But Nele went on with her story:
“At dawn,” she said, “the devil would go away, and the next day my mother would relate to me a hundred strange things. But, Tyl dear, you must not look at me with those cruel eyes.... Yesterday, for instance, she told me that a splendid prince, clad in grey, Hilbert by name, was anxious to take me in marriage, and that he was coming here himself that I might see him. I told her that I wanted no husband, handsome or plain. Nevertheless, by weight of her maternal authority she persuaded me to stay up for him, for she certainly keeps all her wits about her in whatever pertains to her amours. Well, we were half undressed, ready to go to bed; and I had gone off to sleep sitting on that chair. It seems that I did not wake up when they came in, and the first thing I knew was that some one was embracing me and kissing me on the neck. And then, by the bright light of the moon, I beheld a face that shone like the crests of the waves of a July sea when there is thunder in the air, and I heard a low voice speaking to me and saying: ‘I am your husband, Hilbert. Be mine! I will make thee rich.’ And from the face of him that spake these words there came an odour like the odour of fish. Quickly I pushed that face away from me, but the man tried to take me by force, and although I had the strength of ten against him, he managed to tear my shift and scratch my face, crying out the while that if only I would give myself to him he would make me rich. ‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘as rich as my mother, whom you have deprived of her last liard!’ At that he redoubled his violence, but he could not do anything against me. And at last, since he was more disgusting than a corpse, I scratched him in the eye with my nails so sharply that he cried out with pain, and I was able to make my escape and run up here to Soetkin.”
And all this while Katheline kept on with her “Nele is naughty. And why did you go away so soon, O Hanske, my pet?”
But Soetkin asked her where she had been while wicked men were attempting the honour of her child.
“It is Nele that is naughty,” Katheline replied. “As for me, I was in company of my black master, when the devil in grey comes to us, with his face all bloody. ‘Come away,’ he cries, ‘come away, my boy, this is an evil house; for the men, it seems, are of a mind to fight with one to the death, and the women carry knives at the tips of their fingers.’ And there and then they ran off to their horses, and disappeared in the mist. Ah, Nele, Nele! She is a naughty lass, I tell you!”
XLVI
On the following day, while they were making a meal of hot milk, Soetkin said to Katheline:
“You see how misfortune is already driving me from this world; and yet you, it seems, would like to drive me away all the faster by your accursed sorceries!”
But Katheline only went on repeating: