"Kind sirs," she began, "what is it that you are looking for in our poor dwelling? If it is my son you want, he is far away. Do you feel equal to a long journey?" And she felt quite pleased at the way she was handling the matter. But it was at this very moment that Nele began to cry aloud for help, and when Soetkin had made her way into the garden, it was to see her husband seized by the collar and fighting on the pathway near the hedge. "Hit hard and kill them!" she cried, and then: "O Ulenspiegel, where are you?" And she was about to go to the assistance of her man when one of the sergeants caught hold of her, not indeed without some danger to himself. And Claes was fighting and hitting out so forcibly that he would certainly have escaped had not the two sergeants with whom Soetkin had been talking come out to aid their fellows in the nick of time. So at last they were able to tie the hands of Claes together, and to carry him back to the kitchen, whither Nele and Soetkin had already come, crying and sobbing. "Sir Provost," Soetkin said, "what crime has he committed that you are binding my poor husband thus with cords?" "He is a heretic," said one of the sergeants. "Heretic!" cried Soetkin, looking towards her husband. "You a heretic! These devils are lying!" Claes answered: "I resign myself into God's keeping." And they took him away. Nele and Soetkin followed behind, in tears, believing that they also would be summoned before the judge. They were joined by many of their friends and neighbours, but when these heard that it was on a charge of heresy that Claes was walking thus in chains, fear came upon them and they returned incontinently to their houses, closing their doors behind them. Only a few young girls had the courage to approach Claes and say to him: "Whither are you going to, Charcoal-burner, in these bonds!" "I go unto the grace of God, my girls," he answered them. So they took him away to the town gaol, and Nele and Soetkin sat themselves down upon the threshold. And towards evening Soetkin besought Nele to leave her and to go and see if Ulenspiegel had perchance returned. XXXVIII The news spread quickly through the neighbourhood that a man had been taken prisoner on a charge of heresy, and that the inquisitor Titelman, Dean of Renaix, surnamed the Inquisitor without Pity, had been appointed judge. Now at this time Ulenspiegel was living at Koolkerke, in the intimate favour of a farmer's widow, a sweet and gentle person who refused him nothing of what was hers to give. He was very happy there, petted and made much of, until one day a treacherous rival, an alderman of the village, lay in wait for him early in the morning when he was coming out of the tavern, and would have beaten him with a wooden club. But Ulenspiegel, thinking to cool his rival's anger, threw him into a duck-pond that was full of water, and the alderman scrambled out as best he could, green as a toad and dripping like a sponge.