Ulenspiegel replied:

"He hides it, while at the same time giving refuge at Emden to

his ships."

And he added:

"We must go to Maestricht."

"You will not be able to do so," said the host; "the duke's army is

before the town and in the environs."

Then taking him into the loft, he showed him far away the ensigns

and guidons of horse soldiers and footmen riding and marching in

the country.

Ulenspiegel said:

"I shall make my way through if you, who are of authority in this

place, will give me a permit to marry. As for the woman, she must be

pretty, gentle, and sweet, and willing to marry me, if not for always,

at least for a week."

Lamme sighed and said:

"Do not do this, my son; she will leave you alone, burning in the

fires of love. Your bed, where you now sleep so snugly, will become

as a mattress of holly to you, depriving you of sweet slumber."

"I will take a wife," replied Ulenspiegel.

And Lamme, finding nothing more on the table, was deeply

distressed. However, having discovered castrelins in a bowl, he ate

them in melancholy fashion.

Ulenspiegel said to Thomas Utenhove:

"Come, then, let us drink; give me a wife rich or poor. I shall go

with her to church and have the marriage blessed by the curé. And he

will give us the certificate of marriage, which will not be valid

since it comes from a Papist and inquisitor; we shall have it set

down in it that we are all good Christians, having confessed and

taken the Sacrament, living apostolically according to the precepts

of our Holy Mother the Roman Church, which burneth her children,

and thus calling upon us the blessings of our Holy Father the Pope,

the armies celestial and terrestrial, the saints both men and women,

deans, curés, monks, soldiers, catchpolls, and other rascals. Armed

with this certificate aforesaid, we shall make our preparations for

the usual festal wedding journey."

"But the woman," said Thomas Utenhove.

"You will find her for me," replied Ulenspiegel. "I will take two

wagons, then; I will bedeck them with wreaths adorned with pine boughs,

holly, and paper flowers; I will fill them with certain of the lads

you want to send to the prince."

"But the woman?" said Thomas Utenhove.

"She is here without a doubt," replied Ulenspiegel. And continuing:

"I shall harness two of your horses to one of the wagons, our two asses

to the other. In the first wagon I shall put my wife and myself,

my friend Lamme, the witnesses of the marriage; in the second,

tambourine players, fifers, and shawm players. Then displaying the

joyful marriage flags, playing the tambourine, singing, drinking,

we will go trotting down the highway that leads to the Galgen-Veld,

the Gallows Field, or to liberty."

"I will help you," said Thomas Utenhove. "But the women and girls

will wish to go with their men."

"We shall go, by the grace of God," said a pretty girl, putting her

head in at the half-open door.

"There will be four wagons, if they are needed," said Thomas Utenhove;

"in this way we shall get more than twenty-five men through."

"The duke will be crestfallen," said Ulenspiegel.

"And the prince's fleet served by some good soldiers the more,"

replied Thomas Utenhove.

Having his serving men and women summoned then by ringing a bell,

he said to them:

"All ye that are of Zealand, men and women, oyez; Ulenspiegel the

Fleming here present desires that you should pass through the duke's

army in wedding array."

Men and women of Zealand shouted together:

"Danger of death! we are willing!"

And the men said, one to another:

"It is joy to us to leave the land of slavery to go to the free

sea. If God be for us, who shall be against us?"

Women and girls said:

"Let us follow our husbands and our lovers. We are of Zealand and we

shall find harbour there."

Ulenspiegel espied a pretty young girl, and said to her, jesting:

"I want to marry you."

But she, blushing, replied:

"I am willing, but only in church."

The women, laughing, said to one another:

"Her heart turns to Hans Utenhove, the son of the baes. Doubtless he

is going with her."

"Aye," replied Hans.

And the father said to him:

"You may."

The men donned festal raiment, doublet and breeches of velvet, and

the big opperst-kleed over all, and large kerchiefs on their heads,

to keep off sun and rain; the women in black stockings and pinked

shoes; wearing the big gilt jewel on their foreheads, on the left for

the girls, on the right for the married women; the white ruff upon

their necks, the plastron of gold, scarlet, and azure embroidery,

the petticoat of black woollen, with wide velvet stripes of the same

colour, black woollen stockings and velvet shoes with silver buckles.

Then Thomas Utenhove went off to the church to beg the priest to

marry immediately, for two ryck-daelders which he put in his hand,

Thylbert the son of Claes, which was Ulenspiegel, and Tannekin Pieters,

to the which the curé consented.

Ulenspiegel then went to church followed by the whole wedding party,

and there he married before the priest Tannekin, so pretty and sweet,

so gracious and so plump, that he would gladly have bitten her cheeks

like a love-apple. And he told her so, not daring to do it for the

respect he had to her gentle beauty. But she, pouting, said to him:

"Leave me alone: there is Hans looking murder at you."

And a jealous girl said to him:

"Look elsewhere: do you not see she is afraid of her man?"

Lamme, rubbing his hands, exclaimed:

"You are not to have them all, rogue."

And he was delighted.

Ulenspiegel, applying patience to his trouble, came back to the farm

with the wedding party. And there he drank, sang, and was jolly,

drinking hob-nob with the jealous girl. Thereat Hans was merry,

but not Tannekin, nor the girl's betrothed.

At noon, in bright sunshine and a cool wind, the wagons set forth,

all greenery and flowers, all the banners displayed to the merry

sound of tambourines, shawms, fifes, and bagpipes.

At Alba's camp there was another feast. The advanced outposts and

sentinels having sounded the alarm, came in one after another, saying:

"The enemy is near at hand; we have heard the noise of tambourines and

fifes and seen his ensigns. It is a strong body of cavalry come there

to draw you into some ambush. The main army is doubtless farther on."

The duke at once had his camp masters, colonels, and captains informed,

ordered them to set the army in battle array, and sent to reconnoitre

the enemy.

Suddenly there appeared four wagons advancing towards the

musketeers. In the wagons men and women were dancing, bottles were

jigging round, and merrily squealed the fifes, moaned the shawms,

beat the drums and droned the bagpipes.

The wedding party having halted, Alba came in person to the noise,

and beheld the new-made bride on one of the four wagons; Ulenspiegel,

her bridegroom, all rosy and fine beside her, and all the country

folk, both men and women, alighted on the ground, dancing all about

and offering drink to the soldiers.

Alba and his train marvelled greatly at the simplicity of these

peasants who were singing and feasting when everything was in arms

all about them.

And those who were in the wagons gave all their wine to the soldiers.

And they were well applauded and welcomed by them.

The wine giving out in the wagons, the peasants went on their way

again to the sound of the tambourines, fifes, and bagpipes, without

being interfered with.

And the soldiers, gay and jolly, fired a salvo of musket shots in

their honour.

And thus they came into Maestricht, where Ulenspiegel made arrangements

with the reformers' agents to despatch by vessels arms and munitions

to the fleet of the Silent.

And they did the same at Landen.

And they went in this way elsewhere, clad as workmen.

The duke heard of the trick; and there was a song made upon it,

which was sent him, and the refrain of which was:

Bloody Duke, silly head,

Have you seen the newlywed?

And every time he had made a wrong manoeuvre the soldiers would sing:

The Duke has dust in eye:

He has seen the newlywed.

XXIV

In the meantime, King Philip was plunged in bitter melancholy. In his

grievous pride he prayed to God to give him power to conquer England,

to subdue France, to take Milan, Genoa, Venice, and great lord of

all the seas, thus to reign over all Europe.

Thinking of this triumph, he laughed not.

He was continually and always cold; wine never warmed him, nor the

fire of scented wood that was always burning in the chamber where he

was. There always writing, sitting amid so many letters that a hundred

casks might have been filled with them, he brooded over the universal

domination of the whole world, such as was wielded by the emperors of

Rome; on his jealous hatred of his son Don Carlos, since the latter

had wanted to go to the Low Countries in the Duke of Alba's place, to

seek to reign there, he thought, without doubt. And seeing him ugly,

deformed, a savage and cruel madman, he hated him the more. But he

never spoke of it.

Those who served King Philip and his son Don Carlos knew not which

of the twain they ought to fear the most; whether the son, agile,

murderous, tearing his servitors with his nails, or the cowardly

and crafty father, using others to strike, and like a hyæna, living

upon corpses.

The servitors were terrified to see them prowling around each

other. And they said that there would soon be a death in the Escurial.

Now they learned presently that Don Carlos had been imprisoned for the

crime of high treason. And they knew that he was devouring his soul

with black spite, that he had hurt his face trying to get through

the bars of his prison in order to escape, and that Madame Isabelle

of France, his mother, was weeping without ceasing.

But King Philip was not weeping.

The rumour came to them that Don Carlos had been given green figs

and that he was dead the next day as if he had gone to sleep. The

physicians said as soon as he had eaten the figs the blood ceased to

beat, the functions of life, as Nature meant them, were interrupted;

he could neither spit, nor vomit, nor get rid of anything from out

of his body. His belly swelled at his death.

King Philip heard the death mass for Don Carlos, had him buried

in the chapel of his royal residence and marble set over his body;

but he did not weep.

And the lords in waiting said to one another, mocking the princely

epitaph that was on the tombstone:

HERE LIES ONE WHO, EATING GREEN FIGS,

DIED WITHOUT HAVING BEEN SICK

A qui jaze qui en para desit verdad,

Morio s'in infirmidad

And King Philip looked with a lustful eye upon the Princess of Eboli,

who was married. He besought her love, and she yielded.

Madame Isabelle of France, of whom it was said that she had favoured

the designs of Don Carlos upon the Low Countries, became haggard and

woebegone. And her hair fell out in great handfuls at a time. Often

she vomited, and the nails of her feet and her hands came out. And

she died.

And King Philip did not weep.

The hair of the Prince of Eboli fell out also. He became sad and always

complaining. Then the nails of his feet and his hands came out, too.

And King Philip had him buried.

And he paid for the widow's mourning and did not weep.

XXV

At this time certain women and girls of Damme came to ask Nele if she

would be the May bride and hide among the brushwood with the groom that

would be found for her; "for," said the women, not without jealousy,

"there is not one young man in all Damme and round about who would

not fain be betrothed to you, who stay so lovely, good, and fresh:

the gift of a witch, doubtless."

"Goodwives," answered Nele, "say to the young men that seek after me:

'Nele's heart is not here, but with him that wandereth to deliver

the land of our fathers.' And if I am fresh, even as you say, it is

no gift of a witch, but the gift of good health."

The goodwives replied:

"All the same, Katheline is suspect."

"Do not believe what ill folk say," answered Nele; "Katheline is

no witch. The law-men burned tow upon her head and God struck her

with witlessness."

And Katheline, nodding her head in a corner where she was sitting

all huddled up, said:

"Take away the fire; he will come back, my darling Hanske."

The goodwives asking who was this Hanske, Nele replied:

"It is the son of Claes, my foster brother, whom she thinks she lost

since God struck her."

And the kindly goodwives gave silver patards to Katheline. And when

they were new she showed them to someone that nobody could see, saying:

"I am rich, rich in shining silver. Come, Hanske, my darling; I will

pay for my love."

And the goodwives being gone, Nele wept in the lonely cottage. And

she thought on Ulenspiegel wandering in far-off countries where she

might not follow him, and on Katheline who, often groaning "take away

the fire," held her bosom with both hands, showing in this way that

the fire of madness burned her head and her body feverishly.

And in the meanwhile the bride and groom of May hid in the grass.

He or she who found one of them was, according to the sex of the one

found, and his or her own, King or Queen of the feast.

Nele heard the cries of joy of the lads and lasses when the May bride

was found on the edge of a ditch, hidden among the tall grasses.

And she wept, thinking on the sweet time when they hunted for her

and her friend Ulenspiegel.

XXVI

Meanwhile, Lamme and he were riding along well astraddle upon their

asses.

"Listen here, Lamme," said Ulenspiegel, "the nobles of the Low

Countries, through jealousy against Orange, have betrayed the cause

of the confederates, the holy alliance, the valiant covenant signed

for the good of the land of our fathers. Egmont and de Hoorn were

traitors alike and with no advantage to themselves. Brederode is

dead; in this war there is nothing left us now but the poor common

folk of Brabant and Flanders waiting for loyal chiefs to go forward;

and then, my son, the isles, the isles of Zealand, North Holland, too,

over which the Prince is governor; and farther still and on the sea,

Edzard, Count of Emden and East Frisia."

"Alas," said Lamme, "I see it clear; we journey between rope, rack, and

stake, dying of hunger, gaping for thirst, and with no hope of rest."

"We are but at the beginning," replied Ulenspiegel. "Deign to consider

how that all in this is pleasure for us, slaying our enemies,

mocking them, having our pouches full of florins; well laden with

meat, with beer, with wine, with brandy. What would you have more,

feather bed? Would you like us to sell our asses and buy horses?"

"My son," said Lamme, "the trotting of a horse is very severe on a

man of my corpulence."

"You will sit on your steed as peasants do," said Ulenspiegel,

"and no man will mock at you, since you are clad like a peasant,

and do not wear the sword like me, but only carry a pikestaff."

"My son," said Lamme, "are you sure that our two passes will avail

for the little towns?"

"Have not I the curé's certificate," said Ulenspiegel, "with the

great seal of the Church in red wax hanging from it by two tails of

parchment, and our confession cards? The soldiers and catchpolls of

the duke have no power against two men so well armed. And the black

paternosters we have for sale? We are two reiters, both of us, you a

Fleming and I a German, travelling by express command from the duke,

to win over the heretics of this land to the Holy Catholic faith

by the sale of sacred articles. We shall thus enter everywhere the

houses of noble lords and the fat abbés. And they will give us rich

hospitality. And we shall surprise their secrets. Lick your chops,

my gentle friend."

"My son," said Lamme, "we will then be carrying on the trade of spies."

"By law and right of war," replied Ulenspiegel.

"If they hear of the affair of the three preachers, we shall die

without a doubt," said Lamme.

Ulenspiegel sang:

"My standards 'Live' as motto bear

Live ever in a sunshine land

My skin the first is buff well tanned

And steel the second skin I wear."

But Lamme, sighing:

"I have nothing but one skin, and a soft one; the least stroke of a

dagger would make a hole in it immediately. We should do better to

settle in some useful trade than to gad about in this way over hill

and valley, to serve all these great princes who, with their feet in

velvet hose, eat ortolans on gilded tables. To us the blows, perils,

battle, rain, hail, snow, the thin soups that fall to vagabonds. To

them the fine sausages, fat capons, savoury thrushes, succulent fowls."

"The water is coming into your mouth, my gentle friend," said

Ulenspiegel.

"Where are ye, fresh bread, golden koekebakken, delicious creams? But

where art thou, my wife?"

Ulenspiegel replied:

"The ashes beat upon my heart and drive me on to the battle. But

thou, mild lamb that hast naught to avenge, neither the death of

thy father nor of thy mother, nor the grief of those thou lovest,

nor thy present poverty, leave me alone to march whither I say,

if the toils of war affright thee."

"Alone?" said Lamme.

And he pulled up his ass, which began to eat a tuft of thistles,

of which there was a great plantation on that wayside. Ulenspiegel's

ass stopped and ate likewise.

"Alone," said Lamme. "You will not leave me alone, my son; that would

be an infamous cruelty. To have lost my wife and then further to lose

my friend, that is impossible. I will whine no more, I promise you. And

since it must be"--and he raised his head proudly--"I will go under

the rain of bullets. Aye! And in the midst of swords; aye! in the face

of those foul soldiers that drink blood like wolves. And if one day

I fall at your feet bloody and death-stricken, bury me; and if you

see my wife, tell her that I died because I could not bear to live

without being loved by someone in this world. No, I could not do it,

my son Ulenspiegel."

And Lamme wept. And Ulenspiegel was moved to see that mild courage.

XXVII

At this time the duke, dividing his army into two corps, made the

one march towards the Duchy of Luxembourg and the other towards the

Marquisate of Namur.

"This," said Ulenspiegel, "is some military decision unknown to me;

it is all one to me, let us go towards Maestricht boldly."

As they went alongside the Meuse near the city Lamme saw Ulenspiegel

looking attentively at all the boats that were moving in the river; and

he stopped before one of them that bore a siren on the prow. And this

siren held a scutcheon on which there was marked in gold letters on a

sable ground the sign J. H. S., which is that of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ulenspiegel signed to Lamme to stop and began to sing merrily like

a lark.

A man came up on the boat, crowed like a cock, and then, on a

sign from Ulenspiegel, who brayed like a donkey and pointed him to

the people gathered on the quay, he began to bray terribly like a

donkey. Ulenspiegel's two asses laid back their ears and sang their

native song.

Women were passing; men, too, riding the towing horses, and Ulenspiegel

said to Lamme:

"That boatman is mocking us and our steeds. Suppose we go and attack

him on his boat?"

"Let him rather come hither," replied Lamme.

Then a woman spoke and said:

"If you do not want to come back with arms cut off, broken backs,

faces in bits, let that Stercke Pier bray in peace as he pleases."

"Hee haw! hee haw! hee haw!" went the boatman.

"Let him sing," said the goodwife, "we saw him the other day lift up on

his shoulders a cart laden with huge casks of beer, and stop another

cart pulled by a powerful horse. There," she said, pointing to the

inn of the Blauwe-Toren, the Blue Tower, "he pierced with his knife,

thrown from twenty paces off, an oaken plank twelve inches thick."

"Hee haw! hee haw! hee haw!" went the boatman, while a lad of twelve

years old got up on the bridge of the boat and started to bray also.

Ulenspiegel replied:

"Much we care for your strong Peter! However Stercke Pier he may be,

we are more of it than he is, and there is my friend Lamme who would

eat two of his size without a hiccup."

"What are you saying, my son?" asked Lamme.

"What is," replied Ulenspiegel; "do not contradict me through

modesty. Aye, good people, goodwives and artisans, soon you will behold

him try the work of his arms and annihilate this famous Stercke Pier."

"Hold your tongue," said Lamme.

"Your might is well known," replied Ulenspiegel, "you could never

hide it."

"Hee haw!" went the boatman; "hee haw!" went the lad.

Suddenly Ulenspiegel sang again, most melodiously like a lark. And

the men, the women, and the artisans, ravished with delight, asked

him where he had learned that divine whistle.

"In paradise, whence I have come direct," answered Ulenspiegel.

Then, speaking to the man who never stopped braying and pointing with

his finger for mockery:

"Why do you stay there on your boat, rascal? Do you not dare to come

to land and mock at us and our steeds?"

"Do you not dare?" said Lamme.

"Hee haw! hee haw!" went the boatman. "Masters, donkeys, playing the

donkey, come up on my boat."

"Do as I do," said Ulenspiegel in a low voice to Lamme.

And speaking to the boatman:

"If you are the Stercke Pier, I, I am Thyl Ulenspiegel. And these

twain are our asses, Jef and Jan, who can bray better than you, for

it is their native tongue. As for going up on your rickety planks, we

have no mind to it. Your boat is like a tub; every time a wave strikes

it it goes back, and it can only move like the crabs, sideways."

"Aye, like the crabs!" said Lamme.

Then the boatman, speaking to Lamme:

"What are you muttering between your teeth, lump of bacon?"

Lamme, becoming furious, said:

"Evil Christian, who reproached me with my infirmity, know that my

bacon is my own and comes from my good food; while thou, old rusty

nail, thou livest but on old red herrings, candle wicks, skins of

stockfish, to judge from thy scrawny beef that can be seen sticking

through the holes in thy breeches."

"They'll be giving each other a stiff drubbing," said the men, women,

and artisans, delighted and full of curiosity.

"Hee haw! hee haw!" went the boatman.

"Do not throw stones," said Ulenspiegel.

The boatman said a word in the ear of the lad hee-hawing beside him

on the boat, and with the help of a boat hook, which he handled

dexterously, came to the bank. When he was quite close, he said,

standing proudly upright:

"My baes asks if you dare to come on board his boat and wage battle

with him with fist and foot. These goodmen and goodwives will be

witnesses."

"We will," said Ulenspiegel with much dignity.

"We accept the combat," said Lamme with great stateliness.

It was noon; the workmen, navvies, paviours, ship-makers, their wives

armed with their husbands' luncheons, the children that came to see

their fathers refresh themselves with beans or boiled meat, all laughed

and clapped their hands at the idea of a battle at hand, gaily hoping

that one or the other of the combatants would have a broken head or

would fall into the river all in pieces for their delectation.

"My son," said Lamme in a low voice, "he will throw us into the water."

"Let yourself be thrown," said Ulenspiegel.

"The big man is afraid," said the crowd of workmen.

Lamme, still sitting on his ass, turned on them and looked wrathfully

at them, but they hooted him.

"Let us go on the boat," said Lamme, "they will see if I am afraid."

At these words he was hooted again, and Ulenspiegel said:

"Let us go on the boat."

Alighting from their asses, they threw the bridles to the boy who

patted the donkeys in friendly fashion, and led them where he saw

thistles growing.

Then Ulenspiegel took the boat hook, made Lamme get into the dinghy,

sculled along towards the boat, where by the help of a rope he climbed

up, preceded by Lamme, sweating and blowing hard.

When he was upon the bridge of the vessel, Ulenspiegel stooped down

as though he meant to lace up his boots, and said a few words to the

boatman, who smiled and looked at Lamme. Then he roared a thousand

insults at him, calling him rascal, stuffed with guilty fat, gaol seed,

pap-eter, eater of pap, and saying: "Big whale, how many hogsheads

of oil do you give when you are bled?"

All at once, without answering him, Lamme hurled himself on him like a

wild bull, flung him down, struck him with all his might, but did him

little harm because of the fat pithlessness of his arms. The boatman,

while pretending to struggle, let him do as he would, and Ulenspiegel

said: "This rascal will pay for liquor."

The men, women, and workmen, who from the bank looked on at the battle,

said: "Who would have imagined that this big man was so impetuous?"

And they clapped their hands while Lamme struck like a deaf man. But

the boatman took care for nothing except to save his face. Suddenly

Lamme was seen with his knee on Stercke Pier's breast, holding him

by the throat with one hand and raising the other to strike.

"Cry for mercy," he said in fury, "or I will drive you through the

ribs of your tub!"

The boatman, coughing to show that he could not cry out, asked for

mercy with his hand.

Then Lamme was seen generously lifting up his enemy, who was soon

on his feet, and turning his back on the spectators, put out his

tongue at Ulenspiegel, who was bursting with laughter to see Lamme,

proudly shaking the feather in his cap, walking up and down the boat

in mighty triumph.

And the men, women, lads, and lasses, who were on the bank, applauded

with all their might, saying: "Hurrah for the conqueror of Stercke

Pier! He is a man of iron. Did ye see how he thumped him with his fist

and how he stretched him on his back with a blow from his head? There

they are, going to drink now to make peace. Stercke Pier is coming

up from the hold with wine and sausages."

In very deed, Stercke Pier had come up with two tankards and a great

quart of white Meuse wine. And Lamme and he had made peace. And Lamme,

all gay and jolly because of his triumph, because of the wine and the

sausages, asked him, pointing to an iron chimney that was disgorging a

black thick smoke, what were the fricassees he was making in his hold.

"War cookery," replied Stercke Pier, smiling.

The crowd of artisans, women, and children being dispersed to go back

to their work or to their homes, the rumour ran speedily from mouth

to mouth that a great fat man, mounted on an ass and accompanied by

a little pilgrim, also mounted on an ass, was stronger than Samson

and that care must be taken not to offend him.

Lamme drank and looked at the boatman with a conquering air.

The other said suddenly:

"Your donkeys are tired of being over yonder."

Then, bringing the boat up against the quay, he got out on the earth,

took one of the asses by the hind legs and the forelegs, and carrying

him as Jesus carried the lamb, set it down on the bridge of the

boat. Then having done the same with the other one without so much

as drawing a quicker breath, he said:

"Let us drink."

The lad leaped on the bridge.

And they drank. Lamme, all in a maze, no longer knew if it was himself,

native of Damme, who had beaten this strong man, and he no longer dared

to look at him, save by stealth, without any triumphing, fearing that

he might take a notion to lay hold of him as he had done with the

donkeys and throw him alive into the Meuse, for spite at his overthrow.

But the boatman, smiling, invited him gaily to drink again, and

Lamme recovered from his fright and looked on him once more with

victorious assurance.

And the boatman and Ulenspiegel laughed.

In the meanwhile, the donkeys, dumbfounded to find themselves on a

floor that was not the cows' floor, as the peasants call dry land,

had hung their heads, laid back their ears, and dared not drink for

fear. The boatman went off to fetch them one of the pecks of corn he

gave the horses that towed his boat, buying it himself so as not to

be cheated by the drivers in the price of fodder.

When the donkeys saw the grain they murmured paternosters of the jaw

while staring at the deck of the boat in melancholy fashion and not

daring to move a hoof for fear of slipping.

Thereupon the boatman said to Lamme and to Ulenspiegel:

"Let us go into the kitchen."

"A war kitchen, but you may go down into it without fear, my

conqueror."

"I am nowise afraid, and I follow you," said Lamme.

The lad took the tiller.

Going down they saw everywhere bags of grain, of beans, peas, carrots,

and other vegetables.

The boatman then said to them, opening the door of a small forge:

"Since ye are men of valiant heart and know the cry of the lark,

the bird of the free, and the warrior clarion of the cock, and the

braying of the ass, the gentle worker, I am minded to show you my

war kitchen. This little forge you will find such an one in most

Meuse boats. No one can be suspicious of it, for it serves to mend

and repair the ironwork of the vessels; but what all do not possess

is the goodly vegetables contained in these cupboards."

Then removing some stones that covered the floor of the hold, he

raised a few planks, and pulled up a fine sheaf of musket barrels,

and lifting it as if it had been a feather, he put it back in its

place; then he showed them lance heads, halberds, sword blades;

bags of bullets, bags of powder.

"Long live the Beggar!" said he; "here are beans and their sauce,

the musket stocks are legs of mutton, the salads are these halberd

heads, and these musket barrels are ox shins for the soup of

freedom. Long live the Beggar! Where am I to take this victual?" he

asked Ulenspiegel.

"To Niméguen, where you will enter with your boat still more heavily

laden, with real vegetables, brought you by the peasants, which you

will take on board at Etsen, at Stephansweert, and at Ruremonde. And

they, too, will sing like the lark, the bird of the free; you shall

answer with the warlike clarion of the cock. You are to go to the

house of Doctor Pontus, who lives beside the Nieuwe-Waal; you are

to tell him you are coming to the city with vegetables, but that

you fear the drought. While the peasants go to the market to sell

the vegetables at a price too dear for any to buy, he will tell you

what you are to do with your weapons. I think, too, that he will

direct you to pass, not without danger, by the Wahal, the Meuse, or

the Rhine, exchanging vegetables for nets for sale, so that you may

wander with the Harlingen fishing boats, where there are many sailors

that know the lark's song; skirt the coast by the Waden, and get to

the Lauwer-Zee; exchange the nets for iron and lead; give costumes

of Marken, Vlieland, and Ameland to your peasants; remain awhile on

the coasts, fishing and salting down your fish to keep it and not to

sell it, for to drink cool and make war on salt is a lawful thing."

"Wherefore, let us drink," said the boatman.

And they went up on the deck.

But Lamme, falling into melancholy:

"Master boatman," said he, suddenly, "you have here in your forge

a little fire so bright that for certain one might cook with it the

most delicious of hotpots. My throat is thirsty for soup."

"I will refresh you," said the man.

And speedily he served him a rich soup, in which he had boiled a

thick slice of salt ham.

When Lamme had swallowed a few spoonfuls, he said to the boatman:

"My throat is peeling, my tongue is burning: this is no hotpot."

"'Cool drink and salt war', it was written," replied Ulenspiegel.

Then the boatman filled up the tankards, and said:

"I drink to the lark, the bird of freedom."

Ulenspiegel said:

"I drink to the cock, blowing the clarion of war."

Lamme said:

"I drink to my wife; may she never be athirst, the poor darling."

"You are to go as far as Emden by the North Sea," said Ulenspiegel

to the boatman. "Emden is a refuge for us."

"The sea is wide," said the boatman.

"Wide for the battle," said Ulenspiegel.

"God is with us," said the boatman.

"Who then shall be against us?" replied Ulenspiegel.

"When do you depart?" said he.

"Immediately," replied Ulenspiegel.

"Good voyage and a following wind. Here are powder and bullets." And

kissing them, he brought them ashore, after carrying the two donkeys

on his neck and shoulders like lambs.

Ulenspiegel and Lamme having mounted them, they started for Liége.

"My son," said Lamme, as they went on their way, "how did that man,

so strong as he is, allow himself to be so cruelly thumped by me?"

"So that everywhere we go," said Ulenspiegel, "terror may precede

you. That will be a better escort to us than twenty landsknechts. Who

would henceforth dare to attack Lamme the mighty, the conqueror;

Lamme the bull without peer, who with his head, before the eyes and

to the knowledge of everyone, overthrew the Stercke Pier, Peter the

Strong, who carries asses like lambs and lifts with one shoulder a

cart of beer barrels? Everyone knows you here already; you are Lamme

the terrible, Lamme the invincible, and I walk in the shadow of your

protection. Everyone will know you along the way we are to go, no

one will dare to look on you with an unfriendly eye, and considering

the great valour of mankind, you will find nothing on your path but

louting, salutations, homage, and venerations offered to the might

of your redoubtable fist."

"You speak well, my son," said Lamme, drawing himself up in his saddle.

"And I speak the truth," replied Ulenspiegel. "Do you see these

curious faces in the first houses of this village? They are pointing

the finger, showing to one another Lamme, the terrific conqueror. Do

you see these men that look at you with envy and these poor cowards

that doff their kerchiefs! Reply to their salutation, Lamme, my dear;

disdain not the poor weak common herd. See the children know your

name and repeat it with awe and fear."

And Lamme passed by, proud and stately, saluting to the right and to

the left like a king. And the word of his prowess followed him from

burg to burg, from city to city, to Liége, Choquier, to Neuville,

Vesin, and Namur which they avoided because of the three preachers.

They went on thus a long time, following up rivers, streams, and

canals. And everywhere to the lark's song answered the crowing of

the cock. And everywhere for the work of liberty men founded forges

and furbished the weapons that went away on the ships that skirted

along the coasts.

And they passed the tolls in casks, in cases, in baskets.

And there were found always good folk to receive them and to conceal

them in a sure place, with powder and bullets, until the hour of God.

And Lamme wending his way with Ulenspiegel, still preceded by his

victorious reputation, began himself to believe in his great strength,

and becoming proud and bellicose, he let his hair grow long. And

Ulenspiegel christened him "Lamme the Lion."

But Lamme did not hold steadfast in the design because of the

irritation of the young growth on the fourth day. And he had the razor

passed over his conquering face, which appeared to Ulenspiegel once

more, round and full like a sun, lit up with the flame of good victual.

In this wise they came to Stockem.

XXVIII

About nightfall, having left their asses at Stockem, they entered

into the city of Antwerp.

And Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:

"Lo this great city; here the whole world piles up its riches: gold,

silver, spices, gilded leather, Gobelin tapestry cloth, stuffs

of velvet, wool, and silk; beans, peas, grain, meat, and flour,

salted hides, Louvain wines, wines of Namur, of Luxembourg, Liége,

Landtwyn from Brussels and from Aerschot, Buley wines whose vineyard

is beside the Plante gate at Namur, Rhine wines, wines from Spain

and Portugal; grape oil from Aerschot that they call Landolium; wines

of Burgundy, Malvoisie and so many more. And the quays are cumbered

with merchandise.

"These riches of earth and of human toil bring into this place the

most beautiful light ladies that are."

"You are growing dreamy," said Lamme.

Ulenspiegel answered:

"I shall find the Seven among them. It was told me:

In ruins, blood and tears, seek!

What then is there that causeth more of ruin than light wenches? Is it

not in their company that poor witless men lose their goodly carolus,

shining and chinking; their jewels, chains, and rings, and come away

without a doublet, ragged and despoiled, even without their linen;

while the girls grow fat upon their spoils? Where is the red clear

blood that used to course in their veins? 'Tis leek juice now. Or else,

indeed, to enjoy their sweet and lovely bodies do they not fight with

knife, with dagger, with sword, without pity? The corpses borne away,

pale, and bloody, are corpses of the love-distraught. When the father

scolds and remains on his chair with forbidding looks; when his white

hairs seem whiter and stiffer; when from his dry eyes, wherein burns

the grief at a son's loss, the tears refuse to flow; when the mother,

silent and pale as a dead woman, weeps as if she saw nothing before

her now save all the sorrows that this world holdeth, who is it makes

those tears to fall? The gay ladies that love but themselves and money,

and hold the world, thinking or working or philosophizing, fastened

to the end of their golden girdle. Aye, it is there the Seven are,

and we shall go, Lamme, among the girls. Perchance thy wife is among

them; that will be a double sweep of the net."

"I am willing," said Lamme.

It was then in the month of June, towards the end of the summer,

when the sun was already reddening the leaves on the chestnuts, when

the little birds sing in the trees and there is never a mite so small

that he does not chirp for pleasure to be so warm in the grass.

Lamme wandered beside Ulenspiegel through the streets of Antwerp,

hanging his head and dragging his body along like a house.

"Lamme," said Ulenspiegel, "you are plunged in melancholy; do you not

know that nothing is worse for the skin; if you persist in your grief,

you will lose it in strips. And it will be a fine word to hear when

they say of you: 'Lamme the flayed.'"

"I am hungry," said Lamme.

"Come and eat," said Ulenspiegel.

And they went together to the Old Stairs, where they ate choesels

and drank dobbel-cuyt as much as they could carry.

And Lamme wept no more.

And Ulenspiegel said:

"Blessed be the good beer that maketh thy soul all sunny! Laughest

and shakest thy big paunch. How I love to see thee dance of the

merry entrails."

"My son," said Lamme, "they would dance far more if I had the good

luck to find my wife again."

"Let us go and seek for her," said Ulenspiegel.

They came thus to the quarter of the Lower Scheldt.

"Look," said Ulenspiegel to Lamme, "see that little house all made of

wood, with handsome windows, well opened and glazed with little square

panes; consider these yellow curtains and that red lamp. There, my son,

behind four casks of bruinbier, of uitzet, of dobbel-cuyt, and Amboise

wine, sits a beauteous baesine of fifty years or upwards. Every year

she lived gave her a fresh layer of bacon. Upon one of the casks

shines a candle, and there is a lantern hung to the beams of the

roof. It is bright and dark there, dark for love, bright for payment."

"But," said Lamme, "this is a convent of the devil's nuns, and this

baesine is its abbess."

"Aye," said Ulenspiegel, "'tis she that leadeth in Beelzebub's name,

down the path of sin fifteen lovely girls of amorous life, which find

with her shelter and food, but it is forbidden to them to sleep there."

"Do you know this convent?" said Lamme.

"I am going to look for your wife therein. Come."

"No," said Lamme, "I have taken thought and will not go in."

"Wilt thou let thy friend expose himself all alone in the midst of

these Astartes?"

"Let him not go there," said Lamme.

"But if he must go in to find the Seven and your wife?" replied

Ulenspiegel.

"I would rather sleep," said Lamme.

"Come on then," said Ulenspiegel, opening the door and thrusting

Lamme in front of him. "See, the baesine stays behind her casks,

between two candles; the chamber is large, with a roof of blackened

oak with smoked beams. All around reign benches, lame-legged

tables covered with glasses, quart pots, goblets, tankards, jugs,

flasks, bottles, and other implements of drinking. In the middle are

still more tables and chairs whereon are enthroned odds and ends,

the which are women's capes, gilded belts, velvet shoes, bagpipes,

fifes, shawms. In a corner is a ladder leading to the upper story. A

little bald hunchback plays on a clavecin mounted on glass feet that

make the sound of the instrument grating. Dance, my fat lad. Fifteen

lovely ladies are sitting, some on the tables, some on the chairs,

a leg here, a leg there, bending, upright, leaning on an elbow,

thrown back, lying on their back or on their side, at their pleasure,

clad in white, in red, their arms bare like their shoulders, too,

and their bosom down to the waist. There are some of every kind;

choose! For some the light of the candles, caressing their fair

hair, leaves in the shadow their blue eyes, of which nothing can be

seen but the gleaming of their liquid fire. Others, looking at the

ceiling, sigh to the viol some German ballade. Some round, brown,

plump, brazen-faced, are drinking from full tankards Amboise wine, and

show their round arms, bare to the shoulder, their half-opened dress,

whence come out the apples of their breasts, and shamelessly talk with

their mouths full, one after the other or all at once. Listen to them."

"A straw for money to-day! it is love we must have, love at our

own choice," said the lovely ladies, "child's love, youth's love,

whoever pleases us, and no paying."--"Yesterday was the day when one

paid, to-day is the day when one loves!" "Who so would fain drink

at our lips, they are still moist from the bottle. Wine and kisses,

it is a whole feast!" "A straw for widows that lie all alone!" "We

are girls! 'Tis the day of charity to-day. To the young, the strong,

and the comely, we will open our arms. Something to drink!" "Darling,

is it for the battle of love that your heart is beating the tambourine

in your breast! What a pendulum! 'Tis the clock of kisses. When

will they come, full hearts and empty purses? Do they not scent out

dainty adventures? What is the difference between a young Beggar

and Monsieur the Markgrave? Monsieur pays in florins and the young

Beggar in caresses. Long live the Beggar! Who will go and wake up

the graveyards?"

Thus spake the good, the ardent, and the gay among the ladies of

amorous life.

But there were others of them with narrow faces, lean shoulders, who

made of their bodies a shop for savings, and liard by liard harvested

the price of their thin flesh. And these were fuming among themselves:

"It is very foolish for us to refuse payment in this fatiguing trade,

for these ridiculous whimsies running in the heads of girls that

are wild over men. If they have a cantle of the moon in their heads,

we have none, and prefer not to have to drag around in our old age

like them, in rags in the gutter, but to be paid since we are for

sale. A straw for this gratis! Men are ugly, stinking, grumbling,

greedy, drunken. It is nothing but them that turns poor women to ill!"

But the young and beautiful ones did not hear these speeches, and

all in their pleasure and drinkings said: "Do you hear the passing

bells ringing in Notre Dame? We are on fire! Who will go and waken

the graveyards?"

Lamme seeing so many women all at once, brunette and fair, fresh and

withered, was ashamed; lowering his eyes he cried out: "Ulenspiegel,

where are you?"

"He is dead and gone, my friend," said a great stout girl taking hold

of his arm.

"Dead and gone?" said Lamme.

"Aye," said she, "three hundred years ago, in the company of Jacobus

de Coster van Maerlandt."

"Let me go," said Lamme, "and do not pinch me. Ulenspiegel, where

are you? Come and save your friend! I am going away immediately if

you do not let me go."

"You will not go away," they said.

"Ulenspiegel," said Lamme, again, piteously, "where are you, my

son? Madame, do not pull my hair in this way; it is not a wig, I

assure you. Help! Do you not think my ears red enough, without your

bringing the blood to them besides? There is that other one filliping

me all the time. You are hurting me! Alas! what are they rubbing my

face with now? A looking glass! I am black as the jaws of an oven. I

will be angry in a minute if you do not stop; it is ill done of you

to torment a poor man like this. Let me go! When you have tugged me

by my breeches to right, to left, from all sides, and have made me

go like a shuttle, will you be any the fatter for it? Aye, I shall

get angry without a doubt."

"He will get angry," said they, mocking; "he will get angry, the good

man. Laugh rather, and sing us a love lay."

"I will sing one of blows, if you wish, but let me alone."

"Whom do you love here?"

"Nobody, neither you nor the others. I will complain to the magistrates

and he will have you whipped."

"Oh, indeed!" they said. "Whipped! And suppose we were to kiss you

by main force before this whipping?"

"Me?" said Lamme.

"You," said they all.

And thereupon the lovely and the ugly, the fresh and the faded, the

brown and the fair all rushed upon Lamme, flung his bonnet into the

air, and his cloak, too, and fell to caressing him, kissing him on

the cheek, the nose, the back, with all their might.

The baesine laughed between her candles.

"Help!" cried Lamme; "help, Ulenspiegel; sweep away all this

rubbish. Let me go. I want none of your kisses; I am married, God's

blood! and keep all for my wife."

"Married," said they; "but your wife has over much: a man of your

corpulence. Give us a little. Faithful woman, 'tis well and good;

a faithful man, he is a capon. God keep you! you must choose, or we

shall whip you in our turn."

"I will do no such thing," said Lamme.

"Choose," said they.

"No," said he.

"Will you have me?" said a pretty, fair girl: "See, I am gentle,

and I love whoever loves me."

"Let me alone," said Lamme.

"Will you have me?" said a delicious girl, who had black hair, eyes

and complexion all brown, and in everything else made to perfection

by the angels.

"I don't like gingerbread," said Lamme.

"And what of me, would you not take me?" said a tall girl, who had a

brow almost covered by her hair, heavy eyebrows joined together, big

drowned eyes, lips thick as eels and all red, and red, too, of face,

neck, and shoulders.

"I don't like," said Lamme, "burnt bricks."

"Take me," said a girl of sixteen with a little squirrel face.

"I don't like nut crunchers," said Lamme.

"We must whip him," said they, "with what? Fine whips with a lash of

dried hide. A sound lashing. The toughest skin cannot resist it. Take

ten of them. Carters' and donkey drivers' whips."

"Help! Ulenspiegel!" cried Lamme.

But Ulenspiegel made no answer.

"Ye have a bad heart," said Lamme, seeking his friend on every side.

The whips were brought; two of the girls set to work to strip Lamme

of his doublet.

"Alas!" said he; "my poor fat, that I had so much trouble to make,

they will doubtless lift it off with their keen whips. But, pitiless

females, my fat will be no use to you, not even to make sauces."

They replied:

"We shall make candles with it. Is it nothing to see clear without

paying for it! She that will henceforth say that out of the whip comes

forth candle will seem mad to everybody. We will uphold it to the

death, and win more than one wager. Steep the rods in vinegar. There,

your doublet is off. The hour is striking at Saint Jacques! Nine

o'clock. At the last stroke of the clock, if you have not made your

choice, we shall strike."

Lamme, paralyzed, said:

"Have pity and compassion upon me; I have sworn faithfulness

to my poor wife and will keep it, although she left me in evil

fashion. Ulenspiegel, dear friend, help!"

But Ulenspiegel did not show himself.

"See me," said Lamme to the light ladies, "see me at your knees. Is

there a humbler posture? Is it not enough to say that I honour your

great beauties like the very saints? Happy is he that, not being

married, can enjoy your charms! 'Tis paradise, without doubt; but do

not beat me, if you please."

Suddenly the baesine, who remained between her two candles, spoke in

a strong and threatening voice:

"Good women and girls," said she, "I take my oath on my great devil

that if, in a moment, you have not, by laughter and gentle ways,

brought this man to a good mind, that is to say into your bed, I will

go fetch the night watch and have you all whipped instead of him. Ye

do not deserve to be called girls of amorous life if in vain you

have free mouth, wanton hand, and flaming eyes to excite the males,

as do the females of the glow-worms that have their lanterns but to

this end. And you shall be whipped without mercy for your simpleness."

At that word the girls trembled and Lamme became joyful.

"Now, then, good women, what news bring you from the land of sharp

thongs? I will myself go and fetch the watch. They will do their duty,

and I shall help them with it. It will give me great pleasure."

But then a pretty little girl of fifteen threw herself at Lamme's

knees:

"Messire," said she, "you see me here before you, humbly resigned;

if you do not deign to choose me from among us, I must needs be

beaten for you, monsieur. And the baesine there will put me into a

foul cellar, under the Scheldt, where the water oozes from the wall,

and where I shall have but black bread to eat."

"Will she verily be beaten for me, Madame baesine," said Lamme.

"Till the blood runs," replied she.

Lamme then, considering the girl, said: "I see thee fresh, perfumed,

thy shoulder coming out from thy robe like a great petal of a white

rose; I would not have this lovely skin under which the blood flows

so young, suffer under the whip, nor that those eyes bright with the

fire of youth should weep for the anguish of the strokes, nor that the

cold of the prison should make thy body shiver, thy body like a love

fay. And so I had rather choose thee than know that thou wert beaten."

The girl took him away. So sinned he, as he did all things in his life,

through kindness of heart.

Meanwhile, Ulenspiegel and a tall handsome brown girl with curling

waving hair were standing before one another. The girl, without

saying a word, was looking at Ulenspiegel coquettishly and seemed

not to wish to have anything to do with him.

"Love me," said he.

"Love thee," said she, "wild lover who lovest only at thine own hour?"

Ulenspiegel answered: "The bird that passes above thy head sings his

song and flies away. And so with me, sweetheart: wilt thou that we

sing together?"

"Aye," said she, "a song of laughter and of tears."

And the girl flung herself on Ulenspiegel's neck.

Suddenly, as both were happy in the arms of their darlings, lo! there

came into the house, to the sound of fife and drum, and jostling,

pushing, singing, whistling, crying, shouting, bawling, a gay company

of meesevangers, who at Antwerp are titmouse catchers. They were

carrying bags and cages full of these little birds, and the owls that

had helped them in the sport were opening wide their eyes, gilded in

the light.

The meesevangers were full ten in number, all red, bloated with wine

and cervoise ale, with waggling heads, dragging their tottering legs

and crying out in a voice so hoarse and so broken that it seemed to

the timid girls that they were rather listening to wild beasts in a

wood than men in a house.

However, as they never stopped saying, speaking singly or all at once:

"I would have the one I love." "We are his that pleaseth us. To-morrow

to the rich in florins! To-day to the rich in love!" the meesevangers

replied: "Florins we have and love as well; to us then the light

ladies. He that draws back is a capon. These are tits, and we are

sportsmen. Rescue! Brabant for the good duke!"

But the women said, laughing loudly: "Fie! the ugly muzzles that think

to eat us! 'Tis not to swine that men give sherbets. We take whom we

please and do not want you. Barrels of oil, bags of lard, thin nails,

rusty blades, you stink of sweat and mud. Get out of here; you will

be well and duly damned without our help."

But the men: "The Frenchies are dainty to-day. Disgusted ladies,

you can well give us what you sell to everybody."

But the women: "To-morrow," they said, "we will be slaves and dogs,

and will accept you; to-day we are free women and we cast you out."

The men: "Enough words," they cried. "Who is thirsty? Let us pluck

the apples!"

And so saying they threw themselves upon them, without distinction of

age or beauty. The girls, resolute in their minds, threw at their heads

chairs, quart pots, jugs, goblets, tankards, flasks, bottles, raining

thick as hail, wounding them, bruising them, knocking out their eyes.

Ulenspiegel and Lamme came down at the tumult, leaving their trembling

lovers above at the top of the ladder. When Ulenspiegel saw these

men striking at the women, he took up a broom in the courtyard, tore

away the twigs from the head, gave another to Lamme, and with them

they beat the meesevangers without pity.

The game seemed hard to the drunkards; thus belaboured, they stopped

for an instant, by which profited the thin girls who desired to sell

themselves and not to give, even in this great day of love voluntary

as Nature wills it. Like snakes they glided among the injured,

caressed them, tended their wounds, drank wine of Amboise for them,

and emptied so well their pouches of florins and other moneys, that

they had left not a single liard. Then, as the curfew was ringing,

they put them to the door through which Ulenspiegel and Lamme had

already taken their way.

XXIX

Ulenspiegel and Lamme were marching towards Ghent and came at daybreak

to Lokeren. The earth in the distance sweated dew; white cool mists

glided along the meadows. Ulenspiegel, as he passed before a forge,

whistled like the lark, the bird of liberty. And straightway appeared

a head, tousled and white, at the door of the forge, and imitated

the warlike clarion of the cock in a weak voice.

Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:

"This is the smitte Wasteele, who forges by day spades, mattocks,

plough shares, hammering the iron when it is hot to fashion with

it fine gratings for the choirs of churches, and oftentimes, at

night, making and furbishing arms for the soldiers of freedom of

conscience. He has not won the looks of health at this game, for he

is pale as a ghost, sad as a damned soul, and so lean that his bones

poke holes in his skin. He has not yet gone to rest, having doubtless

toiled all night long."

"Come in, both of you," said the smitte Wasteele, "and lead your

asses into the meadow behind the house."

This being done, Lamme and Ulenspiegel being in the forge, the smitte

Wasteele took down into a cellar of his house all the swords he had

furbished and the lance heads he had cast during the night, and made

ready the day's work for his men.

Looking at Ulenspiegel with lack-lustre eye, he said to him:

"What news do you bring me from the Silent?"

"The prince has been driven out of the Low Countries with his

army because of the misconduct of his mercenaries, who shout 'Geld,

Geld! money, money!' when they ought to fight. He has gone away towards

France with the faithful soldiers, his brother Count Ludovic and the

Duke of Deux-Ponts, to help the King of Navarre and the Huguenots;

from thence he passed over into Germany, to Dillenbourg, where many

that have fled from the Low Countries are with him. You must send

him arms and what money you have collected, while we, we shall ply

the task of free men upon the sea."

"I shall do what is to be done," said the smitte Wasteele; "I have

arms and nine thousand florins. But did you not come riding on asses?"

"Aye," they said.

"And have you not, on your way, heard news of three preachers, slain

and stripped and thrown into a hole among the rocks of the Meuse?"

"Aye," said Ulenspiegel, with the utmost boldness, "these three

preachers were three spies of the duke's, assassins, paid to kill the

prince of freedom. Together we two, Lamme and I, sent them from life

to death. Their money is ours and their papers likewise. We shall

take what we need from it for our journey; the rest we shall give to

the prince."

And Ulenspiegel, opening his own doublet and Lamme's, pulled out from

them papers and parchments. The smitte Wasteele having read them:

"They contain," he said, "plans of battle and conspiracy. I will have

them sent to the prince, and he will be told that Ulenspiegel and

Lamme Goedzak, his trusty vagabonds, saved his noble life. I will

have your asses sold that you may not be recognized from your mounts."

Ulenspiegel asked the smitte Wasteele if the sheriff's court at Namur

had already set their catchpolls on their track.

"I will tell you what I know," replied Wasteele. "A smith of Namur,

a stout reformer, passed through here the other day, under pretext

of asking me to help him with the screens, weathercocks, and other

ironwork of a castle that is to be built near the Plante. The usher

of the sheriff's court told him that his masters had already met,

and that a tavern keeper had been summoned, because he lived a few

hundred fathom from the place where the murder had taken place. Asked

if he had seen the murderers or not, or any he might suspect as

such, he had replied: 'I saw country folk men and women travelling

on donkeys, asking me for something to drink and staying seated on

their mounts, or getting down to drink in my house, beer for the men,

hydromel for the women and girls. I saw two bold rustics that talked

of shortening Messire of Orange by a foot.' And so saying, the host,

whistling, imitated the sound of a knife going into the flesh of the

neck. 'By the Steel-wind,' he said, 'I will speak with you in private,

being empowered to do so.' He spoke and was released. From that time

the councils of justice have without doubt sent despatches to their

subordinate councils. The host said he had seen only country men and

country women riding upon asses; it will therefore follow that pursuit

will be directed against all persons that may be found bestriding a

donkey. And the prince hath need of you, my children."

"Sell the asses," said Ulenspiegel, "and keep the price for the

prince's treasury."

The asses were sold.

"You must now," said Wasteele, "have each a trade free and independent

of the guilds; do you know how to make bird cages and mouse traps?"

"I have made such long ago," said Ulenspiegel.

"And thou?" asked Wasteele of Lamme.

"I will sell eete-koeken and olie-koeken; these are pancakes and

balls of flour cooked in oil."

"Follow me; here are cages and mouse traps all ready; the tools and

copper filigree work also which are needed to mend them and to make

others. They were brought me by one of my spies. This is for you,

Ulenspiegel. As for you, Lamme, here is a little stove and a bellows;

I will give you flour, butter, and oil to make the eete-koeken and

the olie-koeken."

"He will eat them," said Ulenspiegel.

"When shall we make the first ones?" asked Lamme.

Wasteele replied:

"First ye shall help me for a night or two; I cannot finish my great

task alone by myself."

"I am hungry," said Lamme, "can one eat here?"

"There is bread and cheese," said Wasteele.

"No butter?" asked Lamme.

"No butter," said Wasteele.

"Have you beer or wine?" asked Ulenspiegel.

"I never drink them," he answered, "but I will go in het Pelicaen,

close by here, and fetch some for you if you wish."

"Aye," said Lamme, "and bring us some ham."

"I will do as you wish," said Wasteele, looking at Lamme with great

disdain.

All the same he brought dobbel-clauwert and a ham. And Lamme, full

of joy, ate enough for five.

And he said:

"When do we set to work?"

"To-night," said Wasteele; "but stay in the forge and do not be afraid

of my workmen. They are of the Reformed faith like yourselves."

"That is well," said Lamme.

By night, the curfew having rung and the doors being shut, Wasteele,

making Ulenspiegel and Lamme help him, going down and bringing up

from his cellar heavy bundles of weapons:

"Here," he said, "are twenty arquebuses to mend, thirty lance heads

to furbish, and lead for fifteen hundred bullets to melt down; you

shall help me with it."

"With all my hands," said Ulenspiegel, "and why have I not four to

serve you?"

"Lamme will help us," said Wasteele.

"Aye," replied Lamme, piteously, and falling with drowsiness through

excess of drink and food.

"You shall melt the lead," said Ulenspiegel.

"I will melt the lead," said Lamme.

Lamme, melting his lead and running his bullets, kept looking with a

savage eye at the smitte Wasteele who was driving him to keep awake

when he was dropping with sleep. He ran his bullets with a wordless

fury, having a great longing to pour the molten lead on the head of

Wasteele the smith. But he controlled himself. Towards midnight, his

rage getting the better of him at the same time as excess of fatigue,

he addressed him thus in a hissing voice, while the smitte Wasteele

with Ulenspiegel was patiently furbishing musket barrels, muskets,

and lance heads:

"There you are," said Lamme, "meager, pale, and wretched, believing

in the good faith of princes and the great ones of the earth, and

disdaining, in an excessive zeal, your body, your noble body that you

are leaving to perish in misery and humiliation. It was not for this

that God made it with Dame Nature. Do you know that our soul which

is the breath of life, needs, that it may breathe, beans, beef, beer,

wine, ham, sausages, chitterlings, and rest; you, you live on bread,

water, and watching."

"Whence have you this talkative flow?" asked Ulenspiegel.

"He knows not what he says," answered Wasteele, sadly.

But Lamme growing angry:

"I know better than you. I say that we are mad, I, you, and

Ulenspiegel, to wear out our eyes for all these princes and great

ones of the earth, who would laugh loudly at us if they saw us dying

of weariness, losing our sleep to furbish up arms and cast bullets

for their service while they drink French wine and eat German capons

from golden tankards and dishes of English pewter; they will never

ask whether, while we are seeking in the open wild the God by whose

grace they have their power, their enemies are cutting off our limbs

with their scythes and casting us into the well of death. They,

in the meanwhile, who are neither Reformed, nor Calvinists, nor

Lutherans, nor Catholics, but sceptics and doubters entirely, will

buy or conquer principalities, will devour the wealth of the monks,

abbeys, and convents, and will have all: virgins, wives, women and

bona robas, and will drink from their gold cups to their perpetual

jollity, and to our everlasting foolishness, simplicity, stupidity,

and to the seven deadly sins which they commit, O smitte Wasteele,

under the starveling nose of thy enthusiasm. Look upon the fields,

the meads, look on the harvest, the orchards, the kine, the gold

rising out of the earth; look at the wild things in the woods, the

birds of the skies, delicious ortolans, delicate thrushes, wild boars'

heads, haunches of buck venison; all is theirs, hunting, fishing,

earth, sea, everything. And you, you live on bread and water, and we

are killing ourselves here for them, without sleep, without eating,

and without drinking. And when we shall be dead they will fetch our

carrion a kick and say to our mothers: 'Make us more of these; those

ones can do us no service now.'"

Ulenspiegel laughed and said nothing. Lamme breathed hard with

indignation, but Wasteele, speaking in a gentle voice:

"Thou speakest but lightly," said he. "I live not for ham, for beer, or

for ortolans, but for the victory of freedom of conscience. The prince

of freedom does even as I do. He sacrifices his wealth, his sleep

and his happiness to drive out from the Low Countries the butchers

and tyranny. Do as he does and try to grow thinner. 'Tis not by the

belly that peoples can be saved, but by proud courage and fatigues

endured even unto death without a murmur. And now go and lie down,

if thou art sleepy."

But Lamme would not, being ashamed.

And they furbished arms and cast bullets until it was morning, and

thus for three days.

Then they departed for Ghent, by night, selling bird cages,

mouse-traps, and olie-koekjes.

And they stopped at Meulestee, the little town of the mills, whose

red roofs are seen everywhere, and there they agreed to carry on their

trades apart and to meet each other at night before curfew in de Zwaen,

at the Swan Inn.

Lamme wandered about the streets of Ghent selling olie-koekjes getting

a liking for this trade, seeking for his wife, emptying many a quart

pot and eating continually. Ulenspiegel had delivered letters from

the prince to Jacob Scoelap, licentiate in medicine; to Lieven Smet,

cloth seller; to Jan Wulfschaeger, to Gillis Coorne, the scarlet dyer,

and to Jan de Roose, tile maker, who gave him the money harvested by

them for the Prince, and bade him wait some days longer at Ghent and

in the neighbourhood, and he would be given still more.

Those men having been hanged later on the New Gibbet for heresy,

their bodies were buried in the Gallows Field, near the Bruges Gate.

XXX

Meanwhile, the provost Spelle le Roux, armed with his red wand, was

hurrying from town to town on his lean horse, everywhere setting up

scaffolds, lighting fires of execution, digging graves to bury poor

women and girls alive in them. And the King inherited.

Ulenspiegel being at Meulestee with Lamme, under a tree, found himself

full of weary lassitude. It was cold although the month was June. From

the skies, laden with gray clouds, there fell a fine hail.

"My son," said Lamme, "you are for the past four nights shamelessly

running wild, gadding after the bona robas, you go to sleep in de

Zoeten Inval, at the Sweet Fall; you will do like the man on the sign,

falling head foremost into a hive of bees. Vainly do I wait for you in

de Zwaen, and I draw evil forebodings from this liquorish living. Why

do you not take a wife virtuously?"

"Lamme," said Ulenspiegel, "he to whom one woman is all women, and

to whom all women are one in this gentle combat that they call love,

must not lightly rush upon his choice."

"And Nele, do you not think at all on her?"

"Nele is at Damme, far away," said Ulenspiegel.

While he was in this posture and the hail was falling thick, a young

and pretty woman passed by, running and covering up her head in

her petticoat.

"Eh," said she, "dreamy one, what dost thou under that tree?"

"I am dreaming," said Ulenspiegel, "of a woman that should make me

a roof against the hail with her petticoat."

"Thou hast found her," said the woman. "Rise up."

"Wilt thou leave me alone again?" said Lamme.

"Aye," said Ulenspiegel, "but go in de Zwaen, eat a leg of mutton or

two, drink a dozen tankards of beer; you will sleep and you will not

be forlorn then."

"I will do that," said Lamme.

Ulenspiegel went up to the woman.

"Pick up my skirt on one side," said she, "I will lift it on the other,

and now let us run."

"Why run?" asked Ulenspiegel.

"Because," she said, "I am fain to flee from Meulestee; the provost

Spelle is in it with two catchpolls and he has sworn to have all the

light ladies whipped if they will not pay him five florins each. That

is why I am running: run, too, and stay with me to defend me."

"Lamme," cried Ulenspiegel, "Spelle is in Meulestee. Go off and away

to Destelberg, to the Star of the Wise Men."

And Lamme, getting up affrighted, took his belly in both hands and

began to run.

"Whither is this fat hare going?" said the girl.

"To a burrow where I shall find him again," replied Ulenspiegel.

"Let us run," said she, beating the ground with her foot like a

restive filly.

"I would fain be virtuous without running," said Ulenspiegel.

"What does that mean?" asked she.

Ulenspiegel made answer:

"The fat hare wants me to renounce good wine, cervoise ale, and the

fresh skin of women."

The girl looked at him with an ugly eye.

"Your breath is short; you must rest," said she.

"Rest myself? I see no shelter," replied Ulenspiegel.

"Your virtue," said the girl, "will serve for a quilt."

"I like your petticoat better," said he.

"My petticoat," said the girl, "would not be worthy to cover a saint

such as you would fain be. Take yourself off that I may run alone."

"Do you not know," replied Ulenspiegel, "that a dog goes swifter with

four feet than a man with two? And so, having four feet, we shall

run better."

"You have a lively tongue for a virtuous man."

"Aye," said he.

"But," said she, "I have always observed that virtue is a quiet,

sleepy, thick, and chilly quality. It is a mask to hide grumbling

faces, a velvet cloak on a man of stone. I like men that have in

their breast a stove well lighted with the fire of virility, which

exciteth to valiant and gay enterprises."

"It was ever thus," replied Ulenspiegel, "that the lovely she-devil

spake to the glorious Saint Anthony."

There was an inn a score of paces from the road.

"You have spoken well," said Ulenspiegel, "now you must drink well."

"My tongue is still cool and fresh," said the girl.

They went in. On a chest there slumbered a big jug nicknamed "belly,"

because of its wide paunch.

Ulenspiegel said to the baes:

"Dost thou see this florin?"

"I see it," said the baes.

"How many patards would thou extract from it to fill up that belly

there with dobbel-clauwert?"

The baes said to him:

"With negen mannekens (nine little men), you will be clear."

"That," said Ulenspiegel, "is six Flanders mites, and overmuch by

two mites. But fill it, anyhow."

Ulenspiegel poured out a goblet for the woman, then rising up proudly

and applying the beak of the belly to his mouth, he emptied it all

every drop into his throat. And it was as the noise of a cataract.

The girl, dumbfounded, said to him:

"How did you manage to put so big a belly into your lean stomach?"

Without replying, Ulenspiegel said to the baes:

"Bring a knuckle of ham and some bread, and another full belly,

that we may eat and drink."

Which they did.

While the girl was munching a piece of the rind he took her so subtly,

that she was startled, charmed, and compliant all at once.

Then questioning him:

"Whence," she said, "have they come to your virtue, this thirst like

a sponge, this wolf's hunger, and these amorous audacities?"

Ulenspiegel replied:

"Having sinned a hundred ways, I swore, as you know, to do

penance. That lasted a whole long hour. Thinking during that hour

upon my life that was to come, I saw myself fed meagrely on bread,

dully refreshed with water; sadly fleeing from love; daring neither

to move nor sneeze, for fear to commit wickedness; esteemed by all,

feared by each; alone like a leper; sad as a dog orphaned of his

master, and after fifty years of martyrdom, ending by undergoing my

death in melancholy fashion on a pallet. The penance was long enough:

so kiss me, my darling, and let us go out from purgatory together."

"Ah!" said she, obeying cheerfully, "what a good sign virtue is to

put on the end of a pole!"

Time passed in these amorous doings; nevertheless they must needs

rise and go, for the girl feared to see in the midst of their pleasure

the provost Spelle suddenly appear with his catchpolls.

"Truss up thy petticoat then," said Ulenspiegel.

And they ran like stags towards Destelberg, where they found Lamme

eating at the Star of the Three Wise Men.

XXXI

Ulenspiegel often saw at Ghent, Jacob Scoelap, Lieven Smet, and Jan

de Wulfschaeger, who gave him news of the good or bad fortune of

the Silent.

And every time that Ulenspiegel came back to Destelberg, Lamme said

to him:

"What do you bring? Good luck or bad luck?"

"Alas!" said Ulenspiegel, "the Silent, his brother Ludwig, the other

chiefs and the Frenchmen were determined to go farther into France and

join with the Prince of Condé. Thus they would save the poor Belgian

fatherland and freedom of conscience. God willed it otherwise; the

German reiters and landsknechts refused to go farther, and said their

oath was to go against the Duke of Alba and not against France. Having

vainly entreated them to do their duty, the Silent was forced to take

them through Champagne and Lorraine as far as Strasbourg, whence they

went back into Germany. All has gone awry through this sudden and

obstinate departure: the King of France, despite his contract with

the prince, refuses to give over the money he promised; the Queen

of England would have sent him money to get back the town and the

district of Calais; her letters were intercepted and despatched to

the Cardinal at Lorraine, who forged an answer in the contrary sense.

"Thus we see melt away, like ghosts at the crowing of the cock, that

goodly army, our hope; but God is with us, and if the earth fail us,

the water will do its work. Long live the Beggar!"

XXXII

The girl came one day, all weeping, to say to Lamme and to Ulenspiegel:

"Spelle is allowing murderers and robbers in Meulestee to escape for

money. He is putting the innocent to death. My brother Michielkin is

among them. Alas! Let me tell you, ye will avenge him, being men. A

vile and infamous debauchee, Pieter de Roose, an habitual seducer of

children and girls, does all the harm. Alas! my poor brother Michielkin

and Pieter de Roose were one evening, but not at the same table, in

the tavern of the Valck, where Pieter de Roose was avoided by every

one like the plague.

"My brother, not willing to see him in the same room as himself,

called him a lecherous blackguard, and ordered him to purge the

chamber of his presence.

"Pieter de Roose replied:

"'The brother of a public baggage has no need to show such a lofty

nose.'

"He lied. I am not public, and give myself only to whomsoever

I please.'

"Michielkin, then, flinging his quart of cervoise ale in his face, told

him he had lied like the filthy debauchee that he was, threatening,

if he did not decamp, to make him eat his fist up to the elbow.

"The other would have talked more, but Michielkin did what he had

said: he gave him two great blows on the jaw and dragged him by the

teeth, with which he was biting, out on to the road, where he left

him battered and bruised, without pity.

"Pieter de Roose, being healed, and unable to live a solitary life,

went in 't Vagevuur, a veritable purgatory and a gloomy tavern, where

there were none but poor people. There also he was left to himself,

even by all those ragamuffins. And no man spoke to him, save a few

country folk to whom he was unknown, and a few wandering rogues, or

deserters from some troop or other. He was even beaten there several

times, for he was quarrelsome.

"The provost Spelle had come to Meulestee with two catchpolls, and

Pieter de Roose followed them everywhere about like a dog, filling

them up at his expense with wine, with meat, and many other pleasures

that are bought with money. And so he became their companion and

their comrade, and he began to do his wicked best to torment all he

hated; which was all the inhabitants of Meulestee, but especially my

poor brother.

"First of all he attacked Michielkin. False witnesses, gallows birds,

greedy for florins, declared that Michielkin was a heretic, had uttered

foulness about Notre Dame, and oftentimes blasphemed the name of God

and the saints in the tavern of the Falcon, and that, besides all,

he had full three hundred florins in a coffer.

"Notwithstanding that the witnesses were not of good life and conduct,

Michielkin was arrested, and the proofs being declared by Spelle and

the catchpolls good and sufficient to warrant putting the accused to

the torture, Michielkin was hung up by the arms to a pulley fastened to

the ceiling, and they put a weight of fifty pounds on each of his feet.

"He denied the charge, saying that if in Meulestee there was a rogue,

a blackguard, a blasphemer and a lecherous brute, it was no other

than Pieter de Roose, and not he.

"But Spelle would listen to nothing, and bade his catchpolls hoist

Michielkin right up to the ceiling, and to let him drop heavily

with his weights on his feet. And this they did, and so cruelly that

the skin and the muscles of the victim were torn, and that the foot

scarcely held to the leg.

"As Michielkin persisted in saying he was innocent, Spelle had him

tortured afresh, while giving him to understand that if he would give

him a hundred florins he would leave him free and acquitted.

"Michielkin said that he would die first.

"The folk of Meulestee, having learned the fact of the arrest and the

torture, desired to be witness par turbes, which is the testimony of

all the reputable inhabitants of a commune. 'Michielkin,' said they,

unanimously, 'is in no way or guise heretical; he goes every Sunday

to mass and to the holy table; he has never said anything else of Our

Lady than to call on her to succour him in difficult circumstances;

having never spoken ill, even of an earthly woman, he would much less

ever have dared to speak ill of the heavenly Mother of God. As for the

blasphemies that the false witnesses declared they had heard him utter

in the tavern of the Falcon, that was in all points false and lies.'

"Michielkin having been released, the false witnesses were punished,

and Spelle cited Pieter de Roose before his court, but set him free

without examination or torture, in consideration of one hundred

florins paid down in one sum.

"Pieter de Roose, fearing that the money he still had left might

attract Spelle's attention to him once again, fled from Meulestee,

while Michielkin, my poor brother, died of the gangrene that had

caught hold of his feet.

"He who no longer wished to see me, yet had me sent for to bid me

beware well of the fire in my body that would bring me into the fire

of hell. And I could but weep, for the fire is within me. And he gave

up his soul in my arms."

"Ha!" said she, "he who would avenge upon Spelle the death of my

beloved kind Michielkin would be my master forever, and I would obey

him like a dog."

While she spake, the ashes of Claes beat upon the breast of

Ulenspiegel. And he determined to bring Spelle the murderer to the

gallows.

Boelkin (that was the girl's name) returned to Meulestee, well assured

in her home against the vengeance of Pieter de Roose, for a cattle

dealer, passing by Destelberg, informed her that the curé and the

townsfolk had declared that if Spelle touched Michielkin's sister,

they would cite him before the duke.

Ulenspiegel, having followed her to Meulestee, came into a low chamber

in Michielkin's house, and saw there a portrait of a master pastry

cook which he supposed to be that of the poor victim....

And Boelkin said to him:

"It is my brother's portrait."

Ulenspiegel took the picture and said, going away:

"Spelle shall be hanged!"

"What will you do?" said she.

"If you knew that," said he, "you would have no pleasure in seeing

it done."

Boelkin nodded her head and said in a grieving voice:

"You show no confidence in me."

"Is it not," said he, "showing you extreme confidence to say to you

'Spelle shall be hanged!' For with this mere word alone you can have

me hanged before him."

"That is true," said she.

"Then," said Ulenspiegel, "go fetch me good potter's clay, a double

quart of bruinbier, clear water, and a few slices of beef. All

separate."

"The beef will be for me, the bruinbier for the beef, the water for

the clay, and the clay for the portrait."

Eating and drinking Ulenspiegel kneaded the clay, and now and then

swallowed a morsel of it, but heeded it little, and looked most

attentively at Michielkin's portrait. When the clay was kneaded,

he made a mask out of it, with a nose, a mouth, eyes, ears so much

like the portrait of the dead man, that Boelkin was astonied at it.

After that he put the mask in the oven, and when it was dry, he painted

it the colour corpses are, showing the haggard eyes, the solemn face,

and the various contractions of a man in the act of dying. Then the

girl, ceasing to be astonied, looked at the mask, without being able

to take her eyes off it, grew pale and livid, covered up her face,

and said shuddering:

"It is he, my poor Michielkin!"

He made also two bloody feet.

Then having conquered her first fright:

"Blessed will he be," said she, "that will slay the

murderer." Ulenspiegel, taking the mask and the feet, said:

"I must have an assistant."

Boelkin replied:

"Go in den Blauwe Gans, to the Blue Goose, to Joos Lansaem of

Ypres, who keeps this tavern. He was my brother's best friend and

comrade. Tell him it is Boelkin that sends you."

Ulenspiegel did as she bade him.

After having laboured for death, the provost Spelle went to drink

in't Valck, at the Falcon, a hot mixture of dobbel-clauwert, with

cinnamon and Madeira sugar. They dared refuse him nothing at his inn,

for fear of the rope.

Pieter de Roose, having plucked up courage again, had come back to

Meulestee. Everywhere he followed Spelle and his catchpolls to have

their protection. Sometimes Spelle paid the wherewithal for him to

drink. And they drank up merrily the money of the victims.

The inn of the Falcon was not filled now as in the good days when the

village lived joyously, serving God after the Catholic fashion; and

not tormented because of religion. Now it was as though in mourning,

as could be seen from its numerous houses that were empty or shut up,

from its deserted streets in which there wandered a few starved dogs

searching among the rubbish heaps for their rotten food.

There was no place now in Meulestee for any but the two evil and cruel

men. The timid dwellers in the village saw them by day insolent and

noting the houses of future victims, drawing up the lists of death;

and by night venturing from the Falcon singing filthy choruses, while

two catchpolls, drunk like them, followed them armed to the teeth to

be their escort.

Ulenspiegel went in den Blauwe Gans, to the Blue Goose, to Joos

Lansaem, who was at the bar.

Ulenspiegel took from his pocket a little flask of brandy, and said

to him:

"Boelkin has two casks for sale."

"Come into my kitchen," said the baes.

There, shutting the door, and looking fixedly at him:

"You are no brandy merchant; what do these winkings of your eyes

mean? Who are you?"

Ulenspiegel replied:

"I am the son of Claes that was burned at Damme; the ashes of the

dead man beat upon my breast; I would fain kill Spelle, the murderer."

"It is Boelkin who sends you?" asked the host.

"Boelkin sends me," replied Ulenspiegel. "I will kill Spelle; you

shall help me in it."

"I will," said the baes. "What must I do?"

Ulenspiegel replied:

"Go to the curé, the good pastor, an enemy to Spelle. Assemble your

friends together and be with them to-morrow, after the curfew, on

the Everghem road, above Spelle's house, between the Falcon and the

house aforesaid. All post yourselves in the shadows and have no white

on your clothes. At the stroke of ten you will see Spelle coming out

from the tavern and a wagon coming from the other side.

"Do not tell your friends to-night; they sleep too near to their wives'

ears. Go and find them to-morrow. Come, now, listen to everything

closely and remember well."

"We shall remember," said Joos. And raising his goblet: "I drink to

Spelle's halter."

"To the halter," said Ulenspiegel. Then he went back with the baes

into the tavern chamber where there sate drinking certain old clothes

merchants of Ghent who were coming back from the Saturday market at

Bruges, where they had sold for high prices doublets and short mantles

of cloth of gold and silver bought for a few sous from ruined nobles

who desired by their luxury and splendour to imitate the Spaniards.

And they kept revels and feasting because of their big profits.

Ulenspiegel and Joos Lansaem, sitting in a corner, as they drank,

and without being heard, agreed that Joos should go to the curé of

the church, a good pastor, incensed against Spelle, the murderer of

innocent men. After that he would go to his friends.

On the morrow, Joos Lansaem and Michielkin's friends, having been

forewarned, left the Blauwe Gans, where they had their pints as usual,

and so as to conceal their plans went off at curfew by different ways,

and came to the Everghem causeway. They were seventeen in number.

At ten o'clock Spelle left the Falcon, followed by his two catchpolls

and Pieter de Roose. Lansaem and his troop were hidden in the barn

belonging to Samson Boene, a friend of Michielkin. The door of the

barn was open. Spelle never saw them.

They heard him pass by, staggering with drink like Pieter de Roose

and his two catchpolls also, and saying, in a thick voice and with

many hiccups:

"Provosts! provosts! life is good to them in this world; hold me up,

gallows birds that live on my leavings!"

Suddenly were heard upon the road, from the direction of the open

country, the braying of an ass and the crack of a whip.

"There is a restive donkey indeed," said Spelle, "that won't go on

in spite of that good warning."

Suddenly they heard a great noise of wheels and a cart leaping along

and coming down the middle of the road.

"Stop it!" cried Spelle.

As the cart passed beside them, Spelle and his two catchpolls threw

themselves on the donkey's head.

"This cart is empty," said one of the catchpolls.

"Lubber," said Spelle, "do empty carts gallop about by night all

alone? There is somebody in this cart a-hiding; light the lanterns,

hold them up, I am going to look in it."

The lanterns were lighted and Spelle climbed up on the cart, holding

his own lamp; but scarcely had he looked than he uttered a great cry,

and falling back, said:

"Michielkin! Michielkin! Jesu! have pity upon me!"

Then there rose up from the floor of the cart a man clad in white as

pastry cooks are and holding in his hands two bloody feet.

Pieter de Roose, seeing the man stand up, illuminated by the lanterns,

cried with the two catchpolls:

"Michielkin! Michielkin, the dead man! Lord have pity upon us!"

The seventeen came at the noise to look at the spectacle and were

affrighted to see in the light of the clear moon how like was the

image of Michielkin, the poor deceased.

And the ghost waved his bleeding feet.

It was his same full round visage, but pale through death, threatening,

livid, and eaten under the chin by worms.

The ghost, still waving his bleeding feet, said to Spelle, who was

groaning, lying flat on his back:

"Spelle, Provost Spelle, awake!"

But Spelle never moved.

"Spelle," said the ghost again, "Provost Spelle, awake or I fetch

thee down with me into the mouth of gaping hell."

Spelle got up, and with his hair straight up for terror, cried

lamentably:

"Michielkin! Michielkin, have pity!"

Meanwhile, the townsfolk had come up, but Spelle saw nothing save

the lanterns, which he took for the eyes of devils. He confessed as

much later.

"Spelle," said the ghost of Michielkin, "art thou prepared to die?"

"Nay," replied the provost, "nay, Messire Michielkin; I am nowise

prepared for it, and I would not appear before God with my soul all

black with sin."

"Dost thou know me?" said the ghost.

"May God be my helper," said Spelle, "yea, I know thee; thou art the

ghost of Michielkin, the pastry cook, who died, innocently in his bed,

of the after effects of torture, and the two bleeding feet are those

upon each of which I had a weight of fifty pounds hung. Ha! Michielkin,

forgive me, this Pieter de Roose was so strong a tempter; he offered

me fifty florins, which I accepted, to put thy name on the list."

"Dost thou desire to confess thyself?" said the ghost.

"Aye, Messire, I desire to confess myself, to tell all and do

penance. But deign to send away these demons that are there, ready

to devour me. I will tell all. Take away those fiery eyes! I did

the same thing at Tournay, with respect to five townsmen; the same

at Bruges, with four. I no longer know their names, but I will tell

them you if you insist; elsewhere, too, I have sinned, lord, and of

my doing there are nine and sixty innocents in the grave. Michielkin,

the king needed money. I had been informed of that, but I needed money

even likewise; it is at Ghent, in the cellar, under the pavement,

in the house of old Grovels my real mother. I have told all, all:

grace and mercy! Take away the devils. Lord God, Virgin Mary, Jesus,

intercede for me: save me from the fires of hell, I will sell all I

have, I will give everything to the poor, and I will do penance."

Ulenspiegel, seeing that the crowd of the townsmen was ready to

uphold him, leapt from the cart at Spelle's throat and would have

strangled him.

But the curé came up.

"Let him live," said he; "it is better that he should die by the

executioner's rope than by the fingers of a ghost."

"What are you going to do with him?" asked Ulenspiegel.

"Accuse him before the duke and have him hanged," replied the

curé. "But who art thou?" asked he.

"I," replied Ulenspiegel, "am the mask of Michielkin and the person

of a poor Flemish fox who is going back into his earth for fear of

the Spanish hunters."

In the meantime, Pieter de Roose was running away at full speed.

And Spelle having been hanged, his goods were confiscated.

And the king inherited.

XXXIII

The next day Ulenspiegel went towards Courtray, going alongside the

Lys, the clear river.

Lamme went pitifully along.

Ulenspiegel said to him:

"You whine, cowardly heart, regretting the wife that made you wear

the horned crown of cuckoldom."

"My son," said Lamme, "she was always faithful, loving me enough as

I loved her over well, sweet Jesus. One day, being gone to Bruges,

she came back thence changed. From then, when I prayed her of love,

she would say to me:

"'I must live with you as a friend, and not otherwise.'

"Then, sad in my heart:

"'Beloved darling,' I would say, 'we were married before God. Did I

not for you everything you ever wished? Did not I many a time clothe

myself with a doublet of black linen and a fustian cloak that I might

see you clad in silk and brocade despite the royal ordinances? Darling,

will you never love me again?'

"'I love thee,' she would say, 'according to God and His laws,

according to holy discipline and penance. Yet I shall be a virtuous

companion to thee.'

"'I care naught for thy virtue,' I replied, ''tis thou I want, thou,

my wife.'

"Nodding her head:

"'I know thou art good,' she said; 'until to-day thou wast cook

in the house to spare me the labour of fricassees; thou didst iron

our blankets, ruffs, and shirts, the irons being too heavy for me;

thou didst wash our linen, thou didst sweep the house and the street

before the door, so as to spare me all fatigue. Now I desire to work

instead of you, but nothing more, husband.'

"'That is all one to me,' I replied; 'I will be, as in the past,

thy tiring maid, thy laundress, thy cook, thy washwoman, thy slave,

thy very own, submissive; but wife, sever not these two hearts and

bodies that make but one; break not that soft bond of love that

clasped us so tenderly together.'

"'I must,' she replied.

"'Alas!' I would say, 'was it at Bruges that thou didst come to this

harsh resolve?'

"She replied:

"'I have sworn before God and His saints.'

"'Who, then,' I cried, 'forced thee to take an oath not to fulfil

your duties as a wife?'

"'He that hath the spirit of God, and ranks me among the number of

his penitents,' said she.

"From that moment she ceased to be mine as much as if she had been

the faithful wife of another man. I implored her, tormented her,

threatened her, wept, begged, but in vain. One night, coming back

from Blanckenberghe, where I had been to receive the rent of one

of my farms, I found the house empty. Without doubt fatigued with

my entreaties, grieved and sad at my distress, my wife had taken

flight. Where is she now?"

And Lamme sat down on the bank of the Lys, hanging his head and

looking at the water.

"Ah!" said he, "my dear, how plump, tender, and delicious thou

wast! Shall I ever find a lass like thee? Daily bread of love,

shall I never eat of thee again? Where are thy kisses, as full of

fragrance as thyme; thy delicious mouth whence I gathered pleasure as

the bee gathers the honey from the rose; thy white arms that wrapped

me round caressing? Where is thy beating heart, thy round bosom,

and the sweet shudder of thy fairy body all panting with love? But

where are thy old waves, cool river that rollest so joyously thy new

waves in the sunshine?"

XXXIV

Passing before the wood of Peteghem, Lamme said to Ulenspiegel:

"I am roasting hot; let us seek the shade."

"Let us," replied Ulenspiegel.

They sat down in the wood, upon the grass, and saw a herd of stags

pass in front of them.

"Look well, Lamme," said Ulenspiegel, priming his German musket. "There

are the tall old stags that still have their dowcets, and carry proud

and stately their nine-point antlers; lovely brockets, that are their

squires, trot by their side, ready to do them service with their

pointed horns. They are going to their lair. Turn the musket lock as

I do. Fire! The old stag is wounded. A brocket is hit in the thigh;

he is in flight. Let us follow him till he falls. Do as I do: run,

jump, and fly."

"There is my mad friend," said Lamme, "following stags on foot. Fly not

without wings; it is labour lost. You will never catch them. Oh! the

cruel comrade! Do you imagine I am as agile as you? I sweat, my son;

I sweat and I am going to fall. If the ranger catches you, you will

be hanged. Stag is kings' game; let them run, my son, you will never

catch them."

"Come," said Ulenspiegel, "do you hear the noise of his antlers in the

foliage? It is a water spout passing. Do you see the young branches

broken, the leaves strewing the ground? He has another bullet in his

thigh this time; we will eat him."

"He is not cooked yet," said Lamme. "Let these poor beasts run. Ah! how

hot it is! I am going to fall down there without doubt and I shall

never rise again."

Suddenly, on all sides, men clad in rags and armed filled the

forest. Dogs bayed and dashed in pursuit of the stags. Four fierce

fellows surrounded Lamme and Ulenspiegel and brought them into a

clearing, in the middle of a brake, where they saw encamped there,

among women and children, men in great numbers, armed diversely with

swords, arbalests, arquebuses, lances, pikestaff, and reiter's pistols.

Ulenspiegel, seeing them, said to them:

"Are ye the leafmen or Brothers of the Woods, that ye seem to live

here in common to flee the persecution?"

"We are Brothers of the Woods," replied an old man sitting beside

the fire and frying some birds in a saucepan. "But who art thou?"

"I," replied Ulenspiegel, "am of the goodly country of Flanders,

a painter, a rustic, a noble, a sculptor, all together. And through

the world in this wise I journey, praising things lovely and good

and mocking loudly at all stupidity."

"If thou hast seen so many countries," said the ancient man, "thou

canst pronounce: Schild ende Vriendt, buckler and friend, in the

fashion of Ghent folk; if not, thou art a counterfeit Fleming and

thou shalt die."

Ulenspiegel pronounced: Schild ende Vriendt.

"And thou, big belly," asked the ancient man, speaking to Lamme,

"what is thy trade?"

Lamme replied:

"To eat and drink my lands, farms, fees, and revenues, to seek for

my wife, and to follow in all places my friend Ulenspiegel."

"If thou hast travelled so much," said the old man, "thou art not

without knowledge of how they call the folk of Weert in Limbourg."

"I do not know it," replied Lamme; "but would you not tell me the name

of the scandalous vagabond who drove my wife from her home? Give it

to me; I will go and slay him straightway."

The ancient man made answer: