When the two women saw Lamme, they ran up and both began to belabour him--the mother because of the fright he had given her, the sister because it was her habit so to do. Lamme took refuge behind Claes, and cried out: "I have earned a penny-farthing! I have earned a penny-farthing! Do not beat me!" By this time, however, his mother had begun to embrace him, while the girl was trying to force open his hands and to get at the money. But Lamme shouted: "The money belongs to me. You shall not have it." And he kept his fingers tightly closed. But Claes shook the girl roughly by the ears, and said to her: "If you go on picking quarrels like this with your brother, he that is as good and gentle as a lamb, I shall put you in a black charcoal-pit, and then it won't be I any longer that will be shaking you by the ears, but the red devil himself from hell, and he will pull you into pieces with his great claws and his teeth that are like forks." At these words the girl averted her eyes from Claes, nor did she go near Lamme, but hid behind her mother's skirts, and when she got back into the town, she went about crying everywhere: "The Charcoal-man has beaten me, and he keeps the devil in his cave." Nevertheless she did not attack Lamme any more; but being the bigger of the two, she made him work in her place, and the gentle simpleton obeyed her right willingly. Now Claes, on his way home, sold his catch to a farmer that often used to buy fish from him. And when he was home again, he said to Soetkin: "Behold! Here's what I have found in the bellies of four pike, nine carp, and a basketful of eels." And he threw on the table a couple of florins and half a farthing. "Why don't you go fishing every day, my man?" asked Soetkin. "For fear of becoming a fish myself, and being caught on the hook of the village constable," he told her. IV Claes, the father of Ulenspiegel, was known in Damme by the name of Kooldraeger, that is to say, the Charcoal-burner. Claes had a black head of hair, bright eyes, and a skin the colour of his own merchandise--save only on Sundays and Feast Days, when his cottage ran with soap and water. He was a short, thick-set man, strong, and of a joyful countenance. Towards the end of the day, when evening was coming on, he would sometimes visit the tavern on the road to Bruges, there to rinse his charcoal-blackened throat with a draught of cuyte; and then the women standing at their doorways to sniff the evening dew would cry out to him in friendly greeting: "A good night and a good drink to you, Charcoal-burner." "A good night to you, and a lively husband!" Claes would reply. And sometimes the girls, trooping home together from their work in the fields, would line up in front of him right across the road, barring his way. "What will you give us for the right of passage?" they would cry. "A scarlet ribbon, a buckle of gold, a pair of velvet slippers, or a florin piece for alms?"