“I am going to see them.”
“That is not what you should do,” said she, “but you should obey Claes instead, who said to me before he was taken: ‘save the carolus, they are behind the chimney-back.’ They are what you must save first and foremost, for it is the inheritance of Soetkin, the poor woman.”
Ulenspiegel, listening no whit, ran to the gaol. There he saw Soetkin seated on the threshold; she embraced him with tears, and they wept together.
The people assembling, because of these two, in a crowd in front of the gaol, the constables came and told Ulenspiegel and Soetkin that they were to be off out of that and at the speediest possible.
Mother and son went away to Nele’s cottage, next door to their own home, before which they saw one of the lansquenet troopers summoned from Bruges through fear of the troubles that might arise during the trial and during the execution. For the folk of Damme loved Claes greatly.
The trooper was sitting on the pavement, before the door, busy sucking the last drop of brandy out of a flask. Finding nothing more in it, he flung it some paces away, and drawing his dagger, he amused himself in digging up the paving stones.
Soetkin, all tears, entered Katheline’s house.
And Katheline shaking her head: “The fire! Make a hole, the soul would fain escape,” said she.