killing them for hire, opened the belly and sides of one of them after
death, like a disembowelled pig, to sell the fat to an apothecary. Word
of a soldier is no longer word of gold."
De Lumey, trampling among the broken crockery:
"Thou bravest me," said he, "four-foot rascal, but thou, too, shalt
be hanged, not in a barn, but ignominiously on the open square,
in the eyes of everybody."
"Shame upon you," said Ulenspiegel, "shame upon us: word of a soldier
no longer word of gold."
"Wilt thou hold thy tongue, mule!" said Messire de Lumey.
"Shame upon thee," said Ulenspiegel; "word of a soldier is no more
word of gold. Punish rather the rascally vendors of human fat."
Then Messire de Lumey, rushing on him, raised his hand to strike him.
"Strike," said Ulenspiegel; "I am thy prisoner, but I have no fear
of thee; word of a soldier is no more word of gold."
Messire de Lumey then drew his sword and would certainly have
slain Ulenspiegel if Messire de Tres-Long, holding back his arm,
had not said:
"Have pity! he is brave and valiant; he hath committed no crime!"
De Lumey, then controlling himself:
"Let him ask pardon," said he.
But Ulenspiegel, remaining upright:
"I will not," said he.
"Let him say at least that I was not wrong," cried de Lumey, becoming
furious.
Ulenspiegel made answer:
"I do not lick the boots of lords: word of a soldier is no more word
of gold."
"Let them erect the gallows," said de Lumey, "and let them bring him
to it; that will be a hempen word for him."
"Aye," said Ulenspiegel, "and I shall cry out in the presence of all
the people: 'Word of a soldier is no more word of gold!'"
The gallows was set up on the great marketplace. The news ran swiftly
about the town that they were about to hang Ulenspiegel, the valiant
Beggar. And the people were moved with pity and compassion. And they
ran together in a crowd to the great market; Messire de Lumey came
thither also on horseback, wishing himself to give the signal for
the execution.
He looked with no mildness upon Ulenspiegel on the ladder, arrayed
for death, in his shirt, his arms tied to his body, his hands folded,
the rope about his neck, and the executioner ready to do his work.
Tres-Long said to him:
"Monseigneur, pardon him; he is no traitor, and no one ever saw a
man hanged because he was sincere and merciful."
And the men and women of the people, hearing Tres-Long speak, cried:
"Pity, Monseigneur, grace and pity for Ulenspiegel."
"That mule-headed fellow braved me," said de Lumey: "let him repent
and say I did right."
"Wilt thou repent and say that he did right?" said Tres-Long to
Ulenspiegel.
"Word of a soldier is no more word of gold," replied Ulenspiegel.
"Put on the rope," said de Lumey.
The executioner was about to obey; a young girl, all clad in white
and garlanded with flowers, ran up the stairs of the scaffold, leaped
on Ulenspiegel's neck, and said:
"This man is mine; I take him for my husband."
And the people applauded and the women cried out:
"Long live, long live the girl who is Ulenspiegel's saviour!"
"What is this?" asked Messire de Lumey.
Tres-Long answered:
"After the use and custom of the town, it is by right and law that
a young maiden and unmarried woman can save a man from the rope by
taking him for husband at the foot of the gallows."
"God is with him," said de Lumey; "untie him."
Then riding up to the scaffold, he saw the girl prevented from cutting
Ulenspiegel's ropes and the executioner seeking to oppose her efforts
and saying:
"If you cut them, who will pay for them?"
But the girl paid no heed to him.
Seeing her so light, so loving, and so subtle, he was touched.
"Who art thou?" said he.
"I am Nele, his betrothed," said she, "and I come from Flanders to
seek him."
"Thou didst well," said de Lumey in a naughty voice.
And he went away.
Tres-Long then coming up:
"Little Fleming," said he, "once thou art married wilt thou be a
soldier still in our ships?"
"Aye, Messire," answered Ulenspiegel.
"And thou, girl, what wilt thou do without thy man?" Nele answered:
"If you are willing, Messire, I will be fifer in his ship."
"I am willing," said Tres-Long.
And he gave her two florins for the wedding feast.
And Lamme, weeping and laughing with pleasure, said:
"Here are three florins more: we shall eat it all; I am paying. Let
us go to the Golden Comb. He is not dead, my friend. Long live the
Beggar!"
And the people applauded, and they went off to the Golden Comb, where
a great feast was ordered: and Lamme threw deniers to the people out
of the windows.
And Ulenspiegel said to Nele:
"Darling beloved, there thou art then beside me! Hurrah! She is here,
flesh, heart, and soul, my sweet friend. Oh! the sweet eyes and lovely
red lips whence there came never aught but kind words! She saved
my life, the dear beloved! Thou shalt play the fife of deliverance
on our ships. Dost thou remember ... but no.... Ours is the present
hour full of gladness, and mine thy face sweet as June flowers. I am
in paradise. But," said he, "thou art weeping...."
"They have killed her," said she.
And she told him the tale of mourning.
And, looking on one another, they wept with love and grief.
And at the feast they drank and ate, and Lamme looked on them woefully,
saying:
"Alas! my wife, where art thou?"
And the priest came and married Nele and Ulenspiegel.
And the morning sun found them one beside the other in their bridal
bed.
And Nele lay with her head on Ulenspiegel's shoulder. And when she
awoke in the sunshine, he said:
"Fresh face and sweet heart, we shall be the avengers of Flanders."
She, kissing him on the mouth:
"Wild head and stout arms," said she, "God will bless the fife and
the sword."
"I will make thee a soldier's garb."
"At once?" said she.
"At once," replied Ulenspiegel; "but who said that strawberries are
good in the morning? Thy mouth is far better."
IX
Ulenspiegel, Lamme, and Nele had, like their friends and comrades,
taken from the convents the wealth gotten from the people by the help
of processions, feigned miracles, and other Roman mummeries. This
was against the orders of the Silent, the prince of liberty, but the
money helped with the charges of the war. Lamme Goedzak, not content
with providing himself with money, looted from out the convents hams,
sausages, flasks of beer and wine, and came back from them joyously
carrying across his breast a baldric of fowls, geese, turkeys, capons,
hens and pullets, and leading behind him on a rope certain monastical
calves and pigs. And this by right of war, said he.
Rejoicing in each prize, he fetched it to the ship that there might
be revel and feast, but lamented all the same that the master cook
was so ignorant in the science of sauces and fricassees.
Now on that day the Beggars, having looked victoriously upon the cup,
said to Ulenspiegel:
"Thou hast thy nose always in the wind to smell out news of terra
firma; thou knowest all the adventures of the war: sing them to
us. And Lamme shall beat the drum the while and the pretty little
fifer shall squeal to the measure of thy song."
And Ulenspiegel said:
"One bright cool day in May, Ludwig of Nassau, thinking to enter into
Mons, finds not his footmen nor his horse. A few trusty men held a
gate open and a drawbridge down, that he might have the town. But the
citizens seized the gate and the drawbridge. Where are the soldiers
of Count Louis? The citizens are about to hoist up the bridge. Count
Louis winds his horn."
And Ulenspiegel sang:
"Where are thy footmen and thy horse?
They are in the woods, treading all down:
Dry twigs, and lily of the valley in bloom.
Master Sun makes all shine,
Their ruddy warrior faces,
The polished rumps of their horses;
Count Ludwig winds his horn:
They hear it. Softly beat the drum.
"Full trot, bridle loose!
Speed of the lightning, speed of the cloud:
Water spout of clinking iron;
They fly, the heavy horsemen!
Haste! haste! to the rescue!
The bridge rises.... Send the spur
Into the chargers' bloody flanks.
The bridge rises: The town is lost!
"They are before it. Is it too late?
Ride like the wind! Bridle loose!
Guitoy de Chaumont on his Spanish steed
Leaps on the bridge that falls again.
The town is won! Do ye hear
Along the paven streets of Mons
Speed of the lightning, speed of the cloud,
Waterspout of clinking iron!
"Hurrah for Chaumont and his Spanish steed!
Sound the clarion of joy, beat upon the drum:
'Tis the hay month, fragrant are the meadows;
The lark mounts up, singing in the sky:
Long live the bird of freedom!
Beat upon the drum of glory.
Hurrah for Chaumont and the Spanish steed.
Hey there. Drink up there.
The town is won!... Long live the Beggar!"
And the Beggars sang on the ships: "Christ look down upon thy
soldiers. Furbish our weapons, Lord. Long live the Beggar!"
And Nele, smiling, made the fife squeal amain, and Lamme beat the
drum, and aloft, towards the sky, God's temple, there were raised
golden cups and hymns of liberty. And the waves, like sirens, bright
and cool about the ships, murmured in harmony.
X
One day in the month of August, a hot and heavy day, Lamme was plunged
in melancholy. His jolly drum was dumb and sleeping, and he had thrust
the drumsticks into the mouth of his satchel. Ulenspiegel and Nele,
smiling with amorous delight, were warming themselves in the sun:
the look-out men stationed in the tops were whistling or singing,
searching over the wide ocean if they could not see some prey on
the horizon. Très-Long kept questioning them; they still replied:
"Niets," nothing.
And Lamme, pale and broken down, sighed piteously. And Nele said
to him:
"Whence cometh it, Lamme, that thou art so woebegone?"
And Ulenspiegel said to him:
"Thou art growing thin, my son."
"Aye," said Lamme, "I am woebegone and thin. My heart loses its gaiety
and my jolly face its freshness. Aye, laugh at me, ye that have found
one another again through a thousand perils. Mock you at poor Lamme,
who lives a widower, being married, while she," said he, pointing
to Nele, "must needs tear her man away from the kisses of the rope,
his last lover. She did well, God be praised; but let her not laugh
at me. Aye, thou must not laugh at poor Lamme, Nele, my dear. My
wife laughs enough for ten. Alas, ye females, ye are cruel towards
others' woes. Aye, I have a grieved heart, stricken with the sword
of desertion, and nothing will ever comfort it, if not she."
"Or some fricassee," said Ulenspiegel.
"Aye," said Lamme, "where is the meat in this miserable ship? On the
king's vessels, they have meat four times a week, if there be no fast,
and fish three times. As for the fish, God destroy me if this tow--I
mean their flesh--does anything but kindle my blood for nothing,
my poor blood that will go to water before long. They have beer,
cheese, soup, and good drink. Aye! they have everything for the
comfort of their stomachs: biscuit, rye bread, beer, butter, smoked
meat, yea, all, dried fish, cheese, mustard seed, salt, beans, peas,
barley, vinegar, oil, tallow, wood, and coal. We, we have just been
forbidden to take the cattle of any so-ever, be he citizen, abbot, or
gentleman. We eat herrings and drink small beer. Alas! I have nothing
left now: neither love of women, nor good wine, nor dobbele-bruinbier,
nor good food. Where are our joys here?"
"I will tell thee, Lamme," answered Ulenspiegel. "Eye for eye, tooth
for tooth: at Paris, on Saint Bartholomew's night, they killed ten
thousand free hearts in Paris city alone; the king himself shot at
his folk. Awake, Fleming; seize the axe without mercy: there are our
joys; smite the Spaniard and Roman enemy wherever thou shalt find
him. Let be thy eatables. They have taken the dead or living victims
to their rivers, and by full cartloads, and have flung them in the
water. Dead or alive, dost thou hear, Lamme? The Seine ran red for
nine days, and the ravens settled down in clouds upon the town. At
La Charité, at Rouen, Toulouse, Lyons, Bordeaux, Bourges, Meaux,
terrible was the massacre. Seest thou the troops of dogs satiate with
eating, lying beside the bodies? Their teeth are tired. The flight
of the ravens is heavy, so laden are their stomachs with the flesh
of the victims. Hearest thou, Lamme, the voice of their spirits
crying vengeance and pity? Awake, Fleming! Thou dost speak of thy
wife. I do not believe her unfaithful, but bereft of her wits, and
she loveth thee still, poor friend of mine: she was not among those
court ladies who on the very night of the massacre stripped the bodies
with their fine hands to see how great or how small were their carnal
members. And they laughed, these ladies great in lewdness. Rejoice, my
son, notwithstanding thy fish and thy small beer. If the after taste
of the herring is insipid, more insipid still is the smell of this
foulness. Those that slew took their meals, and with ill-washen hands
carved fat geese to offer the wings, legs, and rump to the charming
Paris damozels. They had but lately felt other meat, cold meat."
"I will complain no more, my son," said Lamme, rising up: "the herring
is ortolan; malvoisie is small beer to free hearts."
And Ulenspiegel said:
"Long Live the Beggar! Let us not weep, brothers.
In ruins and blood
"Flowers the rose of liberty.
If God is with us, who shall be against?
"When the hyæna triumphs,
Comes the lion's turn,
With one stroke of his paw he flings him, disbowelled, on the
ground.
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Long live the Beggar!"
And the Beggars on the ship sang:
"The Duke keeps the same fate for us.
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth,
Wound for wound. Long live the Beggar!"
XI
On a black night the tempest growled in the depths of the
clouds. Ulenspiegel was on the deck of the ship with Nele, and said:
"All our lights are out. We are foxes, watching by night for the
passing of the Spanish poultry, which is to say their two and twenty
assabres, rich ships with lanterns burning, that will be to them
stars of ill fortune. And we shall rush upon them."
Nele said:
"This night is a witches' night. This sky is black as the mouth of
hell; these lightnings gleam like the smile of Satan; the distant
thunderstorm is growling dully; the sea-mews pass, uttering loud cries;
the sea rolls its phosphorescent waves like silver serpents. Thyl,
my beloved, come into the world of the spirits. Take the powder
of vision."
"Shall I see the Seven, my darling?"
And they took the powder of vision.
And Nele shut Ulenspiegel's eyes, and Ulenspiegel shut Nele's eyes. And
they beheld a cruel spectacle.
Heaven, earth, sea were full of men, of women, of children, toiling,
wandering, journeying, or dreaming. The sea cradled them; the earth
carried them. And they swarmed like eels in a basket.
Seven men and women were in the middle of the firmament, seated upon
thrones, their brows girt with a brilliant star, but they were so
shadowy that Nele and Ulenspiegel could see only their stars with
any distinctness.
The sea rose up to the sky, tumbling in its foam the innumerable
multitude of ships whose masts and rigging clashed together,
interlocked, broke one another, crushed each other, following the
tempestuous moving of the waves. Then one ship appeared in the midst
of all the others. Its bottom was of flaming iron. Its keel was made of
steel shaped and sharpened like a knife. The water cried out, groaning,
when it went through. Death was upon the stern of the ship, seated,
grinning, holding his scythe in one hand and in the other a whip which
he smote upon seven personages. One was a man woebegone, thin, haughty,
silent. He held in one hand a sceptre and in the other a sword. Beside
him, mounted upon a goat, there was a ruddy girl, with bared breast,
her robe open, and a sprightly eye. She was stretched out lasciviously
beside an old Jew picking up bits of rubbish and a big bloated fellow
that fell down every time she set him on his feet, while a thin and
angry woman beat them both. The big man never avenged himself nor
did his red-faced she-companion. A monk in their midst was eating
sausages. A woman lying on the earth, was crawling like a serpent
among the others. She bit the old Jew because of his old rubbish,
the bloated man because he was too comfortable, the red woman for
the dewy brightness of her eyes, the monk for his sausage, and the
thin man because of his sceptre. And soon all of them fell a-fighting.
When they passed, the battle was horrible on the sea, in the sky,
and on the earth. It rained blood. The ships were broken with blows
of axes, arquebuses, and cannon shot. The shattered fragments flew
into the air in the midst of the powder smoke. On the earth armies
clashed together like walls of bronze. Towns, villages, harvests
burned amid cries and tears: tall spires, stone lace-work, held up
their proud silhouettes in the midst of the fire, then fell down
with a crash like oak trees laid low. Black horsemen, numerous and
close arrayed as bands of ants, sword in hand, pistol in hand, were
smiting men, women, children. Some made holes in the ice and buried
old men alive in them; others cut off women's breasts and sprinkled
pepper on the place; others hanged children in the fireplaces. Those
who were tired of killing violated some girl or some woman; drank,
played dice, and tossing over piles of gold, the fruit of pillage,
dabbled their red fingers in it.
The Seven, crowned with stars, cried: "Pity for the poor world!"
And the phantoms grinned with laughter. And their voices were as the
voices of a thousand sea-eagles crying together. And Death brandished
his scythe.
"Dost thou hear them?" said Ulenspiegel; "they are the birds of prey
of poor mankind. They live on small birds, which are the simple and
the good."
The Seven, crowned with stars, cried: "Love, justice, compassion!"
And the Seven phantoms laughed loudly. And their voices were like
the voices of a thousand sea-eagles crying all together. And Death
struck them with his whip.
And the ship passed over the sea, cutting in two boats, vessels, men,
women, children. On the sea reëchoed the plaints of the victims crying:
"Pity!"
And the red ship passed over them all, while the phantoms, laughing,
cried like sea-eagles.
And Death, laughing loud, drank the water that was full of blood.
And the ship having disappeared in the mist, the battle ceased,
and the Seven crowned with stars vanished away.
And Ulenspiegel and Nele saw nothing now save the black sky, the
surging sea, the dark clouds coming forward on the phosphorescent sea,
and close at hand, red stars.
These were the lanterns of the two and twenty assabres. The sea and
the thunder were growling dully and faintly.
And Ulenspiegel rang the bell for the wacharm softly, and cried:
"The Spaniard, the Spaniard! He is sailing for Flessingue!" And the
cry was repeated throughout the whole fleet.
And Ulenspiegel said to Nele:
"A gray hue is spreading over the sky and over the sea. The lanterns
burn now but feebly; the dawn lifts, the wind is freshening, the
waves throw their spume over the decks of the ships; a thick rain
is falling and speedily ceases; the sun rises radiant, gilding the
crest of the waves: it is thy smile, Nele, fresh as the morning,
sweet as the sun's ray."
The two and twenty assabres pass: on the ships of the Beggars the
drums are beating, the fifes are squealing: de Lumey cries: "In the
Prince's name, to the chase!" Ewout Pietersen Wort, sub-admiral,
cries: "In the name of Monseigneur d'Orange and the admiral, to the
chase!" On all the ships, the Johannah, the Swan, Anne-Mie, the Beggar,
the Compromise, the d'Egmont, the de Hoorn, on the Willem de Zwyger
(the William the Silent,) all the captains cry: "In the name of
Monseigneur d'Orange and the admiral!"
"To the chase! Long live the Beggar!" cry the soldiers and
sailors. Très-Long's houlque, on which are Lamme and Ulenspiegel,
and called Briele, followed closely by the Johannah, the Swan, and
the Beggar, take four assabres. The Beggars fling everything Spanish
into the sea, make the inhabitants of the Low Countries prisoners,
empty the ships like eggshells, and leave them to float without masts
or sails in the roadstead. Then they pursue the other eighteen. The
wind blows violently; coming from Antwerp, the sides of the swift
ships bend over in the water of the river beneath the weight of
the sails swollen like a monk's cheeks in the wind that comes from
kitchens; the assabres go swiftly; the Beggars pursue them into the
very roadstead of Meddleburg under the fire from the forts. There a
bloody battle joins: the Beggars carrying axes rush on the decks of
the ships, soon strewn with lopped-off arms and legs, that have to be
thrown into the waves after the combat ends. The forts fire on them:
they take no heed, and to the shout of "Long live the Beggar!" take
from out the assabres powder, artillery, bullets, and corn; burn
the boats when they have emptied them; and make off to Flessingue,
leaving them smoking and flaming in the roadsteads.
From there they will send squadrons to pierce the dykes of Zealand and
Holland, to help in the construction of fresh ships, and notably of
flyboats of one hundred and forty tons carrying up to twenty cannon
of cast iron.
XII
On the ships it is snowing. The air is all white as far as eye can
see, and the snow falls without ceasing, falls softly upon the black
water where it melts.
On the earth it is snowing: all white are the roadways, all white
the black silhouettes of the trees bereft of their leaves. No sound
but the distant bells of Haarlem striking the hour, and the gay chime
sending its muffled notes through the thick air.
Bells, ring not; bells, play not your sweet and simple airs: Don
Frederic draws near, the dukeling of blood. He is marching upon thee,
followed by thirty-five companies of Spaniards, thy mortal foes,
Haarlem, O thou city of liberty; twenty-two companies of Walloons,
eighteen companies of Germans, eight hundred horse, a powerful
artillery, all follow in his train. Hearest thou the clang of this
murderous iron on the wagons? Falconets, culverins, big-mouthed
mortars, all that is for thee, Haarlem. Bells, ring not; chimes,
fling not your gladsome notes into the air thickened with snow.
"Bells, we the bells, shall ring; I, the chime, I shall sing, flinging
my bold notes into the air thick with snow. Haarlem is the town of
hardy hearts, of brave women. Undaunted she sees, from her topmost
towers, the black masses of the butchers undulating like troops of
ants: Ulenspiegel, Lamme, and a hundred sea Beggars are within her
walls. Their fleet is cruising in the lake."
"Let them come!" say the inhabitants; "we are but citizens, fishermen,
sailors, and women.
"The son of the Duke of Alba wanteth, he declares, no other keys to
come into our house than his cannon. Let him open, if he can, these
weak gates; he will find men behind them. Ring out, bells; chimes,
launch your glad notes into the air thick with snow.
"We have but weak walls and old-fashioned ditches. Fourteen guns
belch out their balls of forty-six pound on the Cruys-poort. Put men
where stones are lacking. Night comes, every man toileth, it is as
though the cannon had never been there. On the Cruys-poort they have
hurled six hundred and eighty shot; on St. John's Gate six hundred
and seventy-five. These keys do not open, for there, behind, rises
a new rampart. Ring out, bells; chimes, hurl into the thick air your
merry notes.
"The cannon beat, beat, beat ever on the walls; the stones fly, the
walls crumble. Wide enough is the breech to let a company pass in
abreast. The assault! 'Kill! Kill!' they cry. They mount, they are
ten thousand; suffer them to pass the moats with their bridges, with
their ladders. Our cannon are ready. Lo, there the flag of those that
are to die. Salute them, cannon of liberty! They salute: chain shot,
balls of flaming tar flying and hissing, pierce, cut, kindle, blind
the assailing masses that fall back and flee in disorder. Fifteen
hundred dead lie in the ditch. Ring out, bells; and ye, chimes,
fling into the thickened air your merry notes.
"Come back to the assault! They dare not. They fall to shooting
and sapping. We, too, we know the arts of the mine. Beneath them,
beneath them light the train; run, we shall see a goodly sight. Four
hundred Spaniards blown into the air. This is not the road of eternal
fires. Oh! the goodly dance to the silver sound of our bells, to the
merry music of our chimes!
"They never suspect that the prince is watching over us; that every day
there come to us by ways well guarded sledges of corn and gunpowder;
the corn for us, the powder for them. Where are their six hundred
Germans that we slew and drowned in the Haarlem Wood? Where are the
eleven ensigns we have taken from them, the six pieces of artillery,
and the fifty oxen? We had one girdle of walls; now we have two. Even
the women fight, and Kennan leads their valiant band. Come, butchers,
march down our streets; the children will hamstring you with their
little knives. Ring out, bells; and ye, chimes, fling into the
thickened air your merry notes!
"But fortune is not with us. The Beggars' fleet is beaten in the
lake. They are beaten, the troops Orange had sent to our help. It
freezes, it freezes bitterly. No more help now. Then for five months,
a thousand against ten thousand, we hold out. Now we must needs
come to terms with the butchers. Will he listen to any terms, this
bloody dukeling who hath sworn our destruction? Let us send out all
our soldiers with their arms: they will pierce the enemy bands. But
the women are at the gates, fearing lest they be left to guard the
town alone. Bells, ring out no more; chimes, fling no more into the
air your merry notes.
"Here is June; the hay is fragrant, the corn grows golden in the sun,
the birds are singing: we have been hungry for five months; the town
is in mourning; we shall all go forth from Haarlem, the musketeers at
the head to open up the way, the women, the children, the magistrates
behind, guarded by the infantry that watches at the breech. A letter,
a letter from the dukeling of blood! Is it death he announces? Nay,
it is life to all that are in the town. O unlooked-for clemency; O
lie, mayhap! Wilt thou still sing, O merry chime? They are entering
the town."
Ulenspiegel, Lamme, and Nele had donned the costume of the German
soldiers shut up with them, to the number of six hundred, in the
cloister of the Augustines.
"We shall die to-day," said Ulenspiegel in a low tone to Lamme.
And he clasped to his breast the dainty form of Nele all shivering
with fear.
"Alas! my wife, I shall never see her more," said Lamme. "But perhaps
our costume as German soldiers will save our lives?"
Ulenspiegel nodded his head to show he believed in no hope of grace.
"I hear no noise of pillage," said Lamme.
Ulenspiegel replied:
"By the terms, the townsfolk redeemed their lives, and the town from
pillage, for the sum of two hundred and forty thousand florins. They
must pay one hundred thousand florins down in twelve days, and the rest
three months after. The women have been ordered to retire into the
churches. They are about to begin the massacre, beyond a doubt. Dost
thou hear them nailing up the scaffolds and erecting the gallows?"
"Ah! we are to die!" said Nele; "I am hungry."
"Aye," said Lamme low to Ulenspiegel, "the dukeling of blood has said
that being famished we shall be more docile when we are brought out
to die."
"I am so hungry!" said Nele.
That night soldiers came and distributed bread enough for six men.
"Three hundred Walloon soldiers have been hanged in the marketplace,"
said they. "It will soon be your turn. There was always a matrimony
between the Beggars and the Gallows."
The next night they came again with their bread for six men.
"Four high burgesses," said they, "have been beheaded. Two hundred
and forty-nine soldiers have been bound together two by two and cast
into the sea. The crabs will be fat this year. You do not look well,
you folk, since the seventh of July that saw you come here. They
are gluttons and drunkards, these dwellers in the Low Countries;
we Spaniards, we have enough with two figs for our supper."
"That is why, then," replied Ulenspiegel, "you must needs, everywhere
in the townsfolks' houses, have four meals of meats, poultry, creams,
wines, and preserves; that ye must have milk to wash the bodies of
your mustachos and wine to bathe your horses' feet?"
On the eighteenth of July, Nele said:
"My feet are wet; what is this?"
"Blood," said Ulenspiegel.
At night the soldiers came again with their bread for six.
"Where the rope is no longer enough," said they, "the sword does the
work. Three hundred soldiers and twenty-seven burghers who tried to
flee out of the town are now walking about the streets of hell with
their heads in their hands."
The next day the blood came again into the cloister; the soldiers
came not to bring the bread, but merely to contemplate the prisoners,
saying:
"The five hundred Walloons, Englishmen, and Scotsmen that were
beheaded yesterday looked better. These are hungry, no doubt, but
who then should die of hunger if not the Beggar!"
And indeed, they were like phantoms, all pale, haggard, broken,
trembling with cold ague.
On the sixteenth of August, at five in the evening, the soldiers came
in laughing and gave them bread, cheese, and beer. Lamme said:
"It is the feast of death."
At ten o'clock four companies came; the captains had the doors of the
cloister opened, ordering the prisoners to march four abreast behind
fifes and drums, to the place where they would be told to halt. Certain
streets were red, and they marched towards the Gallows Field.
Here and there shallow pools of blood defiled the meadows; there was
blood all about the walls. The ravens came in clouds on every hand;
the sun hid in a bed of mists; the sky was still clear, and in its
depths awoke the shy stars. Suddenly they heard lamentable howlings.
The soldiers said:
"They that are crying there are the Beggars of the Fuycke Fort,
without the town; they are being left to die of hunger."
"We, too," said Nele, "we are going to die." And she wept.
"The ashes beat upon my heart," said Ulenspiegel.
"Ah!" said Lamme in Flemish--for the soldiers of the escort understood
not that proud speech--"Ah!" said Lamme, "if I could catch that
duke of blood and make him eat, until his skin burst, each and all
ropes, gallows, torture benches, wooden horses, weights, and boots;
if I could make him drink the blood he has shed, if there came out
of his torn skin and opened bowels splinters of wood and pieces of
iron, and still he did not give up the ghost, I would tear out his
heart from his breast and make him eat it raw and poisoned. Then for
certain would he fall from life to death into the sulphur pit, where
may the devil make him eat it and eat it again without ceasing. And
thus through all long eternity."
"Amen," said Ulenspiegel and Nele.
"But dost thou see naught?" said she.
"Nay," said he.
"I see in the west," she said, "five men and two women seated in a
circle. One is clad in purple and wears a crown of gold. He seems
the chief over the rest, all ragged and tattered. I see from the east
another band of seven coming: one commands them also who is clad in
purple, without a crown. And they come against those of the west. And
they fight against them in the clouds, but I see nothing more now."
"The Seven," said Ulenspiegel.
"I hear," said Nele, "near by us in the foliage, a voice like a breath
of wind saying:
"By war and fire
By pikes and swords
Seek;
In death and blood
Ruins and tears.
Find."
"Others than we shall deliver the land of Flanders," replied
Ulenspiegel. "Night grows black, the soldiers are lighting torches. We
are near the Gallows Field. O sweet beloved, why didst thou follow
me? Dost thou hear nothing more, Nele?"
"Aye," said she, "a noise of arms among the corn. And there, above
that ridge, surmounting the way in which we are entering, seest thou
the red light of the torches gleam upon steel? I see sparks of fire
gleaming upon the matches of arquebuses. Are our guardians asleep,
or are they blind? Dost thou hear that clap of thunder? Seest thou
the Spaniards fall pierced with bullets? Hearest thou 'Long live the
Beggar!'? They climb the path running, musket in hand; they come down
with axes all along the slope. Long live the Beggar!"
"Long live the Beggar!" cry Lamme and Ulenspiegel.
"Lo," said Nele, "here are soldiers that give us arms. Take, Lamme,
take, my beloved. Long live the Beggar!"
"Long live the Beggar!" cry the whole troop of prisoners.
"The arquebuses cease not from firing," said Nele, "they fall like
flies, lit up as they are by the light of the torches. Long live
the Beggars!"
"Long live the Beggar!" cry the band of rescuers.
"Long live the Beggar!" cry Ulenspiegel and the prisoners. "The
Spaniards are in a ring of fire. Kill! kill! There is not one left
on his feet. Kill! no pity, war without mercy. And now let us be off
and run to Enckhuyse. Who hath the butchers' clothes of cloth and
silk? Who hath their weapons?"
"All! all!" they cry. "Long live the Beggar!"
And indeed, they went off for Enckhuyse by boat, and there the Germans
delivered with them remained to guard the town.
And Lamme, Nele, and Ulenspiegel found their ships again. And lo once
more they are singing upon the free sea: "Long live the Beggar!"
And they cruise in the roadstead of Flessingue.
XIII
There once again was Lamme joyous. He was always ready to go on shore,
hunting oxen, sheep, and fowl like hares, stags, and ortolans.
And he was not alone in this nourishing hunting. Good was it then to
see the huntsmen return, Lamme at their head, dragging the big beasts
by the horns, driving the small cattle before them, directing flocks
of geese with long wands, and carrying slung from their boathooks hens,
pullets, and capons in spite of their struggling.
Then it was revel and feasting on the ships. And Lamme would say:
"The fragrance of the sauces mounts up to the very sky, there
delighting their worships the angels, which say: ''Tis the best part
of the meat'."
While they were cruising there came a fleet of merchantmen from Lisbon,
whose commander knew not that Flessingue had fallen into the hands of
the Beggars. It is ordered to cast anchor; it is hemmed round. Long
live the Beggar! Drums and fifes sound the signal for boarding;
the merchants have guns, pikes, hatchets, arquebuses.
Musket balls and cannon balls rain from the ships of the Beggars. Their
musketeers, entrenched round about the main mast in their wooden
forts, fire with deadly aim, without any danger. The merchants fall
like flies.
"To the rescue!" said Ulenspiegel to Lamme and to Nele, "to the
rescue! Here be spices, knicknacks, precious dainties, sugar,
nutmegs, cloves, ginger, reals, ducats, moutons d'or all bright
and shining. There are more than five hundred thousand pieces in
coin. The Spaniard will pay the cost of the war. Drink ho! Let us
sing the Beggars' Mass, which is battle!"
And Ulenspiegel and Lamme rushed everywhere like lions. Nele played the
fife, sheltered in the wooden castle. The whole of the fleet was taken.
The dead were counted and these were a thousand on the side of the
Spaniards, three hundred on the side of the Beggars: among them was
the master cook of the fly boat La Briele.
Ulenspiegel asked to be allowed to speak before Très-Long and the
sailors: this Très-Long granted with a good will. And he said to them
as follows:
"Master captain and ye comrades, we have but now inherited much spices,
and here is Lamme, the good belly, who findeth that the poor dead
man there, God have him in joy, was in no wise a doctor great enough
in fricassees. Let us name him in the place of the dead. And he will
prepare you divine stews and paradisaic soups."
"We will," said Très-Long and the others; "Lamme shall be the master
cook of the ship. He shall bear the great wooden ladle to skim the
froth off his sauces."
"Messire Captain, comrades and friends," said Lamme, "ye behold me
weeping with joy, for I deserve not so great honour. Nevertheless,
since ye deign to call upon my worthlessness, I accept the noble
functions of master of arts in fricassees upon the stout fly boat La
Briele, but with a humble prayer to you that ye invest me with the
supreme command of the kitchen work, in such fashion that your master
cook--the which will be myself--may by right law and might be empowered
to prevent anyonesoever from coming and eating another's share."
Très-Long and the others cried out:
"Long live Lamme! thou shalt have right, law, and might."
"But," said he, "I have another prayer to make before you in all
humility: I am a fat man, big and strong; deep is my paunch, deep my
stomach; my poor wife--may God restore her to me--always gave me two
portions instead of one: accord me this same favour."
Très-Long, Ulenspiegel, and the sailors said:
"Thou shalt have the two portions, Lamme."
And Lamme, suddenly fallen melancholy, said:
"My wife, my sweet darling! if anything can console me for thy absence,
it will be to bring again to mind in my duties thy heavenly cooking
in our sweet home."
"You must take the oath, my son," said Ulenspiegel. "Let the great
wooden ladle and the great copper caldron be brought hither."
"I swear," quoth Lamme, "by God, may he be here my helper, I swear
fidelity to Monseigneur the Prince of Orange, called the Silent,
governing the provinces of Holland and Zealand for the king; fidelity
to Messire de Lumey, the admiral commanding our gallant fleet, and
to Messire Très-Long, vice-admiral and captain of the good ship La
Briele; I swear to dress at my poor best, according to the use and
wont of the great cooks of old, which have left behind them noble
books with cuts upon the great art of cookery, what flesh and fowl
Fortune shall accord to us; I swear to feed the said Messire Très-Long,
our captain, his second in command, which is my friend, Ulenspiegel,
and all you, master mariner, pilot, boatswain, companions, soldiers,
gunners, captain's page, chirurgeon, trumpeteer, sailors, and all
others. If the roast is too underdone, the fowl unbrowned; if the
soup sends up an insipid fragrance, inimical to all good digestion;
if the steam of the sauces doth not entice you all to rush into the
kitchen--always with my good will; if I make you not all sprightly
and well favoured, I will resign my noble functions, judging myself
unfit longer to occupy the throne of the kitchen. So may God help me
in this life and in the next."
"Long live the master cook," said they, "the king of the kitchen,
the emperor of fricassees. He shall have three portions instead of
two on Sundays."
And Lamme became master cook of the ship La Briele. And while the
succulent soups were simmering in the saucepans, he stood at the door
of the galley, proudly holding his great wooden ladle like a sceptre.
And he had his treble rations on Sundays.
When the Beggars came to grips with the enemy, he would stay preferably
in his sauce laboratory but would come out every now and then to run
up on the deck and fire a few rounds. Then he would hurry down again
at once to keep an eye to his sauces.
Thus being trusty cook and valiant soldier, he was well beloved of all.
But no one must penetrate the sanctuary of his galley. For then he was
even like a devil and with his wooden ladle he smote them pitilessly
hip and thigh.
And thenceforth he was called Lamme the Lion.
XIV
On the ocean, on the Scheldt, in sunshine, in rain, in snow, in hail,
winter and summer, glided the ships of the Beggars to and fro.
All sails out like mantling swans, swans of white freedom.
White for freedom, blue for great heart, orange for the prince,
'tis the standard of the proud ships.
All sails set! all sails set, the stout ships; the billows beat upon
them, the waves besprinkle them with foam.
They pass, they run, they fly along the river, their sails in the
water, swift as clouds in the north wind, the proud ships of the
Beggars. Hear you their prows cleaving the wave? God of freemen! Long
live the Beggar!
Hulks, flyboats, boyers, croustèves, swift as a wind big with tempest,
like the cloud that bears the thunderbolt. Long live the Beggar!
Boyers and croustèves, flat-bottomed boats, slide along the river. The
waters groan as they are cloven through, when the ships go straight
on face forwards with the deadly mouth of their long culverin on the
point of the bows. Long live the Beggar!
All sail out! all sail out, the gallant ships, the waves toss them,
sprinkle them with foam.
Night and day, through rain, hail, and snow, they go on their
way! Christ smileth on them in cloud, in sun, in starshine. Long live
the Beggar.
XV
The king of blood learned the news of their victories. Death was
already gnawing at the murderer and his body was full of worms. He
would walk about the corridors of Valladolid, sullen and savage,
dragging heavily his swollen feet and leaden legs. He never sang,
the cruel tyrant; when the day came, he never laughed, and when the
sun lighted up his empire like a smile from God he felt no joy in
his heart.
But Ulenspiegel, Lamme, and Nele sang like birds, risking their hide,
that is to say Lamme and Ulenspiegel, their white skin, to wit Nele,
living from day to day, and finding more joy in one death fire quenched
by the Beggars than the dark king had in the burning of a town.
At this time, too, William the Silent, Prince of Orange, broke from
his rank as admiral Messire de Lumey de la Marck, by reason of his
great cruelties. He appointed Messire Bouwen Ewoutsen Worst in his
stead. He took measures also to pay for the grain taken by the Beggars
from the peasants, to restore the forced contributions levied upon
them, and to grant the Roman Catholics, like all others, the free
exercise of their religion, without either persecution or insult.
XVI
On the ships of the Beggars, under the dazzling sky, over the shining
waves, squealed the fifes; droned bagpipes, gurgled flasks, chimed
glasses, and shone the steel of weapons and armour.
"Ho!" said Ulenspiegel, "let us beat the drum of glory, let us beat
the drum of joy. Long live the Beggar! Spain is conquered; the ghoul is
beaten down. Ours is the sea, Briele is taken. Ours the coast as far as
Nieuport, beyond Ostende and Blanckenberghe, the islands of Zealand,
the mouths of the Scheldt, the mouths of the Meuse, the Rhine mouths
as far as Helder. Ours are Texel, Vlieland, Ter-Schelling, Ameland,
Rottum, Borkum. Long live the Beggar!
"Ours are Delft, and Dordrecht. 'Tis a trail of powder. God holdeth
the linstock. The murderers abandon Rotterdam. Free conscience, like
a lion with teeth and claws of justice, seizes the county of Zutphen,
the towns of Deutecom, Doesburg, Goor, Oldenzeel, and on the Welnuire,
Hattem, Elburg, and Harderwyck. Long live the Beggar!
"'Tis lightning, 'tis a thunder bolt: Campen, Zwol, Hassel, Sheenwyck
fall into our hands with Oudewater, Gouda, Leyden. Long live the
Beggar!
"Ours are Bueren, Enckhuyse! Not yet have we Amsterdam, Schoonhoven,
or Middelburg. But all cometh in time to patient blades. Long live
the Beggar!
"Drink we the wine of Spain. Drink from the chalices whence they
drank the blood of the victims. We shall go by way of the Zuyderzee,
by rivers, streams, canals; we have North Holland, South Holland,
and Zealand; we shall take East and West Frisia; La Briele shall
be the refuge for our ships, the nest of the hens that hatch out
liberty. Long live the Beggar!
"Hearken in Flanders, our beloved land, how there bursts forth the
cry of avenging. Armour is polishing, the swords are a-whetting. All
are astir, athrill like the strings of a harp in the warm breeze,
the breath souls that cometh from grave pits, from torture fires,
from the bleeding corpses of the victims. All, Hainaut, Brabant,
Luxembourg, Namur, Liége the free city, all! Blood sprouts and springs
up. The harvest is ripe for the sickle. Long live the Beggar.
"Ours the Noord-Zee, the wide North Sea. Ours are good guns,
proud ships, the bold band of redoubted seamen: rogues, robbers,
soldier-priests, gentlemen, townsfolk, and artisans fleeing
persecution. Ours to all of us joined together for the work of
freedom! Long live the Beggar!
"Philip, king of blood, where art thou? D'Alba, where art thou? Thou
dost cry out and curse and blaspheme, thou with the holy hat, the Holy
Father's gift. Beat the drums of joy. Long live the Beggar! Drink all!
"The wine flows into the golden cups. Drain it with glee. Priestly
robes on the backs of rough men are flooded with the red liquor;
banners, ecclesiastic and Roman, wave in the wind. Eternal music! To
you, fifes squealing, bagpipes droning, drums beating, peals of
glory. Long live the Beggar!"
XVII
The world was then in the wolf month, which is the month of December. A
thin sharp rain was falling like needles upon the sea. The Beggars
were cruising in the Zuyderzee. Messire the Admiral summoned by
trumpet the captains of houlques and flyboats on board his ship,
and with them Ulenspiegel.
"Now," said the Admiral, addressing himself first of all to
Ulenspiegel, "the Prince is minded to recognize thy good devoirs
and trusty services, and names thee as captain of the ship La
Briele. Herewith I hand thee the commission engrossed upon parchment."
"All thanks to you, Messire Admiral," replied Ulenspiegel: "I shall
be captain with all my little power, and thus captaining I have great
hope, if God help me, to uncaptain Spain from the lands of Flanders
and Holland: I mean from the Zuid and the Noord-Neerlande."
"That is well," said the admiral. "And now," he added, speaking to
them all, "I will tell you that the folk of Catholic Amsterdam are
going to besiege Enckhuyse. They have not yet come out from the Y
canal; let us cruise about in front that they may stay inside there
and fall on each and all of their ships that may show their tyrannical
carcases in the Zuyderzee."
They made answer:
"We will knock holes in them. Long live the Beggar!"
Ulenspiegel, returned to his ship, called his soldiers and his sailors
together on the deck, and told them what the admiral had decided.
They replied:
"We have wings, the which are our sails; skates, which are the keels of
our ships; and giant hands, which are the grapples for boarding. Long
live the Beggar!"
The fleet set forth and cruised in front of Amsterdam a sea league
away, in such a sort that none could enter or come out against
their will.
On the fifth day the rain ceased; the wind blew sharper in the clear
sky; the Amsterdam folk made no stir.
Suddenly Ulenspiegel saw Lamme come up on deck, driving before him
with great blows of his wooden ladle the ship's truxman, a young man
skilful in the French and Flemish tongues, but more skilful still in
the science of the teeth.
"Good-for-naught," said Lamme, beating him, "didst thou deem thou
couldst scatheless eat my fricassees before their due time? Go up to
the masthead and see if aught budges on the ships of Amsterdam. Doing
this thou wilt do well."
But the truxman answered:
"What will you give me?"
"Dost thou think," said Lamme, "to be paid without doing the
work? Thieves' spawn, if thou dost not climb, I shall have thee
flogged. And thy French shall not save thee."
"'Tis a beauteous tongue," said the truxman, "a tongue for love
and war."
And he climbed the mast.
"Well! lazybones?" asked Lamme.
The truxman answered:
"I see naught in the town nor on the ships." And descending:
"Now pay me," said he.
"Keep what thou hast stolen," replied Lamme; "but such gains are no
profit; thou wilt doubtless vomit it up."
The truxman, climbing again to the masthead, cried out suddenly:
"Lamme! Lamme! there is a thief going into the galley."
"I have the key in my pouch," rejoined Lamme.
Ulenspiegel then, taking Lamme apart, said to him:
"My son, this great tranquillity of Amsterdam affrights me. They have
some hidden project."
"I thought of that," said Lamme. "The water is freezing in the jugs in
the cupboard; the fowl are like wood; hoar frost whitens the sausages;
the butter is a stone, the oil is all white, the salt is dry as sand
in the sun."
"'Tis a frost at hand," said Ulenspiegel. "They will come in great
numbers to attack us with artillery."
Going on board the admiral's ship, he told his fear to the admiral,
who answered him:
"The wind blows from England: there will be snow, but it will not
freeze: go back to your ship."
And Ulenspiegel went away.
That night heavy snow fell; but soon, the wind blowing out of Norway,
the sea froze and was like a floor. The admiral beheld the sight.
Then fearing lest the Amsterdam folk might come over the ice to burn
the ships, he bade the soldiers make ready their skates, in case they
might have to fight around and away from the ships, and the gunners
of the iron guns and the brass to pile up heaps of cannon-balls by
the gun carriages, to load the pieces, and to keep the portfires
always well lighted.
But the Amsterdam folk never came.
And so it was for seven days.
Towards evening on the eighth day Ulenspiegel gave orders that a good
feast should be served to the sailors and men at arms, to make them
a cuirass against the sharp wind that was blowing.
But Lamme said:
"There is nothing at all left now but biscuit and small beer."
"Long live the Beggar!" said they. "'Twill be Lenten revelry until
the hour of battle."
"Which will not strike soon," said Lamme. "The Amsterdammers will
come to burn us our ships, but not on this night. First they must
needs assemble themselves together around fires, and there drink
many a measure of wine mulled with Madeira sugar--may God give us
thereof--then having talked till midnight with patience, logic, and
full stoups, they will decide that there are grounds for coming to a
decision to-morrow as to whether they shall attack or not attack next
week. To-morrow, again drinking wine mulled with Madeira sugar--may
God give you thereof--they will decide anew with calm, patience,
and full stoups, that they must assemble together another day, to
the end that they may know if the ice can or cannot bear a great band
of men. And they will have it proved and essayed by men of learning,
who will lay down their conclusions upon parchment. Having received
which, they will know that the ice is half an ell in thickness,
and that it is solid enough to bear some hundreds of men with field
guns and artillery. Then assembling themselves together once more
to deliberate with calm, patience, and many stoups of mulled wine,
they will debate whether, by reason of the treasure seized by us
from the men of Lisbon, it is more suitable to assault or to burn
our ships. And being thus perplexed, but temporizers, they will
none the less decide that they must capture and not burn our ships,
notwithstanding the great wrong and hurt they would do us by that."
"You say well," replied Ulenspiegel; "but see you not those fires
kindle up within the town, and folk bearing lanterns running busily
about there?"
"'Tis because they are cold," said Lamme.
And he added, sighing:
"Everything is eaten. No more beef, pork, nor poultry; no more wine,
alas! nor good dobbel-bier, nothing but biscuit and small beer. Let
who loves me follow me!"
"Whither goest thou?" said Ulenspiegel. "No man may go from the ship."
"My son," said Lamme, "thou art captain and master as now. I will
never go from the ship if thou dost forbid it. Yet deign to consider
that we ate the last of our sausage on the day before yesterday:
and that in this stern weather the fire of the kitchen is the sun of
good companions. Who would not fain smell here the odour of sauces;
sniff up the fragrant bouquet of the divine drink made of those
joyous blossoms that are gaiety, laughter, and good will to every
man? And so, captain and trusty friend, I dare say this: I devour
my very soul, since I eat naught, I who, though loving but repose,
never slaying by my will, save it were a tender goose, a fat chicken,
a succulent turkey, follow thee amid fatigue and battles. See from
here the lights in that rich farm well furnished of big and little
cattle. Knowest thou who it is that dwelleth there? It is the boatman
of Frisia, that betrayed Messire Dandelot and furthermore brought to
Enckhuyse, while it was still in D'Alba's hand, eighteen poor lords
our friends, the which, of his doing, were beheaded on the Horse
Market at Brussels. This traitor, who hath to name Slosse, got from
the duke two thousand florins for his treachery. With the price of
that blood, a very Judas, he purchased the farm thou seest there,
and his great cattle and the fields around about, which bearing fruit
and increasing, I mean land and herds, make him rich as now."
Ulenspiegel replied:
"The ashes beat upon my heart. Thou makest the hour of God to strike."
"And," said Lamme, "the hour of food in like wise. Give me twenty lads,
valiant soldiers and sailors; I will go and seek out the traitor."
"I will be their leader," said Ulenspiegel. "Who loves justice
let him follow me. Not all of you, dear friends and trusty; there
must be twenty only, else who would keep the ship? Draw lots by the
dice. Ye are twenty, come. The dice speak well. Put your skates on
your feet and glide towards the star of Venus burning bright above
the treachour's farm.
"Guiding yourselves by the clear beam, come, ye twenty, skating and
sliding, axe on shoulder.
"The wind whistles and drives white whirls of snow before it on the
ice. Come, brave men!
"Ye sing not, nor speak; ye go straight on, in silence, towards the
star; your skates make the ice complain.
"He that falls picks himself up at once. We touch the shore; no
human shape on the white snow, not a bird in the icy air. Take off
the skates from your feet.
"Here we are on land; here are the meadows; put on your skates
again. We are round about the farm, holding our breath."
Ulenspiegel knocks on the door; dogs bark. He knocks again, a window
opens and the baes says, sticking out his head:
"Who art thou?"
He sees but Ulenspiegel only: the others are concealed behind the keet,
which is the washhouse.
Ulenspiegel makes answer:
"Messire de Boussu bids thee betake thee to him at Amsterdam upon
the instant."
"Where is thy safe-conduct?" said the man, coming down and opening
the door to him.
"Here," replied Ulenspiegel, showing him the twenty Beggars who hurl
themselves behind him into the opening.
Ulenspiegel then says to him:
"Thou art Slosse, the traitor boatman that brought into an ambuscade
Messires Dandelot, de Battenberg, and other lords. Where is the price
of their blood?"
The farmer replies, trembling:
"Ye are the Beggars; grant me a pardon; I knew not what I did. I have
no money here within; I will give all I have."
Lamme said:
"It is black dark; give us candles of tallow or of wax."
The baes replies:
"The tallow candles are hanging there."
A candle being lit, said one of the Beggars, in the hearthplace:
"It is cold; let us kindle a fire. Here are proper faggots."
And he pointed out upon a shelf flower pots in which withered and
dried plants might be seen.
He took one by the stalk and shaking it with the pot, the pot fell,
scattering over the ground ducats, florins, and reals.
"There is the treasure," said he, pointing to the other flower pots.
In very deed, having emptied them, they found ten thousand florins.
Seeing which, the baes cried out and wept.
The farm servants, both men and maids, came to the cries, in shirts
and smocks. The men wishing to avenge their master, were bound. Soon
the shamefaced women, and especially the younger, hid behind the men.
Then Lamme went forward and said:
"Traitor farmer, where are the keys of the cellar, the stables,
the cowshed, and the sheep-pens?"
"Infamous pillagers," said the baes, "ye shall be hanged until ye
are dead."
Ulenspiegel replied:
"It is the hour of God; give up the keys!"
"God will avenge me," said the baes, handing them over to him.
Having emptied the farm, the Beggars departed skating towards the
ships, those light dwelling places of freedom.
"Master cook am I," said Lamme, guiding them; "Master cook am I. Push
along the gallant sledges laden with wines and beer; drive on before
you, by their horns, or by anything, horses, oxen, swine, sheep, and
flocks singing their native songs. The pigeons coo in the baskets;
the capons, stuffed with crumb, are astonied in their wooden cages
wherein they cannot budge. I am master cook. The ice cries out beneath
the steel of the skates. We are at the ships. To-morrow there will be
kitchen music. Let down the pulleys; put girths on the horses, cows,
and oxen. 'Tis a noble sight to see them thus pendent by their bellies;
to-morrow we shall be hanging by the tongue to fat fricassees. The
crane hoists them up into the ship. These be carbonadoes. Throw me
them pell mell into the hold, hens, geese, ducks, capons. Who will
wring their necks? The master cook. The door is locked, I have the key
in my satchel. Praised be God in the kitchen! Long live the Beggar!"
Then Ulenspiegel went on board the admiral's ship taking with him
Dierick Slosse and the other prisoners, moaning and weeping for terror
of the rope.
Messire Worst came at the noise: perceiving Ulenspiegel--his companions
lit up by the red glare of the torches:
"What would you of us?" said he.
Ulenspiegel replied:
"This night we took, in his farm, the traitor Dierick Slosse, that
brought the eighteen into an ambuscade. This is the man. The others
are innocent menservants and maidservants. Then handing him a satchel:
"These florins," said he, "were flourishing in flower pots in the
traitor's house: there are ten thousand."
Messire Worst said to them:
"Ye did ill to leave your ship; but because of your good success
pardon shall be granted to you. Welcome be the prisoners and the
satchel of florins, and ye, gallant men, to whom I assign, after
the laws and customs of the sea, a third of the prize: the second
will be for the fleet, and another third for Monseigneur d'Orange;
string me up the traitor incontinent."
The Beggars having obeyed, they opened afterward a hole in the ice
and threw the body of Dierick Slosse into it.
Messire Worst then said:
"Has grass sprung up around the ships that I hear hens cackling,
sheep bleating, cows and oxen lowing?"
"These are the prisoners of our teeth," answered Ulenspiegel;
"they will pay ransom of fricassees. Messire Admiral shall have
the choicest."
"As for these folk, the knaves and the maidservants, among whom are
sprightly and pretty women, I will fetch them back aboard my ship."
Having done so, he addressed them as follows:
"Goodfellows and goodwives, ye are here upon the best ship in the
world. Here we pass our time in jollity, feast, and revel without
end. If it please you to depart herefrom, pay ransom; if it please you
to stay here, ye shall live like us, toiling hard and eating well. As
for these dear women, I accord them, with the admiral's sanction,
full freedom of their persons, giving them to know that it is all one
to me whether they are fain to keep to their lovers that came upon
the ship with them or to make their choice of some stout Beggar here
present in order to bear him conjugal company."
But the fair women were all faithful to their lovers, save only one,
who, smiling and looking upon Lamme, asked him if he would have her.
"All thanks, dear one," said he, "but I am otherwise bound."
"He is married, poor fellow," said the Beggars, seeing the girl vexed.
But she, turning her back on Lamme, chose another who like him had
a good round belly and a good round face.
That day and the following days there were great revels and feastings
on board with wines, fowl, and meats. And Ulenspiegel said:
"Long live the Beggar! Blow, sharp wintry winds, we will warm the air
with our hot breath. Our heart is afire for freedom of conscience;
our stomachs on fire for the enemy's meats. Drink we wine, the milk
of men. Long live the Beggar!"
Nele, too, drank from a great golden tankard, and ruddy in the breath
of the wind, played the shrill fife. And for all the cold, the Beggars
ate and drank rejoicing on the deck.
XVIII
Suddenly the whole fleet perceived upon the bank a black troop among
which torches shone and the gleaming of arms; then the torches were
put out, and a great darkness reigned.
The admiral's orders being sent round, the alarm was given on the
ships, and all fires were quenched; sailors and soldiers lay flat on
the decks, armed with axes. The gallant gunners, linstock in hand,
watched by the guns loaded with bags of bullets and with chain
shot. As soon as the admiral and the captains should call out "A
hundred paces!"--which denoted the enemy's distance, they were to
fire from the bows, the poop, or the broadside, according to their
position in the ice.
And Messire Worst's voice was heard saying:
"Death to whoever speaks aloud!"
And the captains said after him:
"Death to whoever speaks aloud!"
The night was moonless, filled with stars.
"Dost thou hear?" said Ulenspiegel to Lamme, in a voice like a
whispering ghost. "Hearest thou the voices of the Amsterdammers, and
the steel of their skates ringing over the ice? They come swiftly. We
can hear them speak. They are saying 'The lazy Beggars are asleep. Ours
is the Lisbon treasure!' They are lighting torches. Seest thou their
ladders for the assault, their ugly faces, and the long line of their
band deployed for the attack? There are a thousand of them, and more."
"A hundred paces!" cried Messire Worst.
"A hundred paces!" cried the captains all.
And there was a great noise like thunder, and lamentable outcries
upon the ice.
"Eighty guns are thundering all together!" said Ulenspiegel. "They
are fleeing! Seest thou the torches vanishing away?"
"Pursue them!" said Admiral Worst.
"Pursue them!" said the captains.
But the pursuit did not last long, the fugitives having a start of
a hundred paces, and the legs of frightened hares.
And on the men that were crying out and dying on the ice were found
gold, jewels, and ropes for the Beggars.
And after this victory the Beggars said one to another: "Als God
met ons is, wie tegen ons zal zijn. If God is with us, who shall be
against us? Long live the Beggar!"
Now on the morning of the third day thereafter Messire Worst was
uneasy, and looked for a fresh attack. Lamme leaped upon the deck
and said to Ulenspiegel:
"Fetch me to this admiral that would not listen to you when you
prophesied a frost."
"Go without any fetching you?" said Ulenspiegel.
Lamme departed, first locking the door of his galley. The admiral
was on deck, straining his eyes to see if he did not perceive some
movement from the city.
Lamme came up to him.
"Monseigneur Admiral," said he, "may a humble master cook give you
a rede?"
"Speak, my son," said the admiral.
"Monseigneur," said Lamme, "the water is thawing in the jugs; the fowl
grow soft again; the sausage is laying aside its mildew of hoar frost;
the butter becomes unctuous, the oil liquid; the salt is weeping. It
will rain before long, and we shall be saved, Monseigneur."
"Who art thou?" asked Messire Worst.
"I am Lamme Goedzak," he replied, "the master cook of the ship
La Briele. And if all those great savants that boast themselves
astronomers read in the stars as true as I read in my sauces, they
could tell us that to-night there will be a thaw with a great hubbub
of storm and hail: but the thaw will not last."
And Lamme went back to Ulenspiegel, to whom he said, towards noon:
"I am a prophet already; the sky grows black, the wind breathes
stormily: a warm rain is falling; already there is a foot of water
upon the ice."
At night he cried, rejoicing:
"The North Sea is swollen: 'tis the hour of the flood tide; the high
waves rolling into the Zuyderzee break up the ice, which splinters
in great fragments and leaps up on the ships; it flashes sparkles
of light; here comes the hail. The admiral bids us to withdraw from
before Amsterdam, and that with as much water as our greatest ship
can draw. Here we are in the harbour of Enckhuyse. The sea is freezing
afresh. I am a fine prophet, and it is a miracle from God."
And Ulenspiegel said:
"Drink we to Him, and blessings on Him."
And the winter passed, and summer came.
XIX
In mid-August, when hens, fed full with grain, remain deaf to the
call of the cock trumpeting his loves, Ulenspiegel said to his sailors
and soldiers:
"The duke of blood, being at Utrecht, dares there to issue a blessed
edict, promising among other gracious gifts, hunger, death, ruin
to the inhabitants of the Low Countries who might be unwilling to
submit. Everything that still remains whole, saith he, shall be
exterminate, and His Majesty the king will people the country with
strangers. Bite, duke, bite! The file breaketh the viper's tooth;
we are files. Long live the Beggar!
"Alba, blood maketh thee drunk! Deemest thou that we would fear thy
threats or believe in thy clemency? Thy famous regiments whose praises
thou didst sing throughout the whole world, thy Invincibles, thy
Tels Quels, thy Immortals, remained seven months bombarding Haarlem,
a feeble city defended by mere citizens; like mortal common men they
danced in air the dance of the bursting mines. Mere citizens besmeared
them with tar; in the end they were glorious victors, slaughtering the
disarmed. Hearest thou, murderer, the hour of God that striketh now?
"Haarlem hath lost her splendid defenders, her stones sweat blood. She
hath lost and expended in her siege twelve hundred and eighty thousand
florins. The bishop is reinstated there; with light hand and joyful
countenance he blesses the churches; Don Frederick is present at
these consecrations; the bishop washes for him those hands that in
God's eyes are red and he communicates in two kinds, which is not
permitted to the poor common herd. And the bells ring out and the
chime flings into the air its calm, harmonious notes; it is like the
singing of angels over a cemetery. An eye for an eye! A tooth for a
tooth! Long live the Beggar!"
XX
The Beggars were then at Flushing, where Nele caught fever. Forced
to leave the ship, she was lodged at the house of one Peeters, of
the Reformed faith, at Turven-Key.
Ulenspiegel, deeply grieving, was yet rejoiced, thinking that in this
bed where she would doubtless be healed the Spanish bullets could
not reach her.
And with Lamme he was always beside her, tending her well and loving
her better. And there they used to talk together.
"Friend and true comrade," said Ulenspiegel one day, "dost thou not
know the news?"
"Nay, my son," said Lamme.
"Seest thou the flyboat that but late came to join our fleet, and
knowest thou who it is upon it that twangs the viol every day?"
"Through the late colds," said Lamme, "I am as one deaf in both
ears. Why dost thou laugh, my son?"
But Ulenspiegel, continuing:
"Once," he said, "I heard her sing a Flemish lied and found her voice
was sweet."
"Alas," said Lamme, "she, too, sang and played upon the viol."
"Dost thou know the other news?" went on Ulenspiegel.
"I know naught of it, my son," said Lamme.
Ulenspiegel made answer:
"We have our orders to drop down the Scheldt with our ships as far
as Antwerp, to find there the enemy ships to take or burn. As for
the men, no quarter. What thinkest thou of this, big paunch?"
"Alas!" said Lamme, "shall we never hear aught else in this
distressful land save burnings, hangings, drownings, and other ways
of exterminating poor men? When then will blessed peace come, that
we can in quiet roast partridges, fricassee chickens, and make the
puddings sing in the pan among the eggs? I like the black ones best;
the white are too rich."
"This sweet time will come," replied Ulenspiegel, "when in the
orchards of Flanders we see on apple, plum, pear trees and cherry
trees, a Spaniard hanged on every bough."
"Ah!" said Lamme, "if only I could find my wife again, my so dear,
so sweet, beloved soft darling faithful wife! For know it well,
my son, cuckold I was not nor shall ever be; she was too sober and
calm in her ways for that; she eschewed the company of other men;
if she loved fair and fine array, it was but for woman's need. I was
her cook, her kitchenman, her scullion, I am glad to say it, why am
I it not once more? but I was her master as well and her husband."
"Let us end this talk," said Ulenspiegel. "Hearest thou the admiral
calling: 'Up anchors!' and captains after him calling the same? We
must needs weigh soon."
"Why dost thou go so quickly?" said Nele to Ulenspiegel.
"We are going to the ships," said he.
"Without me?" she said.
"Aye," said Ulenspiegel.
"Dost thou not think," said she, "how lying here I shall be distressed
for thee?"
"Dearest," said Ulenspiegel, "my skin is made of iron."
"Thou art mocking," said she. "I see nothing on thee but thy doublet,
which is cloth, not iron; beneath it is thy body, made of bone and
flesh, like my own. If they wound thee, who will heal thee? Art thou
to die all alone in the midst of the fighters? I shall go with thee."
"Alas!" said he, "if the lances, balls, swords, axes, maces, sparing
me, fall on thy dear body, what shall I do--I, good for naught without
thee in this vile world?"
But Nele said:
"I would fain follow thee; there will be no peril; I will hide in
the wooden forts where the arquebusiers are."
"If thou dost go, I stay, and they will hold thy friend Ulenspiegel
traitor and coward; but listen to my lay:
"My hair is steel, as casque set there;
An armour forged by Nature's hand
My skin the first is buff well tanned,
And steel the second skin I wear.
"In vain to catch me in his snare
Death, grinning monster, takes his stand;
My skin the first is buff well tanned,
And steel the second skin I wear.
"My standards 'Live' as motto bear,
Live ever in a sunshine land:
My skin the first is buff well tanned,
And steel the second skin I wear."
And he went off singing, not without having kissed the shaking mouth
and the lovely eyes of Nele sunk in fever, smiling and weeping all
together.
The Beggars are at Antwerp; they take the ships of Alba even in the
very harbour. Entering the city, in broad day, they set free certain
prisoners, and make others prisoner to bring ransom. By force they
make the citizens rise, and some they constrain to follow them,
on pain of death, without uttering a word.
Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:
"The admiral's son is detained at the Écoutête's: we must deliver him."
Going into the house of the Écoutête, they see the son they sought
in the company of a big monk with a noble belly, who was preaching
wrathfully to him, fain to make him return to the bosom of our Mother
Holy Church. But the lad would by no means consent thereto. He departed
with Ulenspiegel. Meanwhile Lamme, seizing the monk by the cowl,
made him walk before him in the streets of Antwerp, saying:
"Thou art worth a hundred florins ransom: pack up and march on. Why
dost thou hang back? Hast thou lead in thy sandals? March, bag of lard,
victual press, soup belly!"
"I march, Master Beggar, I march; but saving the respect due to
your arquebuse, you are as big in the belly as myself, a paunchy,
vasty fellow."
Then Lamme, pushing him on:
"Dost thou dare indeed, foul monk," said he, "to liken thy cloistral,
useless, lazy grease to my Fleming fat honourably sustained and fed
by toils, fatigues, and battles? Run, or I shall make thee go like
a dog, and that with the spur at the end of my boot-sole."
But the monk could not run, and he was all out of breath, and Lamme
the same. And so they came to the ship.
XXI
Having taken Rammekens, Gertruydenberg, Alckmaer, the Beggars came
back to Flushing.
Nele, now hale and cured, was waiting for Ulenspiegel at the harbour.
"Thyl," said she, "my love, Thyl, art thou not wounded?"
Ulenspiegel sang:
"My standards 'Live' as motto bear,
Live ever in a sunshine land;
My skin the first is buff well tanned
My second skin is forged of steel."
"Alas!" said Lamme, dragging a leg, "the bullets, grenades, chain
shot rain around him; he feels but the wind of them. Thou art without
doubt a spirit, Ulenspiegel, and thou, too, Nele, for I behold thee
ever brisk and young."
"Why dost thou drag thy leg?" asked Nele of Lamme.
"I am no spirit and never will be," said he. "And so I took an axe
stroke in the thigh--how round and white my wife's was!--see, I am
bleeding. Alas! why have I her not here to tend me!"
But Nele, angry, replied:
"What need hast thou of a wife forsworn?"
"Say naught ill of her," replied Lamme.
"Here," said Nele, "here is balsam; I was keeping it for Ulenspiegel;
put it upon the wound."
Lamme, having dressed his wound, was joyous, for the balsam put an
end to the keen anguish; and they went up again to the ship all three.
Seeing the monk who was walking to and fro there with his hands bound:
"Who is that one?" she said. "I have seen him already and I think I
know him."
"He is worth a hundred florins ransom," replied Lamme.
XXII
That day aboard the fleet there was a feast. In spite of the sharp
December wind, despite the rain, despite the snow, all the Beggars
of the fleet were on the decks of the ships. The silver crescents
gleamed lurid upon the bonnets of Zealand.
And Ulenspiegel sang:
"Leyden is delivered: the bloody duke leaves the Low Countries:
Ring out, ye bells reëchoing:
Chimes, fling your songs into the air:
Clink, ye glasses and bottles, clink.
"When the mastiff slinks away from blows,
His tail between his legs,
With bloodshot eye
He turns upon the cudgels.
"And his torn jaw
Shivers and pants
He has gone, the bloody duke;
Clink bottle and glass. Long live the Beggar!
"Fain would he bite himself,
The cudgels broke his teeth.
Hanging his puff-jowled head
He thinks of the days of murder and lust.
He is gone, the bloody duke:
Then beat upon the drum of glory,
Then beat upon the drum of war!
Long live the Beggar!
"He cries to the devil: 'I will sell thee
My doggish soul for one hour of might.'
'Thy soul it is no more to me,'
Said the devil, 'than a herring is.'
The teeth meet no longer now.
They must avoid hard morsels.
He hath gone, the bloody duke:
Long live the Beggar!
"The little street dogs, crooklegged, one-eyed, full of mange,
That live or die on rubbish heaps.
Heave up their leg one by one
On him that killed for love of slaughter.--
Long live the Beggar.
"He loved not women, nor friends,
Nor gayness, nor sun, nor his master,
Nothing but Death, his betrothed,
Who broke his legs
As prelude to the betrothal,
For she loves not men hale and whole;
Beat upon the drum of joy,
Long live the Beggar!
"And the little street dogs, crooklegged,
Limping, one-eyed, full of mange,
Heave their leg up once again
In a hot and salty fashion.
And with them greyhounds and mastiffs,
Dogs of Hungary, of Brabant,
Of Namur and Luxembourg,
Long live the Beggar!
"And, miserably, with foaming mouth,
He goes to die beside his master,
Who fetches him a sounding kick,
For not biting enough.
"In hell he weddeth Death.
She calleth him 'My Duke';
He calleth her 'My Inquisition.'
Long live the Beggar!
"Ring out ye bells reëchoing:
Chimes, fling your songs into the air;
Clink, glasses and bottles, clink:
Long live the Beggar!"