He spoke in Flemish and in Latin, but the commander merely shrugged his
shoulders to show that he did not understand.

The villagers asked their priest in a low voice: "What does he say? What
is he going to do?" Others, when they saw the cure in the orchard, came
cautiously from their cottages, women hurried up and whispered in
groups, while the soldiers, till that moment besieging an inn, ran back
at sight of the crowd in the square.

Then the man who held the innkeeper's child by the leg cut off its head
with his sword.

The people saw the head fall, and thereafter the body lie bleeding upon
the grass. The mother picked it up, and carried it away, but forgot the
head. She ran towards her home, but stumbling against a tree fell prone
on the snow, where she lay in a swoon, while the father struggled
between two soldiers.

Some young peasants cast stones and blocks of wood at the Spaniards, but
the horsemen all lowered their lances; the women fled and the cure with
his parishioners began to shriek with horror, amid the bleating of the
sheep, the cackling of the geese, and the barking of the dogs.

But as the soldiers moved away again into the street, the crowd stood
silent to see what would happen.

A troop entered the shop kept by the sacristan's sisters, but came out
quietly, without harming the seven women, who knelt on the threshold
praying.