When the procession was returning, he must stand still under the porch of Notre Dame and there cry aloud:
"Thanks to my Lord Jesu! Thanks to messieurs the priests! Their prayers are sweet to souls in purgatory, yea, refreshing; for every Ave is a bucket of water falling on their back, every Pater a cistern."
And the people hearkened most devoutly, not without laughing.
At the Feast of Pentecost, he must again follow the procession; he was in his shirt, barefoot and bareheaded, candle in hand. Coming back, standing beneath the porch, and holding his candle very reverently, not without pulling a waggish face or two, he called in a loud clear voice:
"If the prayers of Christian men are a great ease and solace to souls in purgatory, those of the dean of Notre Dame, that holy man perfect in the practice of all the virtues, assuage so well the torments of the fire that it is transformed to ices all at once. But the devil-tormentors have not so much as one crumb."
And the people once more hearkened devoutly, not without laughter, and the dean, well pleased, smiled ecclesiastically.
Then Ulenspiegel was banished from the land of Flanders for three years, under condition of making pilgrimage to Rome and returning thence with absolution from the Pope.
Claes must pay three florins for this sentence; but he gave still another to his son and furnished him with the habiliments of a pilgrim.
Ulenspiegel was brokenhearted on the day of departing, when he embraced Claes and Soetkin, who was all in tears, the unhappy mother. They convoyed him a long long way on his road, in company of several townsfolk, both men and women.
Claes, when they came back to their cottage, said to his wife:
"Goodwife, it is exceeding harsh, for a few mad words, to condemn so young a lad to so heavy a penalty in this fashion."
"Thou art weeping, my husband," said Soetkin. "Thou dost love him more than thou showest, for thou art breaking into man's sobs, which be lion's tears."
Nele had gone to hide in the barn that none might see that she also wept for Ulenspiegel. A long way off she followed Soetkin and Claes and the townsfolk; when she saw her friend disappearing alone, she ran to him and leaping on his neck:
"You will be finding many beautiful dames over there," said she.