“The sword is drawn, long live the Beggar!”
And their voices growled like a thunder of deliverance.
III
The world was in January, the cruel month that freezes the calf in the cow’s belly. It had snowed, and frozen over and above. The lads were taking with birdlime sparrows seeking some poor food on the hardened snow, and carried off this game into their cottages. Against the gray clear sky stood out motionless the skeletons of the trees, whose branches were covered with snowy cushions that covered also the cottages and the coping of walls on which were seen the prints of the paws of cats, which, like the boys, were hunting sparrows over the snow. At a distance the meadows were hidden over by this marvellous fleece, keeping the earth warm against the bitter cold of winter. The smoke of houses and cottages rose up black into the sky, and there was no noise heard of any kind.
And Katheline and Nele were alone in their house; and Katheline, nodding her head, said:
“Hans, my heart turns to thee. Thou must give back the seven hundred carolus to Ulenspiegel, the son of Soetkin. If thou art poor, come none the less that I may see thy shining face. Take away the fire, my head burns. Alas! where are thy snow-cold kisses? Where is thy icy body, Hans, my beloved?”
And she kept at the window. Suddenly there passed, running at full speed, a voet-looper, a courier carrying bells at his belt, and calling out:
“Here cometh the bailiff, the high bailiff of Damme!”
And he went thus as far as the Townhall, so as to assemble there the burgomasters and the sheriffs.