“And who may they be?” asked Brederode.
“When I have found them,” said Ulenspiegel, “then I will tell you.”
But Lamme, who was grown sprightly with what he had been drinking, suggested to Ulenspiegel that they should go there and then to the moon, to see if his wife perchance was there.
“All right,” said Ulenspiegel, “if you’ll provide a ladder!”
And it was May, the green month of May, and Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:
“Ah! The lovely month of May!”
“O Lamme, behold the lovely month of May! Ah, the bright blue of the sky! The joy of the swallows! And behold, the branches of the trees, how they are all red with sap, and the very earth is in love! Verily this is now the time both to hang and to burn for the Faith. For they are ready, the good little Inquisitors. Ah, what noble faces they have! And theirs is the power to correct us and to punish us and to degrade, and hand us over to the secular judges, or to imprison us—O the fine month of May!—and to take us captive, and to proceed to trial against us without serving any writ, and to burn, hang, behead us, and to dig the grave of premature death for our women and our girls. In the trees the chaffinch is singing! But upon him that is rich and wealthy the good Inquisitors have cast a favourable eye! And it is the King himself that shall enter into their inheritance. Then go, my girls, dance in the meadows to the sound of bagpipes and shawms. O the fine month of May!”
And the ashes of Claes beat upon the breast of Ulenspiegel.
“On, on!” said he to Lamme. “Happy are they that shall keep heart high and sword drawn in the dark days that are coming!”