Women were passing; men, too, riding the towing horses, and Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:
“That boatman is mocking us and our steeds. Suppose we go and attack him on his boat?”
“Let him rather come hither,” replied Lamme.
Then a woman spoke and said:
“If you do not want to come back with arms cut off, broken backs, faces in bits, let that Stercke Pier bray in peace as he pleases.”
“Hee haw! hee haw! hee haw!” went the boatman.
“Let him sing,” said the goodwife, “we saw him the other day lift up on his shoulders a cart laden with huge casks of beer, and stop another cart pulled by a powerful horse. There,” she said, pointing to the inn of the Blauwe-Toren, the Blue Tower, “he pierced with his knife, thrown from twenty paces off, an oaken plank twelve inches thick.”
“Hee haw! hee haw! hee haw!” went the boatman, while a lad of twelve years old got up on the bridge of the boat and started to bray also.
Ulenspiegel replied:
“Much we care for your strong Peter! However Stercke Pier he may be, we are more of it than he is, and there is my friend Lamme who would eat two of his size without a hiccup.”