And the girls looked jealously at Ulenspiegel, saying:
“He is mad about her, like all the rest.”
And La Gilline played upon her viola and sang, and the seven butchers departed for Peteghen, taking with them the constables and the girls. And they passed along by the River Lys. And as they went they kept muttering:
“’T is van te beven de klinkaert! ’T is van te beven de klinkaert!” And at break of day they came to the camp, and sang out like the lark and were answered straightway by a cockcrow. The girls and the constables were put under a strong guard, but in spite of these precautions La Gilline was found dead at noon on the third day, her heart pierced by a long needle. The three girls accused La Stevenyne of having done this deed, and she was brought before the captain. There she confessed that she had committed the crime out of jealousy and anger at the way the girl had treated her. And La Stevenyne was hanged and buried in the wood.
La Gilline also was buried, and prayers were said over her sweet body.
XXIV
Warm was the air, and not a breath of wind was wafted from the calm sea. The trees on the Damme canal were motionless, and the grasshoppers were busy in the meadows, while from many a church and abbey the men came into the fields to fetch that “thirteenth part of the harvest” which was claimed by the curés and the abbés who lived round about. From the depths of a blue and blazing sky the sun poured down his heat, and Nature slept beneath that radiance like some beautiful girl that has swooned away beneath the caresses of her lover.
From far off, Lamme and Ulenspiegel descried the high, square, massive tower of Notre Dame, and Lamme said:
“There, my son, is the home both of your loves and of your sorrows.” But Ulenspiegel made no answer.