“The wicked one,” said she, “night is falling black—I hear him announcing his coming—screaming like a sea hawk—shuddering, I beseech the Virgin—in vain. For him, neither walls nor hedges nor doors nor windows. Entereth anywhere like a spirit——Ladder creaking——He beside me in the garret where I sleep. Seizes me in his cold arms, hard like marble. Face frozen cold, kisses like damp snow——The cottage tossed upon the earth, moving like a bark on the stormy sea....”
“You must go,” said Claes, “every morning to mass, that our Lord Jesu may give you strength to drive away this phantom come from hell.”
“He is so handsome!” said she.
IX
Being weaned, Ulenspiegel grew like a young poplar.
Claes now did not kiss him often, but loved him with a surly air so as not to spoil him.
When Ulenspiegel would come home, complaining of being beaten in some fray, Claes would beat him because he had not beaten the others, and thus educated Ulenspiegel became valiant as a young lion.
If Claes was from home, Ulenspiegel would ask Soetkin for a liard, to go play. Soetkin, angry, would say, “What need have you to go play? It would fit you better to stay at home to tie faggots.”
Seeing that she would give him nothing, Ulenspiegel would cry like an eagle, but Soetkin would make a great clatter of pots and pans, which she was washing in a wooden tub, to pretend she did not hear him. Then would Ulenspiegel weep, and the gentle mother, dropping her feigned harshness, would come to him, petting him, and say, “Will a denier be enough for you?” Now take notice that a denier is worth six liards.