taken flight: they are money spent and a woman grown tired and
run away."
Then speaking to Ulenspiegel:
"Dost thou know," said he, "how they call the men of Weert in
Limbourg?"
"De reakstekers, the exorcisers of skates," replied Ulenspiegel,
"for one day a live ray having fallen from a fishmonger's cart, old
women seeing it leap about took it for the devil. 'Let us go fetch
the curé to exorcise the skate,' said they. The curé exorcised it,
and carrying it off with him, made a noble fricassee in honour of
the folk of Weert. Thus may God do with the bloody king."
Meanwhile, the barking of the dogs reëchoed in the forest. The armed
men, running in the wood, were shouting to frighten the beast.
"'Tis the stag and the brocket I put up," said Ulenspiegel.
"We shall eat him," said the old man. "But how do they call the folk
of Eindhoven in Limbourg?"
"De pinnemakers, boltmakers," replied Ulenspiegel. "One day the enemy
was at the gate of their city; they bolted it with a carrot. The geese
came and ate the carrot with great pecks of their greedy beaks, and
the enemies came into Eindhoven. But it will be iron beaks that will
eat the bolts of the prisons wherein they seek to lock up freedom
of conscience."
"If God be with us, who shall be against us?" replied the ancient man.
Ulenspiegel said:
"Dogs baying, men shouting, branches broken; 'tis a storm in the
forest."
"Is it good meat, stag meat?" asked Lamme, looking at the fricassees.
"The cries of the trackers come nearer," said Ulenspiegel to Lamme;
"the dogs are close at hand. What thunder! The stag! the stag! take
care, my son. Fie! the foul beast; he has flung my big friend down
to the earth in the midst of the pans, saucepans, cooking pots,
boilers, and fricassees. There are the women and girls fleeing daft
with fright. You are bleeding, my son?"
"You are laughing, scoundrel," said Lamme. "Aye, I am bleeding; he
hath landed his antlers in my seat. There, see my breeches torn, and
my flesh, too, and all those lovely fricassees on the ground. There,
I am losing all my blood down my hose."
"This stag is a foresighted surgeon; he is saving you from an
apoplexy," replied Ulenspiegel.
"Fie! rascal without a heart," said Lamme. "But I will follow you
no more. I will stay here in the midst of these good fellows and
these good women. Can you, without any shame, be so hardhearted to
my woes, when I walk at your heels like a dog, through snow, frost,
rain, hail, wind, and when it is hot weather, sweating my very soul
out through my skin?"
"Your wound is nothing. Clap an olie-koekje on it; that will be both
plaster and fry to it," answered Ulenspiegel. "But do you know how
they call the folk of Louvain? You do not know it, poor friend. Well,
then, I am about to tell you to keep you from whimpering. They call
them de koeye-schieters, cow shooters, for they were one day silly
enough to fire on cows, which they took for enemy soldiers. As for us,
we fire on Spanish goats; their flesh is stinking stuff, but their
skin is good to make drums withal. And the folk of Tirlemont? Do
you know it? Not that, either. They carry the proud nickname of
kirekers. For in their town, in the great church, on Whit Sunday, a
drake flies from the rood-loft altar, and that is the image of their
Holy Ghost. Put a koeke-bakke on your wound. You pick up without a
word the cooking pots and fricassees overturned by the stag. 'Tis
kitchen courage. You relight the fire, and set up the soup pot again
upon its three stakes; you are busying yourself very attentively with
the cooking. Do you know why there are four wonders in Louvain? No. I
will tell you why. In the first place, because the living there pass
underneath the dead, for the church of Saint-Michel is built close
to the gate of the town. Its graveyard is therefore above. Secondly,
because the bells there are outside the towers, as is seen at the
church of Saint-Jacques, where there is a great bell and a little
bell; being unable to place the little one inside the bell tower,
they placed it outside. Thirdly, because of the Tower-without-Nails,
because the spire of the church of Saint-Gertrude is made of stone
instead of being made of wood, and because men do not nail stones,
except the bloody king's heart which I would fain nail above the great
gate of Brussels. But you are not listening to me. Is there no salt
in the sauces? Do you know why the folk of Tirlemont call themselves
warming pans, de vierpannen? Because a young prince being come in
winter to sleep at the inn of the Arms of Flanders, the innkeeper did
not know how to air the blankets, for he had no warming pan. He had
the bed aired by his daughter, who, hearing the prince coming, made
off running, and the prince asked why they had not left the warming
pan in the bed. May God bring it about that Philip, shut in a box of
red-hot iron, may serve as warming pan in the bed of Madame Astarte."
"Leave me in peace," said Lamme; "a fig for you, your vierpannen,
the Tower-without-Nails, and the rest of your nonsense. Leave me to
my sauces."
"Beware," said Ulenspiegel. "The barkings cease not to reëcho; they
become louder; the dogs are roaring, the bugle is sounding. Beware
of the stag. You are taking flight! The bugle sounds."
"It is the death quarry," said the old man, "come back, Lamme, to
your fricassees, the stag is dead."
"It will be a good meal for us," said Lamme. "You will invite me to
the feast, because of the trouble I am taking for you. The sauce for
the birds will be good: it crunches a little, however. That is the
sand on which they fell when that big devil of a stag tore my doublet
and me all together. But are you not afraid of the foresters?"
"We are too numerous," said the old man; "they are afraid and do
not disturb us. It is even the same with the catchpolls and the
judges. The inhabitants of the towns love us, for we do no harm to any
man. We shall live some time longer in peace, unless the Spanish army
surrounds us. If that happens, old men and young men, women, girls,
lads, and lasses, we will sell our lives dear, and we will kill one
another rather than endure a thousand martyrdoms at the hands of the
bloody duke."
Ulenspiegel said:
"It is now no longer the time to combat the murderer by land. It is
on the sea that we must ruin his power. Go to the Zealand Islands,
by way of Bruges, Heyst, and Knoeke."
"We have no money," said they.
Ulenspiegel replied:
"Here are a thousand carolus from the prince. Follow along the
waterways, canals, rivers, and streams; when you see ships carrying
the sign 'J. H. S.,' let one of you sing like a lark. The clarion of
the cock will answer him. And you will be in friends' country."
"We will do this," said they.
Soon the hunters, followed by the dogs, appeared, pulling after them
the dead stag with ropes.
Then all sate down round about the fire. There were full sixty, men,
women, and children. Bread was pulled out from satchels, knives from
their sheaths; the stag, cut up, stripped, disembowelled, was put on
the spit with small game. And at the end of the meal Lamme was seen
snoring with his head drooped on his breast and sleeping propped
against a tree.
At nightfall, the Brothers of the Wood went back into huts constructed
underground to sleep, and Lamme and Ulenspiegel did the same.
Armed men kept watch, guarding the camp. And Ulenspiegel heard the
dry leaves protest under their feet.
The next day he departed with Lamme, while the men of the camp said:
"Blessed be thou; we will make towards the sea."
XXXV
At Harlebek, Lamme renewed his stock of olie-koekjes, ate twenty-seven
and put thirty in his basket. Ulenspiegel carried his cages in his
hand. Towards evening they arrived in Courtray and stopped at the inn
of in de Bie, the Bee, with Gilis van den Ende, who came to his door
as soon as he heard someone sing like the lark.
There it was all sugar and honey with them. The host having seen the
prince's letters, handed fifty carolus to Ulenspiegel for the prince,
and would take no payment for the turkey he served them, nor for the
dobbel-clauwert with which he washed it down. He warned them, too,
that there were at Courtray spies of the Court of Blood, for which
cause he ought to well keep his tongue as well as his companion's.
"We shall reconnoitre then," said Ulenspiegel and Lamme.
And they went out from the inn.
The sun was setting, gilding the gables of the houses; the birds were
singing under the lime trees; the goodwives gossiped on the thresholds
of their doors; the children rolled and tumbled about in the dust,
and Ulenspiegel and Lamme wandered haphazard through the streets.
Suddenly Lamme said:
"Martin van den Ende, asked by me if he had seen a woman like my
wife--I drew him my pretty portrait,--told me that there were at the
house of the woman Stevenyne, on the Bruges road, at the Rainbow,
outside the town, a great number of women who gather there every
evening. I am going there straightway."
"I shall find you again presently," said Ulenspiegel. "I wish to pay
the town a visit; if I meet your wife I will presently send her to
you. You know that the baes has enjoined on you to be silent, if you
have any regard for your skin."
As Ulenspiegel wandered at his will, the sun went down, and the day
falling swiftly, he arrived in the Pierpot-Straetje, which is the lane
of the Stone Pot. There he heard the viol played upon melodiously;
drawing near he saw from afar a white shape calling him, gliding away
from him and playing on the viol. And it sang like a seraph a sweet
slow song, stopping, turning back, still calling him and fleeing
from him.
But Ulenspiegel ran swiftly; he overtook her and was about to speak
to her when she laid on his mouth a hand perfumed with benjamin.
"Art thou a rustic or a nobleman?" said she.
"I am Ulenspiegel."
"Art thou rich?"
"Enough to pay for a great pleasure, not enough to ransom my soul."
"Hast thou no horses, that thou goest afoot?"
"I had an ass," said Ulenspiegel, "but I left him in the stable."
"How is it thou art alone, without a friend, in a strange city?"
"Because my friend is wandering on his own side, as I am on mine,
my curious darling."
"I am not curious," said she. "Is he rich, your friend?"
"In fat," said Ulenspiegel. "Will you soon have finished questioning
me?"
"I have done," said she, "now leave me."
"Leave you?" he said; "as well bid Lamme, when he is hungry, leave
a dish of ortolans. I want to eat you."
"You have not seen me," she said. And she opened a lantern which
shone out suddenly, lighting up her face.
"You are beautiful," said Ulenspiegel. "Ho! the golden skin, the
sweet eyes, the red mouth, the darling body! All will be for me."
"All," she said.
She brought him to the woman Stevenyne's, on the Bruges road, at the
Rainbow (in den Reghen-boogh). Ulenspiegel saw there a great number
of girls wearing on their arms armlets of a colour different from
that of their fustian dress.
This one had an armlet of silver cloth on a robe of cloth of gold. And
all the girls looked at her jealously. Coming in she made a sign to
the baesine, but Ulenspiegel never saw it. They sat down together
and drank.
"Do you know," said she, "that whoever has loved me is mine forever?"
"Lovely fragrant girl," said Ulenspiegel, "'twould be a delicious
feast to me to eat always of this meat."
Suddenly he perceived Lamme in a corner, with a little table before
him, a candle, a ham, a pot of beer, and not knowing how to rescue his
ham from the two girls, who wanted perforce to eat and drink with him.
When Lamme perceived Ulenspiegel, he stood up and leaped three feet
into the air, crying:
"Blessed be God, that restoreth my friend Ulenspiegel to me! Something
to drink, baesine!"
Ulenspiegel, pulling out his purse, said:
"Bring to drink till this is at an end."
And he made the carolus clink.
"Glory to God!" said Lamme, craftily taking the purse in his hands;
"it is I that pay and not you; this purse is mine."
Ulenspiegel wished to get back his purse from him by force, but Lamme
held on tenaciously. As they were fighting, the one to keep it, the
other to get it back, Lamme speaking disjointedly, said in low tones
to Ulenspiegel:
"Listen: ... catchpolls within ... four ... little room with three
girls ... two outside for you, for me ... would have gone out
... prevented.... The brocade girl a spy ... a spy, Stevenyne!"
While they were struggling, Ulenspiegel, listening with all his ears,
cried out:
"Give back my purse, rascal!"
"You shall never get it," said Lamme.
And they seized each other by the neck and the shoulders, rolling on
the ground while Lamme gave his good advice to Ulenspiegel.
Suddenly the baes of the Bee came in followed by seven men, whom he
seemed not to know. He crowed like a cock and Ulenspiegel whistled
like a lark. Seeing Ulenspiegel and Lamme fighting, the baes spoke:
"Who are these two fellows?" he asked the Stevenyne.
The Stevenyne answered:
"Rogues that it would be better to separate rather than leave them
here to make such an uproar before going to the gallows."
"Let him dare to separate us," said Ulenspiegel, "and we will make
him eat the tiled floor."
"The baes to the rescue," said Ulenspiegel in Lamme's ear.
Hereupon the baes, scenting some mystery, rushed into their battle,
head down. Lamme threw these words into his ear.
"You the rescuer? How?"
The baes pretended to shake Ulenspiegel by the ears and said to him
in a whisper:
"Seven for thee ... strong fellows, butchers ... I'm going away ... too
well known in town.... When I am gone, 'tis van te beven de klinkaert
... smash everything ..."
"Aye," said Ulenspiegel, getting up and fetching him a kick.
The baes struck him in his turn. And Ulenspiegel said to him:
"You hit thick and fast, my belly boy."
"As hail," said the baes, seizing Lamme's purse lightly and giving
it to Ulenspiegel.
"Rogue," said he, "pay for me to drink now that you have been restored
to your property."
"Thou shalt drink, scandalous rascal," replied Ulenspiegel.
"See how impudent he is," said the Stevenyne.
"As insolent as thou art lovely, darling," answered Ulenspiegel.
Now the Stevenyne was full sixty years old, and had a face like a
medlar, but all yellowed with bile and anger. In the middle of it was
a nose like an owl's beak. Her eyes were the eyes of a flinty-hearted
miser. Two long dog-tusks jutted from her fleshless mouth. And she
had a great port-wine stain on her left cheek.
The girls laughed, mocking her and saying:
"Darling, darling, give him somewhat to drink"--"He will kiss you"--"Is
it long since you had your first spree?"--"Take care, Ulenspiegel, she
will eat you up"--"Look at her eyes; they are shining not with hate
but with love"--"You might say she will bite you to death"--"Don't
be afraid"--"All amorous women are like that"--"She only wants your
money"--"See what a good laughing humour she is in."
And indeed the Stevenyne was laughing and winking at Gilline, the
girl in the brocade dress.
The baes drank, paid, and went. The seven butchers made faces of
intelligence at the catchpolls and the Stevenyne.
One of them indicated by a gesture that he held Ulenspiegel for a
ninny and that he was about to fool him to the top of his bent. He
said in his ear, putting out his tongue derisively on the side of
the Stevenyne who was laughing and showing her fangs:
"'Tis van te beven de klinkaert" ('tis time to make the glasses clink).
Then aloud, and pointing to the catchpolls:
"Gentle reformer, we are all with thee; pay for us to drink and
to eat."
And the Stevenyne laughed with pleasure and also put out her tongue
at Ulenspiegel when he turned his back to her. And Gilline of the
brocade dress put out her tongue likewise.
And the girls said, whispering:
"Look at the spy who by her beauty brought to cruel torture and more
cruel death more than twenty-seven of the Reformed faith; Gilline is
in ecstasy thinking of the reward for her informing--the first hundred
florins carolus of the victim's estate. But she does not laugh when
she thinks that she must share them with the Stevenyne."
And all, catchpolls, butchers, and girls, put out their tongues to
mock at Ulenspiegel. And Lamme sweated great drops of sweat, and he
was red with anger like a cock's comb, but he would not speak a word.
"Pay for us to drink and to eat," said the butchers and the catchpolls.
"Well, then," said Ulenspiegel, rattling his carolus again, "give us
to drink and to eat, O darling Stevenyne, to drink in ringing glasses."
Thereupon the girls began to laugh anew and the Stevenyne to stick
out her tusks.
Nevertheless, she went to the kitchens and to the cellar; she brought
back ham, sausages, omelettes of black puddings, and ringing glasses,
so called because they were mounted on felt and rang like a chime
when they were knocked.
Then Ulenspiegel said:
"Let him that is hungry eat; let him that is thirsty drink!"
The catchpolls, the girls, the butchers, Gilline, and the Stevenyne
applauded this speech with feet and hands. Then they all ranged
themselves as well as they could, Ulenspiegel, Lamme, and the seven
butchers at the principal table, the great table of honour, the
catchpolls and the girls at two small tables. And they drank and ate
with a great noise of jaws, even the two catchpolls that were outside,
and whom their comrades made come in to share the feast. And ropes
and chains could be seen sticking out from their satchels.
The Stevenyne then putting out her tongue and grinning said:
"No one can go without paying me."
And she went and shut all the doors, the keys of which she put in
the pockets.
Gilline, lifting her glass, said:
"The bird is in the cage, let us drink."
Thereupon two girls called Gena and Margot said to her:
"Is this another one that you are going to have put to death,
wicked woman?"
"I do not know," said Gilline, "let us drink."
But the three girls would not drink with her.
And Gilline took her viol and sang, in French:
"To viol's tone I sing
'Neath night or noonday skies,
A gay, mad, wanton thing
Who sell Love's merchandise.
"Astarte traced aright
My hips in lines of flame:
Were shoulders ne'er so white
And God's my lovely frame.
"Oh tear each purse's sheath
And let its money glow:
Set tawny gold beneath
My milk-white feet aflow.
"Of Eve the child I seem,
Of Satan too a part;
As fine as is your dream,
Come seek it in my heart.
"My mood is cold or burning,
Or fond with careless ease,
Mad, mild, or melting turning,
My man, your whim to please.
"See every charm that cheers,
Soul, eyes of blue, for hire;
Delights and smiles and tears,
And Death, if you desire.
"To viol's tone I sing
'Neath night or noonday skies,
A gay, mad, wanton thing
Who sell Love's merchandise."
As she sang her song, Gilline was so beautiful, so sweet, and so pretty
that all the men, catchpolls, butchers, Lamme, and Ulenspiegel were
there, speechless, moved, smiling, captivated by the spell.
All at once, bursting into laughter, Gilline said, looking at
Ulenspiegel:
"That is the way birds are put in the cage."
And the spell was broken.
Ulenspiegel, Lamme, and the butchers looked at one another.
"Now, then, will you pay me?" said the Stevenyne, "will you pay me,
Messire Ulenspiegel, you that grow so fat on the flesh of preachers?"
Lamme would have spoken, but Ulenspiegel made him hold his tongue,
and speaking to the Stevenyne:
"We shall not pay in advance," said he.
"I will pay myself afterwards then out of your estate," said the
Stevenyne.
"Ghouls feed on corpses," replied Ulenspiegel.
"Aye," said one of the catchpolls, "those two have taken the preachers'
money; more than three hundred florins carolus. That makes a fine
tithe for Gilline."
Gilline sang:
"Seek such in other spheres
Take all, my loving squire,
Pleasures, kisses, and tears,
And Death, if you desire."
Then, laughing, she said:
"Let's drink!"
"Let's drink!" said the catchpolls.
"In God's name," said the Stevenyne, "let us drink! The doors are
locked, the windows have stout bars, the birds are in the cage,
let us drink!"
"Let's drink," said Ulenspiegel.
"Let's drink," said Lamme.
"Let's drink," said the seven.
"Let's drink," said the catchpolls.
"Let's drink," said Gilline, making her viols sing. "I am beautiful;
let us drink. I could take the Archangel Gabriel in the nets of
my singing."
"Bring us to drink then," said Ulenspiegel, "wine to crown the feast,
wine of the best; I would have a drop of liquid fire at every hair
of our thirsty bodies."
"Let us drink!" said Gilline; "twenty gudgeons more like you, and
the pikes will sing no more."
The Stevenyne brought wine. All were sitting, drinking and eating,
the catchpolls and the girls together. The seven, seated at the table
of Ulenspiegel and Lamme, threw, from their table to the girls, hams,
sausages, omelettes, and bottles, which they caught in the air like
carps snatching flies on the surface of a pond. And the Stevenyne
laughed, sticking out her tusks and showing packets of candles,
five to the pound, that hung above the bar. These were the girls'
candles. Then she said to Ulenspiegel:
"When men go to the stake, they carry a tallow candle on the way
thither; would you like to have one now?"
"Drink up!" said Ulenspiegel.
"Drink up," said the seven.
Said Gilline:
"Ulenspiegel has eyes shining like a swan about to die."
"Suppose they were given to the pigs to eat?" said the Stevenyne.
"That would be a feast of lanterns; drink up!" said Ulenspiegel.
"Would you like," said the Stevenyne, "when you are on the scaffold,
to have your tongue thrust through with a red-hot iron?"
"It would be the better of that for whistling; drink up," answered
Ulenspiegel.
"You would talk less if you were hanged," said the Stevenyne, "and
your darling might come to look at you."
"Aye," said Ulenspiegel, "but I should weigh heavier, and would fall
on your lovely muzzle: drink up!"
"What would you say if you were beaten with cudgels, branded on the
forehead and on the shoulder?"
"I would say they had made a mistake in the meat," replied Ulenspiegel,
"and that instead of roasting the sow Stevenyne, they had scalded
the young porker Ulenspiegel: drink up!"
"Since you do not like any of these," said the Stevenyne, "you shall be
taken on to the king's ships, and there condemned to be torn asunder
by four galleys."
"Then," said Ulenspiegel, "the sharks will have my four quarters,
and you shall eat what they reject: drink up!"
"Why do you not eat one of these candles," said she, "they would
serve you in hell to light your eternal damnation."
"I see clear enough to behold your shiny snout, O ill-scalded sow,
drink up!" said Ulenspiegel.
Suddenly he struck the foot of the glass on the table, imitating with
his hands the noise an upholsterer makes beating rhythmically the
wool of a mattress upon a frame of sticks, but very gently, and saying:
"'Tis (tydt) van te beven de klinkaert" (it is time to make the
clinker shiver--the glass that rings).
This is in Flanders the signal for the angry outbreak of drinkers
and for the sacking of houses with the red lantern.
Ulenspiegel drank, then made the glass quiver on the table, saying:
"'Tis van te beven de klinkaert."
And the seven imitated him.
All kept very still. Gilline grew pale, the Stevenyne appeared
astonished. The catchpolls said:
"Are the seven on their side?"
But the butchers, winking, reassured them, at the same time continually
repeating in louder and louder tones with Ulenspiegel:
"'Tis van te beven de klinkaert; 'tis van te beven de klinkaert."
The Stevenyne drank to give herself courage.
Ulenspiegel then struck the table with his fist, with the rhythm
and measure of upholsterers beating mattresses; the seven did as he
did; glasses, jugs, bowls, quart pots, and goblets came slowly into
the dance, overturning, breaking, rising on one side to fall on the
other; and still there rang out more threatening, sombre, warlike,
and in monotone: "'Tis van te beven de klinkaert."
"Alas!" said the Stevenyne, "they are going to smash everything here."
And in her fear her two tusks stuck farther still out of her mouth.
And the blood lit up with wrath and fury in the minds of the seven
and Lamme and Ulenspiegel.
Then without stopping their monotonous threatening chant all the men
at Ulenspiegel's table took their glasses, and breaking them on the
table, keeping time together, they got astride their chairs and drew
their cutlasses. And they made such a din with their song that all the
window-panes in the house were quaking. Then like a ring of devils they
went round about the chamber and all the tables, saying continually:
"'Tis van te beven de klinkaert."
And the catchpolls then rose up quaking with terror, and took out their
ropes and chains. But the butchers, Ulenspiegel, and Lamme, thrusting
their cutlasses back into their sheaths, got up, seized their chairs,
and brandishing them like cudgels, they ran nimbly through the room
hither and thither, striking right and left, sparing only the girls,
smashing all the rest, furniture, windows, chests, dishes, quart pots,
bowls, glasses, and flasks, beating the catchpolls without pity and
always singing to the time of the sound of the upholsterer beating
mattresses: "'Tis van te beven de klinkaert; "'tis van te beven de
klinkaert," while Ulenspiegel had given a blow on the face with his
fist to the Stevenyne, had taken her keys from her bag, and by force
made her eat her candles.
The beauteous Gilline, tearing at the doors, the shutters, the windows,
and the glass panes with her nails, seemed to want to scratch her
way through everything, like a terrified cat. Then, all livid, she
crouched down in a corner, with haggard eyes, showing her teeth,
and holding her viol as if she must needs protect it at all costs.
The seven and Lamme said to the girls: "We will do you no hurt";
with their help tied up with their own chains and cords the catchpolls
shivering in their shoes and not daring to resist, for they perceived
that the butchers, picked out among the strongest by the baes of the
Bee, would have chopped them to pieces with their cutlasses.
At every candle he made the Stevenyne eat Ulenspiegel said:
"This is for the hanging; that for the cudgelling; this other for
the branding; this fourth for my pierced tongue; these two excellent
and extra fat ones for the king's ships and the quartering by four
galleys; this for your den of spies; that one for your damsel in the
brocade dress, and all these others just to please me."
And the girls laughed to see the Stevenyne sneezing with anger and
trying to spit out her candles. But in vain, for she had her mouth
too full of them.
Ulenspiegel, Lamme, and the seven never ceased singing in time with
one another: "'Tis van te beven de klinkaert."
Then Ulenspiegel stopped, making sign to them to murmur the refrain
softly. They did so while he held this conversation with the girls
and the catchpolls:
"If any one of you cries for help, he will be cut down immediately."
"Cut down!" said the butchers.
"We will hold our tongues," said the girls, "do not hurt us,
Ulenspiegel."
But Gilline, huddled in her corner, her eyes starting out of her head,
her teeth out of her mouth, could not speak, and clasped her viol
tightly to her.
And the seven still were murmuring: "'Tis van te beven de
klinkaert!" in measure.
The Stevenyne, pointing to the candles she had in her mouth, made
signs that she would hold her tongue likewise. The catchpolls promised
the same.
Ulenspiegel continued his discourse:
"Ye are here," said he, "in our power; the night has fallen, we are
near the Lys where you drown easily if you are thrust in. The gates
of Courtrai are closed. If the night watch have heard the uproar,
they will never budge, being too lazy and thinking it is simply good
Flemish folk who as they drink are singing merrily to the sound of
pots and flasks. Wherefore stay ye still, both men and girls, before
your masters."
Then, speaking to the seven:
"Are you going to Peteghem to find the Beggars?"
"We made ready for this at the news of thy coming."
"From thence ye will go to the sea?"
"Aye," said they.
"Do you know among these catchpolls one or two that might be let go
to serve us?"
"Two," said they, "Niklaes and Joos, who never hunted down the poor
Reformed folk."
"We are faithful!" said Niklaes and Joos.
Then Ulenspiegel said:
"Here are twenty florins carolus for you, twice more than you would
have had if ye had taken the vile reward of the informer."
Suddenly the five others exclaimed:
"Twenty florins! We will serve the prince for twenty florins. The king
pays ill. Give each of us the half; we will tell the judge whatever
you wish."
The butchers and Lamme murmured low:
"'Tis van te beven de klinkaert; 'tis van te beven de klinkaert."
"So that ye may not talk too much," said Ulenspiegel, "the seven will
bring you bound as far as Peteghem, to the Beggars. Ye shall have ten
florins when ye are on the sea; we shall be certain till then that
the camp victual will keep you faithful to bread and soup. If ye are
valiant men, ye shall have your share in the booty taken. If ye try
to desert, ye shall be hanged. If ye escape, thus avoiding the rope,
ye shall find the knife."
"We serve who pays us," said they.
"'Tis van te beven de klinkaert! 'Tis van te beven de klinkaert!" said
Lamme and the seven striking upon the table with shards of broken
pots and glasses.
"Ye shall take with you also," said Ulenspiegel, "Gilline, the
Stevenyne, and the three damsels. If one of them tries to escape,
ye shall sew her up in a sack and throw her into the river."
"He has not killed me," said Gilline, leaping out from her corner,
and brandishing her viol in the air. And she sang:
"Of blood was all my dream
The dream so near my heart,
Of Eve the child I seem,
Of Satan, too, a part."
The Stevenyne and the others were like to weep.
"Fear nothing, darlings," said Ulenspiegel, "you are so soft and
sweet, that everywhere they will love you, feast you, and caress
you. At every war capture ye shall have your share in the booty."
"They will give nothing to me, for I am an old woman," wept the
Stevenyne.
"A sou a day, crocodile," said Ulenspiegel, "for thou shalt be
serving woman to these four beauteous damsels; thou shalt wash their
petticoats, blankets, and chemises."
"I, Lord God!" said she.
Ulenspiegel replied:
"Thou hast ruled them long, living on the earnings of their bodies
and leaving them poor and hungry. Thou mayst whine and bellow, it
shall be as I have said."
Thereupon the four girls began to laugh and mock at the Stevenyne,
and say to her, putting out their tongues:
"To each her turn in this world. Who would have said it of Stevenyne
the miser? She shall work for us as a servant. Blessed be the lord
Ulenspiegel!"
Then the three turned to Gilline:
"Thou wast her daughter, her support; thou didst share with her the
fruits of thy foul spydom. Wilt thou ever dare again to strike and
insult us with thy brocade dress? Thou didst scorn us because we
were but fustian. Thou art clothed so richly only with the blood of
victims. Let us take her dress so that she may be even like ourselves."
"I will not have it," said Ulenspiegel.
And Gilline, leaping on his neck, said:
"Blessed be thou that hast not killed me, and wouldst not have
me ugly!"
And the girls, jealous, looked at Ulenspiegel, and said:
"He has lost his wits for her like all the men."
Gilline sang to her viol.
The seven set out towards Peteghem, taking with them the catchpolls and
the girls along by the Lys. As they went on their way they murmured:
"'T is van te beven de klinkaert; 't is van te beven de klinkaert!"
As the sun was rising they came to the camp, sang like the lark, and
the clarion of the cock made them answer. The girls and the catchpolls
were closely guarded. For all that, on the third day Gilline was found
dead, her heart pierced through with a great needle. The Stevenyne was
accused by the three girls and brought before the captain of the band,
his dizeniers and sergeants formed into a tribunal. There, without
their having to put her to the torture, she confessed that she had
killed Gilline through jealousy of her beauty and rage because the
damsel treated her as her servant pitilessly. And the Stevenyne was
hanged, and afterwards buried in the wood.
Gilline, too, was buried, and the prayers for the dead were said
above her sweet body.
Meanwhile, the two catchpolls instructed by Ulenspiegel had gone before
the castellan of Courtray, for the tumult, uproar, and pillage made in
the Stevenyne's house must needs be punished by the said castellan, as
the Stevenyne's house was in the castle ward, outside the jurisdiction
of the town of Courtray. After having narrated to the lord castellan
what had taken place, they told him with great conviction and humble
sincerity of language:
"The murderers of the preachers are in no wise Ulenspiegel and
his trusty and well-beloved Lamme Goedzak, who went to the Rainbow
purely for their repose and refreshment. They even have passes from
the duke, and we have seen these ourselves. The real culprits are two
Ghent merchants, one a lean man and the other very fat, who went away
towards France, after breaking everything at Stevenyne's, taking her
away with her four girls along with them for their pleasure. We had
them well and duly taken prisoners, but there were in the house seven
butchers, the strongest in the town, who took their side. They tied
us all up and only let us go when they were far away on the French
soil. And here are the marks of the ropes. The four other catchpolls
are on their tracks, waiting for a reinforcement to lay hands on them."
The castellan gave each of them two carolus and a new coat for their
loyal services.
He then wrote to the Council of Flanders, to the Sheriff's Court at
Courtray, and to other courts of justice to announce to them that
the real murderers had been discovered.
And he recounted to them the whole adventure in detail and at length.
Whereat the people of the Council of Flanders and the other courts
of justice shuddered.
And the castellan was greatly praised for his perspicacity.
And Ulenspiegel and Lamme journeyed in peace upon the road from
Peteghem to Ghent, along the Lys, wishing to arrive at Bruges, where
Lamme hoped to find his wife, and at Damme, where Ulenspiegel, all
a-dream, would have wished to be already, to see Nele, who lived in
sadness with Katheline the madwife.
XXXVI
During a long while, in the country of Damme and round about, there
had been committed several abominable crimes. Lasses, young men, old
men, who had been known to go forth carrying money in the direction of
Bruges, Ghent, or some other town or village of Flanders, were found
dead, naked as worms and bitten in the back of the neck by teeth so
long and so sharp that they all had the bones of their necks broken.
Physicians and barber-surgeons declared that these were the teeth of
a huge wolf. "Robbers," said they, "had doubtless come up, after the
wolf, and had stripped the victims."
Despite all search, no man could ever discover who were the
robbers. Soon the wolf was forgotten.
Several townsmen of note, who had proudly set forth on their way
without an escort, disappeared without any one knowing what had
become of them, save that at times some country fellow, going out
in the morning to plough the earth, found wolf tracks in his field,
while his dog, digging in the furrows with his paws, brought to
light a poor dead corpse carrying the marks of the wolf's teeth on
the nape or under the ear, and oftentimes on the leg, too, and always
behind. And always the neckbone and legbone were broken.
The peasant, affrighted, would go off at once to give information to
the bailiff, who would come with the clerk of the court, two aldermen,
and two surgeons to the place where lay the body of the murdered
man. Having visited it diligently and carefully, having sometimes when
the face was not eaten by worms recognized its quality, even its name
and lineage, they were nevertheless always astonied that the wolf,
a beast that kills for hunger, should not have carried off some part
of the dead man.
And the folk of Damme were sore terrified, and no woman dared to go
out by night without an escort.
Now it came that several valiant soldiers were sent out to look for
the wolf, with orders to hunt for it day and night in the dunes,
along by the sea.
They were then near Heyst, among the great dunes. Night had come. One
of them, confident in his strength, wanted to leave them to go alone on
the hunt, armed with a musket. The others allowed him, certain that,
valiant and armed as he was, he would kill the wolf if he dared to
show himself.
Their comrade having gone, they lit a fire and played at dice while
drinking brandy out of their flasks.
And from time to time they called out:
"Now, then, comrade, come back; the wolf is afraid; come and drink!"
And he made no answer.
Suddenly, hearing a great cry as of a man that is at the point of
death, they ran in the direction whence the cry came, saying:
"Hold on, we are coming to the rescue!"
But they were long before they found their comrade, for some said the
cry came from the valley, others that it came from the highest dune.
At length, when they had well searched dune and valley with their
lanterns, they found their comrade bitten in the leg and in the arm,
from behind, and his neck broken like the other victims.
Lying on his back, he was holding his sword in his clenched fist;
his musket was on the sand. By his side were three severed fingers,
which they carried off, and which were not his fingers. His pouch
had been taken.
They took up on their shoulders their comrade's body, his good sword,
and his gallant musket, and grieved and angry, they carried the corpse
to the bailiff's where the bailiff received them in the company of
the clerk of the court, two aldermen, and two surgeons.
The severed fingers were examined and recognized as the fingers of
an old man, who was no worker at any trade, for the fingers were
long and tapering, and the nails were long as the nails of lawyers
and churchmen.
Next day the bailiff, the aldermen, the clerk, the surgeons, and the
soldiers went to the place where the poor slain man had been bitten,
and saw that there were drops of blood upon the grass and footmarks
that went as far as the sea, where they ceased.
XXXVII
It was at the time of the ripened grapes, in the wine month and the
fourth day of it, when in the city of Brussels they throw, from the
top of the tower of Saint Nicholas after high mass, bags of walnuts
down to the people.
At night Nele was awakened by cries coming from the street. She looked
for Katheline in the room and found her not. She ran down and opened
the door, and Katheline came in saying:
"Save me! Save me! the wolf! the wolf!"
And Nele heard in the country far-off howlings. Trembling, she lighted
all the lamps, wax tapers, and candles.
"What has happened, Katheline?" said she, clasping her in her arms.
Katheline sat down, with haggard eyes, and said, looking at the
candles:
"'Tis the sun, he driveth away evil spirits. The wolf, the wolf is
howling in the countryside."
"But," said Nele, "why did you leave your bed where you were warm,
to go and take a fever in the damp nights of September?"
And Katheline said:
"Hanske cried last night like an osprey; and I opened the door. And
he said to me: 'Take the drink of vision,' and I drank. Hanske is
goodly to look upon. Take away the fire. Then he brought me down
to the canal and said to me: 'Katheline, I will give thee back the
seven hundred carolus; thou shalt restore them to Ulenspiegel the son
of Claes. Here be two to buy thee a robe; thou shalt have a thousand
soon.' 'A thousand,' said I, 'my beloved, I shall then be rich.' 'Thou
shalt have them,' said he. 'But is there none in Damme who, woman or
damsel, is now as rich as thou wilt be?' 'I know not,' I answered. But
I had no mind to tell their names for fear he might love them. Then he
said to me: 'Find this out and tell me their names when I come back.'
"The air was chill, the mist rolled over the meadows, the dry twigs
were falling from the trees upon the roadway. And the moon was shining,
and there were fires on the water of the canal. Hanske said to me:
'It is the night of the were-wolves; all guilty souls come forth out
of hell. Thou must make the sign of the cross thrice with the left
hand and cry: Salt! Salt! Salt! which is the emblem of immortality, and
they will do thee no hurt.' And I said: 'I shall do what thou desirest,
Hanske, my darling.' He kissed me, saying: 'Thou art my wife.' 'Aye,'
said I. And at his gentle word a heavenly happiness glided over my
body like an ointment. He crowned me with roses and said to me: 'Thou
art fair.' And I said to him: 'Thou art fair, too, Hanske, my darling,
and goodly in thy fine raiment of green velvet with gold trimmings,
with thy long ostrich feather that floats from thy bonnet, and thy
face pale as the fire upon the waves of the sea. And if the girls of
Damme saw thee, they would all run after thee, beseeching thee for
thy heart; but thou must give it only to me alone, Hanske.' He said:
'Endeavour to know which are the richest; their fortune will be for
thee.' Then he went away, leaving me after straitly forbidding me to
follow him.
"I stayed there, chinking the three carolus in my hand, all shivering
and frozen by reason of the mist, when I saw coming up from a steep
bank and climbing the slope a wolf that had a green face and long
reeds among his white hair. I cried out: Salt! Salt! Salt! making
the sign of the cross, but he seemed to be in no dread of it. And
I ran with all my might, I crying, he howling, and I heard the dry
clashing of his teeth close upon me, and once so near to my shoulder
that I thought that he was about to catch me. But I ran faster than
he did. By great good luck, I met at the corner of the street of
the Heron the night watch with his lantern. 'The wolf! the wolf!' I
cried. 'Be not afraid,' said the watchman to me, 'I will take you
home, Katheline the madwife.' And I felt that his hand, holding me,
was shaking. And he was afraid like me."
"But he hath got back his courage," said Nele. "Do you hear him now
chanting in a drawling voice: 'De clock is tien tien aen de clock':
It is ten o' the clock, o' the clock ten! And he springs his rattle."
"Take away the fire," said Katheline, "my head burns. Come back,
Hanske, my darling."
And Nele looked on Katheline, and she prayed Our Lady the Virgin
to take away from her head the fire of madness; and she wept over
her mother.
XXXVIII
At Belleau, on the banks of the Bruges canal, Ulenspiegel and Lamme
met a horseman wearing three cock's feathers in his felt hat and
riding at full speed towards Ghent. Ulenspiegel sang like a lark and
the horseman, pulling up, answered with the clarion of Chanticleer.
"Dost thou bring tidings, headlong horseman?" said Ulenspiegel.
"Great tidings," said the horseman. "On the advice of M. de Châtillon
who is in the land of France the admiral of the sea, the prince of
freedom hath given commissions to equip ships of war, beyond those
that are already armed at Emden and in East Frisia. The valiant men
who have received these commissions are Adrien de Berghes, Sieur
de Dolhain; his brother Louis of Hainaut; the Baron of Montfaucon;
the Sieur Louis de Brederode; Albert d'Egmont the son of the beheaded
count and no traitor like his brother; Berthel Enthens of Mentheda,
the Frisian; Adrien Menningh; Hembuyse the hot and proud man of Ghent;
and Jan Brock.
"The prince hath given all his having, more than fifty thousand
florins."
"I have five hundred for him," said Ulenspiegel.
"Take them to the sea," said the horseman.
And he went off at a gallop.
"He gives all his having," said Ulenspiegel. "We others, we give
nothing but our skins."
"Is that nothing then," said Lamme, "and shall we never have aught
talked of but sack and massacre? The orange is on the ground."
"Aye," said Ulenspiegel, "on the ground, like the oak; but with the
oak they build the ships of freedom!"
"For his profit," said Lamme. "But since there is no danger now,
let us buy asses again. I like to march sitting, for my part, and
without having a chime of blister-bells on the soles of my feet."
"Let us buy asses," said Ulenspiegel; "these are beasts it is easy
to sell again."
They went to market and found there, by paying for them, two fine
asses with their equipment.
XXXIX
As they rode on astraddle, they came to Oost-Camp, where there is a
great wood the fringe of which touched the canal.
Seeking therein shade and sweet fragrance, they went into it, without
seeing anything but the long forest alleys going in every direction
towards Bruges, Ghent, South Flanders, and North Flanders.
Suddenly Ulenspiegel jumped down from his ass.
"Dost thou see nothing yonder?"
Lamme said:
"Aye, I see." And trembling: "My wife, my good wife! 'Tis she, my
son. Ha! I cannot walk to her. To find her thus!"
"What are you complaining of?" said Ulenspiegel.
"She is beautiful thus half-naked, in this muslin tunic cut in open
work that lets the fresh skin be seen. That one is too young; she is
not your wife."
"My son," said Lamme, "it is she, my son; I know her. Carry me. I can
go no more. Who would have thought it of her? To dance clad in this
way like an Egyptian, shamelessly! Aye, it is she; see her shapely
legs, her arms bare to the shoulder, her breasts round and golden
half emerging from her muslin tunic. See how with that red flag she
excites that great dog jumping up at it."
"'Tis a dog of Egypt," said Ulenspiegel; "the Low Countries give none
of that kind."
"Egypt ... I do not know.... But it is she. Ha! my son, I can see no
more. She plucks up her breeches higher to show more of her round
legs. She laughs to show her white teeth, and loudly to let the
sound of her sweet voice be heard. She opens her tunic at the top and
throws herself back. Ha! that swan neck amorous, those bare shoulders,
those bright bold eyes! I run to her!"
And he leaped from his ass.
But Ulenspiegel, stopping him:
"This girl," said he, "is not your wife. We are near a camp of
Egyptians. Beware.... See you the smoke behind the trees? Hear you
the barking of the dogs? There, here are some looking at us, ready
to bite perhaps. Let us hide deeper in the brake."
"I will not hide," said Lamme; "this woman is mine, as Flemish as
ourselves."
"Blind and madman," said Ulenspiegel.
"Blind, nay! I see her well, dancing, half-naked, laughing and teasing
this great dog. She feigns not to see us. But she does see us, I assure
you. Thyl, Thyl! there is the dog hurling himself on her and throws her
down to have the red flag. And she falls, uttering a plaintive cry."
And Lamme suddenly dashed towards her, saying to her:
"My wife, my wife! where are you hurt, darling? Why do you laugh so
loud? Your eyes are haggard."
And he kissed her and caressed her and said:
"That beauty spot you had under the left breast, I see it not. Where
is it? Thou art not my wife. Great God of Heaven!"
And she never stopped laughing.
Suddenly Ulenspiegel cried out:
"Guard thee, Lamme!"
And Lamme, turning about, saw before him a great blackamoor of an
Egyptian, of a sour countenance, brown as peper-koek, which is ginger
bread in the land of France.
Lamme picked up his pikestaff, and putting himself to his defence,
he cried out:
"To the rescue, Ulenspiegel!"
Ulenspiegel was there with his good sword.
The Egyptian said to him in High German:
"Gibt mi ghelt, ein Richsthaler auf tsein." (Give me money, a
ricksdaelder or ten.)
"See," said Ulenspiegel, "the girl goes away laughing loudly and even
turning round to ask to be followed."
"Gibt mi ghelt," said the man. "Pay for your amours. We are poor folk
and wish you no harm."
Lamme gave him a carolus.
"What trade dost thou follow?" said Ulenspiegel.
"All trades," replied the Egyptian: "being master of arts in
suppleness, we do miraculous and magic tricks. We play on the
tambourine and dance Hungarian dances. More than one among us make
cages and gridirons to roast fine carbonadoes therewith. But all,
Flemings and Walloons, are feared of us and drive us forth. As
we cannot live by trade, we live by marauding, that is to say,
on vegetables, meat, and poultry that we must needs take from the
peasant, since he will neither give nor sell them to us."
Lamme said to him:
"Whence comes this girl, who is so like to my wife?"
"She is our chief's daughter," said the blackamoor.
Then speaking low like a man in fear:
"She was smitten by God with the malady of love and knows naught of
woman's modesty. As soon as she seeth a man, she entereth on gaiety
and wildness, and laughs without ceasing. She saith little; she was
long thought to be dumb. By night, in sadness, she stays before the
fire, weeping at whiles or laughing without reason, and pointing to
her belly, where, she saith, she hath a hurt. At the hour of noon,
in summer, after the meal, her sharpest madness cometh upon her. Then
she goeth to dance near naked on the outskirts of the camp. She will
wear naught but raiment of tulle or muslin, and in winter we have
great trouble to cover her with a cloak of cloth of goat's hair."
"But," said Lamme, "hath she not some man friend to prevent her from
abandoning herself thus to all comers?"
"She hath none," said the man, "for travellers, coming near her and
beholding her eyes distraught, have more of fear than desire for
her. This big man was a bold one," said he, pointing to Lamme.
"Let him talk, my son," said Ulenspiegel; "it is the stockvisch
slandering the whale. Which of the two is the one that gives most oil?"
"You have a sharp tongue this morning," said Lamme.
But Ulenspiegel, without listening to him, said to the Egyptian:
"What doth she when others are as bold as my friend Lamme?"
The Egyptian answered sadly:
"Then she hath pleasure and gain. Those who win her pay for their
delight, and the money serves to clothe her and also for the
necessities of the old men and the women."
"She obeyeth none then?" said Lamme.
The Egyptian answered:
"Let us allow those whom God hath smitten to do as they wish. Thus
he marks his will. And such is our law."
Ulenspiegel and Lamme went away. And the Egyptian returned thence to
his camp, grave and proud. And the girl, laughing wildly, danced in
the clearing.
XL
Going on their way to Bruges, Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:
"We have disbursed a heavy sum of money in the enlisting of soldiers,
in payment to the catchpolls, the gift to the Egyptian girl, and those
innumerable olie-koekjes that it pleased you to eat without ceasing
rather than to sell a single one. Now notwithstanding your belly-will,
it is time to live more circumspectly. Give me your money. I will
keep the common purse."
"I am willing," said Lamme. And giving it to him: "All the same,
do not leave me to die of hunger," said he, "for think on it, big and
strong as I am, I must have substantial and abundant nourishment. It is
well for you, a thin and wretched fellow, to live from hand to mouth,
eating or not eating what you pick up, like planks that live on air
and rain on the quays. But for me, whom air hollows and rain hungers,
I must needs have other feasts."
"You shall have them," said Ulenspiegel, "feasts of virtuous Lents. The
best filled paunches cannot resist them; deflating little by little,
they make the heaviest light. And presently will Lamme my darling be
seen sufficiently thinned down, running like a stag."
"Alas!" said Lamme. "What henceforth will be my starveling fate? I
am hungry, my son, and would fain have supper."
Night was falling. They arrived in Bruges by the Ghent gate. They
showed their passes. Having had to pay one demi-sol for themselves
and two for their asses, they entered into the town; Lamme, thinking
of Ulenspiegel's word, seemed brokenhearted.
"Shall we have supper, soon?" said he.
"Aye," replied Ulenspiegel.
They alighted in de Meermin, at the Siren, a weathercock which is
fixed all in gold above the gable of the inn.
They put their asses in the stable, and Ulenspiegel ordered, for his
supper and Lamme's, bread, beer, and cheese.
The host grinned when serving this lean meal: Lamme ate with hungry
teeth, looking in despair at Ulenspiegel labouring with his jaws
upon the too-old bread and the too-young cheese, as if they had been
ortolans. And Lamme drank his small beer with no pleasure. Ulenspiegel
laughed to see him so miserable. And there was also someone that
laughed in the courtyard of the inn and came at whiles to show her
face at the window. Ulenspiegel saw that it was a woman that hid her
face. Thinking it was some sly servant he thought no more of it, and
seeing Lamme pale, sad, and livid because of his thwarted belly loves,
he had pity and thought of ordering for his companion an omelette
of black puddings, a dish of beef and beans, or any other hot dish,
when the baes came in and said, doffing his headgear:
"If messires the travellers desire a better supper, they will speak
and say what they want."
Lamme opened wide eyes and his mouth wider still and looked at
Ulenspiegel with an anguished distress.
The latter replied:
"Wandering workmen are not rich men."
"It nevertheless happens," said the baes, "that they do not always
know all their possessions." And pointing to Lamme: "That good phiz is
worth two. What would Your Lordships please to eat and to drink--an
omelette with fat ham, choesels, we made some to-day, castrelins, a
capon melting under the tooth, a fine grilled carbonado with a sauce
of four spices, dobbel-knol of Antwerp, dobbel-cuyt of Bruges, wine
of Louvain prepared after the manner of Burgundy? And nothing to pay."
"Bring all," said Lamme.
The table was soon laid, and Ulenspiegel took his delight to see
poor Lamme who, more famished than ever, precipitated himself upon
the omelette, the choesels, the capon, the ham, the carbonadoes,
and poured down his throat in quarts the dobbel-knol, the dobbel-cuyt
and the Louvain wine prepared after the manner of Burgundy.
When he could eat no more, he puffed with comfort like a whale, and
looked about him over the table to see if there was nothing left to
put under his tooth. And he ate the crumbs of the castrelins.
Neither he nor Ulenspiegel had seen the pretty face look smiling
through the panes, pass and repass in the courtyard. The baes
having brought some wine mulled with cinnamon and Madeira sugar,
they continued to drink. And they sang.
At the curfew, he asked them if they would go upstairs each to his
large and goodly bedchamber. Ulenspiegel replied that a small one
would suffice for them both. The baes replied:
"I have none such; ye shall each have a lord's chamber, and nothing
to pay."
And indeed and in verity he brought them into chambers richly adorned
with furniture and carpets. In Lamme's there was a great bed.
Ulenspiegel, who had well drunk and was falling with sleep, left him
to go to bed and promptly did likewise.
The next day, at the hour of noon, he entered Lamme's chamber and saw
him sleeping and snoring. Beside him was a pretty little satchel full
of money. He opened it and saw it was gold carolus and silver patards.
He shook Lamme to wake him. The other came out of his sleep, rubbed
his eyes and, looking round him uneasily, said:
"My wife! where is my wife?"
And showing an empty place beside him in the bed.
"She was there but now," said he.
Then leaping out of the bed, he looked everywhere again, searched in
all the nooks and corners of the chamber, the alcove and the cupboards,
and said, stamping his foot:
"My wife! Where is my wife?"
The baes came up at the noise.
"Rascal," said Lamme, catching him by the throat, "where is my
wife? What hast thou done with my wife?"
"Impatient tramper," said the baes, "thy wife? What wife? Thou didst
come alone. I know naught."
"Ha! he knows naught," said Lamme, ferreting once more in all the nooks
and corners of the room. "Alas! she was there, last night, in my bed,
as in the time of our good loves. Aye. Where art thou, my darling?"
And flinging the purse on the ground:
"'Tis not thy money I want, 'tis thou, thy sweet body, thy kind
heart, O my beloved! O heavenly joys! Ye will come back no more. I
had grown hardened not to see thee, to live without love, my sweet
treasure. And lo, having come to me again, thou dost abandon me. But
I will die. Ha! my wife? Where is my wife?"
And he wept with scalding tears on the ground where he had cast
himself. Then all at once opening the door, he started to run
throughout the whole of the inn, and into the street, in his shirt,
crying:
"My wife? Where is my wife?"
But soon he came back, for the mischievous boys hooted him and threw
stones at him.
And Ulenspiegel said to him, forcing him to clothe himself:
"Do not be so overwhelmed; you shall see her again, since you have
seen her. She loves you still, since she came back to you, since it
was doubtless she that paid for the supper and for the lordly chambers,
and that put on your bed this full pouch. The ashes tell me that this
is not the doing of a faithless wife. Weep no more, and let us march
forth for the defence of the land of our fathers."
"Let us still remain in Bruges," said Lamme; "I would fain run through
the whole town, and I will find her."
"You will not find her, since she is hiding from you," said
Ulenspiegel.
Lamme asked for explanations from the baes, but the other would tell
him nothing.
And they went away towards Damme.
While they went on their way, Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:
"Why do you not tell me how you found her beside you, last night,
and how she left you?"
"My son," replied Lamme, "you know that we had feasted on meat, on
beer, on wine, and that I could hardly breathe when we went off to
bed. I held a wax candle in my hand, like a lord, to light me and had
put down the candlestick on a chest to sleep; the door had remained
ajar, the chest was close to it. Undressing, I looked on my bed with
great love and desire for sleep; the wax candle suddenly went out. I
heard as it were a breath and a sound of light feet in my chamber;
but being more sleepy than afraid, I lay down heavily. As I was about
to fall asleep, a voice--her voice, O my wife, my poor wife!--said
to me: 'Have you supped well, Lamme?' and her voice was beside me,
and her face, too, and her sweet body."
XLI
On that day Philip the king, having eaten too much pastry, was more
melancholy than usual. He had played upon his living harpsichord,
which was a case containing cats whose heads came out through round
openings above the keys. Every time the king struck a key, the key
in turn struck a cat with a dart, and the beast mewed and complained
by reason of the pain.
But Philip never laughed.
Unceasingly, he sought in his mind how he could conquer the great
queen, Elizabeth, and set up Mary Stuart on the throne of England. With
this object he had written to the Pope who was needy and full of debts;
the Pope had replied that for this enterprise he would gladly sell
the holy vessels of the temples and the treasures of the Vatican.
But Philip never laughed.
Ridolfi, Queen Mary's favourite, who hoped, by delivering her, to
marry her afterwards and become king of England, came to see Philip
and with him plot the murder of Elizabeth. But he was so "parlanchin,"
as the king wrote, so given to talking, that his designs were openly
talked about in the Antwerp Bourse; and the murder was never committed.
And Philip never laughed.
Later, in accordance with the king's orders, the bloody duke sent two
couples of assassins into England. They succeeded in getting hanged.
And Philip never laughed.
And thus God brought to naught and thwarted the ambition of this
vampire, who looked to remove her son from Mary Stuart and to reign in
his stead, with the Pope, over England. And the murderer was irritated
to see this noble country so great and powerful. He never ceased to
turn his pale eyes towards it, seeking how he might crush it so as
to reign thereafter over the whole world, exterminate the reformers,
and especially the rich, and inherit the victim's wealth.
But he never laughed.
And mice and field mice were brought to him in an iron box, with high
sides, and open of one side; and he put the bottom of the box on a
hot fire and took his pleasure in seeing and hearing the poor little
beasts leaping, moaning, and dying.
But he never laughed.
Then pale and with trembling hand he went to the arms of Madame
d'Eboli, to slake the fire of his lust lit by the torch of cruelty.
And he never laughed.
And Madame d'Eboli received him for fear and not for love.
XLII
The air was warm: from the quiet sea there came not a breath
of wind. Scarce did the trees by the canal of Damme shiver, the
grasshoppers dwelt in the meadows, while in the fields men from the
churches and the abbeys came to fetch the thirteenth part of the
harvest for the curés and the abbots. Out of the sky, blue, ardent,
deep, the sun poured down warmth and Nature slept under his rays
like a fair girl naked and swooning under her lover's caresses. The
carps were cutting capers above the surface of the canal to seize the
flies that buzzed like a kettle; while the swallows, with their long
bodies and great wings, disputed the prey with them. From the earth
rose a warm vapour, wavering and shimmering in the light. The beadle
of Damme announced from the top of the tower, by means of a cracked
bell sounding like a pot, that it was noon and time for the country
folk working at the haymaking to go to dinner. Women cried long and
loud, holding their closed hands funnel-wise, calling in their men,
brothers or husbands, by name: Hans, Pieter, Joos; and one might see
their red hoods above the hedges.
Far off, in the eyes of Lamme and Ulenspiegel, rose lofty, square,
and massive the tower of Notre Dame, and Lamme said:
"There, my son, are thy griefs and thy love."
But Ulenspiegel made no answer.
"Soon," said Lamme, "shall I see my ancient home and perchance
my wife."
But Ulenspiegel made no answer.
"Man of wood," said Lamme, "heart of stone, nothing then can affect
you, neither the nearness of the places in which you spent your
boyhood, nor the dear shades of poor Claes and poor Soetkin, the two
martyrs. What! you are neither sad nor glad; what then hath dried up
your heart in this way? Look at me, anxious, uneasy, bounding in my
belly; look at me...."
Lamme looked at Ulenspiegel and saw him with head livid, pale and
hanging, his lips trembling, and weeping without saying a word.
And he held his tongue.
They marched thus in silence as far as Damme, and came into it
by the street of the Heron, and saw no one in it, because of the
heat. The dogs, with their tongues hanging out, lying on their sides,
were gaping before the thresholds of the doors. Lamme and Ulenspiegel
passed directly in front of the Townhall, before which Claes had been
burned; the lips of Ulenspiegel trembled more, and his tears dried
up. Finding himself over against the house of Claes, occupied by a
coalman, he said to him as he went within:
"Dost thou know me? I am fain to rest here."
The master coalman said:
"I know thee; thou art the son of the victim. Go wherever thou wouldst
in this house."
Ulenspiegel went into the kitchen, then into the bedchamber of Claes
and Soetkin, and there he wept.
When he had come down thence, the master coalman said to him:
"Here are bread, cheese, and beer. If thou art hungry, eat; if thou
art thirsty, drink."
Ulenspiegel signed with his hand that he was neither hungry nor
thirsty.
He walked thus with Lamme, who stayed astraddle on his ass, while
Ulenspiegel held his by the halter.
They arrived at Katheline's cottage, tied up their asses, and went
in. It was meal time. There were on the table haricots in their pods
mixed with great white beans. Katheline was eating; Nele was standing
and ready to pour into Katheline's plate a vinegar sauce she had just
taken from the fire.
When Ulenspiegel came in, she was so startled that she put the pot and
all the sauce in Katheline's plate, who, nodding her head, began to
hunt for the beans around the saucepot with her spoon, and striking
herself on the forehead, repeated like a madwoman:
"Take away the fire! My head is burning!"
The smell of the vinegar made Lamme hungry.
Ulenspiegel remained standing, looking at Nele, smiling with love
through his great sadness.
And Nele, without a word, threw her arms about his neck. She, too,
seemed bereft of her wits; she wept, laughed; and red with great and
sweet joy, she said only: "Thyl! Thyl!" Ulenspiegel, happy, gazed
at her; then she left him, went and stationed herself farther off,
contemplated him with joy and from there once again sprang upon him,
throwing her arms about his neck; and so several times over. He
held her, very happy, unable to sever from her, until she fell upon
a chair, wearied out and as though out of her senses; and she said
without any shame:
"Thyl! Thyl! my beloved, and so there you are back again!"
Lamme was standing at the door; when Nele was calmed, she said,
pointing to him:
"Where have I seen this big man?"
"This is my friend," said Ulenspiegel. "He is seeking for his wife
in my company."
"I know thee," said Nele, speaking to Lamme; "thou didst use to
dwell in the street of the Heron. Thou art seeking thy wife; I saw
her at Bruges, living in all piety and devoutness. Having asked
her why she had so cruelly abandoned her husband, she answered me:
'Such was the holy will of God and the order of the holy Penance,
but I cannot live with him henceforth.'"
Lamme was sad at this word, and looked at the beans in vinegar. And the
larks, singing, sprang aloft in the sky, and Nature in ecstasy allowed
herself to be caressed by the sun. And Katheline with her spoon picked
out all round the pot the white beans, the green pods, and the sauce.
XLIII
At this time a girl of fifteen went from Heyst to Knokke, alone,
in broad daylight, through the dunes. No one had any fears for her,
for it was well known that weer-wolves and evil spirits of the damned
bite only by night. She was carrying in a pouch forty-eight sols in
silver, of the value of four florins carolus, which her mother Toria
Pieterson, who lived at Heyst, owed, out of the proceeds of a sale,
to her uncle, Jan Rapen, who lived at Knokke. The girl, by name Betkin,
having donned all her best finery, had gone off gaily.
That night her mother was uneasy not to see her come home; still,
thinking she had slept at her uncle's house, she reassured herself.
The next day certain fishermen, coming back from sea with a boat full
of fish, hauled their boat up on the beach and unloaded their fish into
carts, to sell it by auction, cart by cart, in Heyst. They climbed
up the road, strewn with broken shells, and found among the dunes a
young girl stripped quite naked, even of her chemise, and blood around
her. Coming near, they saw in her poor broken neck the marks of long,
sharp teeth. Lying on her back, her eyes were open, staring at the sky,
and her mouth was open, too, as if to cry out on death!
Covering the girl's body with an opperst-kleed, they brought it to
Heyst, to the Townhall. Thither speedily assembled the aldermen and
the barber-surgeon, who declared that those long teeth were never
wolf's teeth as they were made by Nature, but belonged to some wicked
and evil and infernal weer-wolf, and that it behoved all men to pray
to God to deliver the land of Flanders.
And in all the country and especially at Damme, Heyst, and Knokke,
were ordained prayers and orisons.
And the people, groaning, remained in the churches.
In the church of Heyst, where the corpse of the young girl was laid
out and exposed, men and women wept, seeing her neck all bloody and
torn. And the mother said in the very church:
"I will go to the weer-wolf and kill him with my teeth."
And the women, weeping, egged her on to do this. And some said:
"Thou wilt never come back."
And she went, with her husband and her two brothers well armed, to
hunt for the wolf by beach, dune, and valley, but never found him. And
her husband was obliged to take her home, for she had caught fever
by reason of the night cold; and they watched beside her, mending
their nets for the next fishing day.
The bailiff of Damme, bethinking himself that the weer-wolf is a beast
that lives on blood and does not strip the dead, said that this one
was doubtless followed by robbers wandering about the dunes seeking
their evil gain. Wherefore he summoned by the sound of the church
bell all and sundry, directing them to fall well armed and furnished
with cudgels upon all beggars and tramping ruffians, to apprehend
their persons and search them to see if they might not have in their
satchels gold carolus or any portion of the victim's raiment. And after
this the able-bodied beggars and tramps should be taken to the king's
galleys. And the aged and infirm should be allowed to go their ways.
But they found nothing.
Ulenspiegel went to the bailiff's and said to him:
"I mean to slay the weer-wolf."
"What gives thee this confidence?" asked the bailiff.
"The ashes beat upon my heart," answered Ulenspiegel. "Grant me
permission to work in the forge of the commune."
"Thou mayst do so," said the bailiff.
Ulenspiegel, without saying a word of his project to any man or woman
in Damme, went off to the forge and there in secret he fashioned a
fine and large-sized engine to trap wild beasts.
The next day, being Saturday, a day beloved of the weer-wolf,
Ulenspiegel, carrying a letter from the bailiff for the curé of Heyst,
and the engine under his cloak, armed also with a good crossbow and
a well-sharpened cutlass, departed, saying to the folk in Damme:
"I am going to shoot sea-mews and I will make pillows for the bailiff's
wife with their down."
Going towards Heyst, he came upon the beach, heard the boisterous sea
curling and breaking in big waves, roaring like thunder, and the wind
came from England whistling in the rigging of shipwrecked boats. A
fisherman said to him:
"This is ruin to us, this ill wind. Last night the sea was still,
but after sunrise it got up suddenly into fury. We shall not be able
to go a-fishing."
Ulenspiegel was glad, assured thus of having help during the night
if there should be need.
At Heyst he went to the curé, and gave him the letter from the
bailiff. The curé said to him:
"Thou art bold: yet know that no man passes alone at night, by the
dunes, on Saturday without being bitten and left dead on the sand. The
workmen on the dykes and others go there only in bands. Night is
falling. Dost thou hear the weer-wolf howling in his valley? Will he
come again as he did this last night, to cry terribly in the graveyard
the whole night long? God be with thee, my son, but go not thither."
And the curé crossed himself.
"The ashes beat upon my heart," answered Ulenspiegel.
The curé said:
"Since thou hast so stout a mind, I will help thee."
"Master curé," said Ulenspiegel, "you would do a great boon to me
and to the poor desolated country by going to the house of Toria, the
mother of the slain girl, and to her two brothers likewise to tell them
that the wolf is close at hand, and that I mean to await and kill him."
The curé said:
"If thou dost not yet know on what path thou shouldst take up thy
stand, stay in that one that leads to the graveyard. It is between
two hedges of broom. Two men could not walk in it side by side."
"I will take my stand there," said Ulenspiegel. "And do you, valiant
master curé, co-worker of deliverance, order and enjoin the girl's
mother, with her husband and her brothers, to be in the church, all
armed, before the curfew. If they hear me whistling like the sea-mew,
it will mean that I have seen the weer-wolf. They must then sound
wacharm on the bell and come to my rescue. And if there are any other
brave men?..."
"There are none, my son," replied the curé. "The fishermen fear the
weer-wolf more than the plague and death. But go not thither."
Ulenspiegel replied:
"The ashes beat upon my heart."
The curé said then:
"I shall do as thou wishest; be thou blessed. Art thou hungry or
thirsty?"
"Both," replied Ulenspiegel.
The curé gave him beer, bread, and cheese.
Ulenspiegel drank, ate, and went away.
Going along and raising his eyes, he saw his father Claes in glory,
by the side of God, in the sky where the clear moon was shining,
and looked at the sea and the clouds and he heard the tempestuous
wind blowing out of England.
"Alas!" said he, "black clouds that pass so swift, be ye like Vengeance
upon the heels of Murder. Roaring sea, sky that dost make thee black as
the mouth of hell, waves with the fire foam running along the sombre
water, shaking impatient, wrathful, ye animals innumerable of fire,
oxen, sheep, horses, serpents that wallow upon the sea or rise up
into the air, belching out a flaming rain, O sea all black, sky black
with mourning, come with me to fight against the weer-wolf, the foul
murderer of little girls. And thou, wind that wailest plaintively in
the bents on the dunes and in the cordage of the ships, thou art the
voice of the victims crying out for vengeance to God; may He be my
helper in this enterprise."
And he went down into the valley, tottering on his two natural
posts as if he had had the drunkard's wine-lees in his head and a
cabbage-indigestion on his stomach.
And he sang hiccuping, zigzagging, yawning, spitting, and stopping,
playing at a pretence of vomiting, but in reality opening his eyes
wide to study closely everything about him, when suddenly he heard
a shrill howling; he stopped short, vomiting like a dog, and saw in
the light of the strong shining moon the long shape of a wolf walking
towards the cemetery.
Tottering again he entered on the path marked out among the
broom. There, feigning to fall, he set the engine on the side whence
the wolf was coming, made ready his crossbow, and moved away ten
paces, standing in a drunken attitude, continually pretending to
stagger about, to hiccup and vomit, but in verity stringing up his
wits like a bow and keeping eyes and ears wide open.
And he saw nothing, nothing but the black clouds running like mad
things over the sky and a large thick and short shape coming towards
him; and he heard nothing but the wind wailing plaintively, the sea
roaring like thunder, and the shell-strewn road crackling under a
heavy, stumbling tread.
Feigning to want to sit down, he fell on the road like a drunkard,
heavily. And he spat.
Then he heard as it were iron clicking two paces from his ear, then
the noise of his engine shutting up and a man's cry.
"The weer-wolf," he said, "has his front paws taken in the trap. He
gets up howling, shaking the engine, trying to run. But he will
never escape."
And he sped a crossbow dart into his legs.
"And now he falls, wounded," said he.
And he whistled like a sea-mew.
Suddenly the church bell rang out the wacharm, a shrill lad's voice
cried through the village:
"Awake, ye sleeping folk, the weer-wolf is caught."
"Praise be to God!" said Ulenspiegel.
Toria, Betkin's mother, Lansaem her husband, Josse and Michiel her
brothers, came the first with their lanterns.
"He is taken?" said they.
"See him on the roadway," replied Ulenspiegel.
"Praise be to God!" said they.
And they made the sign of the cross.
"Who is that ringing?" asked Ulenspiegel.
Lansaem replied:
"My eldest boy; the youngest is running through the village knocking
at the doors and crying that the wolf is taken. Praise be to thee!"
"The ashes beat upon my heart," replied Ulenspiegel.
Suddenly the weer-wolf spake and said:
"Have pity upon me, pity, Ulenspiegel."
"The wolf talks," said they, crossing themselves. "He is a devil and
he knows Ulenspiegel's name already."
"Have pity, pity," said the voice, "bid the bell be quiet; it is
ringing for the dead; pity, I am no wolf. My wrists are pierced by
the engine; I am old and I bleed; pity! What is this shrill boy's
voice awaking the village? Pity!"
"I heard thy voice of old," said Ulenspiegel, vehemently. "Thou art
the fishmonger, the murderer of Claes, the vampire of the poor little
young girls. Men and women, have no fear. 'Tis the demon, he through
whom Soetkin died for grief and pain."
And holding him by the neck beneath the chin with one hand, with the
other he drew his cutlass.
But Toria, Betkin's mother, stayed him in this movement.
"Take him alive," she cried.
And she plucked out his white hairs by handfuls, and tore his face
with her nails.
And she howled with grief and fury.
The weer-wolf, his hands fast in the engine and stumbling about the
roadway, through his keen sufferings:
"Pity," said he, "pity! take this woman away. I will give two
carolus. Break those bells! Where are those children that are calling?"
"Keep him alive!" cried Toria, "keep him alive, let him pay! The
bells for the dead, the death bells for thee, murderer. By slow fire,
by red-hot pincers. Keep him alive! let him pay!"
Meanwhile, Toria had picked up on the road a waffle iron with long
arms. Looking closely at it in the light of the torches, she saw
it deeply engraved between the two iron plates with lozenges in the
Brabant fashion, but armed besides, like an iron mouth, with long sharp
teeth. And when she opened it, it was like the mouth of a greyhound.
Then Toria, holding the waffle iron, opening it and shutting it and
making the iron ring, seemed as though she had lost her wits for male
fury, and gnashing her teeth and with hoarse rattle breath like a
woman dying, bit the prisoner with this engine in the arms, the legs,
everywhere, seeking most of all his neck, and with every bite saying:
"Thus he did to Betkin with the iron teeth. He pays. Dost thou bleed,
murderer? God is just. The bells for the dead! Betkin is calling me
to revenge. Dost thou feel the teeth? 'Tis the mouth of God."
And she bit him without ceasing and without pity, striking him with
the waffle iron when she could not bite him with it. And because of
her great thirst for revenge she did not kill him.
"Show compassion," cried the prisoner. "Ulenspiegel, strike me with
thy knife, I shall die quicker. Take this woman away. Break the bells
for the dead; kill those calling children."
And Toria still kept biting him, until an old man, in pity, took the
waffle iron out of her hands.
But Toria then spat on the weer-wolf's face and tore out his hairs,
crying:
"Thou shalt pay, by slow fire, by burning pincers, thy eyes to
my nails!"
In the meantime were come all the fishermen, rustics, and women of
Heyst, at the report that the weer-wolf was a man and not a devil. Some
carried lanterns and flaming torches. And all were crying out:
"Robber and murderer, where dost thou hide the gold stolen from the
poor victims? Let him give all back."
"I have none: have pity," said the fishmonger.
And the women threw stones and sand upon him.
"He pays, he pays!" cried Toria.
"Pity," he groaned, "I am all wet with my own blood running. Pity!"
"Thy blood?" said Toria. "There will be enough left for thee to pay
with. Cover his wounds with ointment. He will pay by the slow fire,
his hand cut off, with red-hot pincers. He shall pay, he shall pay!"
And she would have struck him; then out of her senses she fell upon
the sand as though dead, and she was left there till she came back
to herself.
Meanwhile, Ulenspiegel, taking the prisoner's hands out of the engine,
saw that there were three fingers lacking on the right hand.
And he gave orders to bind him straitly and to put him in a fisherman's
hamper. Men, women, and children then departed, taking turns to carry
the hamper, wending their way towards Damme to seek justice there. And
they carried torches and lanterns.
And the fishmonger kept repeating without ceasing:
"Break the bells; kill the children that are calling."
And Toria said:
"Let him pay, by slow fire, by red-hot pincers, let him pay!"
Then both held their peace. And Ulenspiegel heard no more, save the
laboured breathing of Toria, the heavy steps of the men on the sand,
and the sea roaring like thunder.
And sad in his heart, he looked at the clouds running like mad
things in the sky, the sea where the sheep of fire were to be seen,
and in the light of the torches and the lanterns the livid face of
the fishmonger staring on him with cruel eyes.
And the ashes beat upon his heart.
And they marched for four hours till they came to where was the
populace assembled in one mass, knowing the news already. All wishing
to see the fishmonger, they followed the band of fishermen shouting,
singing, dancing, and saying:
"The weer-wolf is taken! he is taken, the murderer! Blessed be
Ulenspiegel! Long life to our brother Ulenspiegel! Lange leven onsen
broeder Ulenspiegel."
And it was like a revolt of the people.
When they passed before the bailiff's house, he came out at the noise
and said to Ulenspiegel:
"Thou art the victor; praise be to thee!"
"The ashes of Claes were beating upon my heart," replied Ulenspiegel.
The bailiff then said:
"Thou shalt have the half of the murderer's estate."
"Give it to the victims," replied Ulenspiegel.
Lamme and Nele came; Nele, laughing and weeping for gladness, kissed
her friend Ulenspiegel; Lamme, jumping heavily, smote him on the
stomach, saying:
"This is a brave, a trusty, a faithful one; 'tis my beloved companion;
ye have none such, ye others, ye folk of the flat country."
But the fishermen laughed, mocking at him.
XLIV
The bell called Borgstrom rang next day to summon the bailiff,
aldermen, and clerks of the court to the Vierschare on the four turf
benches, under the tree of justice, which was a noble lime tree. All
around were the common folk. Being interrogated the fishmonger would
confess nothing, even when he was shown the three fingers severed by
the soldier, and missing from his right hand. He kept saying:
"I am poor and old; have compassion."
But the common folk hooted him, saying:
"Thou art an old wolf, a child killer; do not have pity on him,
judges."
The women said:
"Look not on us with thy cold eyes; thou art a man and not a devil;
we do not fear thee. Cruel beast, more coward than a cat devouring
small birds in the nest, thou didst kill poor little girls asking to
live their pretty little lives in all honesty."
"Let him pay by slow fire, by red-hot pincers," cried Toria.
And in spite of the sergeants of the commune, the mothers egged on the
lads to throw stones at the fishmonger. And the boys did so eagerly,
hooting him every time he looked at them and crying incessantly:
"Blood-zuyger, blood-sucker! Sla dood, kill, kill!"
And Toria cried without ceasing:
"Let him pay by slow fire; by red-hot pincers let him pay!"
And the populace growled.
"See," said the women among each other, "how cold he is under the
sun that shines in the sky, warming his white hairs and his face torn
by Toria."
"And he shivers with pain."
"'Tis the justice of God."
"And he stands there with a lamentable air."
"See his murderer's hands tied before him and bleeding from the wounds
of the trap."
"Let him pay, let him pay!" cried Toria.
He said, bemoaning himself:
"I am poor, let me go."
And everyone, nay, even the judges, mocked as they listened to him. He
wept feigningly, meaning to touch their hearts. And the women laughed.
The evidence being sufficient to warrant torture, he was condemned
to be put on the bench until he had confessed how he killed, whence
he came, where were the spoils of the victims, and the place where
he had his gold hidden.
Being in the torture chamber, and shod with foot-gear of new leather
too small for him, and the bailiff asking him how Satan had come to
suggest to him such black designs and crimes so abominable, he replied:
"Satan is myself, my natural being. Already when a small boy, but
ugly to look on, unfit for all bodily exercise, I was held a ninny
by everybody and often beaten. Lad nor lass had pity never. In my
adolescence no women would have me, not even though I paid. Then
I put on cold hatred against every being born of a woman. That was
why I denounced Claes, beloved of all. And I loved but Money only,
that was my darling, white or golden; to have Claes killed I found
both profit and pleasure. After I must live like a wolf more than
ever, and I dreamed of biting. Passing through Brabant, I saw there
the waffle irons of that country and thought that one of them would
be a good iron mouth for me. Why do not I have you by the neck,
you evil tigers, that delight in an old man's torment! I would bite
you with greater joy than the soldier and the little girl. For her,
when I saw her so sweet, sleeping on the sand in the sun, holding
the little bag of money in her hands, I felt love and pity; feeling
myself too old and not being able to take her, I bit her...."
The bailiff asking him where he lived, the fishmonger replied:
"At Ramskapelle, whence I go to Blanckenberghe, to Heyst, even as far
as Knokke. On Sundays and feast days, I make waffles, after the fashion
of those of Brabant, in all the villages with yonder machine. It is
always very clean and well oiled. And this novelty of foreign parts was
well received. If you should please to know more, and how it was that
no one could recognize me, I will tell you that by day I reddened my
face with rouge and painted my hair red. As for the wolf skin you are
pointing to with your cruel finger, questioning me, I will tell you,
defying you, that it comes from two wolves killed by me in the woods
of Raveschoot and of Maldeghen. I had but to sew the skins together to
cover myself with them. I hid it in a box in the dunes of Heyst; there
are also the clothes stolen by me to sell later at a fit opportunity."
"Take him from before the fire," said the bailiff. The tormentor
obeyed.
"Where is thy gold?" said the bailiff again.
"The king shall never know," replied the fishmonger.
"Burn him with the candles nearer him," said the bailiff. "Put him
closer to the fire."
The tormentor obeyed and the fishmonger cried:
"I will say nothing. I have spoken too much; ye will burn me. I am no
sorcerer; why do ye set me at the fire again? My feet are bleeding from
the burns. I will say nothing. Why nearer now? They bleed, I tell you,
they bleed; these slippers are boots of red-hot iron. My gold? Ah,
well, my only friend in this world, it is ... take me away from the
fire; it is in my cave at Ramskapelle, in a box ... leave it to me;
grace and mercy, master judges; cursed tormentor, take the candles
away.... He burns me more ... it is in a box with a false bottom
wrapped in wool, so as to avoid a noise if any one shakes the box;
now I have told all; take me away."
When he was taken away from before the fire, he smiled maliciously.
The bailiff asked him why.
"'Tis for comfort at being eased," replied he.
The bailiff said to him:
"Did no one ever ask thee to let him see thy toothed waffle iron?"
The fishmonger replied:
"It was seen like any other, save that it is pierced with holes in
which I was wont to screw the iron teeth at dawn I took them out;
the peasants prefer my waffles to those of the other sellers; and
they call them 'Waefels met brabandsche knoopen', 'waffles with
brabant buttons', because when the teeth are away, the empty holes
make little half spheres like buttons."
But the bailiff:
"When didst thou bite the poor victims?"
"By day and by night. By day I used to wander about the dunes and the
highways, carrying my waffle iron, keeping in hiding, and especially
on Saturday, the day of the great Bruges market. If I saw some rustic
pass, wandering melancholy, I left him alone, judging that his trouble
was a flux of the purse; but I used to walk along by him whom I saw
journeying merrily; when he did not look for it I would bite him in
the neck and take his satchel. And not only in the dunes, but on all
the byways and highways of the flat country."
The bailiff then said:
"Repent and pray unto God."
"It is the Lord God that willed I should be what I am. I did all
without my will, egged on by Nature's will. Wicked tigers, ye will
punish me unjustly. But do not burn me ... I did all without my
will; have pity, I am poor and old; I shall die of my wounds; do not
burn me."
He was then taken to the Vierschare, under the lime tree, there to
hear his sentence in the presence of all the people assembled.
And he was condemned, as a horrible murderer, robber, and blasphemer,
to have his tongue pierced with a red-hot iron, his right hand cut
off, and to be burned alive in a slow fire, until death ensued,
before the doors of the Townhall.
And Toria cried:
"It is just; he pays!"
And the people cried:
"Lang leven de Heeren van de Wet," long life to the men of the law.
He was taken back into prison, where he was given meat and wine. And
he was merry, saying that he had never till then eaten or drunk,
either, but that the king, inheriting his goods, could well pay for
his last meal for him.
And he laughed sourly.
The next day, at the first of dawn, while they were taking him to
execution, he saw Ulenspiegel standing beside the stake, and he cried
out, pointing to him with his finger:
"That one there, murderer of an old man, ought to die as well;
he flung me into the canal of Damme, ten years ago, because I had
denounced his father, wherein I had served His Catholic Majesty as
a faithful subject."
The bells of Notre Dame rang for the dead.
"For thee even as for me are those bells tolling," said he to
Ulenspiegel; "thou shalt be hanged, for thou hast killed."
"The fishmonger lies," cried all the common folk; "he lies, the
murdering ruffian."
And Toria, like a madwoman, cried out, flinging a stone at him that
cut his forehead:
"If he had drowned thee, thou wouldst not have lived to bite my poor
girl, like a bloodsucking vampire."
As Ulenspiegel uttered no word, Lamme said:
"Did any see him throw the fishmonger in the water?"
Ulenspiegel made no answer.
"No, no," shouted the people; "he lied, the murderer!"
"No, I lied not," cried the fishmonger, "he threw me in, while
I implored him to forgive me, and by the same token, I got out by
the help of a skiff tied up alongside the high bank. Wet through and
shivering, I could scarcely get back to my poor home. I had the fever
then, none looked after me, and I deemed I must die."
"Thou liest," said Lamme; "no man saw it."
"No, no man saw it," cried Toria. "To the fire with the
murderer. Before he dies he wants an innocent victim; let him pay! He
has lied. If thou didst do it, confess not, Ulenspiegel. There are
no witnesses. Let him pay by slow fire, by red-hot pincers."
"Didst thou commit the murder?" the bailiff asked Ulenspiegel.
Ulenspiegel replied:
"I flung the murderer, the denouncer of Claes, into the water. My
father's ashes were beating on my heart."
"He confesseth," said the fishmonger; "he shall die even as I. Where
is the gallows, that I may see it? Where is the executioner with
the sword of justice? The death bells are ringing for thee, rascal,
murderer of an old man."
Ulenspiegel said:
"I threw thee into the water to kill thee; the ashes were beating on
my heart."
And among the people, the women said:
"Why confess it, Ulenspiegel? No man saw it, now thou shalt die."
And the prisoner laughed, leaping for bitter joy, waving his arms
that were tied and covered with blood-stained wrappings.
"He will die," he said, "he will pass from earth into hell, the rope
about his neck, as a ragamuffin, a robber, a rascal: he will die,
God is just."
"He shall not die," said the bailiff. "After ten years, murder may
not be punished in the soil of Flanders. Ulenspiegel committed a bad
action, but through filial love: Ulenspiegel will not be prosecuted
for this deed."
"Long live the law!" cried the people. "Lang leven de Wet."
The bells of Notre Dame rang for the dead. And the prisoner gnashed
his teeth, drooped his head, and wept his first tear.
And he had his hand cut off, and his tongue pierced with a hot iron,
and he was burned alive by a slow fire before the doorway of the
Townhall.
At the point of death he yelled:
"The king shall not have my gold; I lied.... Evil tigers, I will come
back to bite you."
And Toria cried:
"He pays, he pays! They writhe and twist, the arms and the legs
that ran to murder: it smokes, the murderer's body; his white hair,
hyæna's hair, burns on his pale face. He pays! He pays!"
And the fishmonger died, howling like a wolf.
And the bells of Notre Dame tolled for the dead.
And Lamme and Ulenspiegel mounted upon their asses again.
And Nele, sad and grieving, dwelt with Katheline, who said, without
ceasing:
"Take away the fire! my head is burning; come back, Hanske, my
darling."