He patted the dog, and found that its back was all wet, as though some one had been trying to drown it. He took it in his arms to warm it, and when he had reached home he said:
“I have brought back a wounded animal. What shall we do with it?”
“Dress its wounds,” said Claes.
Ulenspiegel laid the dog on the table; whereupon he and Claes and Soetkin saw that it was a little red-haired Luxemburg terrier, and that it was wounded in the back. Soetkin sponged the wounds, and anointed them with ointment, and bound them up with linen bandages. Then Ulenspiegel took the dog and put it in his bed; but Soetkin desired to have it in her own, saying she was afraid that Ulenspiegel would hurt the little red-haired thing. For in those days Ulenspiegel was wont to toss about in his sleep all night like a young devil in a stoup of holy water. Ulenspiegel, however, had his way, and he took such care of the dog that in the space of six days it was walking about like any other dog, and giving itself great airs.
And the village schoolmaster christened him Titus Bibulus Schnouffius: Titus after a certain good Emperor of the Romans who was fond of befriending lost dogs; Bibulus because the dog loved beer with all the passion of a confirmed drunkard; and Schnouffius because he would always run about sniffing and putting his nose into every rat-hole and mole-hole he could find.
XVI
The young prince of Spain was now fifteen years old, and his custom was to wander about the rooms and passages and stairways of the castle. But chiefly was he to be found prowling around the women’s quarters, trying to pick a quarrel with one of the pages, who themselves were wont to lurk on the look out, like cats, in the corridors; while others, again, out in the courtyard, would stand singing some tender ballad, nose in air. When the young prince heard one singing thus, he would show himself at one of the windows, and the heart of that poor page would be stricken with fear as he saw that white face there, instead of the gentle eyes of his beloved.
Now among the Ladies of the Court there was a gentle dame from Dudzeel near by Damme in Flanders. Fair-fleshed she was, like fine ripe fruit, and marvellously beautiful, for she had green eyes and reddish hair all wavy and gleaming gold. And of a gay humour was she, and of an ardent complexion, nor did she make any effort to conceal her taste for that fortunate lord to whom for the time being she was pleased to grant the freedom of the fair estate of her love. Such a one there was even now, handsome and proud, and she loved him well. Every day, at a certain hour, she went to find him—a thing which Philip was not long in finding out.
So, one day, sitting himself down on a bench that stood against a window, he lay in wait for her, and there she saw him as she passed by, with her bright eyes and her mouth half open, all meet for love and fresh from her bath, with the gear of her dress of yellow brocade swinging about her as she stepped along. Without rising from his seat, Philip accosted her.