"Where were you going to, beloved?" She answered him nothing, but seemed carried away in a sort of ecstasy. Ulenspiegel, in like rapture, said to her: "Anyway you are here now! And truly the wild hedgerow is dun beside the sweet pink colouring of your skin, and though you are no queen, behold I will make a crown of kisses all for you! O sweet arms of my love, so tender, so rosy, and made for nothing but to hold me in their embrace! Ah, little girl, little love, how dare I touch you? These rough hands of mine, will they not tarnish the purity of your white shoulder? Yea verily, for the lightsome butterfly may flit to rest upon the crimson carnation, but I, clumsy bumpkin that I am, how can I rest myself without tarnishing the living whiteness that is you? God is in heaven, the king is on his throne, the sun rides triumphing in the sky, but am I a god, or a king, or the sun himself that I may come so close to you? O tresses softer than silk! O Nele, I fear to touch your hair, so clumsy am I, lest I tear it, lest I shred it all to pieces. But have no fear, my love. Your foot, your sweet foot! What makes it so white? Do you bathe it in milk?" Nele would have risen from his side, but, "What are you afraid of?" he asked her. "It is not the sun alone that shines upon us now and paints you all gold. Do not cast down your eyes, but look straight into mine, and behold the pure fire that flames there. And listen, my love, hearken to me, dearest. Now is midday, the silent hour. The labourer is at home, eating his dinner of soup. Shall we not also feed upon our love? Oh why, oh why have I not yet a thousand years wherein to tell at your knees my rosary of Indian pearls!" "Golden Tongue!" she said. But my Lord the Sun blazed down upon the white hood of the cart, and a lark sang high over the clover, and Nele leant her head upon the shoulder of Ulenspiegel. III After a while Lamme came back to the cart, great drops of sweat pouring off him, and he, puffing and blowing like a dolphin. "Alas!" he cried, "I was born under an evil star. For no sooner had I run and caught up with this woman than I found that she was not a woman at all, but an old hag rather, as indeed I could see at once by her face--forty-five years old at the very least! And to judge by her head-gear she had never been married. For all that, she inquired of me in a harsh voice what I was doing there, carrying my great fat belly about in the clover! I told her as politely as I could that I was looking for my wife who had lately left me, and that I had run after her by mistake.