Certain troopers, believing that he had really broken his leg, were sorry for it because of his jollity. They left him meat and wine enough for two days. The girls would fain have gone to help him, but not being able to, they threw him all the castrelins they had left.
The band was far away; Ulenspiegel made across the fields in his pilgrim’s robes, bought a horse, and by highways and byways he came like the wind to Bois-le-Duc.
At the news of the coming of Messires de Beauvoir and de Lamotte, the townspeople took arms to the number of eight hundred, chose captains for them, and despatched Ulenspiegel to Antwerp disguised as a coalman to ask help from the Drinking Hercules, Brederode.
And the troopers of Messires de Lamotte and de Beauvoir could not come into Bois-le-Duc, a city armed and watchful, and ready for a stout defence.
XIX
The following month, a certain doctor, Agileus, gave Ulenspiegel two florins and letters with which he was to betake himself to Simon Praet, who would tell him what he had to do.
At Praet’s, Ulenspiegel found food and shelter. He slept well, and well liking was his face in the flower of youth; Praet, on the contrary, with a wretched and pitiful mien, seemed for ever locked in with melancholy thoughts. And Ulenspiegel was astonished to hear by night, if by any chance he awoke, the noise of hammering.
However early he might rise, Simon Praet was up before him, and more pitiful his look, sadder still his eyes, gleaming like a man’s making ready for death or for battle.
Often Praet sighed, clasping his hands for prayer, and ever seemed filled with indignation. His fingers were black and greasy, and so, too, were his arms and his shirt.