“Inasmuch as you, Soetkin, lawful widow of Claes, and you, Thyl, son of Claes, and called Ulenspiegel, having been accused of fraudulently withholding the goods that by confiscation were the property of His Majesty the King, maugre all privileges contrary to this, despite severe torture and adequate ordeal, have confessed to nothing:

“The court, considering the absence of sufficient proofs, and in you, woman, the piteous condition of your members, and in you, man, the harsh torment you have undergone, declares you both at liberty, and accords you permission to take up your abode in the house of him or her who may please to give you lodging, in spite of your poverty.

“Thus decreed at Damme, the three and twentieth day of October in the year of Our Lord 1558.”

“Thanks be to you, master judges,” said Soetkin.

“The fishmonger!” groaned Ulenspiegel.

And mother and son were taken to the house of Katheline in a cart.

LXXIX

In this year, which was the fifty-eighth of the century, Katheline went into Soetkin’s house, and said:

“Last night, having anointed myself with a balsam, I was carried to the tower of Notre Dame, and I beheld the spirits of the element passing on to the angels the prayers of men who flying towards the farthest heavens, bore them to the throne. And the sky was all over sprinkled with radiant stars. Suddenly there rose up from a fire pile a shape that seemed all black and climbed up to set himself beside me on the tower. I recognized Claes as he was in life, clad in his coalman’s attire. ‘What dost thou,’ said he, ‘on the tower of Notre Dame?’ ‘But thyself,’ I replied, ‘whither goest thou, flying through the air like a bird?’ ‘I go,’ he said, ‘to the judgment, dost thou not hear the angel’s trump?’ I was quite close to him, and felt that his spiritual body was not solid like the bodies of living men; but so tenuous that moving forward against him, I entered into it as into a hot vapour. At my feet, in all the land of Flanders, there shone a few lights, and I said to myself: ‘Those who rise early and work late are the blessed of God.’