The next day the great bell, Borgstorm, clanged out its summons to the judges of the tribunal. When they were all assembled at the Vierschare, seated upon the four benches that were set around the lime-tree, Claes was cross-examined afresh, and asked if he was willing to recant his errors. But Claes lifted his hand towards heaven: "The Lord Christ beholdeth me from on high," he said, "and when my son Ulenspiegel was born I also gazed upon His Sun. Where is Ulenspiegel now? Where is he now, the vagabond? O Soetkin, sweet wife, will you be brave in the day of trouble?" Then looking at the lime-tree he cursed it, saying: "South wind and drouth, I adjure you to make the trees of our fathers perish one and all where they stand, rather than that beneath their shade freedom of conscience shall be judged to death! O Ulenspiegel, my son, where are you? Harsh was I unto you in days gone by. But now, good sirs, take pity on me, and be merciful to me in your judgment, even as Our Lord would be merciful." And all that heard him wept, save only the judges. Then Claes asked them a second time if they would not pardon him, saying: "Truly I was always a hard-working man, and one that gained little for all his toil. I was good to the poor and kind to every one. And if I have left the Roman Church it is only in obedience to the spirit of God that spake to me. I ask for no grace except that the pain of fire may be commuted to a sentence of perpetual banishment from the land of Flanders. Banishment for life! A sufficient punishment that, surely!" And all they that were present cried aloud: "Have pity upon him! Have mercy!" But Josse Grypstuiver held his peace. Now the bailiff made a sign to the company that they should keep silence, adding that the placards contained a clause which expressly forbade the petitioning of mercy for heretics. But he said that if Claes would abjure his heresy he should be executed by hanging instead of by burning. And the people murmured: "What matters burning or hanging, they both mean death!" And the women wept and the men murmured under their breath. Claes said: "I will abjure nothing. Do to my body whatsoever is pleasing to your mercy." Then spoke the Dean of Renaix, Titelman by name: "It is intolerable that these vermin of heretics should raise up their heads in this way before their judges. After all, the burning of the body is but a passing pain, and torture is necessary for the saving of souls, and for the recantation of error, lest the people be given the dangerous spectacle of heretics dying in a state of final impenitence." At these words the women wept still more, and the men said: "In those cases where the crime is confessed punishment may be rightly inflicted, but torture is illegal!"