“Muzzle full of holes like a skimming ladle,” said he to himself, “eyes with a hard false look, mouth that would laugh and grimace, you make me curious.”
“God be with you, Messire,” said the old woman, “be with you without ceasing. I have received moneys, Daughter, good moneys from Messire d’Egmont when I took him his cloak on which I had embroidered the fool’s bauble. Yes, Messire, the fool’s bauble against the Red Dog.”
“The Cardinal de Granvelle?” asked Ulenspiegel.
“Aye,” said she, “against the Red Dog. It is said that he denounces their doings to the King; they would fain bring him to death. They are right, are they not?”
Ulenspiegel answered not a word.
“You have not seen them in the streets clad in a gray doublet and opperst-kleed, gray as the common folk wear them, and the long hanging sleeves and their monks’ hoods and on all the opperst-kleederen the fool’s bauble embroidered. I made at least twenty-seven and my daughter fifteen. That incensed the Red Dog to see these baubles.”
Then speaking in Ulenspiegel’s ear:
“I know that the lords have decided to replace the bauble by a sheaf of corn in sign of unity. Aye, aye, they mean to struggle against the king and the Inquisition. It is well done of them, is it not, Messire?”
Ulenspiegel made no answer.
“The stranger lord is melancholy,” said the old woman; “he has his mouth tight shut all of a sudden.”