III
Claes came to the canal of Bruges, not far from the sea. There, baiting his line, he cast it in the water, and let down his net. A little lad, well attired, lay upon the other bank, sleeping like a log upon a clump of mussels.
The noise Claes made awoke him, and he would have fled away, fearing it might be some sergeant of the commune coming to turn him off his couch and hale him to the Steen for unlicensed vagrancy.
But his fears ceased when he knew Claes and when he heard him call:
“Would you like to earn six liards? Drive the fish this way.”
The lad on the word went down into the water, with his little belly already showing round and puffed up, and, arming himself with a tuft of long reeds, drove the fish toward Claes.
His fishing over, Claes drew in his net and line, and walking across the lock, came to the lad.
“You are he,” said Claes, “whom they call Lamme by baptism and Goedzak for your gentle nature, and you live in the street of the Heron, behind Notre Dame. How comes it, young and well clothed as you are, that you must needs sleep on a public bed?”
“Alas, master coalman,” replied the lad, “at home I have a sister a year younger than I, who beats me with heavy blows for the smallest wrangle. But I dare not take my revenge on her back, for I should do her a hurt. Last night, at supper, I was an-hungered and cleaned with my fingers a dish of beef and beans in which she meant to have a share. There was not enough of it for me, master. When she saw me licking my lips for the goodness of the sauce, she became as one out of her wits, and beat me so fast and furiously that I fled all bruised from out of the house.”
Claes asked him what his father and mother did during all this cuffing.