The girl, still trembling and moaning, said: “Do not have us burned, Soetkin.”
In the meantime, Ulenspiegel awaked and was blinking in the candlelight. Soetkin said: “Who is below there?”
Nele replied:
“Hold thy peace, it is the husband she wants to give me.”
Soetkin and Nele all at once heard Katheline cry out, and their limbs gave way under both of them.
“He is beating her, he is beating her on my account,” said Nele.
“Who is in the house?” cried Ulenspiegel, leaping out of his bed. Then rubbing his eyes, he went searching about the chamber until he had got his hands on a weighty poker lying in a corner.
“No one,” said Nele, “nobody at all; do not go down, Ulenspiegel!”
But he, paying no heed to anything, ran to the door, flinging aside chairs, tables, and stove. Katheline ceased not to cry out below; Nele and Soetkin clung to Ulenspiegel on the landing, one with her arms about his body, the other holding by his legs, saying: “Do not go down, Ulenspiegel, they are devils.”
“Aye,” he replied, “devil-husband of Nele, I will join him in wedlock with my poker. Betrothal of iron and flesh! Let me go down.”