And Claes went to her, comforting her with gentle words, and afterwards returned to his own house.
At the end of the seven days the messenger departed. Claes offered him money, but he would only accept two caroluses with which to feed himself and find lodging on his way back home.
XXXVII
When Nele and Soetkin returned from Bruges, they found Claes in the kitchen, sitting on the floor like a tailor, sewing buttons on an old pair of breeches. Titus Bibulus Schnouffius barked his welcome; Claes smiled, and Nele smiled in answer. But Soetkin did not take her eyes from the road, gazing continually in hopes to see her beloved Ulenspiegel.
All of a sudden she broke silence. “Look,” she cried, “here is the Provost-Marshal. He is coming along the road with four sergeants of the peace. They cannot be wanting any one from here, surely! And yet there are two of them turning off by the cottage!”
Claes looked up from his work.
“And the other two have stopped at the front,” Soetkin said.
Then Claes got up.
“Who can they want to arrest in this road?” his wife continued, and then: “O Christ! They are coming in here.”