"The wicked night falls blackly. He tells of his coming from afar, screaming like the sea-eagle. I tremble, and pray to Our Lady--all in vain. For the Night knows neither walls nor hedges, neither doors nor windows. Everywhere, like a spirit, he finds a way in. The ladder creaks. The Night has entered into the loft where I am sleeping. The Night seizes me in arms that are cold and hard as marble. His face is frozen, and his kisses like damp snow. The whole cottage seems to be tossed about over the earth, riding like a ship at sea...." Claes said: "I would counsel you to go every morning to Mass, that our Lord Christ may give you strength to chase away this phantom from hell." "He is so beautiful!" said Katheline. VII Ulenspiegel was weaned, and began to grow like a young poplar. And soon Claes gave up caressing him, but loved him in a roughish manner, fearing to make a milksop of him. And when Ulenspiegel came home complaining that he had got the worst of it in some boyish affray, Claes would give him a beating because, forsooth, he had not beaten the others. And with such an education Ulenspiegel grew up as valiant as a young lion. When Claes was from home, Ulenspiegel would ask his mother to give him a liard with which he might go out and amuse himself. Soetkin would grow angry, and ask why he wanted to go out for amusement--he would do better to stay at home and tie up faggots. And when he saw that she was not going to give him anything, the boy would start yelling like an eagle, while Soetkin made a great clatter with the pots and pans that she was washing in the wooden tub, pretending that she did not hear his noise. Then Ulenspiegel would fall to weeping, and the gentle mother would stop her pretence at harshness, and would come and kiss him. "Will a denier be enough for you?" she would say. Now it should be noted that a denier is equal to six liards. Thus did his mother dote on Ulenspiegel even to excess; and when Claes was not there, he was king in the house. VIII One morning Soetkin saw Claes pacing up and down the kitchen with head bent, like a man lost in thought. "Whatever is the matter with you, my man?" she asked him. "You are pale, and you look angry and distracted." Claes answered her in a low voice, like a dog growling. "The Emperor is about to reissue those cursed placards. Death once again is hovering over the land of Flanders. The Informers are to have one half of the property of their victims, if so be that such property does not exceed the value of one hundred florins." "We are poor," Soetkin said.