Now by Lucifer’s subtlest engine in Hell, These silly folk I befool them well. One to another doth tell that I am my Lord So and so. All that aileth the people I fully know, Wherefore after me doth go great press of folk. I give them counsel as good as ever was spoke; Then I round it in the ear of many a goodwife How they may plague their husbands out of their life. Whereon the good man getteth such gobbets to his meat That ere eight days he is snug in his winding sheet. This merry cheat I have more than once played And thereof Lucifer, I ween, is not evil apaid. 630 Likewise I take my good pleasure In getting folk to seek out hidden treasure. Thereby one got his bane but yesterday. I told him where treasure had been hid away Under the stay which did his stable found: I said an he would delve deep in the ground He would find many a pound of good red gold. The fool straightway did as I told, But when he had wholly digged away The pillar’s foundation which was the stay That held the stable firm in place, Down it fell from top to base And good my nuncle was buried under. I shall perform still greater wonder If from above I may have leave. Men shall me for a god receive; And Hellwards they shall pack in troops. After Emma and Moonen had lived wellnigh six year in Antwerp at the sign of the “Golden Tree”, where marvelous much wickedness was done of them, it fell out that Emma was minded once more to see her eme and likewise her friends in the land of Guelders, and she prayed Moonen that he should thereto consent and fellow her on the journey thither, whereon he spake thus: Emma, to your prayer I would not say no. Ye say your friends ye would liefly see? EMMA Yea, that I would, if ye grant it so. MOONEN To your prayer, my love, I would not say no. EMMA Mine aunt at Nimmegen, mine eme at Venlo; Sin I saw them be passed years four and three. MOONEN Wherefore to your prayer I will not say no. And these your friends ye shall straightway see. EMMA They know not what hath befallen me Nor where I be, no more than if earth had me swallowed. Ever mine eme with love hath me followed; I wot full many a tear he hath wept. MOONEN The old shave-crown’s prayers me oft have kept When I was minded to rend her limb and lith. Ere now I had broken her neck, but therewith The old man’s prayers to the lady in white Have stopped me quite; wherefore, despite My will, not yet is she utterly caught. EMMA What say ye, Moonen? MOONEN