“Art thou verily going with this beautiful lady?” Nele asked him.
“I shall be back soon,” replied Ulenspiegel.
“If I were to go instead of you?” said Nele.
“Nay,” he said, “the roads are full of mire.”
“Why,” said the dame, angry and jealous together, “why, little girl, do you want to keep him from coming with me?”
Nele made her no answer, but big tears welled up from her eyes and she gazed on the dame in sadness and in anger.
They started on their way, four all told, the dame sitting like a queen on her white hackney caparisoned with black velvet; the seneschal whose belly shook to his walking; Ulenspiegel holding the dame’s hackney by the bridle, and Bibulus Schnouffius walking alongside him, tail in air proudly.
They rode and strode thus for some time, but Ulenspiegel was not at his ease; dumb as a fish he breathed in the fine odour of benjamin wafted from the dame, and looked out of the corners of his eyes at all her fine tags and rare jewels and furbelows, and also at her soft mien, her bright eyes, her bared bosom, and her hair that the sun made to shine like a golden cap.
“Why,” said she, “why do you say so little, my little man?”
He made no reply.