And when he had thus spoken, the messenger gave Claes the kiss of peace. And Claes made moan and lamentation, saying: "Dead upon the rack! Alas! My poor Josse!" And his grief was so great that he could not put it from him. Nevertheless, when he saw that the messenger was consumed with thirst and held out his glass for more wine, Claes poured out again. But he himself ate and drank without pleasure. Now Soetkin and Nele remained away for seven days; and all this time the messenger stayed beneath the roof of Claes, and every night they heard Katheline howling in her cottage over the way: "Fire! Fire! Make a hole! My soul wants to get out!" And Claes went to her, comforting her with gentle words, and afterwards returned to his own house. At the end of the seven days the messenger departed. Claes offered him money, but he would only accept two caroluses with which to feed himself and find lodging on his way back home. XXXVII When Nele and Soetkin returned from Bruges, they found Claes in the kitchen, sitting on the floor like a tailor, sewing buttons on an old pair of breeches. Titus Bibulus Schnouffius barked his welcome; Claes smiled, and Nele smiled in answer. But Soetkin did not take her eyes from the road, gazing continually in hopes to see her beloved Ulenspiegel. All of a sudden she broke silence. "Look," she cried, "here is the Provost-Marshal. He is coming along the road with four sergeants of the peace. They cannot be wanting any one from here, surely! And yet there are two of them turning off by the cottage!" Claes looked up from his work. "And the other two have stopped at the front," Soetkin said. Then Claes got up. "Who can they want to arrest in this road?" his wife continued, and then: "O Christ! They are coming in here." "Look to the money!" cried Claes. "The caroluses are hidden away behind the fireplace." And with these words he ran out of the kitchen into the garden. Nele understood what he meant, and saw that he was going to try and make his escape over the hedge. But the sergeants seized him by the collar, and now he was hitting out at them in a hopeless endeavour to break free. "He is innocent!" Nele cried aloud amid her tears. "He is innocent! Do not hurt him. It is Claes, my father! O Ulenspiegel, where are you? Where are you? If you were only here you would kill them both!" And she threw herself on one of the sergeants and tore at his face with her nails. Then she cried out again: "They will kill him!" and fell down upon the grass in the garden, and rolled there in her despair. Katheline, hearing the noise, had come out from her cottage, and stood up straight and immovable, gazing at the piteous scene. Then she spoke, wagging her head: "Fire! Fire! Make a hole! My soul wants to get out!" Soetkin meanwhile, who had seen nothing of all this, was talking to the sergeants who had entered the cottage.