rushed out into the yard, and thence into the high road. Far away he descried two horses galloping off and disappearing in the mist. He ran after them hoping to overtake them, but he could not, for they went like a south wind that scours the dry autumn leaves.
Ulenspiegel was angry with disappointment, and he came back into the cottage grieving sore in his heart and muttering between his teeth:
“They have done their worst on her! They have done their worst!...”