The Legend of Ulenspiegel by Charles de Coster Book I Chapter 61

Soetkin and Nele were seated at one of the windows of the cottage and looked into the street.

Soetkin said to Nele:

“Dearest, see you not my boy Ulenspiegel coming?”

“No,” said Nele, “we shall never see him again, the naughty vagabond.”

“Nele,” said Soetkin, “you must not be angry with him but sorry for him, for he is away from his home, poor fellow.”

“I know full well,” said Nele, “he hath another house far from here, richer than his own, where some beauteous dame doubtless gives him lodging.”

“That would be good luck indeed for him,” said Soetkin; “mayhap there he feedeth upon ortolans.”

“Why do they not give him stones to eat: speedily would he be here then, the glutton!” said Nele.

Then Soetkin laughed and said:

“Whence doth it arise then, dearest, all this big anger?”

But Claes, who, all pensive, too, was binding faggots in a corner.

“Do you not see,” said he, “that she is infatuate for him?”

“Lo you,” said Soetkin, “the crafty cunning thing that never murmured word of it! Is it so, dearest, that you long for him?”

“Never believe it,” said Nele.

“You will have there,” said Claes, “a stout husband with a big mouth, a hollow belly, and a long tongue, turning florins into liards and never a half-penny for his work, always loafing about and measuring the highways with the ell wand of vagabondage.”

But Nele replied, all red and cross:

“Why did you not make something different of him?”

“There,” said Soetkin, “now she is weeping; hold your tongue, husband.”