“Are the seven on their side?”
But the butchers, winking, reassured them, at the same time continually repeating in louder and louder tones with Ulenspiegel:
“’Tis van te beven de klinkaert; ’tis van te beven de klinkaert.”
The Stevenyne drank to give herself courage.
Ulenspiegel then struck the table with his fist, with the rhythm and measure of upholsterers beating mattresses; the seven did as he did; glasses, jugs, bowls, quart pots, and goblets came slowly into the dance, overturning, breaking, rising on one side to fall on the other; and still there rang out more threatening, sombre, warlike, and in monotone: “’Tis van te beven de klinkaert.”
“Alas!” said the Stevenyne, “they are going to smash everything here.”
And in her fear her two tusks stuck farther still out of her mouth.
And the blood lit up with wrath and fury in the minds of the seven and Lamme and Ulenspiegel.
Then without stopping their monotonous threatening chant all the men at Ulenspiegel’s table took their glasses, and breaking them on the table, keeping time together, they got astride their chairs and drew their cutlasses. And they made such a din with their song that all the window-panes in the house were quaking. Then like a ring of devils they went round about the chamber and all the tables, saying continually: “’Tis van te beven de klinkaert.”
And the catchpolls then rose up quaking with terror, and took out their ropes and chains. But the butchers, Ulenspiegel, and Lamme, thrusting their cutlasses back into their sheaths, got up, seized their chairs, and brandishing them like cudgels, they ran nimbly through the room hither and thither, striking right and left, sparing only the girls, smashing all the rest, furniture, windows, chests, dishes, quart pots, bowls, glasses, and flasks, beating the catchpolls without pity and always singing to the time of the sound of the upholsterer beating mattresses: “’Tis van te beven de klinkaert; “’tis van te beven de klinkaert,” while Ulenspiegel had given a blow on the face with his fist to the Stevenyne, had taken her keys from her bag, and by force made her eat her candles.