With him she then will sup that day And give of kisses a relay: And when he's cleared the supper tray Within her bed to slumber lay When Seigneur Maan comes up the way.
Just so, my dear, provide for me, Good food and wine spiced daintily Just so, my dear, provide for me When Seigneur Maan comes up the way.
Then drinking and singing a quatrain turn and turn about, he went to sleep. And he could not hear Nele saying: "They are in a pot behind the chimney-back"; nor see Ulenspiegel go through the stable into Claes's kitchen, lift the slab of the chimney-back, find the pot and the carolus, come back into Katheline's garden, hide the carolus there beside the well wall, knowing full well that if they were searched for it would be inside and not outside.
Then they returned to Soetkin and found the sad wife weeping and saying:
Nele and Ulenspiegel watched by her until morning.
On the morrow, the Borgstorm summoned with loud peals the judges to the court of the Vierschare.
When they were seated on the four benches, about the tree of justice, they interrogated Claes afresh and asked him if he wished to recant his errors.
"Christ, my Lord, seeth me from on high," said he, "I looked upon his sun when my boy Ulenspiegel was born. Where is he now, the runagate? Soetkin, my gentle goodwife, wilt thou be brave against ill fortune?"
Then looking at the linden tree, he said, cursing it:
"Storm winds and drought! make all the trees of the land of our father die as they stand rather than see freedom of conscience condemned to death under their shade. Where art thou, my son Ulenspiegel? I was hard to thee. Messieurs, have pity upon me and judge me as Our Compassionate Lord would judge me."
All that heard him wept, save the judges.
Then he asked if there was no pardon for him, saying:
"I toiled all my days, earning but little; I was good to the poor and comfortable to all men. I left the Romish Church to obey the spirit of God that spoke to me. I ask for no other boon than to commute the penalty of the fire into that of perpetual banishment for life from the land of Flanders, a penalty already full grievous."
But Josse Grypstuiver did not cry with them.
The bailiff signed to the people there to be silent and said that the edicts contained an express prohibition against asking mercy for heretics; but that if Claes would abjure his error, he should be executed by the rope instead of by fire.