“I go thither,” said Lamme.
And he set off in his cart.
While Lamme was trundling towards Koolkerke, the wind, which was both high and warm, drove like a flock of sheep in the sky the gray clouds drifting in bands; the trees complained like the waves of a swelling sea. Ulenspiegel and Nele were now a long while in the forest alone together. Ulenspiegel was hungry, and Nele looked for roots that were good to eat, and found nothing but the kisses her friend gave her, and acorns.
Ulenspiegel, having laid down snares, whistled to call the birds down, in order to catch and cook any that might come. A nightingale settled on a leafy branch close to Nele; she did not catch it, for she wished to leave it to sing; a warbler came, and she had pity on it, because it was so pretty and proud in its air; then came a lark, but Nele told it it would do better to fly away into the heights of the sky and sing a hymn to Nature, than to come stupidly to struggle on the murderous point of a spit.
And she said the truth, for in the meantime Ulenspiegel had lighted a clear fire and cut a wooden spit that only awaited its victims.
But no more birds came now, except a few evil ravens that croaked a long way up over their heads.
And so Ulenspiegel did not eat at all.
Now the time had come when Nele must go away and return to Katheline. And she went weeping, and Ulenspiegel from afar off watched her go.
But she came back, and flinging herself on his neck:
“I am going,” she said.