At Damme, in Flanders, when the May hawthorn was
coming into flower, Ulenspiegel was born, the son of Claes.

When she had wrapped him in warm swaddling-clothes, Katheline, the
midwife, made a careful examination of the infant’s head, and
found a piece of skin hanging therefrom.

“Born with a caul!” she cried out joyfully. “Born
under a lucky star!” But a moment later, noticing a small black
mole on the baby’s shoulder, she fell into lamentation.

“Alas!” she wept, “it is the black finger-print of
the devil!”

“Monsieur Satan,” said Claes, “must have risen
early this morning, if already he has found time to set his sign upon
my son!”

“Be sure, he never went to bed,” answered Katheline.
“Here is Chanticleer only just awakening the hens!”

And so saying she went out of the room, leaving the baby in the arms
of Claes.

At Damme when the Hawthorn was in flower

Then it was that the dawn came bursting through the clouds of night,
and the swallows skimmed chirruping over the fields, while the sun
began to show his dazzling face on the horizon. Claes opened the window
and thus addressed himself to Ulenspiegel.

“O babe born with a caul, behold! Here is my Lord the Sun who
comes to make his salutation to the land of Flanders. Gaze on Him
whenever you can; and if ever in after years you come to be in any
doubt or difficulty, not knowing what is right to do, ask counsel of
Him. He is bright and He is warm. Be sincere as that brightness, and
virtuous as that warmth.”

“Claes, my good man,” said Soetkin, “you are
preaching to the deaf. Come, drink, son of mine.” [3]

And so saying, the mother offered to her new-born babe a draught
from nature’s fountain.

While Ulenspiegel nestled close and drank his fill,
all the birds in the country-side began to waken.

Claes, who was tying up sticks, regarded his wife as she gave the
breast to Ulenspiegel.

“Wife,” he said, “hast made good provision of this
fine milk?”

“The pitchers are full,” she said, “but that doth
not suffice for my peace of mind.”

“It seems that you are downhearted over your good
fortune,” said Claes.

“I was thinking,” she said, “that there is not so
much as a penny piece in that leather bag of ours hanging on the
wall.”

Claes took hold of the bag and shook it. But in vain. There was no
sign of any money. He looked crestfallen. Nevertheless, hoping to
comfort his good wife—

“What are you worrying about?” says he. “Have we
not in the bin that cake we offered Katheline yesterday? And
don’t I see a great piece of meat over there that should make
good milk for the child for three days at the least? And this tub of
butter, is it a ghost-tub? And are they spectres, those apples ranged
like flags and banners all in battle order, row after row, in the
storeroom? And is there no promise of cool refreshment guarded safe in
the paunch of our fine old cask of cuyte de Bruges?”

Soetkin said: “When we take the child to be christened we
shall have to give two patards to the priest, and a florin for
the feasting.”

But at this moment Katheline returned, with a great bundle of herbs
in her arms.

“For the child that is born with a caul,” she cried.
[4]”Angelica that keeps men from luxury;
fenel that preserves them from Satan….”

“Have you none of that herb,” asked Claes, “which
is called florins?”

“No,” said she.

“Very well,” he answered, “I shall go and see if I
cannot find any growing in the canal.”

And with that he went off, with his line and his fishing-net,
knowing that he would not be likely to meet any one, since it was yet
an hour before the oosterzon, which is, in the land of Flanders,
six o’clock in the morning.

Claes came to the Bruges canal, not far from the sea.
There, having baited his hook, he cast it into the water and let out
the line. On the opposite bank, a little boy was lying against a clump
of earth, fast asleep. The boy, who was not dressed like a peasant,
woke up at the noise that Claes was making, and began to run away,
fearing no doubt that it was the village constable come to dislodge him
from his bed and to hale him off as a vagabond to the steen. But he soon lost his fear when he recognized Claes, and
when Claes called out to him:

“Would you like to earn a penny, my boy? Well then, drive the
fish over to my side!”

At this proposal the little boy, who was somewhat stout for his
years, jumped into the water, and arming himself with a plume of long
reeds, he began to drive the fish towards Claes. When the fishing was
over, Claes drew up his line and his landing-net, and came over by the
lock gate towards where the youngster was standing.

“Your name,” said Claes, “is Lamme by baptism, and
Goedzak by nature, because you are of a gentle
disposition, and you dwell in the rue Héron behind the Church of
Our Lady. But tell me why it is that, young as you are, and
[5]well dressed, you are yet obliged to sleep out here
in the open?”

“Woe is me, Mr. Charcoal-burner,” answered the boy.
“I have a sister at home, a year younger than I am, who fairly
thrashes me at the least occasion of disagreement. But I dare not take
my revenge upon her back for fear of doing her some injury, sir. Last
night at supper I was very hungry, and I was clearing out with my
fingers the bottom of a dish of beef and beans. She wanted to share it,
but there was not enough for us both, sir. And when she saw me licking
my lips because the sauce smelt good, she went mad with rage, and smote
me with all her force, so hard indeed that I fled away from the house,
beaten all black and blue.”

Claes asked him what his father and mother were doing during this
scene.

“My father hit me on one shoulder and my mother on the other,
crying, ‘Strike back at her, you coward!’ but I, not
wishing to strike a girl, made my escape.”

All at once, Lamme went pale all over and began to tremble in every
limb, and Claes saw a tall woman approaching, and by her side a young
girl, very thin and fierce of aspect.

“Oh, oh!” cried Lamme, holding on to Claes by his
breeches, “here are my mother and my sister come to find me.
Protect me, please, Mr. Charcoal-burner!”

“Wait,” said Claes. “First of all let me give you
this penny-farthing as your wages, and now let us go and meet them
without fear.”

When the two women saw Lamme, they ran up and both began to belabour
him—the mother because of the fright he had given her, the sister
because it was her habit so to do. Lamme took refuge behind Claes, and
cried out:

“I have earned a penny-farthing! I have earned a
penny-farthing! Do not beat me!”

By this time, however, his mother had begun to embrace [6]him, while
the girl was trying to force open his hands and to get at the money.
But Lamme shouted:

“The money belongs to me. You shall not have it.”

And he kept his fingers tightly closed. But Claes shook the girl
roughly by the ears, and said to her:

“If you go on picking quarrels like this with your brother, he
that is as good and gentle as a lamb, I shall put you in a black
charcoal-pit, and then it won’t be I any longer that will be
shaking you by the ears, but the red devil himself from hell, and he
will pull you into pieces with his great claws and his teeth that are
like forks.”

At these words the girl averted her eyes from Claes, nor did she go
near Lamme, but hid behind her mother’s skirts, and when she got
back into the town, she went about crying everywhere:

“The Charcoal-man has beaten me, and he keeps the devil in his
cave.”

Nevertheless she did not attack Lamme any more; but being the bigger
of the two, she made him work in her place, and the gentle simpleton
obeyed her right willingly.

Now Claes, on his way home, sold his catch to a farmer that often
used to buy fish from him. And when he was home again, he said to
Soetkin:

“Behold! Here’s what I have found in the bellies of four
pike, nine carp, and a basketful of eels.” And he threw on the
table a couple of florins and half a farthing.

“Why don’t you go fishing every day, my man?”
asked Soetkin.

“For fear of becoming a fish myself, and being caught on the
hook of the village constable,” he told her.

Claes, the father of Ulenspiegel, was known in Damme
by the name of Kooldraeger, that is to say, the Charcoal-burner.
Claes had a black head of hair, bright eyes, and a skin the
[7]colour of his own merchandise—save only on
Sundays and Feast Days, when his cottage ran with soap and water. He
was a short, thick-set man, strong, and of a joyful countenance.

Towards the end of the day, when evening was coming on, he would
sometimes visit the tavern on the road to Bruges, there to rinse his
charcoal-blackened throat with a draught of cuyte; and then the
women standing at their doorways to sniff the evening dew would cry out
to him in friendly greeting:

“A good night and a good drink to you,
Charcoal-burner.”

“A good night to you, and a lively husband!” Claes would
reply.

And sometimes the girls, trooping home together from their work in
the fields, would line up in front of him right across the road,
barring his way.

“What will you give us for the right of passage?” they
would cry. “A scarlet ribbon, a buckle of gold, a pair of velvet
slippers, or a florin piece for alms?”

But Claes, holding one of the girls fast by the waist, would give
her a hearty kiss on her fresh cheek or on her neck, just whichever
happened to be nearest, and then he would say:

“You must ask the rest, my dears, of your
sweethearts.”

And off they would go amidst peals of laughter.

As for the children, they always recognized Claes by his loud voice
and by the noise his clogs made on the road, and they would run up to
him and cry:

“Good evening, Charcoal-burner.”

“The same to you, my little angels,” he would answer;
“but come no nearer, lest perchance I turn you into
blackamoors.”

But the children were bold, and oftentimes would make the venture.
Then Claes would seize one of them by the doublet, and rubbing his
blackened hands up and down the [8]little fellow’s nose, would
send him off all sooty, but laughing just the same, to the huge delight
of the others.

Claes and Soetkin

Soetkin, wife of Claes, was a good wife and mother. She was up with
the dawn, and worked as diligently as any ant. She and Claes laboured
together in the field, yoking themselves to the plough as though they
had been oxen. It was hard work dragging it along, but even the plough
was not so heavy as the harrow, that rustic implement whose task it was
to tear up the hardened earth with teeth of wood. But Claes and his
wife worked always with a gay heart, and enlivened themselves with
singing. And in vain was the earth hard, in vain did the sun hurl down
on them his hottest beams, in vain were their knees stiffened with
bending and their loins tired with the cruel effort of dragging the
harrow along, for they had only to stop a moment while Soetkin turned
to Claes her gentle face, and while Claes kissed that mirror of a
gentle heart, and straightway they forgot how tired they were.

Now the previous day, the town crier had given notice
from before the Town Hall that Madame, the wife of the Emperor Charles,
being near the time of her delivery, it behoved the people to say
prayers on her behalf.

Katheline came to Claes in a great state of excitement.

“Whatever is the matter, my good woman?” he asked.

“Alas!” she cried, catching her breath, “behold!
This night the ghosts are mowing men down like grass. Little girls are
being buried alive. The executioner is dancing on the body of the dead.
And broken, this night, is that Stone which has been sweating blood
these nine months past and more!”

“Mercy on us!” groaned Soetkin. “Mercy on us, O
Lord! This is a black omen indeed for the land of Flanders.”

“Do you see these things with your own eyes wide awake, or
perchance in a dream?” Claes asked her. [9]

“With my own eyes,” Katheline told him. And then all
pale and tearful, she continued in these words:

“To-night two children are born: the one in Spain—the
infant Philip—and the other in this land of Flanders—the
son of Claes, he that later on shall be known by the name of
Ulenspiegel. Philip will grow up to be a common hangman, being the
child of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, the destroyer of our country.
But Ulenspiegel will be a master of the merry words and frolics of
youth, yet good of heart withal, having for his father Claes, the brave
working man that knows how to earn his own living with courage,
honesty, and gentleness. Charles the Emperor and Philip the King will
go riding their way through life, doing evil by battle, extortion, and
other crimes. But Claes, working hard all the week, living according to
right and according to law, and laughing at his laborious lot instead
of being cast down thereby, will be the model of all the good
workpeople of Flanders. Ulenspiegel, young and immortal, will ramble
over the world and never settle in one place. And he will be peasant,
nobleman, painter, sculptor, all in one. And he will continue his
wanderings hither and thither, lauding things beautiful and good, and
laughing stupidity to scorn. Claes, then, O noble people of Flanders,
is your courage; Soetkin your valiant motherhood; Ulenspiegel your
soul. A sweet and gentle maiden, lover of Ulenspiegel and immortal like
him, shall be your heart; and Lamme Goedzak, with his pot-belly, shall
be your stomach. And up aloft shall stand the devourers of the people;
and beneath them their victims. On high the thieving hornets; and below
the busy bees. While in heaven bleed for evermore the wounds of
Christ.”

And when she had thus spoken, Katheline, the kindly sorceress, went
to sleep.

One day Claes caught a large salmon, and on the Sunday
he and Soetkin and Katheline and the little Ulenspiegel had
[10]it for their dinner. But Katheline only ate enough
to satisfy a sparrow.

“How now, mother?” said Claes. “What has happened
to the air of Flanders? Has it suddenly grown solid, so that to breathe
it is as nourishing as a plate of beef? Why, if such were the case, I
suppose you will be telling me that the rain is as good as soup, and
the hail like beans, and the snow some sort of celestial fricassee, fit
cheer for a poor traveller?”

But Katheline shook her head, and said not a word.

“Dear me,” said Claes, “our mother is in the dumps
it seems! What can it be that grieves her so?”

But Katheline spake as follows, in a voice that was like a breath of
wind:

“The wicked night falls blackly. He tells of his coming from
afar, screaming like the sea-eagle. I tremble, and pray to Our
Lady—all in vain. For the Night knows neither walls nor hedges,
neither doors nor windows. Everywhere, like a spirit, he finds a way
in. The ladder creaks. The Night has entered into the loft where I am
sleeping. The Night seizes me in arms that are cold and hard as marble.
His face is frozen, and his kisses like damp snow. The whole cottage
seems to be tossed about over the earth, riding like a ship at
sea….”

Claes said: “I would counsel you to go every morning to Mass,
that our Lord Christ may give you strength to chase away this phantom
from hell.”

“He is so beautiful!” said Katheline.

Ulenspiegel was weaned, and began to grow like a young
poplar. And soon Claes gave up caressing him, but loved him in a
roughish manner, fearing to make a milksop of him. And when Ulenspiegel
came home complaining that he had got the worst of it in some boyish
affray, Claes would give [11]him a beating because, forsooth, he
had not beaten the others. And with such an education Ulenspiegel grew
up as valiant as a young lion.

When Claes was from home, Ulenspiegel would ask his mother to give
him a liard with which he might go out and amuse himself.
Soetkin would grow angry, and ask why he wanted to go out for
amusement—he would do better to stay at home and tie up faggots.
And when he saw that she was not going to give him anything, the boy
would start yelling like an eagle, while Soetkin made a great clatter
with the pots and pans that she was washing in the wooden tub,
pretending that she did not hear his noise. Then Ulenspiegel would fall
to weeping, and the gentle mother would stop her pretence at harshness,
and would come and kiss him.

“Will a denier be enough for you?” she would
say.

Now it should be noted that a denier is equal to six
liards.

Thus did his mother dote on Ulenspiegel even to excess; and when
Claes was not there, he was king in the house.

One morning Soetkin saw Claes pacing up and down the
kitchen with head bent, like a man lost in thought.

“Whatever is the matter with you, my man?” she asked
him. “You are pale, and you look angry and distracted.”

Claes answered her in a low voice, like a dog growling.

“The Emperor is about to reissue those cursed placards. Death
once again is hovering over the land of Flanders. The Informers are to
have one half of the property of their victims, if so be that such
property does not exceed the value of one hundred florins.”

“We are poor,” Soetkin said.

“Not poor enough,” Claes answered. “Evil folk
there are—crows and corpse-devouring vultures—who would as
readily denounce us to the Emperor for half a sackful of coal as for
half a sackful of florins. What had she, poor old [12]Widow
Tanneken that was wife to Sis the tailor, she that was buried alive at
Heyst? Nothing but a Latin Bible, three gold florins, and a few
household utensils of English pewter. But they were coveted by a
neighbour. Then there was Joanna Martens whom they burnt as a witch
after she had been thrown into the water, for her body did not sink and
they held it for a sign of sorcery. She had a few miserable pieces of
furniture and seven gold pieces in a bag, and the Informer wanted his
half of them. Alas! I could go on till to-morrow morning giving you
instances of the same kind. But to cut a long story short, Mother,
life’s no longer worth living in Flanders, and all on account of
these placards. Soon every night-time the death-cart will be passing
through the town, and we shall hear the arid click of bones as the
skeletons shake in the wind.”

Soetkin said: “You ought not to try and frighten me, my man.
The Emperor is the father of Flanders and Brabant, and as such he is
endowed with long-suffering, gentleness, patience, and pity.”

“He would be obliged to renounce too much if he were all
that,” Claes answered, “for he has inherited a great amount
of confiscated property.”

At that very moment the sound of a trumpet was heard, and the clash
of the Heralds’ cymbals. Claes and Soetkin, carrying Ulenspiegel
in their arms by turns, rushed out towards where the sound came from,
and with them went a great concourse of people. They came to the Town
Hall, in front of which stood the Heralds on horseback, blowing their
trumpets and sounding their cymbals, and the Provost with his staff of
justice, and the Town Proctor, also on horseback and holding in his
hands the Imperial Edict which he was preparing to read out to the
assembled multitude.

Claes heard every word, how “that it was once again forbidden
to all and sundry to print, read, to possess or to defend, the
writings, books or doctrines of Martin Luther, of [13]John
Wycliffe, John Hus, Marcilius de Padua, Æcolampadius, Ulricus
Zwynglius, Philip Melancthon, Franciscus Lambertus, Joannes Pomeranus,
Otto Brunselsius, Justus Jonas, Joannes Puperis, and Gorciamus; as well
as any copies of the New Testament printed by Adrien de Berghes,
Christophe de Remonda, and Joannes Xel, which books were full of
Lutheran and other kinds of heresy, and had been condemned and rejected
by the Doctors of Theology at the University of Louvain.

“Likewise and in the same manner it was forbidden to paint,
portray or cause to be painted or portrayed any opprobrious paintings
or figures of God, or of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or of the saints; or
to break, destroy or deface the images or pictures made to the honour,
remembrance or recollection of God, the Virgin Mary, or of the saints
recognized by the Church.

“Furthermore,” said the placard, “no one, whatever
his position in life, should presume to discuss or dispute concerning
Holy Writ, even in regard to matters admittedly doubtful, unless he
were a theologian, well known and approved by some established
university.

“His Sacred Majesty decreed, among other penalties, that
suspected persons should not be allowed to carry on any honourable
occupation. And as for men who had fallen again into error, or who were
obstinate in the same, they should be condemned to be burnt by fire,
slow or fast, either in a covering of straw, or else bound to a stake,
according to the discretion of the judge. Others, if they were men of
noble or of gentle birth, were to be executed at the point of the
sword, while working people were to be hung, and the women buried
alive. Afterwards their heads were to be fixed on the top of poles for
an example. The property of all the aforesaid, in so far as it was
situate in places subject to confiscation, was to be made over to the
benefit of the Emperor. [14]

“To the Informers His Sacred Majesty gave one half of all the
property of the dead, provided that such property did not exceed, on
any one occasion, a hundred pounds gross in Flemish money. As for the
half that went to the Emperor, he would reserve it for works of piety
and mercy, as was done in the case of the confiscations at
Rome.”

And Claes went away sadly, with Soetkin and Ulenspiegel.

Once again did Soetkin bear under her girdle the sign
of approaching motherhood; and Katheline also was in a like condition.
But she was afraid, and never ventured out of her house.

When Soetkin went to see her, “Alas!” said Katheline,
“what shall I do? Must I smother the ill-starred fruit of my
womb? I would rather die myself. And yet if the Sergeant summons me for
having a child without being married, they will make me pay twenty
florins like a girl of no reputation, and I shall be flogged in the
Market Square.”

Soetkin consoled and comforted her as sweetly as she could, then
left her, and returned thoughtfully home.

One day she said to Claes:

“If I brought two children into the world instead of one,
would you be angry? Would you beat me, my man?”

“That I cannot say,” Claes answered.

“But if the second were not really mine, but turned out to be
like this child of Katheline’s, the offspring of some one
unknown—the devil maybe?”

“Devils beget fire, death, smoke,” Claes replied,
“but children—no. Yet will I take for my own the child of
Katheline.”

“You will?” cried Soetkin. “You really
will?”

“I have said it,” Claes replied.

Soetkin hurried off to tell Katheline the news, who when
[15]she heard it could not contain her delight, but
cried aloud with joy.

“He has spoken, the good man, and his words are the salvation
of my body. He will be blessed by God—and blessed by the devil as
well, if really”—and she trembled as she spoke the
words—“if really it is the devil who is father to the
little one that begins to stir beneath my breast!”

And in due time Soetkin and Katheline brought into the world, the
one a baby boy and the other a baby girl. Both were brought to baptism
as the children of Claes. Soetkin’s son was christened Hans, and
did not live. But Katheline’s daughter, who was christened Nele,
grew up finely.

She drank of the liquor of life from a fourfold flagon. Two of the
flagons belonged to Katheline, and two were Soetkin’s. And there
was many a sweet dispute as to whose turn it was to give the child to
drink. But much against her will, Katheline was obliged to let her milk
dry up, lest questions should be asked as to where it came from, and
she no mother….

But when the little Nele, that was her daughter, was weaned, then
Katheline took her home to live with her, nor did she let her go back
to Soetkin except when Nele called for her “mother.”

The neighbours said that it was a right and natural thing to do for
Katheline to look after the child of Claes and Soetkin. For they were
needy and poverty-stricken, whereas Katheline was comparatively well
off.

One day Soetkin said to Claes:

“Husband, I am heart-broken. This is now the third day that
Tyl has been away. Know you not where he is?”

Claes answered her sadly:

“He is with all the others, roving vagabonds like himself, on
the high road. Verily, it was cruel of God to give us [16]such a
son. When he was born I thought of him as the joy of our old age, and
as another help in our house, for I hoped to make a good workman of
him. But now some evil chance hath turned him into a thief and a
good-for-nothing.”

“You are too hard on him, my man,” said Soetkin.
“He is our son, and he is but nine years old, and filled with
childish folly. It is needful that he also, like the trees of the
field, should let fall his husks by the wayside ere he decks himself
with the full foliage of virtue and honesty. He is mischievous; I do
not deny it. But later on this spirit of his will be turned to good
account, if instead of driving him to tricks and frolics it is put to
some useful purpose. He makes fun of the neighbours; true. But one day
you will find him take his rightful place in the midst of a circle of
gay and happy friends. He is always laughing and frivolous; yes, but a
young face that is too serious bodes ill for the future. And if he is
always running about, it is because his growing body needs to be
exercised; and if he is idle and does no work, it is because he is not
yet old enough to feel the duty of labour. And if, now and then, he
does stay away from us for half a week at a time, it is only because he
fails to realize the grief he causes us; for he has a good heart,
husband, and at bottom he loves us.”

Claes shook his head and said nothing, and went to sleep, leaving
Soetkin to her lonely tears. And she, in the morning, afraid lest her
son had fallen sick upon the road, went out and stood at the cottage
doorstep to see if he were coming back. But there was no sign of him,
and she came back into the cottage, and sat by the window, gazing out
all the time into the street. And many a time did her heart dance
within her bosom at the light footfall of some urchin that she thought
might be her own; but when the sound passed by, and she knew that it
was not Ulenspiegel, then she wept, poor mother that she was.

Ulenspiegel, meanwhile, with the fellow-scamps that [17]bore him
company, was away at Bruges, at the Saturday market.

There were to be seen the shoemakers and the cobblers, each in his
separate stall, the tailors selling suits of clothes, the
miesevangers from Antwerp (they that snare tom-tits by night
with the aid of an owl); and the poulterers too, and the rascally
dog-fanciers, and sellers of catskins that are made into gloves, and of
breast-pads and doublets: buyers too of every kind, townsmen and
townswomen, valets, servants, pantlers and butlers, and cooks, male and
female, all together, buying and selling, each according to his quality
shouting his wares, crying up or crying down, with every trick of the
trade.

Now in one corner of the market-place stood a wonderful tent made of
cloth, raised aloft on four piles. At the door of the tent was a
peasant from the level land of Alost, and by his side two monks begged
for alms. For the sum of one patard the peasant offered to show
to the curious or devout a genuine piece of the shoulder-bone of St.
Mary of Egypt. There he was, yelling out in his broken voice the merits
of the saint, and not omitting from his song that tale which tells how
she, being without money, paid the young ferryman in the beautiful
coinage of Nature herself, lest by refusing a workman his due she might
be guilty of sin. And all the while the two monks kept nodding their
heads, as much as to say that it was Gospel truth that the peasant was
speaking. And at their side was a fat, red-faced woman, as lewd-looking
as Astarte, blowing a raucous bagpipe, while at her side a young girl
sang in a voice sweet as a bird’s, though no one heeded her. Now
above the door of the tent, and swung between two poles by a cord
fastened to either handle, was a tub of Holy Water which the fat woman
affirmed had been brought from Rome; and the two monks lolled their
heads backwards and forwards in confirmation or what she said.
Ulenspiegel, looking at the tub, grew suddenly thoughtful. [18]

For to one of the posts of the tent was tied a donkey—a donkey
that to all appearance was wont to feed on hay rather than on oats. For
its head was down, and it scanned the earth in futile hopes of seeing
but a thistle growing there.

“Comrades,” said Ulenspiegel, pointing to the fat old
woman, the two monks, and the melancholy donkey, “since the
masters play so well, let us also make the donkey dance.”

And so saying he went to a stall close by and purchased six
liards’ worth of pepper. Then he lifted up the tail of the
donkey, and placed the pepper underneath it.

When the donkey began to feel the sting of the pepper, he cast his
eye backwards under his tail, endeavouring to discover the cause of the
unaccustomed heat. Thinking that it must be at the least some fiery
devil from hell, the donkey conceived the not unnatural desire to run
away and escape him; so he began to bray as loud as he could, and to
kick up his heels, and to shake the post with all his strength. At the
first shock, the tub hanging between the two poles tipped over, and the
holy water ran about over the tent and over those that were inside. And
soon the tent itself collapsed, covering with a dripping mantle all
those who were listening to the wondrous tale of St. Mary of Egypt. And
Ulenspiegel and his comrades could hear a mighty noise issuing from
beneath the tent, a noise of moaning and lamentation. For the devout
folk that were within began to accuse one another of having overturned
the tub, and presently grew red with rage, and fell upon each other
with many furious blows. The tent began to bulge here and there above
the frantic efforts of the combatants. And each time that Ulenspiegel
descried some rounded form outlined through the cloth of the tent, he
went and gave it a prick with a pin. This was the signal for new and
louder cries, and for fiercer and more general fisticuffs.

Ulenspiegel was delighted, and soon he was to become even more so,
when he saw the donkey begin to run away, [19]dragging behind him tent,
tub, tent-posts and all, while the master of the tent, with his wife
and daughter, hung on behind the baggage. At last the donkey, being
able to go no farther, raised his nose in the air, and gave vent to
bray after bray, a music that only ceased at those moments when he was
looking back under his tail to see if the fire that still raged there
would not soon go out.

All this time, the devout assembly in the tent were still
a-fighting. But the two monks, without troubling at all about what was
going on inside, began to gather up the money that had fallen from the
collection-plate, and Ulenspiegel assisted them devotedly, but not
without some profit to himself….

Now all this time that the vagabond son of the
charcoal-burner was growing up in merriment and mischief, the moody
scion of His Sacred Majesty the Emperor was vegetating like a weed in
moody melancholy. The Lords and Ladies of the Court used to watch him
as he mouched along the rooms and passages of the palace at Valladolid,
a frail, pitiful specimen of humanity, with legs that shook and scarce
seemed able to support the weight of the big head that was covered with
stiff blond hair.

He loved to haunt dark corridors, and he would stay sitting there
whole hours together, with his legs stretched out in front of him,
hoping that some valet or other might trip over them by mistake; then
he would have the fellow flogged; for he took pleasure in listening to
his cries under the lash. But he never laughed.

Another day he would select some other corridor in which to lay a
similar trap, and once again he would sit himself down with his legs
stretched out in front of him. Then one of the Ladies of the Court,
mayhap, or one of the Lords or pages, would stumble across him; and if
they fell down and hurt themselves, he took delight in their
discomfiture. [20]But he never laughed. And if by chance any one
knocked against him but did not fall down, he would cry out as if he
had been struck. He liked to see the other’s fright. But he never
laughed.

His Sacred Majesty was informed of these goings-on, and he commanded
that no notice should be taken of the child, saying that if his son did
not want people to walk over his legs he should not place his legs in a
position where they were liable to be walked over. Philip was angry at
this, but he said nothing and was no more seen, till one fine summer
day when he went out into the courtyard to warm his shivering body in
the sun.

Charles, riding back from the war, saw his son thus brewing his
melancholy.

“How now?” cried the Emperor. “What a difference
there is between us two, my son! At your age I loved nothing better
than to go climbing trees after squirrels. Or, with the aid of a rope,
to clamber down some steep cliff to take young eagles out of their
nests. I might easily have broken my bones at the game; but they only
grew the harder. And when I went out hunting, the deer fled into the
thickets at sight of me, armed with my trusty arquebus.”

“Ah, my Lord Father,” sighed the child, “but you
see, I have the stomach-ache.”

“For that,” said Charles, “good wine from Paxarete
is a most certain remedy.”

“I don’t like wine. I have a headache, my Lord
Father.”

“Then you should run and jump and play about like other
children of your age.”

“I have stiff legs, my Lord Father.”

“And how should it be otherwise,” said Charles,
“seeing that you make no more use of them than if they were of
wood? But you shall go riding on a high-mettled horse.”

The child began to cry.

“Oh no, for mercy’s sake! I have a pain in my
back!” [21]

“Come, come,” said Charles, “are you ill
everywhere then?”

“I should not be ill at all,” answered the child,
“if only they would let me alone.”

“Do you think to pass your royal life away in dreams like a
scholar?” the Emperor asked impatiently. “Such people as
that, if indeed it be necessary for the inking of their parchments, may
rightly seek out silence, solitude, retirement from the world. But for
thee, son of the sword, I would desire warm blood, a lynx’s eye,
a fox’s craft, and the strength of Hercules. Why do you cross
yourself? Blood of God! What should a lion’s cub be doing with
this mimicry of women at their prayers!”

“Hark! It is the Angelus, my Lord Father,” answered the
child.

May and June that year were in very truth the months
of flowers. Never had Flanders known the hawthorn so fragrant, never
the gardens so gay with roses, jasmine, and honeysuckle. And when the
wind blew eastwards from England it carried with it the breath of all
this flowery land, and the people, at Antwerp and elsewhere, sniffed
the air joyfully and cried aloud:

“How good the scent of the wind that blows from
Flanders!”

Then it was that the bees were busy sucking honey from the flowers,
making wax, and laying their eggs within the hives that were all too
small to house the swarms. What workman’s music they made, under
that canopy of azure sky that was spread so dazzlingly over the rich
earth!

The hives were made of rushes, straw, osiers or of wattled hay. And
there the bees, like clever basket-makers, lined and tunnelled the
hives with their beautifully fitting tools. And as for the
bread-makers, this long time past their numbers were scarce sufficient
for the work they had to do. [22]In a single swarm there would be as
many as three thousand bees and two thousand seven hundred drones! The
quality of the comb was so exquisite that the Dean of Damme dispatched
eleven combs to the Emperor Charles out of gratitude for the new edicts
that had revived in Flanders the earlier vigour of the Holy
Inquisition. It was Philip, forsooth, that ate them all; but little
good did they do him!

But in Flanders, the rascals of the roads, the beggars and vagabonds
and all that lazy good-for-nothing crowd who would risk hanging rather
than do a day’s work, were soon enticed by the taste of the honey
to come along and steal their share. And by night they prowled around
the hives in gangs. Now Claes had made some hives for the purpose of
attracting the wandering swarms of bees, and some of these hives were
full already, but there were others that stood empty waiting for the
bees. Claes kept watch all night to guard this sugary wealth of his;
and when he was tired he asked Ulenspiegel to take his place, the which
Ulenspiegel did right willingly.

It was a cold night, and Ulenspiegel to avoid the chill took refuge
in one of the hives, curling himself up inside, and looking out from
two openings that had been made in the roof of the hive.

Just as he was going off to sleep, he heard a rustle in the bushy
hedge near by, and then the voices of two men. They were thieves, no
doubt, and peering forth from the openings aforesaid, Ulenspiegel saw
that they both had long hair and long beards, which was strange, for a
long beard is usually the sign of a nobleman. However, the two men went
peering from hive to hive, and coming at last to the one in which
Ulenspiegel was hiding, they tried its weight, and
then——

“Let us take this one,” they said. “It is the
heaviest.”

Whereupon they slung it up between them, on a couple of poles, and
carried it off. Ulenspiegel did not at all fancy being thus carted away
in a hive. But the night was clear, [23]and the two thieves marched
along with never a word. When they had gone about fifty paces they
would stop to take breath, and then set off again. The man in front
grumbled angrily all the time at the weight of his burden. And the man
behind whined in a querulous fashion. Even so are there always to be
found two sorts of idle fellows in this world, those who are angry at
having to work, and those who merely whine at having to.

Ulenspiegel, since there seemed nothing else to do, took hold of the
hair of the man in front and gave it a pull. And he did the same to the
beard of the man at the rear; and to such purpose that the two men soon
grew annoyed at what was happening, and Mr. Angry said to Mr.
Whining:

“Hi there, stop pulling my hair, you, or else I’ll give
you such a whack on the head that it’ll squash down into your
chest, and then you’ll be looking out of your two sides like a
thief through the prison grille!”

“I should never think of doing such a thing as to pull your
hair,” said the whiner. “But what are you doing there,
pulling at my beard?”

To which Mr. Angry made answer:

“It isn’t I that would go hunting for fleas in the wool
of a leper!”

“O sir,” said the whiner, “for goodness’
sake don’t go shaking the hive about like this. My poor arms
cannot support it any longer.”

“I shall shake it out of your arms altogether,” said the
other. Then unloading himself, he placed the hive upon the ground and
fell upon his companion. And so they fought together, the one cursing,
and the other crying out for mercy.

Ulenspiegel, hearing the sound of blows, came out from the hive,
dragged it behind him into the wood close by, and having placed it
where he could find it again, returned to Claes.

And thus you may see what sort of a profit it is that thieves derive
from their quarrels. [24]

As he grew up, Ulenspiegel acquired the habit of
wandering about among the fairs and markets of the country-side, and
whenever he hit upon a man who played the oboe, the rebec, or the
bagpipes, he would offer him a patard for a lesson in the art of
making those instruments to sing.

He became especially accomplished in the art of playing the rommelpot, an instrument which is constructed out of a round
pot, a bladder, and a straight piece of straw. And this is the way he
played it. First of all he moistened the bladder and held it over the
pot. Then he drew the centre of the bladder round the joint of a straw
which itself was attached to the bottom of the pot. Finally he
stretched the bladder as tightly as he dared over the sides of the pot.
In the morning, when the bladder was dry, it sounded like a tambourine
when struck, and if one rubbed the straw it gave forth a humming sound
as fine in tone as that of any violin. And Ulenspiegel, with his
musical pot that played music like the baying of a mastiff, went out
with the other children on the day of Epiphany carrying a star made of
luminous paper, and singing carols.

Sometimes an artist would come to Damme to paint the members of one
of the Guilds, upon their knees. Ulenspiegel was always anxious to see
how the artist worked, and he would beg to be allowed to grind the
colours in return for nothing but a slice of bread, three
liards, and a pint of ale. But while he worked away at the
grinding he would carefully study the method of his master. When the
artist went away Ulenspiegel would endeavour to paint pictures like
him; and his favourite colour was scarlet. In this way he tried to
paint the portraits of Claes, of Soetkin, and of Katheline and Nele, as
well as those of the pots and pans in the kitchen. When Claes beheld
these works of art he predicted that if only he worked hard enough
Ulenspiegel would one day be [25]able to earn florins by the dozen for
painting the inscriptions on the festal cars, or speel-wagen as they are called in Zeeland and the land of
Flanders.

Ulenspiegel also learnt to carve in wood and in stone, for once a
master-mason came to Damme to carve a stall in the choir of Notre Dame.
And this stall was made in such a way that the Dean—who was an
old man—could sit down when he so desired, yet seem to all
appearance as if he were still standing upright.

It was Ulenspiegel too who made the first carved knife-handle ever
used by the people of Zeeland. He fashioned this handle in the form of
a cage. Inside was a death’s head that moved; and above it a
hound couchant. And this was the signification: “Soul true
till death.”

Thus it was that Ulenspiegel began to fulfil the prophecy that
Katheline had made when she said that he would be painter, sculptor,
workman, nobleman, all in one. For you must know that from father to
son the family of Claes bore arms three pint pots argent au naturel
on a ground bruinbier.

But Ulenspiegel would stick to no one profession, and Claes told him
that if he went on in this good-for-nothing way he would chase him out
of the house.

On his return from the wars, the Emperor wanted to
know why his son Philip was not there to welcome him.

The Archbishop—the royal Governor—said that the child
had refused to leave his solitude and the books which were the only
things he loved.

The Emperor asked where he was to be found at the moment. The
Governor did not know exactly, but said they had better go and look for
him somewhere where it was dark. This they did.

When they had looked through a good number of rooms they came at
last to a kind of closet, unpaved and lit only by [26]a
skylight. There they found a stake stuck into the ground, and a dear
little monkey bound to the stake by a cord round the waist. (Now this
monkey had been sent from the Indies as a present to His Highness to
amuse him with its youthful gambols)…. Round the bottom of the stake
were some smoking sticks still glowing, and the closet was filled with
a foul smell as of burning hair.

Philip and the Monkey

The poor animal had suffered so much pain while being burnt to death
that its little body no longer looked the body of a living animal, but
seemed rather like the fragment of some root, all wrinkled and
distorted. And its mouth, still open with the death-cry, was filled
with froth mixed with blood; and the face was wet with tears.

“Who has done this?” said the Emperor.

The Governor did not dare to answer, and the two men stood there
silent, sad, and angry.

All at once, in the silence, there was heard a sound of feeble
coughing that came from a corner in the shadow behind them. His Majesty
turned and beheld Philip, his son, dressed all in black, sucking an
orange.

“Don Philip,” he said, “come and greet your
father.”

The child did not move, but gazed at his father with timid eyes that
showed no spark of love.

“Is it you,” asked the Emperor, “who have burnt
alive in the fire this little animal?”

The child bowed his head.

But the Emperor: “If you have been cruel enough to do such a
deed, at least be brave enough to own up to it.”

The child made no answer.

His Majesty seized the orange from the child’s hands, threw it
to the ground, and was about to beat his son, who was shaking with
terror, when the Archbishop restrained him, whispering in his ear:

“The day will surely come when His Highness shall prove a
mighty burner of heretics.” The Emperor smiled, [27]and the
two of them went away, leaving Philip alone with the monkey.

But others there were, not monkeys, that were destined to meet their
death in the flames….

November was come, the month of hail-storms, when
sufferers from cold in the head abandon themselves freely to their
concerts of coughing and spitting. This also is the month when the
turnip-fields are filled with gangs of youths that there disport
themselves and steal whatever they can, to the mighty wrath of the
peasants, who try in vain to catch them, chasing after them with sticks
and pitchforks.

Well, on an evening when Ulenspiegel was returning home from one of
these raids, he heard close by, in a corner of the hedgerow, a sound as
of groaning. He leant down, and beheld a dog lying stretched out on the
stones.

“Hallo!” he cried. “Poor little beast! What are
you doing out here so late at night?”

He patted the dog, and found that its back was all wet, as though
some one had been trying to drown it. He took it in his arms to warm
it, and when he had reached home he said:

“I have brought back a wounded animal. What shall we do with
it?”

“Dress its wounds,” said Claes.

Ulenspiegel laid the dog on the table; whereupon he and Claes and
Soetkin saw that it was a little red-haired Luxemburg terrier, and that
it was wounded in the back. Soetkin sponged the wounds, and anointed
them with ointment, and bound them up with linen bandages. Then
Ulenspiegel took the dog and put it in his bed; but Soetkin desired to
have it in her own, saying she was afraid that Ulenspiegel would hurt
the little red-haired thing. For in those days Ulenspiegel was wont to
toss about in his sleep all night like a young devil in a stoup of holy
water. Ulenspiegel, however, [28]had his way, and he took such care of
the dog that in the space of six days it was walking about like any
other dog, and giving itself great airs.

And the village schoolmaster christened him Titus Bibulus
Schnouffius: Titus after a certain good Emperor of the Romans who was
fond of befriending lost dogs; Bibulus because the dog loved beer with
all the passion of a confirmed drunkard; and Schnouffius because he
would always run about sniffing and putting his nose into every
rat-hole and mole-hole he could find.

The young prince of Spain was now fifteen years old,
and his custom was to wander about the rooms and passages and stairways
of the castle. But chiefly was he to be found prowling around the
women’s quarters, trying to pick a quarrel with one of the pages,
who themselves were wont to lurk on the look out, like cats, in the
corridors; while others, again, out in the courtyard, would stand
singing some tender ballad, nose in air. When the young prince heard
one singing thus, he would show himself at one of the windows, and the
heart of that poor page would be stricken with fear as he saw that
white face there, instead of the gentle eyes of his beloved.

Now among the Ladies of the Court there was a gentle dame from
Dudzeel near by Damme in Flanders. Fair-fleshed she was, like fine ripe
fruit, and marvellously beautiful, for she had green eyes and reddish
hair all wavy and gleaming gold. And of a gay humour was she, and of an
ardent complexion, nor did she make any effort to conceal her taste for
that fortunate lord to whom for the time being she was pleased to grant
the freedom of the fair estate of her love. Such a one there was even
now, handsome and proud, and she loved him well. Every day, at a
certain hour, she went to find him—a thing which Philip was not
long in finding out. [29]

So, one day, sitting himself down on a bench that stood against a
window, he lay in wait for her, and there she saw him as she passed by,
with her bright eyes and her mouth half open, all meet for love and
fresh from her bath, with the gear of her dress of yellow brocade
swinging about her as she stepped along. Without rising from his seat,
Philip accosted her.

“Madame,” says he, “could you not spare a
moment?”

Restive as some eager mare, stayed in her course towards the gallant
stallion that is neighing for her in the field, the lady made
answer:

“All here must needs obey the royal will of your
Highness.”

“Then sit you down by my side,” said the Prince. And
gazing at her lewdly, harshly, cunningly, he spake again:

“I would have you recite to me the Pater Noster in
Flemish. They taught it me once, but I no longer remember
it.”

The poor lady did as she was bid; and then the Prince commanded her
to say it all over again, but more slowly. And so on, and so on, until
she had recited it ten times over. After that he began to speak
flatteringly to her, praising her beautiful hair, her fresh complexion,
and her bright eyes. But he dared not to say a word concerning her
lovely shoulders or her rounded throat, or of aught else beside.

When at last she was beginning to hope that she might be able to get
away, and was already scanning anxiously the courtyard where her lord
was awaiting her, the Prince demanded of her if she could rightly tell
him what were the several virtues of woman? She answered nothing,
fearing that she might say something to displease him. He then answered
for her, setting the matter forth in this wise:

“The virtues of woman are these: chastity, regard for her own
honour, and a modest manner of life.” And he counselled her,
therefore, that she should dress decently and should always be careful
to hide those things which were [30]meet to be hidden. The lady
nodded assent, saying that for His Hyperborean Highness she would
certainly take care to cover herself with ten bear-skins rather than
with a single length of muslin.

Having put him to shame by this answer, she made off gladly.

But in Philip’s heart the fire of youth was alight—not
the fiery glow that dares the souls of the brave to lofty deeds, but a
dark fire from hell itself, the fire of Satan. And it flamed in his
grey eyes like the beam of a winter’s moon shining down upon a
charnel-house. And it burned within him cruelly….

Now this beautiful, gay-hearted lady left Valladolid
one day for her Château of Dudzeel in Flanders.

Passing through Damme, with her fat attendant behind her, she
noticed a lad of about fifteen years of age sitting against the wall of
a cottage blowing a pair of bagpipes. In front of him was a dog with
red hair howling dismally, because, as it seemed, he did not at all
appreciate the music which his master was making. The sun shone
brightly, and at the lad’s side there stood a pretty young girl
in fits of laughter at the pitiful howling of the dog.

This then was the sight that met the eye of the beautiful lady and
her fat attendant as they passed in front of the cottage: none else but
Ulenspiegel blowing his pipes, and Nele in fits of laughter, and Titus
Bibulus Schnouffius howling with all his might.

“You naughty boy,” said the dame to Ulenspiegel,
“will you never stop making this poor red-hair howl like
this?”

But Ulenspiegel, staring back at her, blew his pipes more valiantly
than ever, and Bibulus Schnouffius howled the more dismally, and Nele
laughed all the louder.

The lady’s attendant grew angry, and pointed at Ulenspiegel,
saying: [31]

“If I beat this wretched little imp of a man with
the scabbard of my sword he would give over his insolent
row.”

Ulenspiegel looked the attendant in the face and called him
“Jan Papzak” because of his fat belly, and went on blowing
his bagpipes. The attendant came up to him, and threatened him with his
fist. But Bibulus Schnouffius went for him straightway and bit him in
the leg, and the man fell down, crying for mercy:

“Help, help!”

The dame only smiled, and said to Ulenspiegel:

“Tell me, my player of bagpipes, is the road still the same
that leads from Damme to Dudzeel?”

But Ulenspiegel went on playing, and only nodded his head and
stared.

“Why do you look at me so fixedly?” she asked him.

But he, still continuing to play, opened his eyes all the wider as
though transported by an ecstasy of admiration.

“Are you not ashamed,” she said, “young as you
are, to stare at ladies so?”

Ulenspiegel blushed faintly, but went on blowing his pipes, and
staring more than ever.

“I have already asked you once,” the lady insisted,
“whether the road is still the same that leads from Damme to
Dudzeel.”

“It is green no longer since you deprived it of the honour of
carrying you,” Ulenspiegel answered.

“Will you show me the way?” said the lady.

But Ulenspiegel still remained sitting where he was, and still went
on staring at her. And she, seeing him so roguish, and knowing it all
for the gamesomeness of youth, forgave him willingly.

He got up at last, and began to walk back into the cottage.

“Whither are you going?” she asked him.

“To put on my best clothes,” he replied.

“Very well,” she said. [32]

Then the lady sat herself down on the bench, close to the doorstep,
and tried to talk to Nele. But Nele would not answer her, for she was
jealous.

It was not long before Ulenspiegel returned, well washed and clothed
in fustian. He looked fine in his Sunday clothes, the little man.

“Are you really going off with this fine lady?” Nele
asked him.

“I shall soon be back,” he told her.

“Let me go instead of you,” said Nele.

“No,” he said, “the roads are muddy.”

“Why, little girl,” said the lady, who was annoyed and
jealous now in her turn, “why do you try to hinder him from
coming with me?”

Nele did not answer, but great tears gushed from her eyes, and she
gazed at the fine lady in sadness and in anger.

Then the four of them started off, the dame seated like a queen upon
her ambling palfrey, the attendant with his belly that shook with every
step, Ulenspiegel holding the lady’s horse by the bridle, and
Bibulus Schnouffius walking at his side, tail proudly in air.

Thus went they on horseback and on foot for some long while. But
Ulenspiegel was not at his ease; dumb as a fish he sniffed the fine
scent of benjamin that floated from the lady, and saw out of the corner
of his eye all her beautiful gear, rare jewels and trinkets, and the
sweet expression of her face, her bright eyes, and bare neck, and her
hair that shone in the sunlight like a hood of gold.

“Why are you so quiet, my little man?” she asked
him.

He answered nothing.

“Do you keep your tongue so deep in your boots that you could
not take a message for me?”

“What is it?” said Ulenspiegel.

“I would have you leave me here,” said the dame,
“and go to Koolkercke, from whence this wind is blowing.
[33]There you will find a gentleman dressed in black
and red motley. Tell him that he must not expect me to-day, but let him
come to-morrow evening to my château, by the postern gate, at ten
o’ the clock.”

“I will not go,” said Ulenspiegel.

“Why not?” asked the lady.

“I will not go, not I,” Ulenspiegel said again.

“What can it be,” the lady asked him, “what can it
be that inspires you with this unyielding will, you angry little
cock?”

“I will not go,” Ulenspiegel persisted.

“But if I gave you a florin?”

“No,” said he.

“A ducat?”

“No.”

“A carolus!”

“No,” Ulenspiegel repeated,
“although”—and this was added with a
sigh—“I should rather see it in my mother’s purse
than a mussel-shell!”

The dame laughed, then suddenly cried out in a loud voice:

“My bag! I have lost my little bag! Beautiful it was and rare,
made of silk, and sown with fine pearls! It was hanging from my belt
when we were at Damme!”

Ulenspiegel did not budge, but her attendant came up to his
lady.

“Madame,” said he, “whatever else you do, be
careful not to send this young robber to look for it, for so you will
certainly never see it again.”

“Who will go then?” asked the lady.

“I will,” he answered, “old as I am.”

And away he went.

Midday had struck. It was very hot. The silence was profound.
Ulenspiegel said not a word, but taking off his new doublet he laid it
on the grass in the shade of a lime-tree, [34]so that the dame might
sit down thereon without fear of the damp. He stood close by, heaving a
sigh.

She looked up at him, and felt compassion on that shy little figure,
and she inquired of him if he was not tired standing there upright on
his young legs. He did not answer, but slid gently down at her side.
She was desirous of resting him, and she drew his head on to her bare
neck, and there it lay so willingly that she would have thought it the
sin of cruelty itself had she bade him find some other pillow.

After a while the attendant came back, saying that he had not been
able to find the bag.

“I have found it myself,” replied the lady, “for
when I dismounted from my horse, there it was hanging half open on the
stirrup. And now”—this to Ulenspiegel—“show us
the way to Dudzeel, please, and tell me your name.”

“My patron saint,” he replied, “is Monsieur Saint
Thylbert, a name which means fleet of foot towards that which is good;
my second name is Claes, and my surname Ulenspiegel. But now, if you
would deign to look at yourself in my mirror, you would see that in all
the land of Flanders there is not one flower so dazzling in its beauty
as is the scented grace of you.”

The lady blushed with pleasure, and was not angry with
Ulenspiegel.

But Soetkin and Nele sat at home, weeping together, through all this
long absence.

When Ulenspiegel returned from Dudzeel and came to the
entrance of the town, he saw Nele standing there leaning with her back
against the toll-gate. She was picking the stones out of a bunch of
black grapes, which she munched one by one, and found therefrom,
doubtless, much delight and refreshment; nevertheless, she did not
allow anything of her enjoyment to appear on her countenance. On the
contrary, [35]she seemed annoyed at something, tearing at the
grapes angrily. She looked, indeed, so sad and sorrowful, so sweetly
unhappy, that Ulenspiegel felt overcome with that pity which is almost
love, and coming up to her from behind, he printed a kiss on the nape
of the girl’s neck. But all the return she gave him was a great
box on the ear.

“Now I shall not be able to see properly any more,” he
said.

She burst into tears.

“O Nele,” says he, “are you going to set up
fountains at the entrance of all the villages?”

“Be off with you,” says she.

“But I can’t go away and leave you crying like this, my
little pet.”

“I am not your little pet,” says Nele; “neither am
I crying.”

“No, you are not crying, but there is certainly some water
coming out of your eyes.”

“Will you go away?” She turned on him.

“No,” he answered.

All the time she was holding her pinafore in her small trembling
hand, tearing at the stuff in little spasms of rage, and wetting it
with her tears.

“Nele,” said Ulenspiegel, “when is it going to be
fine again?”

And he smiled at her very lovingly.

“Why do you ask me that?” she said.

“Because when it is fine there is an end of weeping,”
answered Ulenspiegel.

“Go back to your beautiful lady of the brocaded gown,”
she said. “Your jokes are good enough for
her….”

Then Ulenspiegel sang:

“You villainous man!” she cried,
“making fun of me again!”

“Nele,” said Ulenspiegel, “it is true that I am a
man. But I am not a villain. For our family is of noble origin, a
family of aldermen, and it carries on its shield three pint pots
argent on a ground bruinbier. But, Nele, tell me now, is it a fact
that in Flanders when a man sows a kiss he always reaps a box on the
ear?”

“I refuse to speak to you,” said Nele.

“Then why open your mouth to tell me so?”

“I am angry,” she said.

Ulenspiegel slapped her on the back very lightly with his hand,
saying:

“Kiss a naughty girl and she will cuff you; cuff her, she will
cry. Come then, sweet, cry upon my shoulder since I have cuffed
you!”

Nele turned round. He opened his arms, and she threw herself into
them.

“You won’t go away any more down there, will you
Tyl?” she asked him.

But he did not answer, busy as he was in pressing with his the hand
that trembled so pitifully, and in drying with his lips the hot tears
that fell from the eyes of Nele, like heavy drops of rain in a
storm.

These were the days when the noble city of Ghent
refused to pay the tax which her son, the Emperor Charles, was
demanding of her. The fact was it was impossible to pay, for
[37]already the city was drained of money by the act
of Charles himself. But it seemed that the city was guilty of a great
crime, and Charles resolved to go himself and exact punishment. For to
be whipped by her own son is above all things painful to a mother.

Now, although he was his enemy, Francis Long-Nose was pleased to
offer the Emperor a free passage through the land of France. Charles
accepted the offer, and instead of being held as a prisoner, he was
fêted and feasted in right royal fashion. For this is ever a
sovereign bond of union between kings: each to aid the other against
their own peoples.

Charles stayed a long time at Valenciennes, and still gave no sign
of his wrath, so that Mother Ghent began to lay aside her fears,
believing that the Emperor her son was going to forgive her, seeing
that she had acted within her rights.

But at length Charles arrived under the walls of the city with 4000
horse, together with the Duke of Alba and the Prince of Orange. The
poorer townsfolk and the small business men wished to prevent this
filial entry into their city, and would have called to arms 80,000 men
of the city and of the country round. But the merchants, the
hoogh-poorters, opposed this suggestion, being afraid of the
predominance of the people. Thus Ghent could easily have cut her son to
pieces, him and his 4000 horse. But it seemed she loved him too dearly,
and even the small tradesmen themselves were fast regaining their trust
in him.

Charles also loved the city, but only for the sake of his coffers
that were stored with her money, and which he hoped to store up fuller
yet.

Having made himself master of the place, he established military
posts everywhere, and ordered that they should patrol the city night
and day. Then, in great state, he pronounced his sentence.

The chief merchants of the city with cords round their necks were to
appear before him as he sat on his throne, and [38]to make
a formal apology. Ghent itself was declared guilty of the most costly
crimes—of disloyalty, disregard of treaties, disobedience,
sedition, conspiracy, and high treason. The Emperor declared that all
and every privilege—rights, customs, freedoms, and
usages—all were to be abolished and annulled; and he stipulated
for the future too, as though he were God himself, that none of his
successors on coming to the throne should ever observe any one of these
usages again, except only that which was called the Caroline
Concession, as granted by him to the city.

The Abbey of St. Bavon he razed to the ground, and in place he
erected a fortress whence he could pierce with bullets and at his ease
his mother’s very heart. Like a good son that is in a hurry for
his inheritance, he confiscated all the riches of Ghent, its revenues,
its houses, its artillery and munitions of war. Finding it still too
well guarded, he destroyed also the Red Tower, the Tower of the
Trou de Crapaud, the Braampoort, the
Steenpoort, the Waalpoort, the
Ketelpoort, and many another of its gates, all carved
as they were and sculptured like jewels in stone.

And afterwards, when strangers came to Ghent, they would ask of one
another:

“Can this indeed be Ghent whose marvels were on the lips of
all—this city so desolated and brought low?”

And the people of Ghent would make answer:

“Charles the Emperor has been to the city. He has ravished her
sacred zone.”

And so saying they would be filled with anger and with shame. And
from the ruins of the city gates did the Emperor take away the bricks
wherewith to build his castle.

For it was his will that Ghent should be utterly impoverished, that
thereby he might make it impossible for her ever to oppose his proud
designs, either by her labour or her industry or wealth; therefore he
condemned her to pay that share of the tax of 400,000 caroluses which
she had [39]previously refused him, and in addition 150,000
caroluses down, and 6000 more every year in perpetuity. Moreover, in
earlier days the city had lent him money upon which he should have paid
interest at the rate of 150 pounds gross annually. But he made himself
remit by force the notes of credit, and by paying off his debt in this
way he actually enriched himself.

Many and many a time had Ghent cherished him and succoured him, but
now he struck her on the breast as it were with a dagger, looking for
blood, since it seemed he had not there found milk enough.

Last shame of all, he cast his eye upon the bell that is called
Roelandt; and the man who had sounded the alarm thereon, bidding
all the citizens to defend the rights of their city, him he had bound
and hung to the clapper of the bell. And he had no pity upon
Roelandt, the very tongue of his mother, the tongue whereby she
spake to all the land of Flanders, Roelandt the proud bell that
sings of herself this song:

And thinking that his mother had too loud a voice he
carried away her bell. And the people of the country round would say
that Ghent was dead, now that her son had wrenched away her tongue with
his pincers of iron.

In those days, which were days of spring, fresh and
clear, when all the earth is in love, Soetkin was chatting by the open
window, and Claes humming a tune, while Ulenspiegel was dressing up the
dog Bibulus Schnouffius in a judge’s bonnet. The dog plied his
paws as though desirous of passing judgment upon some one, though in
reality it [40]was simply his way of trying to get rid of his
ungainly head-gear.

All at once, Ulenspiegel shut the window and ran back into the room.
Then he jumped upon the chairs and the table, reaching up towards the
ceiling with his hands. Soetkin and Claes soon discovered the cause of
this mad behaviour, for there was a tiny little bird, chirruping with
fear, and cowering against a beam in the recess of the ceiling, and
Ulenspiegel was trying to catch it. He had almost succeeded when Claes
spoke out briskly and asked him:

“Why are you jumping about like this?”

“To catch the bird,” answered Ulenspiegel, “and
put him in a cage, and feed him with seeds, and make him sing for
me.”

Meantime the bird, crying in an agony of terror, flew back into the
room, striking its head against the window-pane. Still Ulenspiegel went
on trying to catch it, but suddenly the hand of Claes came down heavily
upon his shoulder.

“Catch the bird if you can,” said he, “put it in a
cage, make it sing for your pleasure; but I also will put you in a cage
that is fastened with strong bars of iron, and I will make you sing
too. Then you, who like nothing better than to run about, will be able
to do so no more; and you will be kept standing in the shade when you
are chilly, and in the sun when you are hot. And, one Sunday, we shall
all go out and forget to give you your food, and we shall not return
again till Thursday, and then maybe we shall find our Tyl all stiff and
starved to death.”

Soetkin was crying at this picture, but Ulenspiegel started
forward.

“What are you going to do?” asked Claes.

“Open the window for the bird to fly out,” he
answered.

And in fact the bird, which was a goldfinch, flew straight out
through the window, and with a cry of joy mounted up into the air like
an arrow, and then alighted upon a neighbouring [41]apple-tree, smoothing its wings with its beak,
ruffling its plumage. And all kinds of abuse did it sing in its bird
language, all directed against Ulenspiegel.

Then Claes said:

“O son of mine, take care that you never take away its liberty
from either man or beast, for liberty is the greatest good in the
world. Let every one be free, free to go out into the sun when it is
cold, and into the shade when it is hot. And let God give judgment on
His Sacred Majesty, he who, not content with denying freedom of belief
to the people of Flanders, has now put all the noble city of Ghent into
a cage of slavery.”

Now Philip was married to Marie of Portugal, and with
her he acquired her lands for the crown of Spain; and together they had
a son, Don Carlos, he who was afterwards called “the mad”
and “the cruel.” And Philip had no love for his wife.

The Queen was lying-in. She kept her bed, and by her side were the
maids of honour, the Duchess of Alba among them.

Oftentimes did Philip leave his wife to go and see the burning of
heretics. And all the gentlemen and ladies of the Court did likewise.
And thus also did the Duchess of Alba and the other noble ladies whose
duty it was to watch by the Queen in her childbed.

Now at that time the ecclesiastical judges had seized a certain
sculptor of Flanders, a good Roman Catholic, on the following charge:
He had been commissioned, it seems, by a certain monk to carve a wooden
statue of Our Lady for a certain sum, and on the monk refusing to pay
the price which had been agreed between them, the sculptor had slashed
at the face of the image with his chisel, saying that he would rather
destroy his work than let it go at the price of a piece of dirt.

He was straightway denounced by the monk as an iconoclast, tortured
most piteously and condemned to be burnt [42]alive. During the torture
they had scalded the soles of his feet, so that he cried out as he
passed along from the prison to the stake: “Cut my feet off! For
God’s sake cut my feet off!”

And Philip, hearing these cries from afar, was glad, though smiled
he never a smile.

Queen Marie’s dames of honour all left her, wishing to be
present at the burning, and the last of all to desert her was the said
Duchess of Alba, who, hearing the cries of the sculptor, could not
forbear to witness the spectacle.

So, in the presence of King Philip and of his lords, princes,
counts, equerries, and ladies, the sculptor was bound to the stake by a
long chain. And all round the stake was a circle of flaming bundles of
straw and fiery torches, the idea being that if he wished, the sculptor
could be roasted very gently by keeping close to the stake in the
centre of the circle, thus avoiding the full rigour of the fire.

And right curiously did they watch him, naked or almost naked as he
was, and trying to stiffen his resolution against the heat of the
fire.

Meanwhile Queen Marie was stricken with a great thirst, lying there
alone on her bed of childbirth. And seeing the half of a melon on a
plate, she dragged herself out of bed, and took hold of the melon and
ate it all. But thereafter the cold substance of the melon made her to
sweat and to shiver, and she lay upon the floor unable to move.

“Alas!” she cried, “would that there were some one
to carry me back into bed that I might get warm again!”

Then it was that she heard the cry of the poor sculptor:

“Cut off my feet! Cut off my feet!”

“Ah!” said the Queen, “is that some dog or other
baying at my death?”

It was at this very moment that the sculptor, seeing around him none
but the faces of Spaniards, his enemies, bethought him of Flanders, the
land of valorous men, and he crossed his [43]arms on his breast, and
dragging the long chain behind him, walked straight towards the outer
circle of the straw and the flaming torches. And standing upright
there, still with his arms crossed:

“This,” cried he, “this is how the men of Flanders
can die in the face of the tyrants of Spain. Cut off their
feet—not mine—that they may be able no more to run into the
way of crime. Flanders for ever! Flanders for ever!”

And the ladies clapped their hands, crying him mercy for the sake of
his proud look.

And he died.

And Queen Marie shook all over her body, and she cried out, her
teeth chattering together with the chill of approaching death. And her
arms and legs grew stiff, and she said:

“Put me back into my bed that I may be warmed.”

So she died.

And thus it was, according to the prophecy of Katheline the good
sorceress, that Philip the King sowed everywhere he went the seeds of
death, and blood, and tears.

But Ulenspiegel and Nele loved each other, and their
love was true.

It was now the end of April. All the trees were in bloom, and every
plant was swollen with sap, for May was near, the month of the peacock,
flowered like a bouquet, the month that sends the nightingales singing
aloud in the trees of all the earth.

Oftentimes would Nele and Ulenspiegel wander together along the
roads. Nele would lean on the arm of Ulenspiegel, and hang round him
with her two hands. Ulenspiegel loved this little game, and often did
he pass his arm about Nele’s waist, to hold her the better, as he
said. And she was happy, but spake not a word. [44]

Softly along the roads blew the wind, wafting the scent from the
fields; the sea boomed in the distance, rocking lazily in the sun;
Ulenspiegel seemed like some youthful devil, all pride; and Nele like a
little saint from Paradise, half shy of her happiness.

She leant her head against Ulenspiegel’s shoulder, and her
hand was in his, and as they passed along he kissed her forehead, and
her cheek, and her sweet lips. But still she spake no word.

Nele and Ulenspiegel

After some hours they grew hot and thirsty, and they drank milk at
the house of a peasant; and yet they were not refreshed. Then they sat
them down on the grass by the side of the ditch, and Nele seemed pale
and pensive, and Ulenspiegel looked at her, afraid that something was
amiss.

“You are unhappy?” said she.

“Yes,” he admitted.

“But why?” she asked him.

“I know not,” said he. “But these apple-trees and
cherry-trees all in flower, this air so warm that one would say it was
charged with lightning, these daisies that open their blushing petals
to the fields, and oh, the hawthorn, there, close by us in the hedge,
all white…. Will no one tell me why it is that I feel troubled, and
always ready to die or to go to sleep? And my heart beats so strangely
when I hear the birds awaken in the trees, and when I see the swallows
coming home! Then I am fain to go away beyond the sun and beyond the
moon. And sometimes I am cold, and then again I am hot. Ah, Nele! would
that I were no longer a creature of this low world! Verily I would give
my life a thousand times to her that would love me!”

Yet Nele spake not at all, but smiling at her ease sat looking at
Ulenspiegel.

One Day of All Souls, Ulenspiegel went forth from
Notre Dame with certain other vagabonds of his own age. Among
[45]them was Lamme Goedzak, who seemed strayed among
them like a lamb in the midst of a herd of wolves. Lamme treated them
with drinks all round, for his mother, as her custom was on Sundays and
feast days, had given him three patards.

So he went with his companions to the tavern In dem Rooden
Schildt—at the sign of the Red Shield. Jan van Liebeke kept
the house, and he served them with dobbel knollaert from
Courtrai.

They began to be warmed with the drink, and the talk turned on the
subject of prayer, and Ulenspiegel declared quite openly that, for his
part, he thought that Masses for the dead did nobody any good, except
the priests who said them.

Now in that company there was a Judas, who went and denounced
Ulenspiegel for a heretic. And in spite of the tears of Soetkin, and
the entreaties of Claes, Ulenspiegel was seized and taken prisoner. He
remained shut up in a cellar for the space of a month and three days
without seeing a soul. The jailor himself consumed three-quarters of
the ration that was given him for food.

During all this time the authorities were informing themselves as to
Ulenspiegel’s reputation—whether it was good or whether it
was bad. They found that there was not much to be said against him
except that he was a lively sort of customer, always railing against
his neighbours. But they could not find that he had ever spoken evil of
Our Lord God, or of Madame the Virgin, nor yet of the Saints. On this
account the sentence passed on him was a light one, for he might easily
have been condemned to have his face branded with a hot iron and to be
flogged till the blood flowed. But in consideration of his youth, the
judges merely sentenced him to walk in his shirt behind the priests
barefoot and hatless, and holding a candle in his hand. And this he was
to do on the Feast of the Ascension, in the first procession that left
the church.

So it was done, and when the procession was on the point
[46]of turning back, Ulenspiegel was made to stop
beneath the porch of Notre Dame, and there cry out aloud:

“Thanks be to our Lord Jesus! Thanks be to the reverend
priests! Sweet are their prayers unto the souls in purgatory; nay, they
are filled with every virtue of refreshment! For each Ave is
even as a bucket of water poured upon the backs of those who are being
punished, and every Pater is a tubful!”

And the people heard him with great devotion, and not without a
smile.

On Whit-Sunday the same proceeding had to be gone through, and
Ulenspiegel followed again in the procession with nothing on but his
shirt, and with his head bare, and no shoes on his feet, and holding a
candle in his hand. On returning to the church he stood up in the
porch, holding the candle most reverently in his hand, and then in a
high, clear voice (yet not without sundry waggish grimaces) spake as
follows:

“If the prayers of all good Christians are very comforting to
the souls in purgatory, how much more so must be those of the Dean of
Notre Dame, a holy man and perfect in the performance of every virtue.
Verily, his prayers assuage the flames of fire in such wise that they
are transformed all of a sudden into ice. But yet be sure that not an
atom of it goes to refresh the devils that are in hell.”

And again the people hearkened to what he said with great devotion.
But some of them smiled, and the Dean smiled too, in his grim
ecclesiastical way.

After that, Ulenspiegel was condemned to banishment from the land of
Flanders for the space of three years, on condition that he went to
Rome on pilgrimage and brought back with him the papal absolution. For
this sentence Claes had to pay three florins: but he gave an extra
florin to his son, and bought him a pilgrim’s habit.

Ulenspiegel was heart-broken when he came to say good-bye
[47]to Claes and Soetkin on the day of his departure.
He embraced them both, and his mother was all in tears; but she
accompanied him far on his way, and Claes went too, and many of the
townsmen and townswomen.

When they were home again Claes said to his wife:

“Good wife, it is very hard that such a boy should be
condemned to this cruel punishment and all for a few silly
words.”

“Why, you are crying, my man!” said Soetkin.
“Truly, you love him more than you like to show. Yes, you are
sobbing now with a man’s sobs, sobs that are like unto the tears
of a lion.”

But he answered her not.

As for Nele, she had gone to hide herself in the barn, so that none
might see that she also wept for Ulenspiegel. But she followed afar
after Soetkin and Claes and the other townsfolk: and when she saw her
lover disappearing in the distance, she ran after him and threw herself
on his neck.

“In Italy you will meet many beautiful ladies,” she
said.

“I do not know about their being beautiful,” he replied,
“but fresh like thee—no. For they are all parched with the
sun.”

They walked a long way side by side, and Ulenspiegel seemed
thoughtful, muttering from time to time:

“I’ll make ’em pay—I’ll make ’em
pay for their Masses for the dead!”

“What Masses are those you speak of?” Nele inquired.
“And who is to pay for them?”

Ulenspiegel answered:

“All the deans, curés, clerks, beadles and the
rest, both superior and inferior, who feed us with their trash. See
now, if I had happened to be a strong working man they would have
robbed me of the value of three years’ labour by making me thus
to go on this pilgrimage. But as things are, it is the poor Claes who
pays. Ah, but they shall give me back my [48]three years a
hundredfold, and with their own money I myself will sing for them their
Masses for the dead!”

“Alas, Tyl!” said Nele, “be prudent, or they will
have you burnt alive.”

“I am fireproof,” answered Ulenspiegel.

And they parted from one another, she all in tears, he heart-broken
and angry.

Once in the open country, Ulenspiegel shook himself
like a dog, or like a bird that has regained its liberty, and his heart
was cheered by the trees and fields and the bright sunshine.

When he had walked on thus for three days he came to the outskirts
of Brussels, and to the wealthy township of Uccle. And there, passing
in front of the inn with the sign of the Trumpet, his attention was
drawn to a most heavenly odour of fricassee. A little urchin who stood
by was also sniffing the delightful perfume of the sauce, and
Ulenspiegel asked him in whose honour it was that there rose to heaven
such odour of festal incense. The boy made answer that the Guild of the
Jolly Face was to meet at the inn that evening after vespers, to
celebrate the deliverance of the town by the women and girls of olden
time.

Now in the distance Ulenspiegel saw a high pole with a popinjay on
the top of it, and the pole was set in the ground, and round it were a
company of women armed with bows and arrows. He asked the boy if women
were become archers nowadays?

The boy, still sniffing greedily the savour of the sauces, replied
that in the days of the Good Duke the very bows that were now being
used by those women had been the means of killing over a hundred
brigands.

Ulenspiegel desired to know further concerning this matter, but the
boy said that he could tell no more, so hungry [49]was he,
unless forsooth Ulenspiegel would give him a patard with which
he might buy food and drink. This Ulenspiegel did, for he felt sorry
for him.

No sooner had the boy received the patard than he rushed into
the tavern like a fox to the hen-house, and presently reappeared in
triumph with half a sausage and a large loaf of bread.

And now Ulenspiegel was suddenly aware of a sweet sound of viols and
tabors, and soon he saw a number of women dancing together, and among
them a woman of great beauty with a chain of gold hanging round her
neck.

The boy, who had by this time assuaged his hunger and was grinning
with delight, informed Ulenspiegel that the beautiful woman was the
Queen of Archery, that her name was Mietje, and that she was wife to
Messire Renonckel, alderman of the parish. Then he asked Ulenspiegel to
give him six liards for a drink. Ulenspiegel gave him the money,
and when he had thus eaten and drunk his fill the urchin sat himself
down in the sun and fell to picking his teeth with his nails.

When the women archers noticed Ulenspiegel standing there in his
pilgrim’s habit, they came and began to dance round him in a
ring, crying:

“Hail pilgrim, hail! Do you come from far away, you handsome
pilgrim boy?”

Ulenspiegel, thinking sadly of Nele, thus made answer:

“I come from Flanders, a lovely land and filled with lovesome
girls.”

“What crime have you committed?” asked the women,
stopping in their dance.

“I dare not confess it, so great it was,” said he.

They asked him the reason why it was needful for him to journey thus
with a pilgrim’s staff and wallet, and those scalloped oysters
that are the sign of the pilgrim.

“The reason is,” he replied, not quite truthfully,
“that I said that Masses for the dead are advantageous to the
priests.” [50]

“True, they bring many a sounding denier to the
priests,” they answered; “but are they not also of
advantage to the souls in purgatory!”

“I have never been there,” answered Ulenspiegel.

“Will you come dine with us?” said the prettiest of the
archers.

“Willingly would I dine with you,” said he, “and
dine off you into the bargain! You and all your companions in
turn, for you are morsels fit for a king, more delicate to swallow than
any ortolan or thrush or snipe!”

“Nay,” they answered, “but we are not for
sale.”

“Then perhaps you will give?” he asked them.

“Yea, verily,” they laughed, “a good box on the
ear to such as are too bold. And if needs were we would beat you now
like a bundle of corn!”

“Thank you,” he said, “I will go without the
beating.”

“Well then,” they said, “come in to
dinner.”

So he followed them into the inn yard, glad for their fresh young
faces. And thereafter he saw the Brethren of the Jolly Face themselves,
who were now entering the yard with great ceremony, and by their own
jolly appearance living up most conspicuously to the name of their
Guild.

They scrutinized Ulenspiegel with some curiosity, till one of the
women informed them who he was—a pilgrim they had picked up on
the road, and whom, being a good red-face like unto their husbands and
their sweethearts, they had invited to share in the entertainment. The
men were agreeable to this proposal, and one of them addressed himself
to Ulenspiegel:

“Pilgrim on pilgrimage, what say you now to continuing your
pilgrimage across some sauce and fricassee?”

“I shall have need of my seven-league boots,” answered
Ulenspiegel.

Now as he was following them into the festal hall, he noticed twelve
blind men coming along the Paris road. And as they passed they were
lamenting most piteously [51]their hunger and thirst. But
Ulenspiegel said to himself that they should dine that night like
kings, and all at the expense of the Dean of Uccle himself, and in
memory of the Masses for the dead.

He accosted them, saying:

“Here are nine florins for you. Come in to dinner. Do you not
smell the good smell of fricassee?”

“Ah!” they cried, “for the last half-league, and
without hope!”

“Now you can eat your fill,” said Ulenspiegel,
“for you have nine florins.”

But he had not really given them anything.

“The Lord bless you,” they said. For being blind, each
man believed his neighbour had been given the money. And shown the way
by Ulenspiegel, they all sat down at a small table while the Brethren
of the Jolly Face took their seats at a long one, together with their
wives and their daughters.

Then, with the complete assurance that comes from the possession of
nine florins:

“Mine host,” cried the blind men insolently, “give
us now to eat and to drink of your best.”

The landlord, who had heard tell of the nine florins and thought
that they were safe in the blind men’s purse, asked them what
they would like for their dinner.

Then they all began to talk at once at the top of their voices:

“Bacon and peas, hotchpotch of beef and veal, chicken and
lamb! And where are the sausages—were they made for the dogs,
pray? And who is he that has smelt out the black and white puddings in
the passage without collaring them for us? I used to be able to see
them, alas, in the days when my poor eyes were bright as candles! And
where is the buttered koekebakken of Anderlecht? Sizzling in the
frying-pan, juicy and crackling, enough to make a fish thirsty for
drink! Ho there! But who will bring me eggs and ham, or [52]ham and
eggs, twin friends of my palate? And where are you, you
choesels, that float in a heavenly mess of meats and kidneys,
coxcombs, sweetbreads, ox-tails, lamb’s feet, with many onions,
pepper, cloves, nutmegs, all in a stew, and three pints at least of
best white wine for sauce? And who will bring you to me divine,
chitterlings, you that are so good that one does not utter a word while
you are being swallowed! And they come straight from Luyleckerland, a
land bursting with fatness and filled with happy lazy folk, whose
passion for good things to eat is never assuaged! And where are you,
dried leaves of autumns past? Now quick there! Bring me a leg of mutton
with broad beans. And for me, some pig’s ears grilled with
bread-crumbs. And for me, a chaplet of ortolans. Verily the snipe shall
figure the Paters, and a fat capon the Credo.”

Mine host answered quietly:

“I will bring you an omelette made with sixty eggs. And as
sign-posts to guide your spoons, I will plant fifty black puddings in
the midst, all smoking on a veritable mountain of good cheer; and from
the top of all some dobbel peterman shall flow down like a river
on every side.”

At this the mouths of the poor blind men began to water indeed, and
they said:

“Then serve us, pray, and that right quickly with the
mountain, the sign-posts, and the river!”

And the Brethren of the Jolly Face, who were now all seated at table
with their wives, remarked to Ulenspiegel that this should be called
the Day of the Invisible Feast; for that the blind men could not see
what they were eating, and thus, poor things, were deprived of half
their pleasure.

At last it came—the omelette all garnished with cress and
parsley, carried by mine host himself and four of his cooks—and
the blind men desired to fall to incontinently, and at once began to
set their paws upon it. But mine host was determined to serve each of
them fairly, and, however difficult [53]it might be, to make sure that
each trencher had its just portion.

The women archers were filled with pity to see the blind men
gobbling and sighing with joy at what was set before them. For in truth
they were half starved, and they swallowed down the puddings as though
they had been oysters. And the dobbel peterman flowed into their
stomachs as if it had been a cataract falling down from some
lofty mountain.

When at length they had cleared their trenchers, they demanded yet
further supplies of koekebakken, ortolans, and fricassees. Mine
host, however, only provided a great platter of beef and veal and
mutton bones, all swimming in a most goodly sauce. But he did not
divide it properly. So that when they had well dipped their bread in
the sauce, and eke their hands right up to the elbows, yet drew not out
anything but bones of cutlet of veal or mutton, each man fell
straightway to imagining that his neighbour had got hold of all the
meat, and they began to fight among themselves, hitting out most
furiously one against another with the bones.

The Brethren of the Jolly Face laughed heartily at this, but being
charitably disposed, each put a portion of his own dinner into the
blind men’s platter. So now if one of the blind went searching
for a new bone with which to carry on the fight, he would put his hand
belike upon a thrush or chicken or a lark or two; and all the time the
women, holding their heads well backwards, kept pouring into the mouths
of the blind long draughts of Brussels wine, and when they reached out
with their hands to feel, as blind men will, whence came these rivulets
of ambrosia, they would catch oftentimes at a woman’s skirt, and
try to hold it fast. But quickly the skirt would make its escape.

Thus they laughed and drank, ate and sang, enjoying themselves
hugely. Some of them, when they found that women were present, ran
through the hall all maddened with amorous desire. But the malicious
girls kept out of [54]their way, hiding behind the Brethren of the
Jolly Face. And one of them would say: “Come, kiss me!” And
when the blind victim tried to do so he would find himself kissing not
a girl at all but the bearded face of a man, who would reward him with
a cuff on the cheek as like as not.

And the Brethren of the Jolly Face began to sing, and the blind men
sang also, and the merry women smiled with fond delight to see their
pleasure. But when the juicy hours were past, it was the turn of the
innkeeper, who came forward, saying:

“Now you have eaten your fill, my friends, and drunk your
fill. You owe me seven florins.”

The Feast of the Blind Men

But each of the blind men swore that he had no purse, and asserted
that it was one of the others who carried it. Thereat arose a further
dispute, and they began to hit out at one another with feet and hands
and heads; but they mostly missed their mark, striking out at random,
while the Brethren of the Jolly Face, entering into the fun, took care
to keep them apart, so that their blows rained down upon the empty
air—all save one, which happened unfortunately to strike the face
of the innkeeper, who straightway fell into a rage and ransacked all
their pockets. But he found there nothing but an old scapular, seven
liards, three breeches-buttons, and a few rosaries.

At last he threatened to throw the whole lot of them into the
pig-trough, and leave them there with nothing but bread and water to
eat till they paid what they owed.

“Let me go surety for them,” said Ulenspiegel.

“Certainly,” answered the innkeeper, “if some one
will also go surety for you.”

This the Brethren of the Jolly Face at once offered to do, but
Ulenspiegel refused them.

“No,” he said, “the Dean of Uccle shall be my
surety. I will go and find him.”

To be sure it was those Masses for the dead that he was [55]thinking
of. And when he had found the Dean he told him a story of how the
innkeeper of the Trumpet Inn was possessed by the Devil, and how he
could talk of nothing but “pigs” and “blind
men”—something or other about pigs eating the blind, and
the blind eating the pigs under various infamous forms of roast meats
and fricassees. While these attacks were on, the innkeeper, so
Ulenspiegel affirmed, would break up all the furniture in the inn; and
he begged the Dean to come and deliver the poor man from the wicked
devil that possessed him.

The Dean promised to do so, but he said he could not come at the
moment (for he was busy with the accounts of the Chapter, trying to
make something out of them for himself). Seeing that the Dean was
growing impatient, Ulenspiegel said that he would return and bring with
him the innkeeper’s wife in order that the Dean might speak to
her himself.

“Very well,” said the Dean.

So Ulenspiegel came again to the innkeeper and said to him:

“I have just seen the Dean, and he is willing to go surety for
the blind men. Do you keep watch over them, and let your wife come with
me, and the Dean will repeat to her what I have just told
you.”

“Go, wife,” said the innkeeper.

So the innkeeper’s wife went with Ulenspiegel to the Dean, who
was still at his accounts and busy with the same problem. When,
therefore, he saw Ulenspiegel and the woman, he made an impatient
gesture that they should withdraw, saying at the same time:

“It is all right. I will come to the help of your husband in a
day or two.”

And Ulenspiegel went back to the inn and said to himself:

“Seven florins shall he pay; seven florins. And that shall be
the first of my Masses for the dead!” [56]

And Ulenspiegel departed from that place, and the blind men
likewise.

Now in those days Katheline had effected a cure, by
means of herbs, on three sheep, an ox, and a pig, all belonging to a
certain man named Speelman. She also attempted to cure a cow, the
property of one Jan Beloen, but in this she was not successful. Jan
Beloen promptly accused her of being a witch, asserting that she had
laid a charm on the animal, inasmuch as all the time she was giving the
herbs she had caressed it and talked to it, in the Devil’s own
language, as was evident—for what business has an honest
Christian woman to go talking with an animal…?

Jan Beloen added that he was a neighbour of Speelman’s, the
man whose ox had been cured, together with three sheep and a pig as
aforesaid, and if Katheline had now killed his cow, it was doubtless at
the instigation of Speelman, who was jealous at seeing his,
Beloen’s, land better and more profitably cultivated than his
own. Pieter Meulmeester, a man of good life and reputation, and Jan
Beloen himself both testified that Katheline was commonly reputed to be
a witch by the people of Damme, and that she had certainly killed the
cow; and on this testimony Katheline was arrested and condemned to be
tortured until she had confessed her crimes and malpractices.

She was cross-examined by a certain alderman who was notorious for
his ill-temper, for he was accustomed to drink brandy all the day long.
And he ordered her to be placed on the seat of torture in the presence
of himself and the members of the Town Council.

The torturer put her on the seat stark naked, and then shaved off
her hair, looking carefully to see that no charm was concealed anywhere
about her person. Finding none, he bound her with cords to the seat of
torture. And she said: [57]

“It shames me to be naked before these men. O Mother Mary, let
me die!”

The torturer then wrapped some damp cloths round her breast and body
and legs, and raising the bench upright he proceeded to pour great
quantities of hot water down her throat so that her stomach became all
swollen. Then he let the bench down again.

The alderman asked Katheline if she would now acknowledge her crime.
She made a sign in the negative. And the torturer poured more hot water
into her; but this Katheline brought all up again.

Then by the advice of the doctor she was released. But she did not
speak a word, only beat her breast as much as to say that the hot water
had burned her. When the torturer saw that she was recovered from this
first ordeal, he said to her:

“Confess that you are a witch, and that you laid a charm on
the cow.”

“I will confess no such thing,” replied Katheline.
“I am here in your power. Nevertheless, I tell you that an animal
can die of an illness, just as a man can, and in spite of all the help
of surgeons and of doctors. And I swear by Our Lord Christ who was
pleased to die upon the Cross for our sins, that I wished to do no harm
to this cow, but simply to cure her by well-known remedies.”

Thereat the alderman was angry and cried out:

“This devil’s drab, she cannot go on lying for ever! Put
her to the second torture.”

Then he drank a large glass of brandy.

The torturer meanwhile sat Katheline down on the lid of an oak
coffin which was placed on trestles. Now the coffin-lid was pointed
like a roof, and the edge of it was as sharp as a sword. A great fire
was burning in the fireplace, for it was the month of November.
Katheline, seated on the edge of the coffin-lid, had her feet shod in
shoes of new leather several sizes too small for her, and then she was
placed in [58]front of the fire. When she began to feel the
sharp wood of the coffin-lid cutting into her flesh, and when her shoes
began to shrink under the heat of the fire, Katheline cried aloud:

“Oh, agony! Will no one give me a draught of black
poison?”

“Put her nearer the fire,” said the alderman.

Then he inquired of her:

“How often, pray, have you ridden on a broom to the
Witches’ Sabbath? And how many times have you caused the corn to
wither in the ear, and the fruit on the tree, and the babe in the womb
of its mother? And turned most loving brothers into sworn enemies, and
sisters into rivals full of hatred?”

Katheline would have answered if she had been able. But she could
only move her arms, as if to say “No.” But the alderman
said:

“I see she will not speak till she has felt her witch’s
fat all melting in the fire. Put her nearer.”

Katheline cried out. But the alderman said:

“You had better ask Satan, your friend, to refresh
you.”

And now her shoes were beginning to smoke in the heat of the fire,
so that she made a gesture as if to try and take them off.

“Ask Satan to help you,” said the alderman.

Ten o’clock struck. It was the madman’s dinner hour. And
he retired with the torturer and the clerk of the court, leaving
Katheline alone in front of the fire in the place of torture.

An hour later they returned. Katheline was still sitting there stiff
and motionless. The clerk said:

“I think she is dead.”

The alderman commanded the torturer to remove Katheline from the
coffin-lid, and to take off the shoes from her feet. This he could not
do, so that he was forced to cut them, [59]and Katheline’s
feet were exposed to view, all red and bleeding. The alderman, whose
thoughts were still with his dinner, gazed at her without a word. But
after a while she came to her senses, and fell upon the ground, nor was
she able to get up again in spite of many attempts. Then she said to
the alderman:

“Once you desired me for your wife. But now you shall have
none of me! Four times three is the sacred number, and my husband is
the thirteenth.”

The alderman was going to answer her, but she forestalled him:

“Be silent. His hearing is more delicate than that of the
archangel in heaven who counts the heart-beats of the just. Why are you
so late? Four times three is the sacred number. He killeth those
who hold me in desire.”

The alderman said:

“It seems she welcomes the devil to her bed!”

“The pains of the torture have turned her brain,” said
the clerk.

So Katheline was taken back into prison. And three days later there
was a meeting of the aldermen in the Council Hall; and after some
deliberation Katheline was condemned to suffer the ordeal by fire.

She was taken to the grand market of Damme by the torturer and his
assistants. There she was made to mount the scaffold. In the square
were assembled the provost, the herald, and the judges. The herald
sounded his trumpet thrice, then turned towards the crowd and made the
following announcement:

“The Council of Damme,” he cried, “having taken
pity upon the woman Katheline, have decreed that punishment shall not
be exacted to the full extremity of the rigour of our laws.
Nevertheless, in witness that she is a sorceress, her hair shall be
burned, she shall pay a fine of twenty carolus d’or, and
she shall be banished from the territory of Damme for [60]the
space of three years, under penalty of losing one of her
limbs.”

And at this rough gentleness the people broke into applause.

Then the torturer tied Katheline to the stake, placed on her shorn
scalp a wig of tow, and held it in the fire. And the tow burned for a
long time, and Katheline cried aloud and wept.

Then they released her, and she was put in a cart and taken away
outside the territory of Damme. She could not walk at all, because of
her feet that were burned.

Ulenspiegel, meanwhile, had arrived in his wanderings
at the fish-market at Liége. There he descried a tall young
fellow carrying under his arm a net filled with all sorts of poultry,
and another net also which he was rapidly filling with haddock, trout,
eels, and pike.

Ulenspiegel recognized him as none other than his old friend Lamme
Goedzak.

“What are you doing here, Lamme?” he said.

“You must know,” Lamme answered, “that many people
have lately emigrated from Flanders to this gentle land of
Liége. As for me, I follow my loves. And you?”

“I am on the look-out for a master to serve for my daily
bread,” said Ulenspiegel.

“Bread is a dry sort of nourishment,” said Lamme.
“You would do better to try a chaplet of ortolans with a thrush
for the Credo.”

“You have plenty of money?” Ulenspiegel inquired.

Lamme Goedzak made answer:

“I have lost my father and mother, and that young sister of
mine that used to beat me so. I shall inherit all their property, and
now I am living with a one-eyed servant who is very learned in the
noble art of making fricassees.” [61]

“Would you like me to carry your fish and your poultry for
you?” suggested Ulenspiegel.

“Yes,” said Lamme.

And together they began to wander through the market. All at once
Lamme said to his companion:

“You are mad. Do you know why?”

“No,” said Ulenspiegel.

“Because you go carrying fish and poultry in your hand instead
of in your stomach.”

“You are right, Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel; “but
since I have lacked bread, ortolans will not even look at
me.”

“You shall eat your fill of them,” said Lamme,
“and serve me too, if my cook takes a fancy to you.”

While they were walking along, Lamme pointed out to Ulenspiegel a
beautiful young girl, who was walking through the market. She wore a
silk dress and gazed at Lamme with sweet and gentle eyes. An old man,
her father, walked just behind, carrying two nets, one filled with
fish, the other with game.

“See that girl?” said Lamme, pointing at her. “I
am going to marry her.”

“Oh!” said Ulenspiegel, “I know her. She is a
Flemish maid from Zotteghem. She lives in the rue Vinave-d’Isle,
and the neighbours say that she lets her mother sweep the road in front
of the house in her stead, while her own father irons her
underclothing.”

To this Lamme made no answer, but exclaimed delightedly:

“She looked at me just now!”

By this time they were come to Lamme’s lodging, near the
Pont-des-Arches. They knocked at the door, and a one-eyed servant
opened to them. Ulenspiegel saw that she was old, scraggy, lank, and
fierce of aspect.

Lamme addressed her as La Sanginne, and inquired if she would
take Ulenspiegel to help in the kitchen. [62]

“I will give him a trial,” she said.

“Then take him,” said Lamme, “and let him also
make trial of the delights of your kitchen.”

La Sanginne put three black puddings on the table, a pint of ale,
and a large loaf of bread. Ulenspiegel set to with a will, and Lamme
began to nibble at one of the puddings.

“Know you,” Lamme asked presently, “where it is
that our souls abide?”

“No, Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel.

“In our stomachs,” Lamme told him, “so they can
keep them excavated continually, and for ever renew in our bodies the
impulse for life. And who are the best companions for a man? I’ll
tell you. The best companions for a man are all good and jolly things
to eat, and wine from the Meuse to crown all!”

“True,” said Ulenspiegel. “A pudding is good
company to a solitary soul.”

“He’s still hungry,” said Lamme to La Sanginne.
“Give him some more.” And the woman served him with a
second portion of pudding—white this time.

While Ulenspiegel went on eating, Lamme grew thoughtful.

“When I die,” said he, “my stomach will die with
me, and down there in purgatory they will leave me to fast, and I shall
have to carry my poor belly about with me, all empty and
limp.”

“I like the black ones best,” said Ulenspiegel.

“You have eaten six already,” said La Sanginne,
“and you won’t have any more.”

“You may be sure,” said Lamme, “that you will be
well treated here, and you will have just the same to eat as I
do.”

“I shall remember this promise of yours,” said
Ulenspiegel. But seeing that what his friend had told him was the
truth, Ulenspiegel was well content, and the puddings that he had
swallowed gave him such courage that on that very [63]day he
polished the kettles and the pots and the pans till they shone like the
sun. And he lived happily in that house, frequenting willingly the
kitchen and the wine-cellar, and leaving the loft to the cats.

One day La Sanginne had two poulets to roast, and she asked
Ulenspiegel to turn the spit while she went to market for some herbs
for a seasoning. The two poulets being well roasted, Ulenspiegel took
one of them and ate it. When La Sanginne returned from the market she
remarked:

“There were two poulets, but now I can only see
one.”

“Just open your other eye,” answered Ulenspiegel,
“and you will see the two of them all right!”

But she was angry, and went to Lamme Goedzak to tell him what had
happened. Lamme came down into the kitchen and said to Ulenspiegel:

“Why do you make fun of my serving-maid? There were certainly
two poulets.”

“There were,” said Ulenspiegel, “but when I
came you told me that I was to eat and drink just as much as you. There
were two poulets. Very well. I have eaten one, and you will eat the
other. My pleasure is over. Yours is still to come. Are you not happier
than I?”

“Yes,” said Lamme smiling, “but just you do what
La Sanginne tells you, and you’ll find your work
halved.”

“I will be careful to do as you say,” said
Ulenspiegel.

So every time that La Sanginne told him to do anything he did but
the half of it. If she asked him to go and draw two pails of water he
would only bring back one; and if she told him to go and fill a pot of
ale at the cask, he would pour the half of it down his throat on the
way—and so on and so on.

At last La Sanginne grew tired of these goings on, and she told
Lamme that either this good-for-nothing fellow must leave the house or
she must leave herself.

Lamme descended on Ulenspiegel and told him: [64]

“You’ll have to go, my son, notwithstanding that you
have looked so much better in health since you have been here. Listen
to that cock crowing. And it’s two o’clock of the
afternoon! That means rain. I am sorry to have to put you out of doors
in bad weather. But there, my son, you know that La Sanginne is the
guardian angel of my life, with her lovely fricassees. If she were to
leave me I might die a speedy death. I cannot risk it. Go then, my boy,
and God be with you, and here are three florins and this string of
saveloys to liven your journey.”

And Ulenspiegel departed, crestfallen and with many regrets for
Lamme and his kitchen.

There was a rumour abroad that the Emperor Charles was
going to annul the right of the monks to inherit the estates of those
who happened to die in their convents, a thing which was very
displeasing to the Pope.

One day when Ulenspiegel was come to fish from the banks of the
river Meuse, he was thinking to himself that by the above action the
Emperor would stand to profit both ways, since he would inherit the
said estates, while the family of the deceased would inherit nothing at
all. Pondering these thoughts, he carefully baited his hook, and then
sat down by the river-side. And he began to nibble at a piece of stale
brown bread, regretting the while that he had no good Romagna wine
wherewith to wash it down. Still, he thought, one cannot always have
everything just as one would like. And all the time he kept on throwing
little pieces of his bread into the water, saying to himself that no
man deserves a meal who will not share it with his neighbours.

Now it was that a gudgeon came upon the scene, attracted in the
first place by the odour of bread-crumbs; and he licked up the bread
with his lips and opened his mouth for more, thinking no doubt in his
innocence that the bread would fall [65]into his gullet of itself. But
while gazing thus in the air the gudgeon was suddenly swallowed up by a
treacherous pike who had hurled himself upon him like a flash of
lightning.

Now the pike played a similar trick upon a carp who was catching
flies on the top of the water without any fear of danger. And after
this good meal the pike stayed motionless below the surface of the
water, disdainful of the smaller fry, who, indeed, were only too glad
to swim away from him of their own accord and as fast as ever they
could. But while the pike was taking his ease in this manner, a second
pike came up; and he was a hungry pike, and his mouth was open wide,
for as yet he had not breakfasted. With a bound the new arrival threw
himself upon his brother, and a furious combat ensued. They lashed at
one another with their fins, the water was red with their blood. The
pike that had eaten defended himself but feebly against the assaults of
the hungry one; nevertheless, backing a little, he took courage again
and threw himself like a bullet against his adversary. The latter
awaited this new attack with open jaws, which did not close until more
than half of his assailant’s head had disappeared between them.
Now they tried to free themselves, but could not because of the hooked
teeth of the one that had become embedded in the flesh of the other.
And so they battled against each other in despair. Nor did they notice,
interlocked as they were, the strong fish-hook at the end of a silken
cord, which rose towards them from the depths of the water. In another
moment it had embedded itself in the body of the pike that had dined,
and the two struggling fish found themselves drawn out of the water and
laid together on the grass without the least deference.

As he killed them Ulenspiegel said:

“Ha ha, my little pikes, I will call you the Pope and the
Emperor, that prey ever one upon the other; but I, forsooth, am the
Common Man that shall catch you on his hook, in God’s good time,
and make an end of your battles!” [66]

In the meantime Nele was taking care of Katheline, who
was still out of her mind and who called continually upon Hanske, her
ice-cold lover. But sometimes Nele would leave her mother safely
guarded in the house of some kindly neighbour, and herself would wander
far and wide and all alone, even unto Antwerp, searching ever, among
the ships on the river, or along the dusty roads, for Ulenspiegel.

And at home, also, in the house of Claes, it was evil days. Claes
worked sadly on his land alone, for there was not enough work for two.
And Soetkin stayed in the cottage by herself, cooking the beans which
formed their daily fare in a hundred different ways, so that she might
have something to enliven her husband’s appetite. And she sang
and laughed all the time, so that he might not be grieved by seeing her
unhappy.

One day a man on horseback drew up in front of the cottage. He was
dressed all in black, he was very thin, and very sad of
countenance.

“Is any one within?” he asked.

“God bless your sadness,” answered Soetkin, “but
am I a phantom, that seeing me here you must yet inquire if there is
any one within?”

“Where is your father?” asked the horseman.

“If my father’s name is Claes, he is over there,”
Soetkin told him. “You will find him sowing corn.”

The horseman departed in the direction in which she had pointed, and
Soetkin also went her way ruefully, for this was the sixth time that
she had had to go to the baker’s to buy bread with no money to
pay for it.

On returning empty-handed to the cottage, Soetkin was amazed to see
Claes coming down the road triumphantly seated on the horse of the man
in black. He looked very proud of himself, and the man in black walked
by his side [67]holding the horse’s bridle. Hanging at his
side, Claes held a leathern bag which appeared to be full of things.
Dismounting from the horse, Claes embraced his companion, gave him a
playful pat upon the back, and then, shaking the bag, cried out in a
loud voice:

“Long life to Josse, my brother, the good hermit of Meyborg!
May God keep him in joy and fatness, in happiness and health! Our
Josse, patron of plenty, and of all abundance, and rich
soups!”

And so saying he took up the sack and deposited it upon the table.
But Soetkin said sadly:

“My good man, we shall not eat this day. The baker has refused
to give me any bread.”

“Bread?” cried Claes, opening the sack and letting a
river of golden coins roll out on the table. “Bread? Here is
bread and butter, meat, wine, beer! Here are hams, marrow-bones,
pasties, ortolans, fatted poulets, castrelins, all just as you might
find them in the houses of the rich! Bread indeed! Here are casks of
beer and kegs of wine! Mad must be the baker who will refuse to give us
bread. Verily we will deal at his shop no more!”

“But, my good man!” said Soetkin amazed.

“Nay, listen,” said Claes, “and make the most of
your good fortune. For these are the facts. Katheline, it seems, has
lately been to Meyborg in Germany, and Nele with her, on a visit to my
eldest brother Josse, who dwells there as a hermit. Nele told my
brother how that we were living in poverty, notwithstanding that we
work so hard. And now, if we are to believe this good
messenger”—and here Claes pointed to the black
horseman—“Josse has left the holy Roman religion and
abandoned himself to the heresy of Luther.”

The man in black made answer:

“It is they that are heretics, they who follow the cult of the
Scarlet Woman. For the Pope is a cheat and a trader in holy
things.” [68]

“Oh!” cried Soetkin, “speak not so loud, sir. You
will have us burned alive, all three.”

“Well,” continued Claes, “it appears that Josse
has made known to this good messenger that inasmuch as he is going to
fight in the army of Frederic of Saxony, and is bringing him fifty
armed men fully equipped, he has no need of much money to leave it to
the hands of some wretch of a landsknecht, now that he himself is going
to the war. Therefore, says he, take it to my brother Claes, and render
to him, with my blessing, these seven hundred florins. Tell him to live
virtuously, and to ponder the salvation of his soul.”

“Yea, verily,” said the horseman, “now is the
time. For God will reward every man according to his works, and every
man according to his merit.”

“Good sir,” said Claes, “it is not forbidden, I
trust, to rejoice in the meantime at this good news? Deign, then, to
stay with us, and we will celebrate our fortune with a nice dinner of
tripe, well boiled, and a knuckle of that ham which I saw just now at
the pork-butcher’s. Of a truth, it looked so plump and tasty that
my teeth almost shot out of my mouth to close thereon.”

“Alas!” said the stranger, “the foolish make merry
while the eye of the Lord is yet upon them.”

“Come now, messenger,” said Claes, “will you eat
and drink with us or will you not?”

The man answered: “It will be time enough for the faithful to
think about such earthly joys when mighty Babylon has
fallen.”

Seeing Claes and Soetkin cross themselves, he made as though to
leave them. But Claes said to him:

“Since you persist in leaving us without accepting of our
hospitality, will you at least give to my brother the kiss of peace on
my behalf, and look after him well at the wars.”

“That will I,” said the man. [69]

And he departed from them, while Soetkin went to make her
preparations for celebrating their good fortune.

Now it was quickly noised abroad through the town that Claes that
was once so poor had now become rich through the generosity of his
brother Josse. And the Dean of Damme was heard to say that it was
Katheline no doubt who had laid a charm on Josse, and he said this
because Claes, although he had received a large sum of money from his
brother, had given not so much as a single vestment to Notre Dame. But
Claes and Soetkin were happy again, Claes working in the fields or
looking after his business of charcoal-burning, while Soetkin attended
to her home right valiantly. Yet still was she sorrowful at heart,
scanning ever with her eyes the open road if perchance she might see
her son Ulenspiegel returning back to her. And thus it was these three
lived on and experienced the happiness which comes from God while
waiting for that which was going to come to them from men.

The Emperor Charles had received a letter from
England, from Philip, who was now married to the Queen of that
country.

To this letter the Emperor made reply in the following terms:

Ulenspiegel had been long upon the road. His feet were
bleeding, but in the district of the bishopric of Mayence he
[72]met a wagon full of pilgrims who invited him to
join them, and they carried him with them to Rome.

When they arrived at the city Ulenspiegel got down from the wagon,
and straightway noticed a charming-looking woman standing at the door
of an inn. She smiled when she saw him looking at her.

Taking this kindly humour of hers for a good omen:

“Hostess,” says he, “will you give asile, pray, to
a poor pilgrim on pilgrimage who has carried his full time and is about
to be delivered of his sins?”

“We give asile to all such as pay us for it,” said the
woman.

I have a hundred ducats in my purse,” said Ulenspiegel (who,
in fact, had no more than one), “and I would dearly like to spend
the first of them in your pleasant company and over a bottle of old
Roman wine.”

“Wine is not dear in these holy parts,” she answered.
“Come in and drink your fill. It will only cost you a
soldo.”

And they twain drank together for so long, and emptied so many
bottles of wine and all to the tune of such pleasant conversation, that
the hostess was constrained to order her servant to serve the customers
in her place, while she and Ulenspiegel retired into a room at the back
of the inn, a marble chamber, cool as a winter’s day, where,
leaning her head on her new friend’s shoulder, she demanded of
him who he might be.

And Ulenspiegel answered her:

“I am Lord of Geeland, Count of Gavergeëten, Baron of
Tuchtendeel. I was born at Damme, in Flanders, and I hold there for my
estate five and twenty acres of moonlight.”

“What land is that whence you come?” the hostess asked
him, drinking from Ulenspiegel’s tankard.

“It is a misty land,” he told her, “a land of
illusion, where are sown the seeds of false hopes and of castles in the
[73]air. But you, sweet hostess mine, were born in no
such land of moonlight, you with your amber skin and your eyes that
shine like pearls. For bright is the sunshine that has coloured that
browned gold of your hair, and it is Lady Venus herself who, without a
single pang of jealousy, has formed your soft shoulders, and your
prancing breasts, your rounded arms, your delicate sweet hands. Say,
shall we sup together this night?”

“Fine pilgrim that you are from Flanders,” says she,
“say, why are you come hither?”

“To have a talk with the Pope,” said Ulenspiegel.

“Heavens!” she cried, clasping her hands together,
“and that is something that even myself, a native of the country,
have never been able to do!”

“Yet shall I,” said Ulenspiegel.

“But know you where the Pope lives, what he is like, what are
his habits and his ways of life?”

“I heard all about him on the way,” answered
Ulenspiegel. “His name is Julius III. Wanton he is, and gay and
dissolute, a good talker, that never falters for a clever repartee. I
have also heard that he has taken an extraordinary fancy to a little
dirty beggar of a man—a dark fellow and a rude who used to wander
about with a monkey asking for alms. He came to the Pope, and the Pope,
it seems, has made a Cardinal of him, and now gets quite ill if a
single day passes without their meeting.”

“Have some more to drink,” said the landlady, “and
do not speak so loud.”

“I have also heard,” continued Ulenspiegel, “that
one day he swore like a soldier, Al dispetto di Dio, potta di
Dio, and all because they did not bring him the cold peacock that
he had ordered to be kept for his supper. And he excused himself,
saying, ‘If my Master was angered over an apple, I, who am the
vicar of God, can certainly swear an oath about a pheasant!’ You
see, my pet, I know the Pope very well, and understand just what sort
of a man he is!” [74]

“Oh dear,” she said, “pray be careful and do not
tell this to any one else. But still, and in spite of all you tell me,
I maintain that you will not get to see him.”

“I shall,” said Ulenspiegel.

“I will wager you a hundred florins.”

“They are mine!” said Ulenspiegel.

The very next day, tired as he was, he ran through all the city and
found out that the Pope was to say Mass that morning at the Church of
St. John Lateran. Thither Ulenspiegel repaired, and took up a position
as prominently in the Pope’s view as he could. And every time
that the Pope elevated chalice or Host, Ulenspiegel turned his back to
the altar. Now one of the cardinals was officiating with the Pope,
swarthy of countenance he was, malicious and corpulent; and on his
shoulder he carried a monkey. He reported Ulenspiegel’s behaviour
to the Pope, who straightway after Mass sent four terrible-looking
soldiers (such as one finds in those warlike lands) to seize the
pilgrim.

“What religion do you profess?” the Pope asked him.

“Most Holy Father,” answered Ulenspiegel, “my
religion is the same as my landlady’s.”

The Pope had the woman fetched.

“What is your religion?” he asked her.

“The same as your Holiness’s,” she told him.

“That also is mine,” said Ulenspiegel.

The Pope asked him why he turned his back upon the Holy
Sacrament.

“I felt myself unworthy to look upon it face to face,”
he answered.

“You are a pilgrim?” said the Pope.

“Yes,” answered Ulenspiegel, “and I am come from
Flanders to beg remission of my sins.”

The Pope absolved and blessed him, and Ulenspiegel departed in the
company of his landlady, who paid over to him his hundred florins. And
with this good store of money [75]he departed from Rome and set out to
return again to the land of Flanders.

But he had to pay seven ducats for the certificate of his pardon,
all scribed upon parchment.

In those days there came to Damme two brothers of the
Premonstratensian Order, sellers of indulgences. And over their
monastic robes they wore beautiful jackets bordered with lace.

When it was fine they stood outside the porch of the church, and
under the porch when it was wet, and there they stuck up their tariff;
and this was the scale of charges: for six liards a hundred
years’ indulgence, for one patard two hundred years, three
hundred years for half a sovereign, four hundred years for seven
florins, and so on according to the price—indulgences plenary or
semi-plenary, and pardons for all the most terrible crimes.

And they gave to their patrons, in exchange for payment, little
parchment certificates on which were written out the number of years of
indulgence, and below was the following inscription:

And the eager purchasers came thronging round the
monks. One of whom never left off addressing his audience. This brother
had a blooming countenance, and displayed three chins at least, and a
portentous belly, all without the least embarrassment.

The Monk’s Sermon

[76]

“Unhappy ones!” he cried, fixing with his eye now one,
now another of the crowd. “Unhappy ones! Let me show you a
picture. Behold! You are in hell! The fire burns you most cruelly. You
are boiling in that cauldron full of oil wherein are prepared the
olie-koekjes of Astarte. You are nothing better than a sausage
on the frying-pan of Lucifer, or a leg of mutton on the spit of
Guilguiroth, biggest of all the devils. And first they cut you up in
little pieces. Ah, woe is me! Behold this sinner who despised
indulgences! Behold this plate of daintiness! ’Tis he! ’Tis
he! His wicked body thus reduced by damnation. And for sauce, brimstone
and pitch and tar! Thus are those poor sinners eaten alive to be born
again continually to their pain! And here in all reality is the place
of tears and of grinding of teeth. Have mercy, God of mercy! For now,
poor damned one, you are in hell, and you suffer unspeakable woes. And
yet if any there were to subscribe a denier for you, straightway
one of your hands would find relief; and let but some other give a half
a denier and your two hands would be freed entirely from the
pain of the fire. But as for the remainder of your body, let some one
only give a florin, and there falls the dew of indulgence over all! O
freshness of delight! And now for ten days, a hundred days, a thousand
years maybe, according as one pays, no more roast meat, no more
olie-koekjes, no more fricassees for you! And even if it is not
for yourself, is there no one else, there in the secret depths of the
fire, no one else for whom you would wish to gain relief—one of
your parents perhaps, a dear wife, or some lovely girl with whom you
have committed wilful sin?”

And as he spoke these words, the monk jogged the elbow of his
brother that stood by holding in his hands a silver bowl. And that
brother, lowering his eyes at this signal, shook the bowl unctuously,
as if inviting contributions.

Whereat the preacher continued in this wise: “Or perhaps you
have a son or a daughter, maybe, in the midst [77]of this
terrible fire, or some beloved little child? Hark, how they cry aloud,
and weep, and call to you by name. Can you remain deaf to their pitiful
voices? You cannot. Even a heart of ice must melt, though it cost you a
carolus! And behold, at the very sound of the carolus as it strikes
this vile metal” (and here his comrade shook the plate again),
“a space opens out in the midst of the fire, and the tormented
soul ascends to some volcano mouth where it meets the air, the fresh,
free air! Where are the pains of the fire now? For the sea is close at
hand, and straight into the sea the soul plunges. She swims on her
back, on her stomach, floats upon the waves, dives beneath them. Oh,
listen how she sings aloud in her joy! See how she rolls about in the
water! The very angels gaze down upon her from heaven and are glad.
Eagerly they await her coming; but not yet, not yet has she had her
fill of the sea. If she might only turn into a fish! She knoweth not
how there are prepared for her up aloft sweet baths, perfumed and
scented, with fine bits of sugar-candy floating therein, all white and
fresh like bits of ice. Now a shark appears. She fears it not at all,
but clambers upon its back, and sits there all unnoticed, hoping he
will take her with him down into the depths of the sea. And now she
goes to greet the little water-angels that feed on waterzoey from coral
cauldrons, and on freshest oysters from plates of mother-of-pearl. And
she is welcomed and fêted and made much of, but still the angels
in heaven beckon her on high, till at last, refreshed and happy, you
may see her rise aloft, singing like a lark, up to the highest heaven
where God sits in glory on his throne. There she finds again all her
earthly friends and loved ones (save only those, forsooth, that in this
life have spoken ill of indulgences and of our Holy Mother Church and
who burn now for their sin upon the floor of hell. And so for ever and
for ever and for ever to all ages, in an all-consuming eternity). But
that other soul, now dear to God, refreshes herself in soft baths and
crunches sugar-candy. [78]Buy then, my brothers, buy your indulgences.
We sell them for crusats, for florins, or for English
sovereigns. Even copper coin is not refused. Buy then, buy! This is the
Holy Mart! And we have indulgences adapted to the poor man’s
purse as well as to the rich man’s. Only, I am sorry to say, my
brothers, no credit is allowed. For to buy without paying cash is a
crime most grievous in the eyes of Our Lord.”

Hereupon the monk who had kept silent shook his platter, and the
florins, crusats, patards, sols, and
deniers fell into it as thick as hail.

Claes, feeling himself rich, paid a florin for an indulgence of ten
thousand years; and the monks delivered to him a piece of parchment in
exchange.

At last, seeing that there was no one left in Damme but the miserly
folk who would not buy indulgences at any price, the two monks left the
village and proceeded on their way to Heyst.

In those days the country round Liége was in a
disturbed and dangerous state by reason of the heresy hunts, and Lamme
Goedzak came again to live in Damme. He was married now, and his wife
followed him willingly because the people of Liége, who had a
mocking nature, used to make fun of her husband’s meekness.

Lamme often visited Claes, who, since coming into his fortune, was
always to be found at the tavern of the Blauwe Torre, and had
even appropriated one of the tables for himself and his boon
companions. This table was next to the one where sat the Dean of the
Fishmongers, Josse Grypstuiver by name, drinking sparingly from his
half-pint tankard. For he was a miser, a stingy fellow who thought the
world of himself, and lived for the most part on smoked herrings, and
thought more of money than of the safety of his own soul. Now Claes
carried in his pocket that piece of parchment [79]whereon
was inscribed the tale of his ten-thousand-year indulgence.

One evening Claes was drinking at the Blauwe Torre in the
company of Lamme Goedzak, Jan van Roosebeke, and Matthys van Assche,
Josse Grypstuiver also being present. Claes had been imbibing freely,
and Jan Roosebeke was remonstrating with him, saying that it was sin to
drink so much. But Claes replied that a pint too much meant nothing
more serious than an extra half-day in purgatory.

“Besides,” said he, “I have a ten-thousand-year
indulgence in my pocket! Is there any one here that would like a
hundred years of them, I wonder, so that he may indulge his stomach
without fear of the consequences?”

Every one shouted at once:

“How much are you selling them at?”

“For a pint of beer,” Claes answered, “I will give
you one hundred days, but for a muske conyn you shall
have a hundred and fifty!”

Some of the revellers gave Claes a pint of beer, others a piece of
ham, and for each and all Claes cut off a little strip of his
parchment. It was not Claes, forsooth, who consumed the price of his
indulgences, but Lamme Goedzak; and he gorged himself so that he began
to swell visibly; and all the time Claes went on distributing his
merchandise up and down the tavern.

The man Grypstuiver turned a sour face towards him, and asked if he
had an indulgence for ten days.

“No,” said Claes, “that’s too small a piece
to cut.”

Every one laughed, and Grypstuiver ate his anger as best he could.
Then Claes went home, followed by Lamme, walking as if his legs were
made of wool.

Towards the end of the third year of her banishment,
Katheline returned to her home in Damme. And continually [80]she
cried aloud in her madness: “Fire, fire! My head is on fire! My
soul is knocking, make a hole, she wants to get out!” And if ever
she saw an ox or a sheep she would run from it as if in terror. And she
would sit on the bench at the back of her cottage, under the
lime-trees, wagging her head and staring at the people of Damme as they
passed by. But she did not recognize them, and they called her
“The mad-woman.”

Meanwhile Ulenspiegel went wandering along the roads and pathways of
the world, and one day he met a donkey on the highway, harnessed with
leather and studs of brass, and its head ornamented with tassels and
plumes of scarlet wool….

Some old women were standing round the donkey in a circle, all
talking at once and telling each other how that no one could tame the
donkey for that he was a terrible animal and had belonged to the Baron
of Raix, who was a magician and had been burned alive for having
sacrificed eight children to the devil. “And he ran away so
fast,” said the old women, “that none could catch him. And
without a doubt he is under the protection of Satan. For a while ago he
seemed tired, resting by the wayside, and the village constables came
to seize him. But he suddenly kicked out with his hind legs and brayed
in such fearful fashion that they durst not to go near him. And that
was no bray of an ass, but the bray of the devil himself. So the
constables left him to browse among the thistles, and passed no
sentence upon him, nor did they burn him alive for a sorcerer as they
should have done. Verily these men have no courage.”

Notwithstanding this brave talk, the donkey had only to prick up his
ears or flick his sides with his tail, to send the women running away
from him with cries of terror. Then back they would come, chattering
and jabbering, but ever ready to be off again if the donkey showed the
least sign of movement. Ulenspiegel could not help laughing at the
sight, [81]

“Ah!” said he, “talk and curiosity! They flow like
an everlasting river from the mouths of women—and especially
old women, for with the young the flow is less continuous by
reason of their amorous occupations.”

Then, considering the donkey:

“This sorcerer-beast,” said he to himself, “is a
sprightly ass without a doubt, and a good goer. What if I were to take
him for my own, to ride, or maybe sell him?”

Without another word Ulenspiegel went and got a feed of oats, and
returning, offered them to the donkey. But while he was eating of those
viands Ulenspiegel jumped nimbly upon his back, and taking the reins,
turned him first to the north, then to the east, and lastly to the
west. Then, when he had gone from them a little way, he raised his hand
as if in blessing on those aged dames. But they, almost fainting with
fear, fell upon their knees before him. And that evening when they met
together again, the tale was told of how an angel with a felt hat
trimmed with a pheasant’s feather had come and blessed them, and
had taken off the magician’s donkey by special favour of God.

And Ulenspiegel, astride of his ass, went his way through the green
fields, where the horse pranced about at liberty, where the cows and
heifers grazed at their ease or lay resting in the sunshine. And he
called the ass Jef.

At last Jef came to a stop, and began, as happy as could be, to make
his dinner off the thistles which grew in that place in great
abundance. But anon he shivered all over, and flicked his sides with
his tail in the hope of ridding himself of the greedy horse-flies who,
like himself, were trying to get their dinner, not off the thistles,
but off his own flesh.

Ulenspiegel, who himself began to feel the pangs of hunger, grew
very melancholy.

“Happy indeed would you be, friend donkey, with your good
dinner of fine thistles if there was no one to disturb you in your
pleasures, and to remind you that you also are [82]mortal,
born, that is to say, to the endurance of all kinds of
villainies.”

Thus did Ulenspiegel address his steed, and thus continued:

“For even as you have this gadfly of yours to worry you, so
also hath His Holiness the Pope a gadfly of his own, even master Martin
Luther; and His Sacred Majesty the Emperor, hath he not my Lord of
France for his tormentor—Francis, first of that name, the King
with the very long nose and a sword that is longer still? And forsooth,
donkey mine, it is certainly permitted that I also, poor little man
wandering all alone, may have my gadfly too.

“Alas! Woe is me! All my pockets have holes in them, and by
the said apertures do all my fine ducats and florins and daelders ramble away, flying like a crowd of mice before the
mouth of the cat that would devour them. I wonder why it is that money
will have nothing to do with me—me that am so fond of money?
Verily Fortune is no woman, whatever they may say, for she loves none
but greedy misers that shut her up in their coffers, tie her up in
sacks, close her down under twenty keys and never let her show herself
at the window by so much as the little tip of her gilded nose! This,
then, is the gadfly that preys upon me and makes me itch, and tickles
me without ever so much as raising a laugh. But there, you are not
listening to me at all, friend donkey! And you think of nothing but
your food. You gobbling gobbler, your long ears are deaf to the cry of
an empty stomach! But you shall listen to me. I
insist!”

And he belaboured the ass as hard as he could, till the brute began
to bray.

“Come, come, now that you have given us a song!” cried
Ulenspiegel. But the donkey would not advance by more than a single
step, and seemed determined to go on eating thistles until he had
consumed all that grew by the roadside. And of these there was an
abundance.

When Ulenspiegel saw what was happening he dismounted [83]and cut
off a bunch of thistles; then, mounting the ass again, he placed the
bunch of thistles just in front of the animal’s nose. And in this
way, leading the donkey by the nose, he arrived before long in the land
of the Landgrave of Hesse.

“Friend donkey,” he said as they went along, “you,
verily, go running after a bunch of thistles, the meagre fare with
which I have provided you; but you leave behind the lovely road that is
filled with all kinds of most delicate herbs. And thus do all men,
scenting out, some of them, the bouquet called Fame which Fortune puts
under their nose, others the bouquet of Gain, and yet others the
bouquet that is called Love. But at the end of the journey they
discover, like you, that they have been pursuing things that are of
little account, and that they have left behind all that is worth
anything—health, and work, repose, happiness, and
home.”

In such discourse with his donkey Ulenspiegel came at last to the
palace of the Landgrave.

There two Captains of Artillery were playing dice upon the steps of
the palace, and one of them, a red-haired man of gigantic stature, soon
noticed Ulenspiegel as he approached modestly upon his ass, gazing down
upon them and their game.

“What do you want,” said the Captain, “you,
fellow, with your starved pilgrim’s face?”

“I am extremely hungry,” answered Ulenspiegel,
“and if I am a pilgrim, it is against my will.”

“And you are hungry,” replied the Captain, “go,
eat the next gallows cord you come to, for such cords are prepared for
vagabonds like you.”

“Sir Captain,” answered Ulenspiegel, “only give me
the fine golden cord you wear on your hat, and I will go straightway
and hang myself by the teeth from that fat ham which I see hanging over
there at the cook-shop.”

The Captain asked him where he came from. Ulenspiegel told him,
“From Flanders.” [84]

“What do you want?”

“To show His Highness the Landgrave one of my pictures. For I
am a painter.”

“If it is a painter that you are,” said the Captain,
“and from Flanders, come in, and I will lead you to my
master.”

When he had been brought before the Landgrave, Ulenspiegel saluted
thrice and again.

“May your Highness deign,” said he, “to excuse my
presumption in daring to come and lay before these noble feet a picture
I have made for your Highness, wherein I have had the honour to portray
Our Lady the Virgin in her royal attire.”

And then after a moment’s pause:

“It may be that my picture may please your Highness,” he
continued, “and in that case I am sufficiently presumptuous to
hope that I might aspire even unto this fine chair of velvet, where sat
in his lifetime the painter that is lately deceased and ever to be
regretted by your Magnanimity.”

Now the picture which Ulenspiegel showed him was very beautiful, and
when the Landgrave had inspected it, he told Ulenspiegel to sit down
upon the chair, for that he would certainly make him his Court Painter.
And the Landgrave kissed him on both cheeks, most joyously, and
Ulenspiegel sat down on the chair.

“Of a truth you are a very talkative fellow,” said the
Landgrave, looking him up and down.

“May it please your Lordship,” answered Ulenspiegel,
“Jef—my donkey—has dined most excellently well on
thistles, but as for me I have seen nothing but misery these three days
past, and have had nothing to nourish me but the mists of
expectation.”

“You shall soon have some better fare than that,”
answered the Landgrave. “But where is this donkey of
yours?”

“I left him on the Grande Place,” Ulenspiegel said,
“opposite the palace; and I should be most obliged if he
[85]could be given lodging for the night—some
straw and a little fodder.”

The Landgrave immediately gave instructions to one of his pages that
Ulenspiegel’s donkey should be treated even as his own.

The hour for supper soon arrived, and the meal was like a wedding
festival. Hot meats smoked in the dishes, wine flowed like water, while
Ulenspiegel and the Landgrave grew both as red as burning coals.
Ulenspiegel also became very merry, but His Highness was somewhat
pensive even in his cups.

“Our painter,” said he suddenly, “will have to
paint our portrait. For it is a great satisfaction to a mortal prince
to bequeath to his descendants the memory of his
countenance.”

“Sir Landgrave,” answered Ulenspiegel, “your will
is my pleasure. Nevertheless, I cannot help feeling sorry at the
thought that if your Lordship is painted by himself he will feel
lonely, perhaps, all there in solitary state through the ages to come.
Surely he should be accompanied by his noble wife, Madame the
Landgravine, by her lords and ladies, and by his captains and most
warlike officers of State. In the midst of these, my Lord and his Lady
will shine like twin suns surrounded by lanterns.”

“Well, painter mine, and how much shall I have to pay you for
this mighty work?”

“One hundred florins, either now or later, just as you
will.”

“Here they are, in advance,” said the Landgrave.

“Most compassionate master,” said Ulenspiegel as he took
the money, “you have filled my lamp with oil, and now it shall
burn bright in your honour.”

On the next day Ulenspiegel asked the Landgrave to let him see those
persons who were to have the honour of being painted. And first there
came before him the Duke of Lüneburg, commander of the infantry of
the Landgrave. He was a stout man who carried with difficulty his great
paunch [86]swollen with food. He went up to Ulenspiegel and
whispered in his ear:

“When you paint my portrait see that you take off half my fat
at least. Else will I order my soldiers to have you hung.”

The Duke passed on. And next there came a noble lady with a hump on
her back and a bosom as flat as a sword-blade.

“Sir painter,” said she, “unless you remove the
hump on my back and give me a couple of others in the place where they
should be, verily I will have you drawn and quartered as if you were a
prisoner.”

The lady went away, and now there appeared a young maid of honour,
fair, fresh, and comely, only that she lacked three teeth under her
upper lip.

“Sir painter,” said she, “if you do not paint me
smiling and showing through my parted lips a perfect set of teeth,
I’ll have you chopped up into small pieces at the hands of my
gallant. There he is, look at him.”

And she pointed to that Captain of Artillery who a while ago had
been playing dice on the palace steps. And she went her way.

The procession continued, until at last Ulenspiegel was left alone
with the Landgrave.

The Landgrave said to him:

“My friend, let me warn you that if your painting has the
misfortune to be inaccurate or false to all these various physiognomies
by so much as a single feature, I will have your throat cut as if you
were a chicken.”

“If I am to have my head cut off,” thought Ulenspiegel,
“if I am to be drawn and quartered, chopped up into small pieces,
and finally hung, I should do better to paint no portrait at all. I
must consider what is best to be done.”

“And where is the hall,” he asked the Landgrave,
“which I am to adorn with all these likenesses!”
[87]

“Follow me,” said the Landgrave. And he brought him to a
large room with great bare walls.

“This is the hall,” he said.

“I should be very grateful,” said Ulenspiegel, “if
some curtains could be hung right along the walls, so that my paintings
may be protected from the flies and the dust.”

“Certainly,” said the Landgrave.

When the curtains had been hung as directed, Ulenspiegel asked if he
might have three apprentices to help him with the mixing of his
colours.

This was done, and for thirty days Ulenspiegel and the apprentices
spent the whole of their time feasting and carousing together, with
every extravagance of meat and drink. And the Landgrave looked on at it
all. But at last on the thirty-first day he came and thrust his nose in
at the door of the chamber where Ulenspiegel had begged him not to
enter.

“Well, Tyl,” he said, “and where are the
portraits?”

“They are not finished,” answered Ulenspiegel.

“When shall I be able to see them?”

“Not just yet,” said Ulenspiegel.

On the six-and-thirtieth day the Landgrave again thrust his nose
inside the door.

“Well, Tyl,” he inquired, “how now?”

“Ah, Sir Landgrave,” said Ulenspiegel, “the
portraits are getting on.”

On the sixtieth day the Landgrave grew very angry, and coming right
into the room:

“Show me the pictures at once!” he cried.

“I will do so,” answered Ulenspiegel, “but pray
have the kindness not to draw the curtain until you have summoned
hither the lords and captains and ladies of your court.”

“Very well,” said the Landgrave, and at his command the
aforesaid notabilities appeared. Ulenspiegel took up his stand in front
of the curtain, which was still carefully drawn.

“My Lord Landgrave,” he said, “and you, Madame the
[88]Landgravine, and you my Lord of Lüneburg, and
you others, fine ladies and valiant captains, know that behind this
curtain have I portrayed to the best of my abilities your faces, every
one warlike or gentle as the case may be. It will be quite easy for
each one of you to recognize himself. And that you are anxious to see
yourselves is only natural. But I pray you have patience and suffer me
to speak a word or two before the curtain is drawn. Know this, fair
ladies and valiant captains; all you that are of noble blood shall
behold my paintings and rejoice. But if there be among you any that is
of low or humble birth, such an one will see nothing but a blank wall.
So there! And now, have the goodness to open wide your noble
eyes.”

And so saying, Ulenspiegel drew the curtain.

“Remember,” said he again, “only they of noble
birth can see my pictures, whether they be lords or ladies.” And
again, presently: “He of low birth is blind to my pictures But he
who clearly sees, that man is a nobleman without a doubt.”

At that every one present opened wide his eyes, pretending—you
may be sure—to see, and feigning to recognize the various faces
and pointing themselves out to one another, though in reality they
beheld nothing at all but a bare wall. And for this they were each and
all secretly ashamed.

Suddenly the court jester, who was standing by, jumped three feet in
the air and jaggled his bells.

“Take me for a villain,” he cried, “a most
villainous villain, but I verily will affirm and assert and say with
trumpets and fanfares that there I see a wall, a blank, white wall, and
nothing but a wall, so help me God and his saints!”

Ulenspiegel said:

“When fools ’gin talking, time for wise men to be
walking.”

And he was about to leave the palace when the Landgrave stopped him.
[89]

“Fool in your folly,” said he, “you make boast
that you go through the world praising what is good and fair and making
mock of foolery, and you have dared to make open game of so many and so
high-born ladies, and of their yet more noble lords, bringing ridicule
on the pride of their nobility! Of a truth I tell you that the day will
come when you will hang for your free speech.”

“If the cord is of gold,” said Ulenspiegel, “it
will break with dread at my approach.”

“Stay,” said the Landgrave. “Here is the first bit
of your rope,” and he gave him fifteen florins.

“All thanks to you,” said Ulenspiegel, “and I
promise you that every tavern on the road shall have a thread of it, a
thread of that gold which makes Crœsuses of all those rascally
tavern-keepers.”

And off he went on his donkey, holding his head up high in air, with
the plume in his cap wagging joyously in the breeze.

Now was the season of yellowing leaves, and the winds
of autumn were beginning to blow. Sometimes for an hour or two it
seemed that Katheline was come into her right mind again, and at such
times Claes would say that the merciful spirit of God had come to visit
her. Then it was that she had power to throw a charm upon Nele, by
signs and incantations, so that the girl was able to see whatever was
happening all over the world, in the public squares of the cities, or
on the highways, or in the houses themselves.

To-day Katheline was in one of these moods of right-mindedness, and
she was eating olie-koekje with Claes, Soetkin, and Nele. Claes
said:

“This is the day of His Majesty the Emperor’s
abdication. Nele, my dear, do you think you could see as far as
Brussels in Brabant?”

“If Katheline wishes me to,” said Nele. [90]

Thereupon Katheline caused her to sit down on a bench, and making
sundry passes with her hands, she muttered her incantations, which soon
sent the girl off into a trance.

Then Katheline said to her:

“Make your way into the little house which is called the Park
House, and is the favourite residence of the Emperor Charles the
Fifth.”

Whereupon Nele began to speak, in a low voice, as though she were
half suffocated.

“I am standing in a small room painted green. There is a man
in the room. He is about fifty-four years of age, and he has a bald
head and a protruding chin with a white beard growing upon it. His grey
eyes have a wicked, crafty look, filled with cruelty and false
kindness. And this is the man they call ‘His Most Sacred
Majesty.’ He suffers from a catarrh and always keeps coughing.
Beside him is another, a young man with an ugly face like that of a
hydrocephalous monkey. I saw him once at Antwerp. He is King Philip. At
the present moment he is being rebuked by His Sacred Majesty for having
slept out last night away from home. Doubtless, says His Majesty, he
was at some brothel in company of a trollop of the town. His hair, it
seems, smells of the tavern, no place, that, for a King to seek his
pleasures in, he who may have his choice of all the sweetest bodies in
the world, of skin like satin fresh from perfumed baths, and of hands
of high-born ladies, very amorous. Such as these, says His Majesty, are
more fit for him, surely, than some half-mad wench that is come,
scarcely washed, from the arms of a drunken soldier. For there is not
one among all the ladies, the most noble, the most beautiful, whether
virgin, wife, or widow, that would resist King Philip! And they would
be proud to give him of their love—not by a greasy glimmer of
stinking tallow, but by the light of scented tapers made of finest
wax.

“The King replies that he will obey His Sacred Majesty in all
things. Whereupon His Sacred Majesty has a fit of [91]coughing
and drinks some draughts of hippocras. After which he addresses his
son, sorrowfully, in these words:

“‘You must know, my son, that very soon I am to give to
the world the mighty spectacle of the abdication of my throne in the
favour of you, my son. And I shall speak before a great crowd of
people, coughing and hiccuping as I am—for all my life I have
eaten too heartily. And very hard-hearted must you be if you shed no
tears when you hear what I shall have to say.

“‘I shall shed many tears,’ answers King Philip.

“And now His Sacred Majesty is speaking to his valet, a man
named Dubois.

“‘Bring me some sugar dipped in Madeira,’ he
cries. ‘I have the hiccups. Pray heaven they do not attack me
when I am making my speech before all those people. Oh, that goose I
had last night for dinner! Will it never pass? I think I had better
take a glass of Orleans wine? No, it is too harsh. Or perhaps if I ate
some anchovies? No, they are oily. Dubois, there, give me some Roman
wine!’

“Dubois does as he is told, then dresses his master in a robe
of crimson velvet, wraps a golden cloak about him, girds on his sword,
places the globe and sceptre in his hands, and on his head the crown.
Thus arrayed, His Sacred Majesty goes forth from the Park House, riding
on a little mule and followed by King Philip and many notables.
Presently they arrive at a large building called the Palace, and they
come to a room wherein is a tall thin man, most richly dressed. He is
the Prince of Orange, William, surnamed the Silent.

“‘Do I look well, Cousin William?’ His Sacred
Majesty inquires.

“But the man makes no answer, till at length His Sacred
Majesty speaks again, half mused, half angry.

“‘Still silent, cousin? Still without a word?—even
when you have the chance of telling the truth to a grey-beard!
[92]Come now, shall I abdicate or stay upon my throne,
O silent one?’

“‘Most Sacred Majesty,’ replies the thin man,
‘at the approach of winter even the strongest oaks let fall their
leaves.’

“Three o’clock strikes.

“‘Lend me your shoulder, silent one, that I may lean
upon it.’

“And, so saying, His Most Sacred Majesty leads the way into a
great room wherein is a canopy, and under the canopy a dais covered
with a carpet of crimson silk. On the dais are three chairs. His Sacred
Majesty seats himself on the mid-most one, which is more ornamented
than the others and surmounted by the imperial crown. King Philip takes
the second chair, and the third is occupied by a woman, who is no doubt
the Queen. On either side are long benches covered with tapestry, and
sitting upon them are men dressed in red robes and wearing round their
necks the image of a golden sheep. Behind stand various personages who
would seem to be princes and lords. Opposite these, and at the bottom
of the dais, there is a row of bare benches which are occupied by men
dressed in plain cloth. I hear it said that these men are clothed and
seated so modestly because it is themselves that have to pay all the
costs. At the entrance of His Sacred Majesty these people all stand up,
but when he has sat down he makes a sign and they sit also.

“Now a very aged man is talking of his gout interminably.
After which the woman, who seems to be a Queen, presents a roll of
parchment to His Majesty. His Sacred Majesty reads what is written
thereon in a low voice, coughing all the time, and then he begins to
speak for himself.

“‘Many and long are the journeys that I have made
through Spain and Italy and the Netherlands, through England and
through Africa, all for God’s glory, for the renown of my arms,
and the good of my peoples.’ [93]

“And so on, and so on, till at last he comes to tell of his
growing weakness and fatigue, and of his determination to relinquish
the crown of Spain, together with the counties, duchies, and
marquisates of all those countries, and of his desire to hand them over
to his son. Thereafter he begins to weep, and every one weeps with him,
and King Philip gets up from his chair and falls upon his knees before
his father.

“‘Most Sacred Majesty,’ he cries, ‘am I
indeed to receive this crown from your hands while yet you are so
strong to wear it?’

“Then His Majesty whispers into his son’s ear that he
should speak some kindly words to those men who are seated upon the
tapestried chairs. Whereupon King Philip turns towards them, and
without rising addresses them in a sharp tone of voice.

“‘I understand French fairly well,’ he says,
‘but not well enough to be able to talk to any one in that
language. But the Bishop of Arras, Monsieur Grandvelle, he will say
something to you on my behalf.’

“‘That is not the way to speak to them, my son,’
says His Sacred Majesty.

“And in truth the whole assembly begins to murmur, seeing the
young King so proud and unbending. The woman, she who is the Queen,
then makes an oration, and is followed by an aged professor, who, on
sitting down, receives a wave of the hand from His Sacred Majesty by
way of thanks. These ceremonies and harangues being finished, His
Sacred Majesty makes a declaration to the effect that his subjects are
released from their oath of fidelity, signs the deeds drawn up to
ratify his abdication, and then, rising from his throne, places his son
upon it in his stead. Every one in the hall weeps. Then they return
again to the Park House.

“Once more His Sacred Majesty and his son Philip are alone
together in the green chamber. As soon as the doors are shut His Sacred
Majesty goes off into a peal of laughter, [94]and begins talking to
King Philip, who keeps quite solemn all the time.

Father and Son

“‘Did you notice,’ says the Emperor, laughing and
hiccuping at the same time, ‘how little was needed to move these
good people to tears? Heavens, how they wept! You would have thought it
was the deluge! That fat Maes who made the long speech, why, he cried
like a calf! Even you appeared to be affected—but not quite
sufficiently, perhaps. Really there is no doubt that these are the best
of all the entertainments which one can provide for the populace. For
just as we nobles are wont to cherish most those mistresses who cost us
most, so also it is with the people. The more we make them pay the more
they love us. That is why I have tolerated the reformed religion in
Germany while punishing it severely in the Low Countries. If, however,
the German princes had been Catholics I would have made myself a
Lutheran so that I might confiscate their property. Verily they all
believe in the integrity of my zeal for the Roman faith, and when I
leave them they are full of regrets. Yet for heresy there have perished
at my hands fifty thousand of their bravest men and of their tenderest
maidens, in the Netherlands alone. But still they grieve at my
departure. And without making any count of what has been got from
confiscations, I have raised in taxes more than the wealth of all the
Indies or Peru; yet they are sorry to lose me. And I have torn up the
Peace of Cadzant, brought the city of Ghent under subjection,
suppressed every one who might be dangerous to me, put down all
liberties, freedoms, and privileges, and placed them under the
authority of the royal officers; but yet do these good people think
they are still free inasmuch as I allow them to shoot with the
crossbow, and to carry in procession the banners of their guilds.
Willingly do they submit themselves to the hand of their master,
finding happiness in a cage, and singing his praises while he is with
them, and weeping when he departs. My son, be you to [95]them
even as I have been, kindly in words but harsh in deed. Lick that which
you have no need to bite, and never leave off swearing to maintain
liberties, freedoms, and privileges, however little you may scruple to
destroy those liberties if they show signs of becoming dangerous. For
such things as these are like iron if handled timidly, but brittle as
glass if grappled with a strong hand. Therefore you should root out all
heresy, not because it differs from the Roman religion, but because, if
allowed to flourish, it would mean the end of our rule in all the
Netherlands. For they that attack the Pope with his three crowns would
finish by denying the authority of the temporal princes who wear but
one. So, then, you should follow my example, and regard all claims to
freedom of conscience as crimes of high treason to be punished by
immediate confiscation. Hereby you will inherit great riches, as I also
have done all my life long; and when you come to die or to abdicate,
everybody will say, ‘Ah me, the good and noble prince!’ and
many are the tears that will be shed!’

“And now I hear no more,” said Nele, “for His
Sacred Majesty has laid him down to sleep. And King Philip, that proud
and haughty prince, stands gazing at him with loveless eyes.”

And when she had thus spoken, Nele was awakened from her trance by
Katheline. And Claes gazed thoughtfully into the fire as it flamed and
lit up all the chimney.

It was the month of April. The weather had been mild,
but now there was come a sharp frost and a sky grey and overcast as it
were the sky of All Souls’ Day. The third year of
Ulenspiegel’s banishment had long since passed, and Nele was
waiting day after day for the return of her lover.

“Alas!” she cried, “there will be snow on the
pear-trees, and snow upon the flowering jasmines, and on all the poor
[96]plants that have bloomed in confidence of the
mildness and the warmth of an early spring. Already from the sky little
snowflakes are falling on the roads. And on my poor heart as well the
snow is falling.

“Where, oh where are the bright rays of sunshine that should
be playing now on our happy spring-time faces—and upon red roofs
that were used to grow the redder for that warmth, and on window-panes
that flashed as they caught that sunny brightness? Where indeed are
those flaming beams that kindled earth to life again, and the sky, and
the birds, and the insects? Alas! For day and night am I chilled by
sorrow and long waiting. Oh where, where are you, my lover
Ulenspiegel?”

That Sunday there was held at Bruges the Procession of
the Holy Blood. Claes told his wife that she and Nele ought to go and
see the procession, and that if they did so, it was not impossible they
might find Ulenspiegel in the city. As for himself, he would stay
behind and look after the cottage and be ready to welcome their pilgrim
if he should return.

So the two women went off together. Claes remained at home and sat
himself down on the doorstep and gazed into the deserted village
street. All was quiet as the grave, except now and again for the
crystal sound of the bell of some village church, or, rising and
falling with every little gust of wind from Bruges, the far-off music
of the carillon and the sound of the guns and fireworks that were being
let off in honour of the Holy Blood. But in spite of all these sounds
of joy, Claes was filled with sadness, scanning the grey mist that hung
over the fields for a sight of his son, and trying to hear his footfall
in the jolly rustling of leaves and gay concert of birds as they sang
among the trees. Suddenly he noticed a man coming down towards him on
the road from Maldeghem. [97]It was a man tall of stature, but it
was not Ulenspiegel. And presently Claes saw him come to a stand beside
a field of carrots, and bend down to eat of the vegetables as if he
were starving for food.

“There’s a hungry man sure,” said Claes to
himself.

But after a while the man continued his walk, and passed out of
view; to reappear a little later at the corner of the rue Héron.
Claes recognized him at once as the messenger who had brought the seven
hundred ducats from his brother Josse. He went to meet him, and asked
him in.

“Blessed are they that are kind to the wandering
traveller,” said the man, and readily accepted the proffered
invitation.

Now on the window-ledge of the cottage window lay some bread-crumbs
which Soetkin kept ready for the birds of the neighbourhood, who had
learnt to come there during the winter for their food. The man took
these crumbs and ate them.

“You must be hungry and thirsty,” said Claes.

“Eight days ago was I robbed by thieves,” the man
replied, “and since then I have had nothing to eat but the
carrots I have found in the fields and roots in the forest.”

“Well then,” said Claes, “I am thinking it is time
you had a good round meal.” And so saying he opened the
bread-pan. “Look,” he continued, “here is a dishful
of peas, and here are eggs, puddings, hams, sausages from Ghent,
waterzoey, a hotchpotch of fish. And down below in the
cellar there slumbers our good wine from Louvain, made after the manner
of Burgundy wine, all clear and red as rubies. Only the glasses are
wanting now to rouse it from its sleep. And to crown all, let us put a
faggot to the fire. Already I can hear the pudding singing in the
grill! And that’s a song of right good cheer, my
friend!”

Claes kept turning the puddings, and as he did so he inquired of the
stranger whether he had seen his son, Ulenspiegel. [98]

“No,” was the answer.

“Then perhaps you bring me news of my brother?” Claes
said, as he placed the puddings, now well grilled, upon the table,
together with a ham omelette, some cheese, and two big tankards of
gleaming Louvain wine, both red and white.

The man said:

“Your brother Josse has been done to death upon the rack at
Sippenaken near to Aix. And all because he was a heretic, and bore arms
against the Emperor.”

Claes was like one mad, and he shook all over, for his wrath was
great.

“Wicked brutes!” he cried. “O Josse! My poor
Josse!”

Then the stranger spoke again, but in a voice that held no
sweetness.

“Not in this world, my friend, is to be found just cause
either for joy or for sorrow.” And he fell to his food. But after
a while he spoke again.

“You must know that I was able to be of some assistance to
your brother while he was in prison, by pretending that I was one of
his relatives, a peasant from Nieswieler. I am now come hither in
obedience to his command that if I was not killed for the Faith like
him, I should go to you, and charge you in his name to live in the
faith and peace of our Saviour, practising all works of mercy, and
educating your son in secret in the law of Christ. ‘That
money,’ he said, ‘which I gave to my brother was money
taken from the poor and ignorant. Let Claes make use of it in rearing
Tyl in the knowledge of God and of His word.’”

And when he had thus spoken, the messenger gave Claes the kiss of
peace. And Claes made moan and lamentation, saying:

“Dead upon the rack! Alas! My poor Josse!” And his grief
was so great that he could not put it from him. Nevertheless, when he
saw that the messenger was consumed [99]with thirst and held out his
glass for more wine, Claes poured out again. But he himself ate and
drank without pleasure.

Now Soetkin and Nele remained away for seven days; and all this time
the messenger stayed beneath the roof of Claes, and every night they
heard Katheline howling in her cottage over the way:

“Fire! Fire! Make a hole! My soul wants to get out!”

And Claes went to her, comforting her with gentle words, and
afterwards returned to his own house.

At the end of the seven days the messenger departed. Claes offered
him money, but he would only accept two caroluses with which to feed
himself and find lodging on his way back home.

When Nele and Soetkin returned from Bruges, they found
Claes in the kitchen, sitting on the floor like a tailor, sewing
buttons on an old pair of breeches. Titus Bibulus Schnouffius barked
his welcome; Claes smiled, and Nele smiled in answer. But Soetkin did
not take her eyes from the road, gazing continually in hopes to see her
beloved Ulenspiegel.

All of a sudden she broke silence. “Look,” she cried,
“here is the Provost-Marshal. He is coming along the road with
four sergeants of the peace. They cannot be wanting any one from here,
surely! And yet there are two of them turning off by the
cottage!”

Claes looked up from his work.

“And the other two have stopped at the front,” Soetkin
said.

Then Claes got up.

“Who can they want to arrest in this road?” his wife
continued, and then: “O Christ! They are coming in
here.”

“Look to the money!” cried Claes. “The caroluses
are hidden away behind the fireplace.” And with these words he
ran out of the kitchen into the garden. Nele understood [100]what
he meant, and saw that he was going to try and make his escape over the
hedge. But the sergeants seized him by the collar, and now he was
hitting out at them in a hopeless endeavour to break free.

“He is innocent!” Nele cried aloud amid her tears.
“He is innocent! Do not hurt him. It is Claes, my father! O
Ulenspiegel, where are you? Where are you? If you were only here you
would kill them both!”

And she threw herself on one of the sergeants and tore at his face
with her nails. Then she cried out again: “They will kill
him!” and fell down upon the grass in the garden, and rolled
there in her despair.

Katheline, hearing the noise, had come out from her cottage, and
stood up straight and immovable, gazing at the piteous scene. Then she
spoke, wagging her head:

“Fire! Fire! Make a hole! My soul wants to get out!”

Soetkin meanwhile, who had seen nothing of all this, was talking to
the sergeants who had entered the cottage.

“Kind sirs,” she began, “what is it that you are
looking for in our poor dwelling? If it is my son you want, he is far
away. Do you feel equal to a long journey?”

And she felt quite pleased at the way she was handling the matter.
But it was at this very moment that Nele began to cry aloud for help,
and when Soetkin had made her way into the garden, it was to see her
husband seized by the collar and fighting on the pathway near the
hedge.

“Hit hard and kill them!” she cried, and then: “O
Ulenspiegel, where are you?”

And she was about to go to the assistance of her man when one of the
sergeants caught hold of her, not indeed without some danger to
himself. And Claes was fighting and hitting out so forcibly that he
would certainly have escaped had not the two sergeants with whom
Soetkin had been talking come out to aid their fellows in the nick of
time. So at last they were able to tie the hands of Claes together, and
to carry [101]him back to the kitchen, whither Nele and
Soetkin had already come, crying and sobbing.

“Sir Provost,” Soetkin said, “what crime has he
committed that you are binding my poor husband thus with
cords?”

“He is a heretic,” said one of the sergeants.

“Heretic!” cried Soetkin, looking towards her husband.
“You a heretic! These devils are lying!”

Claes answered:

“I resign myself into God’s keeping.”

And they took him away. Nele and Soetkin followed behind, in tears,
believing that they also would be summoned before the judge. They were
joined by many of their friends and neighbours, but when these heard
that it was on a charge of heresy that Claes was walking thus in
chains, fear came upon them and they returned incontinently to their
houses, closing their doors behind them. Only a few young girls had the
courage to approach Claes and say to him:

“Whither are you going to, Charcoal-burner, in these
bonds!”

“I go unto the grace of God, my girls,” he answered
them.

So they took him away to the town gaol, and Nele and Soetkin sat
themselves down upon the threshold. And towards evening Soetkin
besought Nele to leave her and to go and see if Ulenspiegel had
perchance returned.

The news spread quickly through the neighbourhood that
a man had been taken prisoner on a charge of heresy, and that the
inquisitor Titelman, Dean of Renaix, surnamed the Inquisitor without
Pity, had been appointed judge. Now at this time Ulenspiegel was living
at Koolkerke, in the intimate favour of a farmer’s widow, a sweet
and gentle person who refused him nothing of what was hers to give. He
was [102]very happy there, petted and made much of, until
one day a treacherous rival, an alderman of the village, lay in wait
for him early in the morning when he was coming out of the tavern, and
would have beaten him with a wooden club. But Ulenspiegel, thinking to
cool his rival’s anger, threw him into a duck-pond that was full
of water, and the alderman scrambled out as best he could, green as a
toad and dripping like a sponge.

As a result of this mighty deed Ulenspiegel found it convenient to
depart from Koolkerke, and off he went to Damme as fast as his legs
would carry him, fearing the vengeance of the alderman.

The night fell cold, and Ulenspiegel ran quickly. For he was longing
to be home again, and already he saw in imagination Nele sewing by the
fire, Soetkin getting ready the supper, Claes binding up his sticks,
and Schnouffius gnawing at a bone.

A tramping pedlar met him on the road and asked him whither he was
off to so fast and at that time of night.

“To my home in Damme,” Ulenspiegel told him.

The tramp said:

“That town is no longer safe. They are arresting the Reformers
there.” And he passed on.

Presently Ulenspiegel arrived at the inn of the Roode Schildt
and went in for a glass of dobbel kuyt. The innkeeper said to
him:

“Are you not the son of Claes?”

“I am,” said Ulenspiegel.

“Make haste then,” said the innkeeper, “for the
hour of evil fortune has sounded for your father.”

Ulenspiegel asked him what he meant by these words, and the
innkeeper told him that he would know soon enough. So Ulenspiegel left
the inn and continued on his way, running apace. [103]

When he arrived at the outskirts of Damme, the dogs that stood by
the doorways came running round his legs, jumping up at him, yelping
and barking. Hearing this noise, the women also came out of their
houses, and when they saw who it was they all began talking at
once.

“Whence come you?” they cried. “And have you any
news of your father? And do you know where your mother is? Is she in
prison too? Alas! Heaven send they do not bring him to the
stake!”

Ulenspiegel ran on faster than ever. He met Nele.

“Tyl,” she said, “you must not go home. They have
set guards in our house in the name of His Majesty.”

Ulenspiegel stopped running.

“Nele,” he said, “is it true that Claes, my
father, is in prison?”

“It is true,” Nele said, “and Soetkin sits weeping
at the gaol door.”

Then the heart of the prodigal son swelled with grief, and he said:
“I must go to them.”

“No,” said Nele. “First you must do what Claes
told me, just before he was taken away. ‘Look to the
money,’ he said, ‘it is hidden at the back of the grate.
You must make sure of that first of everything, for it is the
inheritance of poor Soetkin.’”

But Ulenspiegel would not hear aught and ran on quickly to the gaol.
There he found Soetkin sitting at the gate. She embraced him with many
tears, and they cried on one another’s neck.

Knowing that they were there, the populace began to crowd in front
of the prison. Then the sergeants arrived and told Soetkin and
Ulenspiegel that they were to go away at once. So mother and son
returned to Nele’s cottage, which was next door to their own, and
was being guarded by one of the foot-soldiers who had been sent for
from Bruges in case there might be trouble during the trial and
execution of Claes. [104]For it was well known that the people of
Damme loved him exceedingly.

The soldier was sitting on the pavement in front of the door,
draining the last drops of brandy from a flask. Finding it was all gone
he threw the flask away and was amusing himself by dislodging the
stones on the path with the point of his dagger.

Soetkin went in to Katheline, crying most bitterly.

But Katheline said: “Fire! Fire! Make a hole! My soul wants to
get out!” And she kept wagging her head.

Borgstorm, the great bell of Damme, had
summoned the judges to judgment. It was four o’clock, and now
they were collected together at the Vierschare, around the Tree
of Justice.

Claes was brought before them. Seated upon the dais was the high
bailiff of Damme, and by his side, opposite Claes, the mayor, the
alderman, and the clerk of the court.

The populace ran together at the sound of the bell. A great crowd
they were, and many of them were saying that the judges were there to
do—not justice—but merely the will of His Imperial
Majesty….

After certain preliminaries, the high bailiff began to make
proclamation of the acts and deeds for which Claes had been summoned
before that tribunal.

“The informer,” he said, “had been staying by
chance at Damme, not wishing to spend all his money at Bruges in
feasting and festivity as is too often the case during these sacred
occasions. On a time, then, when he was taking the air soberly on his
own doorstep, he saw a man walking towards him along the rue
Héron. This man Claes also saw, and went up to him and greeted
him. The stranger, who was dressed all in black, entered the house of
Claes, leaving the door into the street half open. Curious to find out
who the man was, [105]the informer went into the vestibule, and
heard Claes talking to the stranger in the kitchen. The talk was all
about a certain Josse, the brother of Claes, who it seems had been made
prisoner among the army of the Reformers, and had suffered the
punishment of being broken alive on the wheel of torture, not far from
Aix. The stranger said that he had brought Claes a sum of money which
his brother had desired to leave him, which money having been gained
from the ignorant and poverty-stricken, it behoved Claes to spend it in
bringing up his own son in the Reformed Faith. He also urged Claes to
quit the bosom of our Holy Mother Church, and spake also many other
impious words to which the only reply vouchsafed by Claes was this:
‘The cruel brutes! Alas, my poor Josse!’ So did the
prisoner blaspheme against our Holy Father the Pope and against His
Royal Majesty, accusing them of cruelty in that they rightly had
punished heresy as a crime of treason against God and man. When the
stranger had finished the meal that Claes put before him, our agent
heard Claes cry out again: ‘Alas, poor Josse! May God keep thee
in his glory! How cruel they were to thee!’ And thus did he
accuse God himself of impiety by this suggestion that He could receive
a heretic into His heaven. Nor did Claes ever cease to cry aloud:
‘Alas! Alas! My poor Josse!’ The stranger then, launching
out into a frenzy, like a preacher beginning his sermon, fell to revile
most shamefully our Holy Mother the Church. ‘She will
fall,’ he shouted, ‘she will fall, the mighty Babylon, the
whore of Rome, and she will become the abode of demons, and the haunt
of every bird accursed.’ And Claes meanwhile continued the same
old cry: ‘Cruel brutes! Alas, poor Josse!’ And the stranger
went on in the same way as he had begun, saying: ‘Verily an angel
shall appear that shall take a stone that is great as a millstone, and
shall cast it into the sea, crying: “Thus shall it be done to
Babylon the mighty, and she shall be no more seen.”’
Whereupon, ‘Sir,’ [106]says Claes, ‘your mouth
is full of bitterness; but tell me, when cometh that kingdom in which
they that are gentle of heart shall be able to dwell in peace upon the
earth?’ ‘Never,’ answered the stranger, ‘while
yet my Lord Antichrist rules, that is the Pope, who is to-day the enemy
to all truth.’ ‘Ah,’ said Claes, ‘you speak
with little respect of the Holy Father. But he, surely, is ignorant of
the cruel punishments which are meted out to poor Reformers.’
‘Not at all,’ answered the stranger, ‘and far from
it, for it is he who initiates the decrees and causes them to be put
into force by the Emperor, now by the King. The latter enjoys all the
benefits of confiscation, inherits the property of the dead, and finds
it easy to bring charges of heresy against those who have any
wealth.’ Claes said: ‘Indeed I know that such things are
freely spoken of in the land of Flanders, and one may well believe
them, for the flesh of man is weak, even though the flesh be royal
flesh. O my poor Josse!’ And by this did Claes give to understand
that heretics are punished because of a vile desire on the part of His
Majesty for filthy lucre. The stranger wished to argue the matter
further, but Claes said: ‘Please, sir, do not let us continue
this conversation, for if it were overheard I might easily find myself
involved in some awkward inquiry.’ Then Claes got up to go to the
cellar, whence he presently returned with a pot of beer. ‘I am
going to shut the door,’ said he, and after that the informer
heard nothing more, for he had to make his way out of the house as
quickly as he could. Not till it was night was the door again opened,
and then the stranger came forth. But he soon returned, knocking at the
door and calling to Claes: ‘It is very cold, and I know not where
I am to lodge this night. Give me shelter, pray. No one has seen me.
The town is deserted.’ Claes welcomed him in, lit a lantern, and
last of all he was seen to be leading the heretic up the staircase into
a little attic room with a window that looked out on to the
country.” [107]

At this Claes cried out: “And who could have reported all this
but you, you wicked fishmonger! I saw you on Sunday, standing at your
door, as straight as a post, gazing up, like the hypocrite you are, at
the swallows in their flight!”

And as he spoke, he pointed with his finger at Josse Grypstuiver,
the Dean of the Fishmongers, who showed his ugly phiz in the crowd of
people. And the fishmonger gave an evil smile when he saw Claes
betraying himself in this way. And the people in the crowd, men, women,
and maids, looked one at the other and said: “Poor good man, his
words will be the death of him without a doubt.”

But the clerk continued his depositions.

“Claes and the heretic stayed talking together for a long time
that night, and so for six other nights, during which time the stranger
was seen to make many gestures of menace or of benediction, and to lift
up his hands to heaven as do his fellow-heretics. And Claes appeared to
approve of what he said. And there is no doubt that throughout these
days and nights they were speaking together opprobriously of the Mass,
of the confessional, of indulgences, and of the Royal
Majesty….”

“No one heard it,” said Claes, “and I cannot be
accused in this way without any evidence.”

The clerk answered:

“There is something else that was overheard. The evening that
the stranger left your roof, seven days after he had first come to you,
you went with him as far as the end of Katheline’s field. There
he asked you what you had done with the wicked idols”—here
the bailiff crossed himself—“of Madame the Virgin, and of
St. Nicholas and St. Martin. You replied that you had broken them all
up and thrown them into the well. They were, in fact, found in the well
last night, and the pieces are now in the torture-chamber.”

At these words Claes appeared to be quite overcome. [108]The
bailiff asked if he had nothing to answer. Claes made a sign with his
head in the negative.

The bailiff asked him if he would not recant the accursed thoughts
which had led him to break the images, and the impious delusion whereby
he had spoken such evil words against Pope and Emperor, who were both
divine personages.

Claes replied that his body was the Emperor’s, but that his
soul was Christ’s, whose law he desired to obey. The bailiff
asked him if this law were the same as that of Holy Mother Church.
Claes answered:

“The law of Christ is written in the Holy Gospel.”

When ordered to answer the question as to whether the Pope is the
representative of God on earth, he answered, “No.”

When asked if he believed that it was forbidden to adore images of
Our Lady and of the saints, he replied that such was idolatry.
Questioned as to whether the practice of auricular confession was a
good and salutary thing, he answered: “Christ said, confess your
sins one to another.”

He spoke out bravely, though at the same time it was evident that he
was ill at ease and in his heart afraid.

At length, eight o’clock having sounded and evening coming on,
the members of the tribunal retired, deferring their judgment until the
morrow.

The next day the great bell, Borgstorm, clanged
out its summons to the judges of the tribunal. When they were all
assembled at the Vierschare, seated upon the four benches that
were set around the lime-tree, Claes was cross-examined afresh, and
asked if he was willing to recant his errors.

But Claes lifted his hand towards heaven:

“The Lord Christ beholdeth me from on high,” he said,
“and when my son Ulenspiegel was born I also gazed upon
[109]His Sun. Where is Ulenspiegel now? Where is he
now, the vagabond? O Soetkin, sweet wife, will you be brave in the day
of trouble?”

Then looking at the lime-tree he cursed it, saying: “South
wind and drouth, I adjure you to make the trees of our fathers perish
one and all where they stand, rather than that beneath their shade
freedom of conscience shall be judged to death! O Ulenspiegel, my son,
where are you? Harsh was I unto you in days gone by. But now, good
sirs, take pity on me, and be merciful to me in your judgment, even as
Our Lord would be merciful.”

And all that heard him wept, save only the judges.

Then Claes asked them a second time if they would not pardon him,
saying:

“Truly I was always a hard-working man, and one that gained
little for all his toil. I was good to the poor and kind to every one.
And if I have left the Roman Church it is only in obedience to the
spirit of God that spake to me. I ask for no grace except that the pain
of fire may be commuted to a sentence of perpetual banishment from the
land of Flanders. Banishment for life! A sufficient punishment that,
surely!”

And all they that were present cried aloud:

“Have pity upon him! Have mercy!”

But Josse Grypstuiver held his peace.

Now the bailiff made a sign to the company that they should keep
silence, adding that the placards contained a clause which expressly
forbade the petitioning of mercy for heretics. But he said that if
Claes would abjure his heresy he should be executed by hanging instead
of by burning. And the people murmured:

“What matters burning or hanging, they both mean
death!”

And the women wept and the men murmured under their breath.
[110]

Claes said:

“I will abjure nothing. Do to my body whatsoever is pleasing
to your mercy.”

Then spoke the Dean of Renaix, Titelman by name:

“It is intolerable that these vermin of heretics should raise
up their heads in this way before their judges. After all, the burning
of the body is but a passing pain, and torture is necessary for the
saving of souls, and for the recantation of error, lest the people be
given the dangerous spectacle of heretics dying in a state of final
impenitence.”

At these words the women wept still more, and the men said:
“In those cases where the crime is confessed punishment may be
rightly inflicted, but torture is illegal!”

The tribunal decided that since indeed it was a fact that the
ordinances did not order torture to be applied in such cases, there was
no occasion to insist that Claes should suffer it. He was asked once
more if he would not recant.

“I cannot,” he answered.

Then, in accordance with the ordinances, sentence was passed upon
him. He was declared guilty of simony in that he had taken part in the
sale of indulgences, and he was also declared to be a heretic and a
harbourer of heretics, and as such he was condemned to be burned alive
before the hoardings of the Town Hall. His body was to be left hanging
on the stake for the space of two days as a warning to others, and
afterwards it was to be interred in the place set apart for the bodies
of executed criminals. To the informer, Josse Grypstuiver (whose name
had never been mentioned throughout the whole trial), the tribunal
ordered to be paid the sum of fifty florins calculated on the first
hundred florins of the inheritance of the deceased, and a tenth part of
the remainder.

When he heard the sentence that had been passed upon him, Claes
turned to the Dean of the Fishmongers.

“You will come to a bad end,” he said, “you wicked
man [111]that for a paltry sum of money have turned a
happy wife into a widow, and a joyous son into a grieving
orphan.”

The judges suffered Claes to speak in this way for they also, all
except Titelman, could not help despising from the bottom of their
hearts the Dean of the Fishmongers for the information he had given.
Grypstuiver himself went pale with shame and anger.

And Claes was led back to his prison.

On the morrow (which was the day before the execution
of Claes) the decision of the court was made known to Nele, to
Ulenspiegel, and Soetkin. They asked the judges for leave to visit
Claes in prison, which permission was granted in the case of the wife
and the son only.

On entering the prison cell they found Claes tied to the wall by a
long chain. A small fire was burning in the grate because of the damp.
For it is custom and law in Flanders that they who are condemned to
death shall be gently treated and be given bread and meat to eat, or
cheese and wine. Still gaolers are a greedy race, and oftentimes the
law is broken, there being many prison guards who themselves eat up the
greater part of the nourishment provided for the poor prisoners, or
keep the best morsels for themselves.

Claes embraced Ulenspiegel and Soetkin, crying the while. But he was
the first to dry his eyes, for he put control upon himself, being a man
and the head of the family. Soetkin, however, went on crying, and
Ulenspiegel kept muttering under his breath:

“I must break these wicked chains!”

And Soetkin said through her tears:

“I shall go to King Philip. He surely will have
mercy!”

But Claes answered that this would be no use since the King was wont
to possess himself of the property of those who died as martyrs…. He
said also: [112]

“My wife and child, my best beloved, it is with sadness and
sorrow that I am about to leave this world. If I have some natural
apprehension for my own bodily sufferings, I am no less concerned when
I think of you and of how poor and wretched you will be when I am gone,
for the King will certainly seize for himself all your
goods.”

Ulenspiegel made answer, speaking in a low voice for fear of being
overheard:

“Yesterday Nele and I hid all the money.”

“I am glad,” Claes answered; “the informer will
not laugh when he comes to count his plunder.”

“I had rather he died than had a penny of it,” said
Soetkin with a look of hate in her eyes now dry of tears. But Claes,
who was still thinking about the caroluses, said to Ulenspiegel:

“That was clever of you, Tyl, my lad; now Soetkin need not be
afraid of going hungry in the old age of her widowhood.”

And Claes embraced her, pressing her close to his breast, and she
wept all the more bitterly as she thought how soon she was to lose his
tender protection.

Claes looked at Ulenspiegel and said:

“My son, it was wrong of you to go running off along the high
roads of the world like any ruffian. You must not do that any more, my
boy. You must not leave her alone at home, my widow in her sorrow. For
now it is your duty to protect her and take care of her—you, a
man.”

“I will, father,” said Ulenspiegel.

“O my poor husband!” cried Soetkin embracing him again.
“What crime can we have committed? Nay, we lived our life
peaceably together, lowly and humbly, loving each other well—how
well Thou, Lord, knowest! Early in the morning we rose for work, and at
eventide, rendering our thanks to Thee, we ate our daily bread. Oh,
would that I could come at this King, and tear him with my nails! For
in nothing, O Lord God, have we offended!” [113]

But here the gaoler entered and said that it was time for them to
depart.

Soetkin begged to be allowed to stay, and Claes felt her poor face
burning hot as it touched his, and her tears falling in floods and
wetting all his cheek, and her poor body shaking and trembling in his
arms. He, too, entreated the gaoler that she might be suffered to
remain with him. But the gaoler was obdurate, and removed Soetkin by
force from the arms of Claes.

“Take care of her,” Claes said to Ulenspiegel.

He promised, and son and mother left the room together, she
supported in his arms.

The next day, which was the day of the execution, the
neighbours, out of pity for their suffering, came and shut up Soetkin
and Nele and Ulenspiegel in Katheline’s cottage. For they could
not bear that they should see the terrible sight of the burning. Yet it
had been forgotten that the far-off cries of the tormented one would
reach the cottage, and that those within would be able to see through
the windows the flames of the fire.

Katheline, meanwhile, went wandering through the town, wagging her
head and crying out continually:

“Make a hole! Make a hole! My soul wants to get
out!”

At nine of the clock Claes was led out of his prison. He was dressed
in a shirt only, and his hands were tied behind his back. In accordance
with the sentence that had been passed upon him, the pile was set up in
the rue Notre Dame, with a stake in the midst, just in front of the
hoarding of the Town Hall. When they arrived there the executioner and
his assistants had not yet completed the work of stacking the wood.
Claes stood patiently in the midst of his tormentors watching while the
work was finished, and all the time the provost on his horse, with the
officers of the tribunal and the [114]nine foot-soldiers that had
been summoned from Bruges, had the greatest difficulty in keeping order
among the people. For they murmured one to another, saying that it was
cruelty thus to do to death unjustly a man like Claes, a poor man and
already old in years, and one that was so gentle, so forgiving, and
such a good and steady workman.

Suddenly they all fell upon their knees and began to pray, for the
bells of Notre Dame were heard tolling for the dead.

Katheline also was among the crowd, right in the front, mad as she
was. Fixing her eye on Claes and the pile of wood, she wagged her head
and cried continually:

“Fire! Fire! Dig a hole! My soul wants to get out!”

When Nele and Soetkin heard the sound of the tolling they crossed
themselves. But Ulenspiegel did not cross himself, saying that he would
never pray to God after the same fashion as those hangmen. But he ran
about the cottage, trying to force open the doors or jump from the
windows. But they were shut and fastened well.

Suddenly Soetkin hid her face in her apron.

“The smoke!” she cried.

And in very fact, the three mourners could see, mounting high to
heaven, a great eddy of smoke; all black it was, the smoke of the
funeral pile whereon was Claes, tied to a stake, the smoke of that fire
which the executioner had just set burning in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

Claes looked around for Soetkin or Ulenspiegel. But not seeing them
anywhere in the crowd he felt happier and more at ease, thinking that
they would not know how he suffered. And all the time there was a
silence like death, except for the sound of Claes’ voice praying,
and the crackling of the wood, the murmuring of men, the weeping of the
women, the voice of Katheline as she cried: “Put out the fire!
Make a hole! My soul wants to get out!” and over all, the bells
of Notre Dame tolling for the dead. [115]

Suddenly Soetkin’s face went as white as snow, and her body
trembled all over. She did not utter a sound, but pointed to the sky
with her finger. For there a long, straight flame of fire had risen
above the pyre, and now was leaping high above the roofs of the lower
houses. It was a flame of pain and cruelty to Claes, for following the
caprice of the breeze, it preyed upon his legs, or touched his head so
that it smoked, licking and singeing his hair.

Ulenspiegel took Soetkin in his arms and tried to tear her away from
the window. Then they heard a sharp cry, the cry which came from Claes
when one side of his body was burnt by the dancing flames. But then he
was silent again, weeping to himself. And his breast was all wet with
his tears.

Thereafter Soetkin and Ulenspiegel heard a great noise as of many
voices. This was the townsfolk, their wives and their children, who now
began to cry and shout out all together:

“He was not sentenced to be burnt by a slow fire, but by a
quick fire! Executioner, stir up the faggots!”

The executioner did so. But the fire did not flame up quick enough
to please the mob.

“Kill him!” they shouted. “Put him out of his
misery!” And they began to throw missiles at the provost.

Soetkin cried aloud: “The flame! The great flame!”

And in very truth they saw now a great red flame, mounting
heavenwards, in the midst of the smoke.

“He is about to die,” said the widow. “O Lord, of
your mercy receive the soul of this innocent. Where is the King, that I
may go and tear out his heart with my nails?”

And all the while the bells of Notre Dame kept tolling for the dead.
Yet again did Soetkin hear a great cry from her husband; but mercifully
she was spared the sight of his body writhing in the agony of the fire,
and his twisted face, and his head that he turned from side to side and
beat upon the wood of the stake. Meanwhile the crowd continued to
[116]shout and to hiss, and the boys threw stones,
until all of a sudden the whole pile of wood caught alight, and the
voice of Claes was heard crying out from the midst of the flame and
smoke:

“Soetkin! Tyl!”

And then his head fell down upon his breast as though it were made
of lead.

And there came a cry, most piteous and piercing, from the cottage of
Katheline; and after that there was silence, except for the poor mad
woman wagging her head and saying:

“My soul wants to get out!”

Claes was dead. The fire burned itself away, smouldering at the foot
of the stake whereon the poor body still hung by its neck.

And the bells of Notre Dame tolled for the dead.

In Katheline’s cottage Soetkin stood leaning
against the wall, with her head hanging down and her hands clasped
together. She held Ulenspiegel in her arms, speechless and without a
tear. Neither did Ulenspiegel say anything. It made him afraid to feel
the burning fever that raged in the body of his mother.

The neighbours, returning from the place of execution, came to the
cottage and told how Claes had made an end of his sufferings.

“He is in glory,” said the widow.

“Pray for him,” said Nele, putting her rosary into the
hands of Ulenspiegel. But he would make no use of it, giving as his
reason that the beads had been blessed by the Pope.

At last night came, and Ulenspiegel urged his mother to go to bed,
telling her that he himself would sit up and keep watch in the room.
But Soetkin said that there was no need for him to do that. Let him
sleep also, for the young have [117]need of a good night’s
rest. So Nele prepared two beds for them in the kitchen, and after that
she left them.

Mother and son stayed up together while what remained of the wood
fire burned itself out in the grate. Then Soetkin retired to her bed,
and Ulenspiegel did likewise, listening to his mother sobbing to
herself under the bedclothes.

Outside in the silence of the night the wind made a murmuring sound
in the trees by the canal. It was like the far-off sound of waves, and
it meant that autumn was coming soon. Also, there were great eddies of
dust that beat against the cottage windows.

Now it seemed to Ulenspiegel that he saw the figure of a man going
to and fro in the room, and he thought he heard the sound of footsteps
coming and going in the kitchen. But when he looked he no longer saw
the man, and listening he no longer heard those footsteps, but only the
sound of the wind as it whistled in the chimney and Soetkin crying
under the bedclothes.

Then once again he heard those footsteps, and just behind him, near
his head, a soft sigh.

“Who is it?” he said.

No one answered, but quite distinctly came the sound of three taps
on the table. Ulenspiegel was afraid, and began to tremble. “Who
is it?” he said again. No one answered, but once more there came
the three taps upon the table, and after that he felt two arms hugging
him round, and over him there leant a man’s body with skin all
wrinkled and a great hole in its breast that gave forth a smell of
burning.

“Father,” said Ulenspiegel, “is it you, and is
this your poor body that weighs thus upon me?”

He received no answer to his question, and although the shadow
seemed still quite close, it was from outside the cottage that he heard
a voice crying out to him by name, “Tyl! Tyl!”

Suddenly Soetkin got out of bed and came over to where Ulenspiegel
was lying. [118]

“Do you hear something?” she said.

“Yes,” he answered, “it is father calling to
me.”

“I too,” said Soetkin, “I have felt a cold body
beside me in my bed, and the mattress has moved, and the curtains. And
I heard a voice that spoke my name: ‘Soetkin!’ it said, a
voice soft as a whisper. And I heard a step near by, light as the sound
of a gnat’s wings.” Then she addressed herself to the
spirit of Claes: “If there is aught that you desire in that
heaven where God guards you in his glory, you must tell me, my man,
that we may know what you would have us do.”

All of a sudden a mighty gust of wind came blowing upon the door,
and it burst wide open and straightway the room was filled with dust;
and from afar, Soetkin and Ulenspiegel could hear the sound of the
cawing of many ravens.

They went out of the cottage, and came together to the place of
torture….

It was a black night, save where the clouds—coursing in the
sky like stags before the keen north wind—were parted here and
there so as to disclose the glittering face of some star.

By the remnants of the pile strode a sergeant of the commune, up and
down, keeping guard. Soetkin and Ulenspiegel heard his steps as they
resounded on the hardened ground, and together with that sound there
came the cry of a raven, calling his fellows, doubtless; for from far
away there came the sound of other caws in answer.

Ulenspiegel and Soetkin by the Dead Body of
Claes

As Soetkin and Ulenspiegel approached the pile the raven swooped
down upon the shoulder of Claes, and they could hear its beak pecking
upon the body. And soon the other ravens followed. Ulenspiegel would
have thrown himself upon the pile and beaten them off had not the
sergeant come up and prevented him.

“Are you a sorcerer,” cried the man, “that comes
hither for the hands of the dead as a talisman, and yet do you not know
that the hands of a man that has been burnt to death [119]possess no power of invisibility, but only hands
of one who has been hanged—such as you yourself will be one of
these days?”

“Sir,” Ulenspiegel replied, “I am no sorcerer, but
the orphaned son of the man tied to this stake here. And this woman is
the dead man’s widow. We only wish to kiss him once again, and to
take away a few of his ashes in his memory. Give us leave, sir, pray,
for you are certainly no foreign soldier, but a son of this
land.”

“Very well,” said the sergeant.

So the orphan and the widow made their way over the charred wood and
approached the body. Weeping, they both kissed the face of Claes.

Then Ulenspiegel found the place where the heart had been, a great
hole hollowed out by the flames, and therefrom he took a few ashes.
Then Soetkin and he knelt down and said a prayer, and when the sky
began to turn pale in the dawn they were still kneeling there together.
But the sergeant drove them off, for he was afraid that he would be
punished for his kindness.

When they were home again Soetkin took a piece of red silk, and a
piece of black silk, and she made a little bag to contain the ashes.
And on the little bag she sewed two ribbons so that Ulenspiegel could
always carry it suspended round his neck. And she gave it to him with
these words:

“These ashes are the heart of my husband. This red ribbon is
his blood. This black one is our sorrow. Always upon your breast let
them lie, and call down thereby the fire of vengeance upon his
torturers.”

“Amen,” said Ulenspiegel.

And the widow embraced her orphan, and the sun rose.

In that year, being the fifty-eighth year of the
century, Katheline came into Soetkin’s house and spake as
follows: [120]

“Last night, being anointed with balm, I was transported to
the tower of Notre Dame, and I beheld the elemental spirits that carry
the prayers of men to the angels, and they in their turn, flying up
towards the highest heaven, bring them to the Throne of God. And
everywhere the sky was strewn with glittering stars. Suddenly I saw the
figure of a man that seemed all blackened and charred, rising from a
funeral pile. Mounting up towards me, this figure took its place beside
me on the tower. I saw that it was Claes, just as he was in life,
dressed in his charcoal-burner’s clothes. He asked me what I was
doing there on the tower of Notre Dame. ‘And you,’ I asked
in my turn, ‘whither are you off to, flying in the air like a
bird?’ ‘I am going,’ he answered, ‘to judgment.
Hear you not the angel’s trump that summons me?’ I was
quite close to him, and could feel the very substance of his spiritual
body—not hard and resisting to the touch like the bodies of those
that are alive, but so rarefied that to come up against it was like
advancing into a kind of warm mist. And at my feet stretched out on
every side the land of Flanders, with a few lights shining here and
there, and I said to myself: ‘They that rise early and work late,
surely they are the blessed of God!’ And all the time I could
hear the angel’s trumpet calling through the night. And presently
I saw another shade mounting up towards me from the land of Spain. This
was an old man and decrepit, with a protruding chin, and quince jam all
oozing from the corners of his lips.

“On its back it wore a cloak of crimson velvet lined with
ermine, and on its head an imperial crown, and it kept nibbling a piece
of anchovy which it carried in one hand, while in the other hand it
clutched a tankard of beer. I could see that this spirit was tired out
and had come to the tower of Notre Dame to rest itself. Kneeling down,
I addressed it in these words: ‘Most Imperial Majesty, of a truth
I revere you, yet I know not who you are. Whence [121]come
you? And what was your position in the world?’ ‘I
come,’ answered the shade, ‘from Saint Juste in the country
of Estramadoure. I was the Emperor Charles the Fifth.’
‘But,’ said I, ‘whither, pray, are you going on such
a cold night as this, and over these clouds that are all heavy and
charged with hail?’ ‘I go,’ answered the shade,
‘to judgment.’

“Just as the Emperor was about to finish his anchovy and drink
up his tankard of beer, the angel’s trumpet sounded, and
straightway he had to betake himself to the air again, grumbling at
this sudden interruption of his repast. High aloft he mounted through
space, I following close behind; and as he went he hiccuped with
fatigue, and coughed asthmatically, even vomited now and again; for
death had come upon him at a time when he was suffering from a fit of
indigestion. Thus ceaselessly we soared aloft like arrows shot from a
bow of cornel-wood. The stars glimmered all around us, and time and
again we saw them detach themselves and fall headlong, tracing long
strokes of fire upon the sky. Once more the angel’s trump
resounded, very shrill and powerful. Each fanfare seemed to cleave for
itself a pathway through the cloudy air, scattering the mists asunder
like a hurricane that has begun to blow from near at hand. And by this
means our track was marked out clearly for us, till at length, when we
had been carried up and up a thousand leagues and more, we beheld
Christ Himself in His glory, seated upon a throne of stars. And at His
right hand was the angel who records the deeds of men upon a register
of brass, and at His left hand stood Mary His Mother, she that for ever
implores mercy for poor sinners.

“Claes and the Emperor knelt down together before the throne.
And the angel took off the crown from the head of the Emperor, and cast
it away.

“‘There is only one Emperor here,’ he said. It is
‘Christ!’

“His Sacred Majesty could not conceal his annoyance;
[122]yet managed to assume a humble tone of voice as
he begged to be allowed to keep his anchovy and his tankard of beer,
for that he had come a long way and was very hungry.

“‘Hungry you have been all your life,’ said the
angel, ‘nevertheless, you may go on with your eating and drinking
if you want to.’

“The Emperor emptied the tankard of beer and took a nibble at
the anchovy. Then Christ addressed him with these words:

“‘Do you present yourself to judgment with a clean
soul?’

“‘I trust so, dear Lord,’ answered Charles the
Emperor, ‘for I have confessed my sins and am well
shriven.’

“‘And you, Claes? You do not seem to be trembling like
the Emperor.’

“‘My Lord Jesus,’ answered Claes, ‘there is
no soul that is clean, and how should I be afraid of you, you that are
sovereign good and sovereign justice. Nevertheless, I am afraid of my
sins, for they are many.’

“‘Speak, carrion!’ said the angel, addressing
himself to the Emperor.

“‘I, Lord,’ said Charles, in an embarrassed tone
of voice, ‘I am he that was anointed with oil by your priests,
and crowned King of Castile, Emperor of Germany, and King of the
Romans. It has ever been my first care to maintain that power which was
given me by you, and to that end I have done my best by hanging and by
sword, by burning and by burying alive, by pit and by fire to keep down
all Reformers and Protestants.’

“But the angel said:

“‘O you false and dyspeptic man, you are trying to
deceive us. In Germany, forsooth, you were tolerant enough of the
Protestants, seeing that there you had good cause to be afraid of them.
But in the Netherlands you beheaded, burned, hanged, and buried them
alive, for there your only fear was lest you might fail to inherit
sufficient of their [123]property—so rich and plenteous, like
the honey made by busy bees. And there perished at your hands one
hundred thousand souls, not at all because you loved the Lord Christ,
but because you were a despot, a tyrant, a waster of your country, and
one that loved himself first of all, and after that, nothing but meat,
fish, wine, and beer, for you were always as greedy as a dog and as
thirsty as a sponge.’

“When the angel had made an end, Christ commanded that Claes
should speak, but now the angel rose from his place, saying:
‘This man has nothing to answer. He was a good, hard-working man,
as are all the poor people of Flanders, willing either for work or
play; one that kept faith with his masters and trusted his masters to
keep faith with him. But he possessed a certain amount of money, and it
was for this reason that an accusation was brought against him, and
inasmuch as he had harboured in his house a heretic, he was condemned
to be burnt alive.’

“‘Alas!’ cried Mary, ‘the poor martyr! But
here in heaven there are springs of fresh water, fountains of milk, and
exquisite wine which will refresh you, and I myself will lead you
there, good charcoal-burner!’

“And now the angel’s trumpet sounded yet again, and I
saw a man, naked and very beautiful, rising from the abyss. On his head
was an iron crown, and on the rim of the crown these words inscribed:
‘Sorrowful till the day of judgment.’

“He approached the throne and said to Christ:

“‘Thy slave I am until that day when I shall be Thy
master!’

“‘O Satan,’ said Mary, ‘the day will come
when there shall be neither slave nor master any more, and when Christ
who is Love, and Satan who is Pride, shall stand forth together as the
One Lord both of Power and of Knowledge.’

“‘Woman,’ said Satan, ‘thou art all goodness
and all beauty.’

“Then addressing himself to Christ, and pointing at the
[124]same time towards the Emperor, Satan demanded
what was to be done with him. Christ answered:

“‘Take this crowned wormling and put him in a room
wherein you have collected together all instruments of torture which
were in use under his rule. And each time that some innocent wretch is
made to suffer the torture of water, whereby the bodies of men swell up
like bladders; or the torture of the candles, whereby the soles of
their feet or their armpits are burned and scorched; or the torture of
the strappado, whereby their limbs are broken; or the torture of
the four wagons that drags them asunder—and every time that a
free soul breathes out its last upon the funeral pile let this man also
endure in his turn these same deaths and tortures, to the end that he
may learn in his own person what evil may be wrought in the world by an
unjust man who has power over his fellows. Let him languish in prison,
let him meet death upon the scaffold, let him mourn in exile, far from
his native land, let him be scorned, abused, and flogged with many
whips. Let him know what it is to be rich and see all his property
eaten up by the tax-gatherer, let him be accused by informers and
ruined by confiscations. Turn him into an ass that he may know what it
is to be gentle by nature and at the same time ill-treated and badly
fed; let him be a poor man that asks for alms and is answered only with
abuse; let him be a workman that labours too long and eats too little;
and then, when he has thus well suffered both in his body and his soul,
turn him into a dog that he may be beaten, an Indian slave that he may
be sold to the highest bidder, a soldier that he may fight for another
and be killed without knowing why. And then, at the end of three
hundred years, when he has exhausted all sufferings and all miseries,
make a free man of him, and if in that state of life he is good like
Claes here, you may lay at last his body to rest in some quiet corner
of earth that is shady in the noonday heat and open to the morning sun,
and there beneath a beautiful [125]tree and covered with fresh
sward, he shall find eternal repose. And his friends shall come to his
grave to moisten it with their tears, and to sow violets there, which
are called the flowers of remembrance.’

“But Mary said: ‘Have mercy upon him, O my Son; he knew
not what he did, and we know how power hardens the heart.’

“‘There is no mercy for him,’ said Christ.

“‘Alas!’ cried His Sacred Majesty, ‘woe is
me! Would that I had but a single glass of Andalusian wine!’

“‘Come,’ said Satan, ‘it is past the time
for wine or meat or poultry!’

“And away he carried off the soul of the poor Emperor, down to
the nethermost hell, still nibbling as he went his piece of anchovy.
For this Satan suffered him to do out of pity.

“Thereafter I saw that Our Lady conducted Claes away and up
into the highest heaven, where is nothing but stars hanging from the
roof like clusters of grapes. And there the angels washed him clean,
and he became all beautiful and young, and they gave him rystpap to drink in silver ladles. And then the heavens
closed.”

“Claes is in glory,” said the widow.

“His ashes beat against my heart,” said Ulenspiegel.

During all the three and twenty days that followed,
Katheline grew paler and paler, and thin and all dried up as though
devoured not only by the madness that consumed her but by some interior
fire that was even deadlier still. No more did she cry out as of old:
“Fire! Fire! Dig a hole! My soul wants to get out!” But she
was continually transported into a kind of ecstasy, in which she spake
to Nele many strange words.

“A wife I am,” she said, “and a wife you also
ought to be. [126]My husband is a handsome man. A hairy man is he,
hot with love. But his knees and his arms, they are cold!” And
Soetkin looked at her sadly, wondering what new kind of madness this
might be. But Katheline continued:

“Three times three are nine, the sacred number. He whose eyes
glitter in the night like the eyes of a cat—he only it is that
sees the mystery.”

One evening when Katheline was talking in this way, Soetkin made a
gesture of misgiving. But Katheline said:

“Under Saturn, four and three mean misfortune. But under
Venus, it is the marriage number. Cold arms! Cold knees! Heart of
fire!”

Soetkin answered:

“It is wrong to talk in this way of these wicked pagan
idols.”

But Katheline only crossed herself and said:

“Blessed be the grey horseman. Nele must have a
husband—a handsome husband that carries a sword, a dusky husband
with a shining face!”

“Yes,” cried Ulenspiegel, “a very fricassee of a
husband, for whom I will make a sauce with my knife!”

Nele looked at her lover with eyes that were moist with pleasure to
see him so jealous.

“None of your husbands for me!” she said.

But Katheline made answer:

“When cometh he? He that is clad in grey, and booted and
spurred?”

Soetkin bade them say a prayer to God for the poor afflicted one,
whereupon Katheline in her madness ordered Ulenspiegel go and fetch
four quarts of dobbel kuyt what time she made ready some
heete-koeken, as pancakes are called in Flanders.

Soetkin asked her why she wished to make festival on a Saturday like
the Jews.

“Because the butter is ready,” said Katheline.
[127]

So Ulenspiegel stood up and took in his hand the big pot of English
pewter that held just four quarts.

“Mother,” he asked, “what shall I do?”

“Go,” said Katheline.

Soetkin did not like to say anything more, for she was not mistress
of the house. So she told her son to go and do as Katheline had bidden
him. Ulenspiegel ran to the tavern and brought back with him the four
quarts of dobbel kuyt. And soon the kitchen reeked with the good
smell of pancakes, and every one felt hungry, even the poor afflicted
Katheline.

Ulenspiegel ate heartily, and drank heartily also, for Katheline had
given him a full tankard, saying, with a malicious look, that it
behoved him to drink more than the others seeing that he was the only
male and the head of the house. Afterwards she asked him to give them a
song.

But Ulenspiegel did not sing, and Nele was all tearful, seeing
Soetkin so pale, and as it were all sunken into herself. Katheline
alone of them all appeared to be happy.

When the meal was over Soetkin and Ulenspiegel went up into the loft
to bed. Katheline and Nele stayed behind, for they slept together in
the kitchen.

All was quiet until the second hour after midnight. Ulenspiegel had
already been asleep for a long time because of all the beer he had been
drinking. But Soetkin, as her custom was, lay on with eyes wide open,
praying Our Lady to send her sleep, but with no avail.

All of a sudden she heard the cry of a sea-eagle, and from the
kitchen came a like cry, in answer. Then, from far off in the country
somewhere, other cries resounded, always as it seemed in answer to that
cry in the kitchen just below.

Soetkin tried to think it was only the night-birds calling to one
another, and endeavoured to distract her attention from those sounds.
But presently she heard a neighing of horses and a noise as of iron
sabots beating along the high road. Then it was that she opened the
window of the loft [128]and saw that in very fact there were a
couple of horses saddled just outside the cottage, pawing the ground
and nibbling the grass that grew by the side of the road. Thereafter
she heard the voice of a woman crying out in fear, and a man’s
voice threatening, followed by the sound of blows, more cries, a door
shutting with a bang, and then steps running up the ladder in mortal
fear:

All this time Ulenspiegel was snoring away in his bed,
hearing nothing, till the door of the loft opened and Nele came in, out
of breath, sobbing, and with scarcely anything on. As hastily as she
could the girl dragged against the door a table, some chairs, an old
heating stove, any bit of furniture that was to hand. With these she
made a rough-and-ready barricade. Meanwhile, outside, the last stars
were paling in the heavens and the cocks beginning to crow.

Ulenspiegel had turned over in his bed at the noise Nele was making,
but now he had gone to sleep again. Nele, meanwhile, had thrown herself
on to Soetkin’s neck.

“Soetkin,” she said, “I am afraid. Light the
candle, do!”

Soetkin did so, and all the time Nele never left off moaning. By the
light of the candle Soetkin looked the girl up and down. Her shift was
torn at the shoulder and in front, and there were traces of blood upon
her neck and cheek, such as might be left by the scratch of a
finger-nail.

“Whence have you come? And what are these wounds?”
Soetkin asked her.

Trembling and groaning all the time, the girl made answer:

“For mercy’s sake, Soetkin, do not bring us to the
stake!”

Ulenspiegel meanwhile had awakened from his sleep, and was blinking
his eyes in the sudden light of the candle. Soetkin said:

“Who is it down there?”

“Not so loud!” Nele whispered. “It is the husband
Katheline desired for me.”

All at once Soetkin and Nele heard Katheline cry out in a
[129]loud voice, and their legs gave way beneath them
in their terror.

“He is beating her,” said Nele, “he is beating her
because of me!”

“Who is it in the house?” cried Ulenspiegel, jumping out
of bed. And then, rubbing his eyes, he went stalking up and down the
room till at last he found a heavy poker that stood in the corner. He
took hold of it, but Nele tried to dissuade him, telling him that there
was no one there. But he paid no attention, running to the door and
throwing to one side the chairs and tables and the stove that Nele had
piled up in front of it. All this time Katheline was crying out from
the kitchen, and Nele and Soetkin held Ulenspiegel—the one by the
waist, the other by the legs—and tried to prevent him from
descending the stairs. “Don’t go down,” they told
him. “Don’t go down, Ulenspiegel. There are devils down
there.”

“Forsooth,” says he, “Nele’s devil-husband!
Him verily will I join in marriage to this long poker of mine! A
marriage of iron and flesh! Let me go!”

But they did not loose their hold, hanging on as they were to the
landing rail.

And all the time Ulenspiegel was trying to drag them down the
staircase, and they the more frightened as they came nearer to the
devils below. And they could avail naught against him, so that at last,
descending now by leaps and bounds like a snowball that falls from the
top of a mountain, he came into the kitchen. And there was Katheline,
all exhausted and pale in the light of dawn.

“Hanske,” she was saying, “O Hanske, why must you
leave me? Is it my fault if Nele is naughty?”

Ulenspiegel did not take any notice of her, but straightway opened
the door of the shed, and finding no one there, rushed out into the
yard, and thence into the high road. Far away he descried two horses
galloping off and disappearing in the [130]mist. He ran after
them hoping to overtake them, but he could not, for they went like a
south wind that scours the dry autumn leaves.

Ulenspiegel was angry with disappointment, and he came back into the
cottage grieving sore in his heart and muttering between his teeth:

“They have done their worst on her! They have done their
worst!…”

And he looked on Nele with eyes that burned with an evil flame. But
Nele, all trembling, stood up before Katheline and the widow.

“No!” she cried. “No, Tyl, my lover!
No!”

And as she spoke she looked him straight in the face, so sadly and
so frankly that Ulenspiegel saw clearly that what she said was true.
Then he spake again, and questioned her:

“But whence came those cries, and whither went those men? Why
is your shift all torn on the shoulder and the back? And why do you
bear on forehead and cheek these marks of a man’s
nails?”

“I will tell you,” she said, “but be careful that
you do not have us burned at the stake for what I shall tell you. You
must know that Katheline—whom God save from Hell—hath had
these three-and-twenty days a devil for her lover. He is dressed all in
black, he is booted and spurred. His face gleams with a flame of fire
like what one sees in summer-time when it is hot, on the waves of the
sea.”

And Katheline whimpered: “Why, oh why, have you left me,
Hanske, my pet? Nele is naughty!”

But Nele went on with her story:

“The devil announces his approach in a voice that is like the
crying of a sea-eagle. Every Saturday my mother receives him in the
kitchen. And she says that his kisses are cold and that his body is
like snow. One time he brought her some florins, but he took from her
all the other money that she had.” [131]

All this time Soetkin kept on praying for Katheline, with clasped
hands. But Katheline spake joyfully:

“My body is mine no more. My mind is mine no more. O Hanske,
my pet, take me with you yet once again, I beg you, to the
Witches’ Sabbath. Only Nele will never come. Nele is naughty, I
tell you.”

But Nele went on with her story:

“At dawn,” she said, “the devil would go away, and
the next day my mother would relate to me a hundred strange things.
But, Tyl dear, you must not look at me with those cruel eyes….
Yesterday, for instance, she told me that a splendid prince, clad in
grey, Hilbert by name, was anxious to take me in marriage, and that he
was coming here himself that I might see him. I told her that I wanted
no husband, handsome or plain. Nevertheless, by weight of her maternal
authority she persuaded me to stay up for him, for she certainly keeps
all her wits about her in whatever pertains to her amours. Well, we
were half undressed, ready to go to bed; and I had gone off to sleep
sitting on that chair. It seems that I did not wake up when they came
in, and the first thing I knew was that some one was embracing me and
kissing me on the neck. And then, by the bright light of the moon, I
beheld a face that shone like the crests of the waves of a July sea
when there is thunder in the air, and I heard a low voice speaking to
me and saying: ‘I am your husband, Hilbert. Be mine! I will make
thee rich.’ And from the face of him that spake these words there
came an odour like the odour of fish. Quickly I pushed that face away
from me, but the man tried to take me by force, and although I had the
strength of ten against him, he managed to tear my shift and scratch my
face, crying out the while that if only I would give myself to him he
would make me rich. ‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘as rich as my
mother, whom you have deprived of her last liard!’ At that
he redoubled his violence, but he could not do anything against me. And
at last, since he was more [132]disgusting than a corpse, I
scratched him in the eye with my nails so sharply that he cried out
with pain, and I was able to make my escape and run up here to
Soetkin.”

And all this while Katheline kept on with her “Nele is
naughty. And why did you go away so soon, O Hanske, my pet?”

But Soetkin asked her where she had been while wicked men were
attempting the honour of her child.

“It is Nele that is naughty,” Katheline replied.
“As for me, I was in company of my black master, when the devil
in grey comes to us, with his face all bloody. ‘Come away,’
he cries, ‘come away, my boy, this is an evil house; for the men,
it seems, are of a mind to fight with one to the death, and the women
carry knives at the tips of their fingers.’ And there and then
they ran off to their horses, and disappeared in the mist. Ah, Nele,
Nele! She is a naughty lass, I tell you!”

On the following day, while they were making a meal of
hot milk, Soetkin said to Katheline:

“You see how misfortune is already driving me from this world;
and yet you, it seems, would like to drive me away all the faster by
your accursed sorceries!”

But Katheline only went on repeating:

“Nele is naughty. Come back, Hanske, my pet!”

It was the following Wednesday when the two devils came again. Ever
since the preceding Saturday Nele had slept out at the house of a widow
woman named Van den Houte, saying, by way of excusing herself, that she
could not stay with Katheline because of that young rogue
Ulenspiegel.

Now Katheline welcomed her black master and her master’s
friend out in the keet, which is to say the laundry or bakehouse
adjoining the cottage. And there did they feast and regale themselves
with old wine and with smoked ox tongue, which viands were always
prepared and ready in [133]that place for them. And the black
devil said to Katheline:

“You must know, Katheline, that we are engaged in a mighty
work, and to accomplish it we have need of a large sum of money. Give
us, I pray you, what you can.”

When she only offered them a florin they threatened to kill her. But
when she had raised the amount to a couple of golden caroluses and
seven deniers they let her off.

“Come not again on Saturdays,” she told them, “for
Ulenspiegel has discovered that your custom it is to come on that day,
and he will certainly be waiting for you and will beat you to death,
and that would be the death of me as well.”

“We will come next Tuesday,” they told her.

Now on that day Nele and Ulenspiegel went to sleep without any
anxiety, thinking that the devils only came to the cottage on
Saturdays. But Katheline got out of bed secretly and went into the yard
to see if her friends had arrived. She was very impatient, for since
seeing Hanske again her madness had abated, for hers was a
lover’s madness, as they say.

But to-night she could nowhere see her friends, and she was greatly
distressed, so that when, presently, she heard the cry of the sea-eagle
coming as it seemed from the open country in the direction of Sluys,
she went out towards that cry, making her way across the field by the
side of a tall dike that was constructed of sticks and grass. She had
not gone far when she heard the two devils conversing together at the
other side of the dike. And one of them said:

“Half shall be mine.”

And the other answered:

“No. Nothing of the kind. What is Katheline’s belongs to
me. All of it.”

Then they blasphemed together most terribly, disputing as to which
of the two should be possessed of the property and the love of
Katheline and of Nele into the bargain. Paralysed [134]with
fear, daring neither to speak nor to move, Katheline presently heard
them fall to fighting with one another. And then one of the devils
cried aloud:

“Ah! The cold steel!”

And after that there came the sound of a death-rattle, and of a body
falling heavily.

Terrified as she was, Katheline returned to the cottage.

At two of the morning she heard once more the cry of the sea-eagle,
but this time close at hand in the yard. She went to the door and
opened it, and saw her devil lover standing there all alone.

She asked him what he had done with his friend.

“He will not come again,” he told her.

Then he kissed her and caressed her, and his kisses seemed colder
than ever before. When the time came for him to depart, he asked her to
give him twenty florins. This was all that she had, but she gave him
seventeen.

The next day she could not control her curiosity, and walked out
along by the dike. But she found nothing, except at one place a mark on
the grass about the size of a man’s coffin; and the grass was wet
underfoot and red with blood. But that evening rain fell, washing the
blood away.

On the following Wednesday Katheline heard yet again the cry of the
sea-eagle in the yard.

Now whenever any money was needed to pay for the
expenses of Katheline’s household, Ulenspiegel was accustomed to
go by night to the hole by the well wherein had been hidden the money
left by Claes. He would lift up the stone that covered the top of the
well and would take out a carolus.

One evening the two women were busy with their spinning, while
Ulenspiegel sat carving a chest which had been commissioned from him by
the town bailiff. And upon the side of the chest he was carving a
hunting scene. Very beautiful [135]it was and cleverly carved,
with a pack of hounds running in pairs closely following one another,
chasing their quarry.

Katheline was there, and Nele asked Soetkin absent-mindedly if she
had found a safe hiding-place for her treasure. Thinking no harm, the
widow answered that it would be hard to find a safer place than the
side of the well wall.

Near midnight of the following Thursday Soetkin was awakened by
Bibulus Schnouffius, who was barking fiercely. But soon he was quiet
again, and Soetkin, thinking that it was a false alarm, turned over and
went to sleep.

The next day when Nele and Ulenspiegel rose at dawn they were
surprised to find no Katheline in the kitchen, neither was the fire
lit, nor was there any milk boiling on the fire as usual. They were
surprised at this and went out to see if perchance she was in the yard.
And there they found her, all dishevelled in her linen shift,
notwithstanding that it was drizzling with rain, and she was all damp
and shivering, and stood there, not daring to come in.

Ulenspiegel went up to her and asked her what she was doing half
naked there in the rain?

“Ah!” she said. “Yes, yes. Strange things have
happened! Strange, wonderful things!”

And as she spoke she pointed to the ground, and they saw the dog
lying there with its throat cut, all dead and stiff.

Ulenspiegel’s thoughts ran at once to the treasure. He
hastened to the hole by the well, and found as he had feared that it
was empty, and all around the earth scattered about far and wide.

He ran back to Katheline and struck her with his hand.

“Where are the caroluses?” he cried.

“Yes! Yes! Strange things have been happening!” she
answered.

At
this Nele tried to protect her mother from the wrath of
Ulenspiegel.

“Have mercy, have pity,” she
cried. “O Ulenspiegel!” [136]

Then he stopped beating the wretched woman, and at the same moment
Soetkin appeared on the scene and wanted to know what was the
matter.

Ulenspiegel showed her the dog with its throat cut and the empty
hole. Soetkin turned pale, and cried out most sorrowfully:

“O God, thou hast brought me low indeed!”

And Nele, seeing how gentle Soetkin was, wept also and was very
sorrowful. But Katheline, flourishing a piece of parchment that she
held in her hand, began to speak in this wise:

“Yes, yes. Strange things and wonderful have come to pass this
night! For he came to me, my good one, my beautiful. And no longer did
his face display that ghastly glitter which makes me so afraid. And it
was with a great tenderness in his voice that he addressed me. Yes, I
was overcome with love for him, and my heart was melted within me.
‘I am a rich man.’ he told me, ‘and soon I will bring
thee a thousand florins in gold.’ ‘So be it,’ I
answered him. ‘I rejoice for your sake rather than for mine,
Hanske, my pet.’ ‘But is there no one else in your
cottage,’ he asked, ‘that you love, perhaps, and would
rejoice to see enriched by me also?’ ‘No,’ I replied.
‘They that live here have no need of any help of thine.’
‘You are proud, it seems,’ he answered. ‘Soetkin and
Ulenspiegel, are they then so rich as to need nothing?’
‘They live without the help of any,’ I told him. ‘In
spite of the confiscations?’ he asked. But then I laughed aloud,
and said that he knew that they would not be such simpletons as to hide
their treasure in the house where it could be easily found. ‘Nor
yet in the cellar?’ he persisted. ‘Of course not,’ I
told him. ‘Nor yet in the yard?’ To that I answered not a
word. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘that would indeed be a piece of
imprudence.’ ‘Not so imprudent as all that,’ I
answered, ‘for neither walls nor water have tongues.’ And
at that he began laughing to himself. Presently he went away, earlier
it was than usual. But first he gave me a powder, telling me that
[137]if I took it I should be spirited away to the
finest of all the Sabbaths. I accompanied him a little way just as I
was, as far as the door of the yard, and I seemed half asleep, and soon
I found myself, even as he had told me, at the Witches’ Sabbath,
and I did not return from thence until the morning. Then it was that I
found myself here as you see me, and discovered the dog with his throat
cut, and the empty hole. And this is a heavy blow to me, to me that
loved him so tenderly, and had given to him my very soul. But
whatsoever I have shall be yours, and I will labour with my hands and
my feet to keep you alive, never fear.”

But Soetkin said:

“I am become even as the corn beneath the grindstone. God and
this devil robber are heavy upon me both at once.”

“Robber do you call him?” cried Katheline.
“Speak not so. He is a devil, a devil I say! And for proof I will
show to you this parchment which he left behind him in the yard, and on
it is written, ‘Forget not to serve me, and behold, in three
times two weeks and five days I will render thee back again twice as
much again as the treasure I have now taken from thee. Doubt not, or
else thou wilt surely die.’ And oh,” cried Katheline,
“of a surety he will keep his word!”

“Poor mad thing,” said Soetkin.

And this was the only word of reproach that she uttered.

Six months passed, and the devil lover came no more.
Nevertheless Katheline did not live without hope of seeing her Hanske
again.

Soetkin meanwhile had given up her work altogether, and was always
to be found sitting huddled up in front of the fire; and her cough
never left her. Nele provided the choicest and most sweetly smelling
herbs, but no remedy had any power over her. As for Ulenspiegel, he
never left the cottage for fear that his mother might die while he was
out. [138]

At last there came a time when the widow could neither eat nor drink
without being sick. The surgeon (who also carried on the trade of a
barber) came to bleed her, and when the blood had been taken away she
was so enfeebled that she could not leave her chair. And at last the
evening came when she cried out, all wasted with pain:

“Claes! Husband! And Tyl, my son! Thanks be to God for He
taketh me!”

And with a sigh she died.

Katheline did not dare to watch by that bed of death, so Nele and
Ulenspiegel kept watch together, and all night long they prayed for her
that was gone.

As the dawn broke a swallow came flying in by the open window.

Nele said: “The bird of souls! It is a good omen. Soetkin is
in heaven!”

The swallow flew three times round the room, and departed with a
cry. Then there came a second swallow, larger it was and darker than
the first. It fluttered around Ulenspiegel, and he said:

“Father and mother, the ashes beat upon my breast. Whatsoever
you command me, that will I do.”

And the second swallow went off with a cry, just as the first had
done. And Ulenspiegel saw thousands of swallows skimming over the
fields. And the sun rose.

And Soetkin was buried in the cemetery of the poor.

After the death of Soetkin Ulenspiegel grew dreamy,
sorrowful, and angry, and he would wander about the fields, hearing
nothing, taking what food or drink was put before him, and never
choosing for himself. And oftentimes he rose from his bed in the middle
of the night and went out into the country alone.

In vain did the gentle voice of Nele urge him not to [139]despair, in vain did Katheline assure him that
Soetkin was now in Paradise with Claes. To both alike Tyl answered:

“The ashes beat upon my breast.”

And he was as one mad, and Nele was sorrowful because of him.

Meanwhile, Grypstuiver the fishmonger dwelt alone in his house, like
a parricide, daring only to come out in the evening. For if any man or
woman passed him on the road they would shout after him and call him
“murderer.” And the little children ran away when they saw
him, for they had been told that he was a hangman. So he wandered about
by himself, not venturing to enter any of the taverns that are in
Damme, for the finger of scorn was pointed at him, and if ever he stood
in the bar for a minute, they that were drinking there left the
tavern.

The result was that no innkeeper desired him as a customer any more,
and whenever he presented himself at their houses they would shut the
door on him. The fishmonger would make a humble remonstrance, but they
answered that they had a licence to sell wine certainly, but that they
were not obliged to sell it against their will.

The fishmonger grew impatient at this, and in future when he wanted
a drink he would go to the In ’t Roode
Valck—at the sign of the Red Falcon—a little cabaret
outside the town on the banks of the Sluys canal. There they served
him, for they were hard up at that inn, and glad to get anything from
any one. But even so, the innkeeper never entered into conversation
with him, nor did his wife either. Now in that house there were also
two children and a dog; but when the fishmonger made as though he would
kiss the children they ran away, and the dog, when he called him, tried
to bite him.

One evening Ulenspiegel was standing on his doorstep in a dream, and
Mathyssen, the cooper, happening to pass by, saw him standing there,
and said to him:

“If you worked with your hands belike you would forget this
grievous blow.” [140]

But Ulenspiegel answered: “The ashes of Claes beat upon my
breast.”

“Ah!” said Mathyssen, “there lives a man who is
sadder even than you are—Grypstuiver the fishmonger. None speaks
to him, and all avoid him, so much so that when he wants his pint of
bruinbier he is forced to go out all alone to the poor
folk of the Roode Valck. Verily he is well
punished.”

“The ashes beat….” Ulenspiegel answered him again.

And the same evening, when the bells of Notre Dame were sounding the
ninth hour, Ulenspiegel sallied forth towards the Roode
Valck, but failing to find the fishmonger there as he had expected,
he went wandering along under the trees that grow by the canal-side. It
was a bright moonlight night.

Presently he saw the figure of the murderer coming towards him. He
passed close in front of Ulenspiegel, who could hear what he was
saying, for the fishmonger was talking to himself, as is the custom of
they who live much alone.

“Where have they hidden it?” he muttered. “Where
have they hidden the money?” But Ulenspiegel answered the
question for him by giving him a great blow in the face.

“Alas!” cried the fishmonger as he felt the hand of
Ulenspiegel upon him. “Alas, I know you! You are his son! But
have pity on me. Have pity! For I am weak and aged, and what I did to
your father was not done out of malice, but in the service of His
Majesty. Only deign to forgive me, and I will give you back again all
the goods that I have bought, and you shall not pay me a penny. You
shall have everything, and half a florin over and above, for I am not a
rich man. No, you must not think that I am rich!”

And he was about to kneel down in front of Ulenspiegel. But seeing
him so ugly, so craven, and so base, Ulenspiegel took hold of him and
threw him into the canal.

And he went away. [141]

And from many a funeral pyre there ascended to heaven
the smoke from the flesh of the victims, and Ulenspiegel, thinking ever
upon Claes and Soetkin, wept in his loneliness.

At last, one evening, he went to find Katheline, thinking to inquire
of her some way of remedy or revenge.

She was alone with Nele, sewing by the light of the lamp. At the
sound which Ulenspiegel made as he came in, Katheline raised her head
slowly like one that is awakened from a heavy sleep.

He said: “The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast, and I am
fain to do somewhat to save this land of Flanders. But what can I do? I
have entreated the great God of earth and heaven, but he has answered
me nothing.”

Katheline said: “The great God cannot hear you. First of all
you should have recourse to the spirits of the elemental world, for
they, uniting in themselves two natures, both celestial and
terrestrial, are enabled to receive the plaints of men and hand them on
unto the angels, who themselves in their turn carry them up thereafter
to the Throne.”

“Help me,” he said, “only help me now, and I will
repay you with my blood if need be.”

“I can help you,” said Katheline, “on one
condition only: that a girl who loves you is willing to take you with
her to the Sabbath of the Spirits of Spring, which is the Easter of
Fruitfulness.”

“I will take him,” said Nele.

Whereupon Katheline took a crystal goblet and poured into it a
certain mixture of a greyish colour, and she gave it to them both to
drink, and rubbed their temples with this mixture, and their nostrils
likewise, and the palms of their hands, and their wrists, and she also
caused them to eat a pinch of white powder, and then she told them to
gaze the one at the other in such manner that their two souls might
become one. [142]

Ulenspiegel looked at Nele, and straightway the sweet eyes of the
girl illumined in him a mighty flame, and because of the mixture he had
taken he felt as it were a thousand crabs nipping his skin all over
him.

After that Nele and Ulenspiegel undressed, and very beautiful they
looked in the lamplight, he in the pride of his manly strength, and she
in all her youthful grace and sweetness. But they were not able to see
one another, for already it was as though they were asleep. Then
Katheline rested the neck of Nele upon the arm of Ulenspiegel, and
taking his hand she placed it upon the young girl’s heart. And
there they stayed, all naked, lying side by side. And to both of them
it seemed that their bodies, where they touched, were made of tender
fire, like the sun itself in the month of roses.

Then, as they afterwards related, they climbed together on to the
window-sill, whence they threw themselves out into space, and felt the
air all round them, buoying them up as the waters buoy up the ships at
sea.

Thereafter they lost all consciousness, seeing naught of earth where
slept poor mortals, nor yet of heaven whose clouds were rolling now
beneath their feet; for now they had set their feet upon Sirius, the
frozen star, and from thence again they were flung upon the Pole.

There it was that a fearful sight awaited them, a giant all naked,
the Giant Winter. His hair was wild and tawny, and he was seated on an
ice-floe, with his back resting against a wall of ice. Near by in the
pools of water there disported a host of bears and seals, bellowing all
round him. In a hoarse voice the giant summoned to his presence the
hail-storms and the snow-storms and the icy showers; also there came at
his behest the grey clouds and brown odorous mists, and the winds among
whom is the sharp north wind, he that blows the strongest of all. Such
were the terrors that raged together in that place of bane.

But smiling in the midst, the giant reclined on a bed of
[143]flowers that had been withered by his own hand,
and of leaves dried by his very breath. Then, leaning down and
scratching the ground with his finger-nails, and biting it with his
teeth, the giant began to burrow a great pit. For he wanted to discover
the heart of the earth to devour it, and to put the blackened coal
where once there had been shady forests, and chaff where once had been
corn, and barren sand in place of fruitful soil. But old earth’s
heart was made of fire, so that he dared not touch it but recoiled
therefrom in dread.

There he sat like a king upon his throne, draining his horn of oil.
All round him were his bears and seals, and the skeletons of those whom
he had killed on the high seas or on the dry land or in the cottages of
the poor. He listened joyfully to the roaring of the bears, to the
braying of the seals, and to the sound made by the skeletons of men and
animals as the bones clicked together beneath the claws of the crows
and vultures that came for the last remaining piece of flesh that might
still adhere to them. And sweet also to his ears was the noise the
ice-floes made as they were driven one against another by the waves of
that dreary sea.

And when he spoke, the voice of the giant was even as the roaring of
a hurricane or as the noise of winter storms, or as the wind howling in
the chimneys.

“I am cold and afraid,” said Ulenspiegel.

“He is powerless against immortal souls,” said Nele.

Even as she spoke a great commotion arose among the seals, who began
to rush back into the sea with all haste. And it was apparent that the
bears also were afraid for they lay back their ears and began to bellow
most piteously. As for the crows and ravens, they cawed as though they
were in terror of their lives, and started off to hide themselves among
the clouds.

And now it was that Nele and Ulenspiegel first began to hear a sound
as of a mighty battering-ram beating upon the farther side of that
glassy wall against which Giant Winter had been reclining. And the wall
cracked visibly and shook to its foundations. [144]But
of all this Giant Winter heard nothing at all, for he went on baying
and bellowing most joyfully, filling and emptying again and again his
bowl of oil, and continuing his search for the heart of the earth, that
he might freeze it to nothing, although, forsooth, whenever he found
that fiery centre he always lacked the courage so much as to take it in
his hand!

Meanwhile the blows of the battering-ram resounded heavier and
louder, and the crack in the wall of ice grew broader every second, and
all around the giant, the rain of icicles ceased not to fall in myriad
fragments. And the bears roared ceaselessly and piteously, and the
seals sent up their plaintive cries from the dreary waste of water.

Suddenly the wall gave way, and from the bright sky beyond it a man
descended. Naked he was, most beautiful of aspect, holding in one of
his hands a hatchet of pure gold. This was Lucifer, the light-bringer,
Lord of the Spring.

When Giant Winter saw him he immediately cast away his bowl of oil
and entreated the new-comer to spare at least his life. But at the
first warm breath of Spring, Giant Winter lost all his strength, and
Lucifer was able to bind him with a chain of diamonds, and tie him
securely to the Pole.

Then, standing still, the Lord of the Spring most tenderly and
amorously cried aloud, and from the heavens there descended a woman,
naked also, and most fair, most beautiful. She stood beside her lord,
and spake to him:

“You are my conqueror, strong man.”

And thus he answered her:

“If you are hungry, eat; if you are thirsty, drink; if you are
afraid, come near to me. I am your mate.”

“I have no hunger, no thirst, but for thee alone,” she
said.

Then the Lord of the Spring called out yet seven times and again.
Most tremendous was his voice, and there was a mighty din of thunder
and lightning, and behind him there came into being a kind of dais all
made of suns and stars. And the lord and his lady sat them down on two
thrones. [145]

Then these twain, their countenances remaining still and motionless,
and without the least tremor to spoil the calmness of their majesty and
their power, both together cried aloud. And at that sound there was a
movement in the earth like that of a countless multitude of worms, and
not in the earth only but in the hard stone and in the ice-floes also.
And Nele and Ulenspiegel heard a sound like that which might be made by
gigantic birds trying to crack with their beaks the great imprisoning
egg-shells wherein they were concealed. And amid this great commotion
of the earth, heaving and subsiding like the waves of the sea, there
appeared forms like those of eggs.

And suddenly, on all sides, trees emerged, their bare branches all
entangled together, and their stems shaking and tottering together like
drunken men, which began to separate themselves the one from the other,
leaving empty spaces of earth between. And now from the ever restless
soil there emerged the Spirits of Earth, and from the depths of the
forest the Spirits of the Woods, and from the neighbouring sea, now
cleared of ice, the Spirits of the Water.

And Nele and Ulenspiegel could discern the guardian spirits of all
these wonders. Dwarfs there were, men of the woods that lived like
trees and carried, instead of mouths and stomachs, little clusters of
roots sprouting from below the face to the end that they might suck
their nourishment from the bosom of mother earth. Lords of the mines
there were as well, they that know no speech, and are destitute of
heart or entrails, and move about like glittering automatons. There
came also the dwarfs of flesh and bone, little fellows with
lizards’ tails and the heads of toads, and a lantern on their
head for head-gear. These are they that leap by night upon the shoulder
of the drunken wayfarer or the tired traveller, and then jump down
again, waving their lanterns the while so as to lead into marsh or
ditch that hapless wight who thinks the light he sees is a candle set
to beacon his way home.

There came too the Girl-Flower spirits, blossoms they of
[146]womanly health and strength. Naked they were and
unashamed, glorying in their beauty, and having nothing to cover them
but their hair. The eyes of these maids shone liquid like
mother-of-pearl seen through water; the flesh of their bodies was firm,
white, and glittering in the sunshine; and from half-opened ruby lips
their breath wafted down more balmy than jasmine.

These are the maids that wander at eventide in the parks or gardens
of the world, or belike in the shady paths of some woodland glade.
Amorous they are, searching ever for some soul of man to possess it for
themselves. And whenever some mortal lad and lass come walking their
way, they try to kill the girl, but failing in this they breathe a
breath of love upon the doubting damsel, so that she fears no longer to
abandon herself to the delights of love, but gives herself to her
lover. For then the Girl-Flower is permitted to take her share of the
kisses.

Besides all this, Nele and Ulenspiegel could see descending now far
from heaven the Guardian Spirits of the Stars, the Spirits of the
Winds, of the Breezes, and of the Rain: young, winged men that
fertilize the earth. And there appeared from every point in the heavens
the soul-birds, the dear swallows. At their coming the light itself
seemed to grow brighter, and the girl-flowers, the lords of the rocks,
the princes of the mines, the men of the woods, the spirits of water,
fire, and earth, all cried out with one voice, “O Light, O sap of
Spring, Glory to the Spirit of Spring!” And though the sound of
all this shouting was more powerful than the noise of a raging sea, or
of a thunder-storm, or of a hurricane let loose, yet it seemed most
solemn music to the ears of Nele and Ulenspiegel, who stood, motionless
and dumb, curled up behind the gnarled and wrinkled stem of a mighty
oak.

But sights more terrible yet awaited them, for now the spirits took
their places by thousands upon the backs of gigantic spiders, and toads
with trunks like those of elephants, and serpents all intertwined, and
crocodiles that stood upright on [147]their tails and held a whole
bevy of spirits in their mouths. Snakes, too, there were that carried
more than thirty dwarfs at a time, both male and female, sitting
astride on their writhing bodies; and thousands upon thousands of
insects, more huge than Goliath himself, armed with swords, lances,
jagged scythes, seven-pronged forks, and every other kind of murderous
and horrifying implement. Great was the uproar, and stern the battle
which they fought amongst themselves, the strong eating up the weak and
getting fat thereon, thus demonstrating how death is ever born from
life, and life from death.

And out of all this throng of spirits, confused and serried, there
came a sound as of a deep rumbling of thunder, or of a hundred looms,
of weavers, fullers, and locksmiths, all working together in full
swing.

And suddenly the Spirits of the Sap made their appearance on the
scene. Short they were, and squat, and their loins were as large as the
great barrel of Heidelberg itself. And their thighs were fat like
hogsheads of wine, and their muscles so strangely strong and powerful
that one would have said that their bodies were made of naught but
eggs, eggs big and little, joined up to one another, and covered over
with a kind of ruddy skin, strong and glistening like their scanty
beards and tawny hair. And they carried great tankards or goblets that
were filled with a strange liquor.

When the other spirits saw them coming, there at once arose among
them a great flutter of joy. The trees and the plants became the
victims of a strange restlessness, and the thirsty earth opened in a
thousand fissures that it might drink of the liquor.

And the Spirits of the Sap poured out their wine, and at the same
moment everything began to bud, and to grow green, and to come into
flower; and the sward was alive with buzzing insects, and the sky was
filled with birds and butterflies. The spirits, meanwhile, continued
pouring out their [148]sap, and those below them received the wine
as they best were able: the girl-flowers opening their mouths and
leaping upon the tawny cup-bearers and kissing them for more; others
clasping their hands in prayer; yet others, in their delight, allowing
the precious liquid to rain upon them as it would; but all alike,
hungry and thirsty, flying, standing still, running, or motionless, all
greedy for the wine, and more alive for every drop they were able to
get. And none was there so old, whether he were plain or handsome, but
he was filled with fresh force and with new and lusty youth.

And with great shouting and laughing they pursued each other among
the trees like squirrels, or in the air like birds, each male seeking
his female, and acting out beneath God’s open sky the sacred task
of nature.

And the Spirits of the Sap brought to the King and Queen a mighty
bowl brimming with their wine. And the King and the Queen drank
thereof, and embraced one another. And the King, holding the Queen fast
in his arms, threw the dregs of that bowl far away upon the trees and
flowers and all the other spirits that were there. And loud did he
raise his voice, crying:

“Glory to Life! Glory to the free air! Glory to
Force!”

And all with one voice cried aloud: “Glory to Nature! Glory to
Life!”

And Ulenspiegel took Nele in his arms. And thus entwined, a dance
began, an eddying dance like that of leaves in a whirlwind; and in that
vortex everything was swinging together, both trees and plants, and
insects, the butterflies, heaven and earth itself, the King and his
Queen, the girl-flowers and the lords of the mines, spirits of the
water, hunchbacked dwarfs, lords of the rocks, men of the woods,
will-o’-the-wisps, guardian spirits of the stars, and the
thousand thousand terrible insects all commingled with their lances,
their jagged swords, their seven-pronged forks. A giddy dance it was,
rolling in the space which it filled, a dance [149]wherein the very sun and moon took part, and the
stars and planets, the clouds, and the winds.

And in that whirlwind the oak to which Nele and Ulenspiegel were
clinging rolled over on its side, and Ulenspiegel said to Nele:

“We are going to die, little one….”

These words of Ulenspiegel one of the spirits overheard, and seeing
that they were mortals:

“Men!” he cried. “Men, here?”

And he dragged them from the tree to which they clung, and cast them
into the very midst of the crowd. But they fell softly on the backs of
the spirits, who passed them on one to another, bidding them welcome in
such terms as these:

“All hail to man! All hail, worms of the earth! Who is there
now would like to see a young mortal, a boy or a little girl? Poor
wights that are come to pay us a visit!”

Nele and Ulenspiegel flew from one to the other, crying
“Mercy!” But the spirits payed no attention to them, and
they were suffered to go on flying about, legs in air, heads downwards,
whirling about like feathers in a winter wind. And all the time the
spirits were saying:

“Hail to the little men and little women! Come dance like
us!” Now the girl-flowers desired to separate Nele from
Ulenspiegel, and they would have beaten her to death had not the King
of the Spring stopped the dance suddenly with a single gesture.

“Bring them to me,” he cried; “bring before me
these two lice!” So they were separated the one from the other,
each girl-flower doing all she could to tear Ulenspiegel from her
rival, saying:

“Tyl, Tyl, wouldst not die to have me?”

“I shall die soon enough,” answered Ulenspiegel.

And the dwarfish spirits of the woods that carried Nele [150]said
to her also: “Why are you not a spirit like us that we might take
you?”

And Nele answered: “Only have patience.”

So they came at length before the throne of the King, and when they
saw his golden axe and his crown of iron they began to tremble with
fear. And he asked them:

“Wherefore have you come to see me, poor little
things?”

But they answered him not at all.

“I know you,” added the King, “you bud of a witch,
and you also, shoot of a charcoal-burner. By power of sorcery have you
penetrated into this laboratory of Nature, yet now your lips are closed
like capon stuffed with bread-crumbs!”

Nele trembled as she gazed upon the awful aspect of that spirit. But
the manly courage of Ulenspiegel revived, and he made answer
bravely:

“The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast. For, Most Divine
Highness, Death now goes gathering his harvest through all the land of
Flanders, mowing down the bravest of her men and the sweetest of her
women in the name of His Holiness the Pope. And the privileges of my
country are broken, her charters annulled, she is wasted by famine, her
weavers and cloth-workers abandon her to look for work in other lands.
And soon must she die if none comes to her aid. Your Highness, I am
naught indeed but a poor little chit of a man that has come into the
world like any other, and I have lived as I was able, imperfect,
limited on every side, ignorant, neither virtuous nor chaste, and most
unworthy of any grace, human or divine. Yet my mother Soetkin died as
the result of torture and grief, and Claes was burned in a terrible
fire, and I have sworn to avenge them. Once I have been able to do
this. But now I long to see the miserable soil of my native land made
happy, the soil where the bones of my parents lie scattered; and I have
asked of God the death of our persecutors, but not yet has He heard my
prayer. This is why, all weary of my complaining, I have [151]evoked your presence by the power of
Katheline’s charm, and this is why we are come to you, I and my
trembling comrade here, to fall at your feet and to beg you, Most
Divine Highness, to save our poor land!”

To this the King and his illustrious companion as with one voice
made answer:

And all the spirits sang now together:

But Ulenspiegel only said:

“Your Highness, and you my Lords Spirits, I understand nothing
of your language. You are mocking me, without a doubt.”
[152]

But the spirits, without listening to him at all, went on with their
singing:

And they sang with such an effect of unanimity and
such a terrifying force of sound that the very earth trembled and the
heavens shuddered. And the birds twittered, the owls hooted, the
sparrows chirruped with fear, the sea-eagles wailed aloud, flying
hither and thither in their dismay. And all the animals of the earth,
lions, snakes, bears, stags, roe-bucks, wolves, dogs, and cats, roared,
hissed, belled, howled, barked, and miawed most terribly.

And the spirits kept on singing:

And the cocks crowed, and all the spirits vanished
away, excepting only one wicked lord of the mines, who took Nele and
Ulenspiegel each in one of his arms, and cast them most roughly into
the void.

Then they awoke and found themselves lying by each other, as if they
had been asleep, and they shivered in the chill morning air.

And Ulenspiegel beheld the sweet body of Nele, all golden in the
light of the rising sun. [153]

One morning in September Ulenspiegel took his staff,
three florins that had been given him by Katheline, a piece of
pig’s liver and a slice of bread, and set out to go from Damme to
Antwerp, seeking the Seven. Nele he left asleep.

On the way he met a dog who followed after him, smelling around
because of the liver, and jumping up at his legs. Ulenspiegel would
have driven off the dog, but seeing the persistence of the animal, he
thus addressed him:

“My dear dog, you are certainly ill-advised to leave your
home, where you would find awaiting you an excellent meal of patties
and other fine remains (to say nothing of the marrow-bones), to follow,
as you are now doing, a mere adventurer of the road, a vagabond that is
like to lack so much as a root to give you for nourishment. Follow my
advice, most imprudent little dog, and return to your innkeeper. And
for the future, take good care to avoid the rain and snow, the hail,
the drizzling mists, the glassy frosts and other such wretched fare as
is alone reserved for the back of the poor wanderer. Keep close at
home, rather, in a corner of the hearth, and warm yourself, curled up
in front of the cheerful fire. But leave to me the long wandering in
mud and dust, in cold and heat, to be roasted to-day, to-morrow frozen,
plenished on Friday but on Sunday famished for want of food. For, trust
me, little dog, the wise thing is to return at once like a sensible and
experienced little dog to the place whence you came.”

But it would seem that the animal did not hear a single word of what
Ulenspiegel was saying, for he continued to wag his tail and jump his
highest, barking all the while, in his desire for food. Ulenspiegel
imagined that all this was just a sign of friendliness, and gave no
thought to the liver which he carried in his scrip. [155]

So on and on he walked, with the dog following behind. And when they
had gone in this way the better part of a league, they saw a cart on
the roadside with a donkey harnessed thereto, holding his head down. On
a bank, at the side of the road, between two clumps of thistles,
reclined a man. He was very fat, and in one hand he held the
knuckle-end of a leg of mutton, and in the other hand a bottle. He
gnawed the knuckle-bone and drank from the bottle, but when he was
doing neither of these things he would fall to weeping and
groaning.

Ulenspiegel stopped on his way, and the dog stopped too, but quickly
jumped up on to the bank, smelling doubtless a good odour of liver and
mutton. There he sat on his hind legs by the fat man’s side, and
began to paw at the stranger’s doublet, as much as to say,
“Please give me a share of your meal!” But the man elbowed
him off, and holding up the knuckle-bone in the air began to moan aloud
most piteously. The dog did likewise in the eagerness of his desire,
while the donkey (who was weary of being tied to the cart and thus
prevented from getting at the thistles) set up, in his turn, a most
piercing bray.

“What’s the matter now, Jan?” the man inquired of
his donkey.

“Nothing,” said Ulenspiegel, answering for him,
“except that he would fain make his breakfast off those thistles
that grow there on either side of you, like the thistles that are
carved on the rood-screen at Tessenderloo, below the figure of Our
Lord. Nor would this dog here, I’m thinking, be any the less
inclined to join his jaws together on the bone you have got there. But
in the meanwhile I will give him a piece of this liver of
mine.”

The man looked up at Ulenspiegel, who straightway recognized him as
none other than his friend Lamme Goedzak of Damme.

“Lamme,” he cried, “you here? And what are you
[156]doing, eating and drinking and moaning? Has some
soldier or other been so impertinent as to box your ears, or
what’s the matter? Tell me.”

“Alas!” said Lamme, “my wife!”

And he would have emptied his bottle of wine there and then had not
Ulenspiegel laid a hand on his arm and suggested that it were fairer
that the drink should be given to him that had none.
“Besides,” he added, “to drink thus distractedly
profits naught but one’s kidneys.”

“Well said,” answered Lamme, handing his friend the
bottle, “but will you drink, I wonder, to any better
purpose?”

Ulenspiegel took the bottle, drank his fill, then handed it back
again.

“Call me a Spaniard,” he said, “if I’ve left
enough to make a minnow drunk!”

Lamme inspected the bottle. Then, without ever ceasing to groan, he
rummaged in his wallet and produced another bottle, and another piece
of sausage which he cut up in slices and began to munch in the most
melancholy fashion.

“Do you never stop eating, Lamme?” asked
Ulenspiegel.

“Often, my son,” he replied. “But now I am eating
to drive away sad thoughts. Where are you, wife of mine?” And as
he spoke, Lamme wiped away a tear. After which he cut himself ten
slices of sausage.

“Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel, “you should not eat so
quickly, taking no thought at all for the poor pilgrim.”

Lamme, who was still whimpering, gave four of the slices to
Ulenspiegel, who ate them up immediately, and was much affected by
their good flavour. But Lamme said, eating and crying all at the same
time:

“O wife, O goodly wife of mine! How sweet she was, how
beautiful she was! Light as a butterfly, nimble as the lightning, and
with a voice like a skylark! For all that, she [157]was
overfond of fine clothes. Alas, but how well she looked in them! And
surely, the flowers also, are they not fond of rich apparel? Oh, if you
had seen her, my son—her little hands, so nimble to caress, such
hands as you never could have suffered to come in contact with saucepan
or frying-pan! And her complexion, which was clear as the day, would
surely have been burnt by standing over the kitchen fire. And what eyes
she had! Only to look at them was to be melted quite with tenderness.
Alas, I have lost her! Go on eating, Tyl; it is good Ghent
sausage.”

“But why has she left you?” asked Ulenspiegel.

“How should I know?” Lamme replied. “Alas! gone
for ever are those days when I used to go to her home a-courting! Then,
verily, she would fly away from me, half in love and half in fear! And
her arms were bare, as like as not (beautiful arms they were, so round
and white), but if she saw me looking at them she would cover them
quickly with the sleeve of her gown.

“At other times, again, she would gladly lend herself to my
caresses, and I would kiss her closed eyes, and that lovely neck of
hers, so large and firm. She would shiver all over, uttering little
cries of love, and then, leaning her head backwards, she would give me
a playful slap upon my nose. Thereafter she would laugh and I would cry
aloud, and we would wrestle together right amorously, and there was
naught betwixt us but laughter and fun. But there, there. Is any wine
left in the bottle, Tyl?”

Tyl gave him what remained.

“This ham does great good to my stomach,” he said.

“To mine also,” answered Lamme, “but I shall never
see my dear one again. She has fled away from Damme. What say you, will
you come with me in my cart to look for her?”

“That will I,” answered Ulenspiegel. [158]

So they got up into the donkey-cart, and the donkey set up a most
melancholy bray to celebrate their departure.

As for the dog, he had already made off, well filled, without a word
to any one.

While the cart went lumbering along on the top of the
dike, with the pond on one side and the canal on the other, Ulenspiegel
sat brooding on the past and cherishing in his bosom the ashes of
Claes. He pondered deeply upon that vision he had seen, and asked
himself if indeed it were true or false, and if those spirits of Nature
had been making mock of him, or if perchance they had been revealing to
him under a figure those things that must be done if the land of his
fathers were to be restored. In vain did he turn the matter over and
over in his mind, for he could not discover what was meant by those
words, the “Seven” and the “Cincture.” He
called to mind the late Emperor Charles V, the present King, the
Governess of the Netherlands, the Pope of Rome, the Grand Inquisitor,
and last of all, the General of the Jesuits—six great persecutors
of his country whom most willingly would he have burned alive had he
been able. But he was forced to conclude that none of these was the
personage indicated, for that they were all too obviously worthy of
being burnt, and would be in another place. And he could only go on
repeating to himself those words of the Lord of the Spring:

“Alas!” he cried, “in death, in
blood, in tears, find the Seven, burn the Seven, love the Seven! What
does it all [159]mean? My poor brain reels, for who, pray, would
ever want to burn that which he loved?”

The cart by this time had progressed a good way along the road, when
all at once a sound was heard of some one stepping along the sand, and
of a voice singing:

Ulenspiegel gave Lamme a blow on his great belly, and
told him to hold his breath.

“That,” said Lamme, “is a very difficult thing, I
fear, for a man of my corpulence.”

But Ulenspiegel, paying no further attention to his companion, hid
himself behind the canvas hood of the cart, and began to sing in the
voice of a man with a bad cold that has drunk well:

[160]

“Tyl,” said Lamme, “you have a wry tongue in your
cheek this morning!”

But Tyl put his head out of a hole in the hood:

“Nele, don’t you know me?” he said.

And Nele, for it was none other than she herself, was filled with
fear, crying and laughing all at the same time, and her cheeks were wet
as she answered him:

“I see you, and I know you, you wretch, you
traitor!”

“Nele,” said Ulenspiegel, “if you want to give me
a beating, you will find a stick in the cart here. It is heavy enough
in all conscience, and knotted so that it will leave its mark right
enough.”

“Tyl,” said Nele, “are you seeking the
Seven?”

“Even so,” Tyl told her.

Now Nele carried with her a bag, or satchel, that was so full it
seemed likely to burst. This satchel she offered to Tyl, saying:

“I thought it was unwholesome, Tyl, that a man should go on a
journey without a good fat goose, and a ham, and some Ghent sausages.
So take them, and when you eat of them think of me.”

While Ulenspiegel stood gazing at Nele, quite oblivious of the
satchel which she was holding out to him, Lamme poked out his head from
another hole in the hood, and began to address the girl in his
turn.

“O girl most wise,” he said, “O girl most prudent,
if he refuses such a gift it must be from pure absence of mind. But you
had much better give into my own keeping that goose of yours, that ham,
and those fine sausages. I will take care of them, I promise
you!”

“And who,” asked Nele of her lover, “who may this
red-face be?”

“A victim of the married state,” Tyl told her,
“that is wasting away with sorrow, and would soon, in fact,
shrink away to nothing, like an overbaked apple, were it not that
[161]he recuperated his strength from time to time
and all the time by taking nourishment.”

“Alas, my son,” sighed Lamme, “what you say is
only too true.”

Now it was very hot, and Nele had covered her head with her apron
because of the sun. Ulenspiegel looked upon her, and conceived a sudden
desire to be alone with her. He turned to Lamme, and pointed to a woman
that was walking some way off in a field.

“Do you see that woman?” he said.

“I see her,” said Lamme.

“Do you recognize her?”

“Heavens!” cried Lamme, “can it be my wife? In
truth she is dressed like no common country wench!”

“Can you still be doubtful, you old mole?”

“But supposing it were not her after all?” said
Lamme.

“You would be none the worse off,” Ulenspiegel told him,
“for over there to the left, towards the north, I know a tavern
that sells most excellent bruinbier. We will join you there, and
here meanwhile is some salt ham that will provide an excellent relish
to your thirst.”

So Lamme got down from the cart, and made off as fast as his legs
would carry him in the direction of the woman in the field.

Ulenspiegel said to Nele: “Why will you not come near
me?”

Then he helped her to climb up beside him on to the cart, and made
her sit close by his side. He removed her apron from her head and the
cloak from her shoulders, and then when he had kissed her a hundred
times at least, he asked her:

“Where were you going to, beloved?”

She answered him nothing, but seemed carried away in a sort of
ecstasy. Ulenspiegel, in like rapture, said to her:

“Anyway you are here now! And truly the wild hedgerow is dun
beside the sweet pink colouring of your skin, and [162]though you are no queen, behold I will make a
crown of kisses all for you! O sweet arms of my love, so tender, so
rosy, and made for nothing but to hold me in their embrace! Ah, little
girl, little love, how dare I touch you? These rough hands of mine,
will they not tarnish the purity of your white shoulder? Yea verily,
for the lightsome butterfly may flit to rest upon the crimson
carnation, but I, clumsy bumpkin that I am, how can I rest myself
without tarnishing the living whiteness that is you? God is in heaven,
the king is on his throne, the sun rides triumphing in the sky, but am
I a god, or a king, or the sun himself that I may come so close to you?
O tresses softer than silk! O Nele, I fear to touch your hair, so
clumsy am I, lest I tear it, lest I shred it all to pieces. But have no
fear, my love. Your foot, your sweet foot! What makes it so white? Do
you bathe it in milk?”

Nele would have risen from his side, but,

“What are you afraid of?” he asked her. “It is not
the sun alone that shines upon us now and paints you all gold. Do not
cast down your eyes, but look straight into mine, and behold the pure
fire that flames there. And listen, my love, hearken to me, dearest.
Now is midday, the silent hour. The labourer is at home, eating his
dinner of soup. Shall we not also feed upon our love? Oh why, oh why
have I not yet a thousand years wherein to tell at your knees my rosary
of Indian pearls!”

“Golden Tongue!” she said.

But my Lord the Sun blazed down upon the white hood of the cart, and
a lark sang high over the clover, and Nele leant her head upon the
shoulder of Ulenspiegel.

After a while Lamme came back to the cart, great drops
of sweat pouring off him, and he, puffing and blowing like a dolphin.
[163]

“Alas!” he cried, “I was born under an evil star.
For no sooner had I run and caught up with this woman than I found that
she was not a woman at all, but an old hag rather, as indeed I could
see at once by her face—forty-five years old at the very least!
And to judge by her head-gear she had never been married. For all that,
she inquired of me in a harsh voice what I was doing there, carrying my
great fat belly about in the clover! I told her as politely as I could
that I was looking for my wife who had lately left me, and that I had
run after her by mistake.

“At that the old girl told me that the only thing for me to do
was to return at once whence I came, and that if my wife had left me
she had indeed done well, seeing that all men are thieves and rascals,
heretics, unfaithful, poisoners, and deceivers of women; and she
threatened to set her dog on me if I did not make off at once. Which in
truth I did incontinently, for that I perceived a great mastiff lying
there growling at her feet. When, therefore, I had reached the boundary
of the field, I sat me down to rest myself and to eat a bit of ham. And
I was between two clover-fields. Suddenly I heard a great noise just
behind me, and turning round I saw the old girl’s mastiff, no
longer now in menacing mood but wagging his tail as sweetly as possible
and as much as to say that he was hungry and would like a piece of my
ham. I was for throwing him some small bits when all at once his
mistress appeared on the scene, and shouted out fiercely:

“‘Seize the man! Seize him with your fangs, my
son!’

“I started to run away, the great mastiff hanging on to me by
my breeks. And now he had bitten off a piece of them, together with a
gobbet of my own flesh. The pain made me angry and I turned and gave
him such a smart stroke with my stick upon his front paws that I must
have broken one of them at least. At that he fell down, crying out in
his dog language: ‘Mercy! Mercy!’ the which I granted him.
Meanwhile his mistress, finding no stones to throw at me, had
[164]begun to threaten me with pieces of earth and
bits of grass. So I made good my retreat. And is it not a sorry thing,
and a thing most unjust and most cruel, that because a girl has not
been good-looking enough to find some one to marry her, she must needs
go and take her revenge on a poor innocent like me?”

Some while after these happenings, when Nele had
returned to her home with Katheline, Lamme and Ulenspiegel came to
Bruges. They were at the place called Minne-Water, the Lake of
Love—though the learned folk would have it to be derived from
Minre-Water, that is, the Water belonging to the order of monks who are
called Minims. Be this as it may, here on the bank of the lake, Lamme
and Ulenspiegel sat themselves down, watching those that passed in
front of them under the trees. The green branches hung over the pathway
like a vault of foliage, and below there sauntered both men and women,
youths and maids, clasping each other’s hands, with flowers on
their heads, walking so close together and gazing so tenderly into each
other’s eyes that they seemed to see nothing else in all the
world save themselves alone.

As he watched them, the thoughts of Ulenspiegel were far away with
Nele, and his thoughts were sad thoughts. Yet his words were of another
colour, bidding Lamme come off with him to the tavern for a drink. But
Lamme paid no attention to what Tyl was saying, for he himself was
absorbed no less by the sight of those loving pairs.

“In the old days,” he said, “we too, my wife and
I, were wont to go a-courting, while others, just as we are now, would
watch us, alone and companionless by the lake-side.”

“Come and have a drink!” said Ulenspiegel, “Belike
we will find the Seven at the bottom of a pint of beer.”

“That’s but a drunkard’s notion,” answered
Lamme, “for you know quite well that the Seven are giants, and
taller than the roof of the Church of St. Sauver itself!”
[165]

The thoughts of Ulenspiegel were still with Nele, but none the less
did he hope to find, perchance, good quarters in some inn, a good
supper, and a comely hostess into the bargain. Again, therefore, did he
urge his companion to come along with him and drink. But Lamme would
not listen to him, gazing sadly at the tower of Notre Dame, and
addressing himself in prayer to Our Lady somewhat in this wise:

“O Blessed Lady, patroness of all lawful unions, suffer me, I
pray, to see yet once again the white neck, the soft and tender neck,
of my love!”

“Come and drink!” cried Ulenspiegel. “Belike you
will find her displaying these charms of hers to the drinkers in the
tavern.”

“How dare you harbour such a thought!” cried Lamme.

“Come and drink!” repeated Ulenspiegel. “Your wife
has turned innkeeper without a doubt.”

And thus conversing, they repaired to the Marché
du Samedi, and entered into the Blauwe
Lanteern—at the sign of the Blue Lantern. And there they
found a right jolly-looking innkeeper.

The donkey meanwhile was unharnessed from the cart, and was put up
in the stables and provided with a good feed of oats. Our travellers
themselves ordered supper, and when they had eaten their fill, they
went to bed and slept soundly till morning, only to wake up and eat
again. And Lamme, who was wellnigh bursting with all that he had eaten,
said that he could hear in his stomach a sound like the music of the
spheres.

Now when the time came to pay the bill, mine host came to Lamme and
told him that the total amounted to six patards.

“He has the money,” said Lamme, pointing to
Ulenspiegel.

“No such thing,” said Ulenspiegel.

“What about that half-florin?” said Lamme.

“I haven’t got it,” said Ulenspiegel. [166]

“Here’s a nice way of going on!” cried the
innkeeper. “I shall strip your doublet and shirt from the two of
you!”

Suddenly Lamme took courage of all he had been drinking:

“And if I choose to eat and to drink,” he cried,
“yea, to eat and to drink the worth of twenty-seven florins, and
more, do you think I shall not do so? Do you think that this belly of
mine is not the equal of a penny? God’s life! Up to now I have
fed on ortolans. But you, never have you carried anything of that sort
under your belt of greasy hide. For you, you bad man, must needs carry
your suet in the collar of your doublet, far otherwise than I that bear
three inches at least of delicate fat on this good belly of
mine.”

At this the innkeeper fell into a passion of rage, and though he was
a stammerer he began to talk at a great rate, and the greater his haste
the more he stammered and spluttered like a dog that has just come out
of the water. Ulenspiegel began to throw pellets of bread at him, and
Lamme, growing more and more excited, continued his harangue in the
following strain:

“And now, what do you say? For here have I enough, and more
than enough, to pay you for those three lean chickens forsooth, and
those four mangy poulets, to say nothing of that big simpleton of a
peacock that parades his paltry tail in the stable yard. And if your
very skin was not more dry than that of an ancient cock, if your bones
even now were not falling to very dust within your breast, still should
I have the wherewithal to eat you up, you and your slobbering servant
there—your one-eyed serving-maid and your cook, whose arms are
not long enough to scratch himself though he had the itch! And do you
see,” he continued, “do you see this fine bird of yours
that for the sake of half a florin would have deprived us of our
doublet and our shirt? Say, what is your own wardrobe worth,
preposterous chatterbox that you are; and I will give you three
liards in exchange for the lot!” [167]

But the innkeeper, who by this time was beside himself with rage,
stammered and spluttered more and more, while Ulenspiegel went on
throwing pellets of bread in his face, till Lamme at last cried out
again in a voice brave as a lion’s:

“What’s the value, think you, skinny-face, of a fine
donkey with a splendid nose, long ears, large chest, and legs as strong
as iron? Twenty-eight florins at the least, is it not so, most seedy of
innkeepers? And how many old nails have you, pray, locked fast away in
your coffer, with which to pay the price of so fine an
animal?”

More than ever did the innkeeper puff and blow, yet dared not budge
an inch from where he stood. And Lamme said again:

“And what is the value, think you, of a fine cart of ash-wood,
finely painted in crimson, and furnished with a hood of Courtrai cloth
for protection from sun and rain? Twenty-four florins at the least, is
it not so? And how much is twenty-four florins added to twenty-eight
florins? Answer that, you miser that cannot even count! And now, since
it is market day, and since your paltry tavern happens to be full of
peasants that are come to market, behold I will put up my cart to
auction and my donkey too, and I will sell them here, now, and at
once!”

Which, in very truth, he did. For all they that were there knew very
well who Lamme was. And he actually realized from the sale of his
donkey and cart as much as forty-four florins and ten patards.
And he jingled the money under the innkeeper’s nose, and said to
him:

“Scent you not the savour of festivities to be?”

“Yea,” answered mine host. But under his breath he swore
that if ever Lamme came to him and offered to sell him his very skin,
he would buy it for a liard and make of it an amulet for a charm
against extravagance.

Meanwhile there was a sweet and gentle-looking young woman that
stood in the yard without, and she came up [168]oftentimes to the window and looked at Lamme,
but withdrew her pretty face each time that he might have seen her. And
the same evening, when Lamme was going up to bed, stumbling about on
the staircase without any light (for he had been drinking not wisely),
he was aware of a woman that put her arms round him, and greedily
kissed his cheek and mouth and his nose even, and moistened his face
with amorous tears, and then left him.

But Lamme, who was thoroughly drowsed by all that he had been
drinking, lay down straightway and went to sleep; and on the morrow he
departed to Ghent together with Ulenspiegel. There he went seeking his
wife in all the cabarets and taverns of the town. But at
nightfall he rejoined Ulenspiegel at the sign of the Singing Swan.

Now King Philip was obstinate as a mule, and he
thought that his own will ought to dominate the entire world as if it
had been the will of God himself. And his will was this: that our
country, little accustomed as it was to obedience, should now curb
itself under an ancient yoke without obtaining any reforms at all. And
the be-all and the end-all of his desire was the aggrandizement of that
Holy Mother of his, the Catholic Church, Apostolic and Roman, One,
Entire, Universal, changeless and unalterable, and this was his will
for no other reason at all than just the fact that it was his will. And
in this he was like some woman without sense, that tosses about all
night upon her bed as though it were a bed of thorns, endlessly
tortured by her own imaginings.

“Yes,” he would say, “O most Holy Saint Philip,
and you, O my Lord God, if only I could turn the Low Countries into a
common grave, and cast therein all the inhabitants of that country,
then surely they would return to Thee, my most blessed Patron, and to
Thee, my Lady Virgin Mary, and to ye, my good masters, the saints and
saintesses of Paradise!” [169]

And he really tried to do as he said; so that he was more Roman than
the Pope and more Catholic than the Councils!

And the people of Flanders and of the Low Countries began to grow
anxious again, and to think that they could discern in the distance
this crowned spider, working in the sombre house of the Escurial,
reaching out his long claws with their nippers open, and spreading wide
the web in which he might enwrap them all and suck them white of their
blood.

Ulenspiegel, for his part, went spreading the alarm wherever he
could, and stirring up the people against the ravishers of his country
and the murderers of his parents.

One day, therefore, when he was in the Marché du
Vendredi, near by the Dulle-Griet—the Great
Canon—Ulenspiegel lay flat down on his stomach in the middle of
the road. A charcoal-burner who happened to be passing came up and
asked him what he was doing there.

“I am giving my nose a wetting,” Ulenspiegel told him,
“so that I may discover where this great wind is coming
from.”

Next a carpenter came along.

“Do you take the pavement for a mattress?” he asked.

“Before long,” said Ulenspiegel, “there are some
that will be taking it for a counterpane.”

A monk came up and stopped by his side.

“What does this booby here?”

“He entreats your blessing, lying flat at your feet,”
said Ulenspiegel. The monk gave his blessing and went away. But
Ulenspiegel continued where he was with his head pressed to the earth,
till at last a peasant came along and asked him what he was listening
for. “Do you hear some noise or other?” he said.

“Yes,” replied Ulenspiegel. “I hear the wood
beginning to grow, that wood whence many a faggot shall be made for the
burning of poor heretics.” [170]

“Do you hear aught else?” inquired a sergeant of the
commune.

“Yes,” said Ulenspiegel, “I hear the men-at-arms
that are on their way from Spain. If you have anything you wish to
save, bury it now, for in a little while our cities will not be safe
from thieves any more.”

“The man is mad,” said the sergeant.

And the people of the town thought so too.

Now in those days, day in, day out, King Philip of
Spain was used to spend his time fingering old papers and scribbling
and writing on leaves of parchment. To these alone did he confide the
secrets of his cruel heart, for he loved no man living, and knew that
none loved him. For he desired to direct his great empire by himself
alone, and like a weary Atlas he was bowed under that weight.
Melancholy and phlegmatic by nature, this excess of work was consuming
a body that was already none too strong. Hating as he did every happy
face, he had begun to hate our land of Flanders, for its gaiety if for
nothing else. And he hated our merchants just because they were wealthy
and luxurious, and he hated our nobility just because they were free in
speech and frank in manner, and because of the high ardour of their
bravery and their jovial bearing. Neither had he forgotten the tale
that was told how, as early as the year 1380, the Cardinal de Cousa had
pointed out the abuses of the Church, and had preached the need of
reformation, since which time the revolt against the Pope and the power
of Rome had begun to be manifest in our land, and was now, under
different forms and sects, rife in every head like water boiling in a
kettle with the lid on.

And although, under the Emperor Charles, the Papal Inquisition had
already been the death, by burning, burying alive, or hanging, of so
many as a hundred thousand [171]Christians, and although the
property of these unfortunates had gone into the coffers of the Emperor
and the King like rain falling into a sink, Philip decided that this
was not enough, and now imposed on the country a new College of
Bishops, and aspired to introduce into Flanders all the horrors of the
Spanish Inquisition.

And the Town Heralds sounded their trumpets and their timbrels, and
declaimed a proclamation to the effect that all heretics, whether men,
women, or girls, should be done to death. Those who would recant their
heresies were to be hanged, but those who were obstinate were to be
burnt at the stake. The women and girls were to be buried alive, and
the executioner was to dance upon their dead bodies.

And the flame of resistance began to burn and run through all the
country.

It was the fifth of April, just before Easter, and the
Counts Louis of Nassau, de Culembourg, and de Brederode (he that was
surnamed Hercule the Toper) were entering the courtyard of the palace
of Brussels, together with three hundred gentlemen. They were come to
seek an audience of the Governess of the Netherlands, Madame the
Duchess of Parma, and were mounting the great stairway of the palace
four by four.

Coming at length into the hall where my Lady was seated they
presented their petition, which entreated her to use her influence with
King Philip for the abolition of all those decrees which concerned
religion and the introduction into Flanders of the Spanish Inquisition.
This petition, which afterwards became known as “The
Compromise,” also declared that in our already disaffected
country such a policy as the introduction of the Inquisition could only
result in troubles of all kinds, ruin to the country, and universal
misery.

Berlaymont, who later on was to prove so treacherous and baneful to
the land of his birth, stood close by Her Highness, [172]and
mocked at the poverty of certain of the confederate nobles who had come
to visit her.

“Have no fear, my Lady,” he told her, “they are
nothing but beggars!”

And by these words he implied either that the said nobles had been
ruined in the service of the King, or else that they were eager to
emulate the luxury of the great Lords of Spain. And thus it was that
later on these same nobles endeavoured to bring ridicule upon the words
of Berlaymont by saying that “they held it indeed an honour to be
esteemed and spoken of as beggars—beggars for the good service of
the King and the advantage of these lands.” And from that time
they began to wear round their necks a golden medal carved with an
effigy of the King. And on the obverse side of the medal were two hands
clasped upon a beggar’s wallet, with these words writ thereunder:
“To the King, faithful even unto beggary.” On their hats
and bonnets they carried also little golden ornaments made in the form
of beggars’ hats and platters.

And all this time Lamme went carrying his portly form about the
town, seeking the wife that he never found.

One morning Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:

“Come with me. Let us go and present our compliments to a
certain high noble I wot of, a most renowned and powerful
personage!”

“Will he tell us where my wife is?” asked Lamme.

“Certainly,” answered Ulenspiegel, “if he
knows.”

And away they went to Brederode, surnamed Hercule the Toper. And
they found him in the courtyard of his house.

“What do you want with me?” he demanded of
Ulenspiegel.

“To speak with you, my Lord.”

“Speak then,” said Brederode. [173]

“You are a handsome, brave, and powerful nobleman,” said
Ulenspiegel. “Time was when you were able to flatten out a
Frenchman in full armour as though he were no better than a mussel in
its shell. But if you are brave and powerful you are also
well-informed. Can you tell us, therefore, why you wear this medal
inscribed with these words: ‘To the King, faithful even unto
beggary’?”

“Yes,” Lamme put in, “pray tell us why, my
Lord!”

But Brederode made no answer, and only looked very hard at
Ulenspiegel, who thereupon continued his discourse in this wise.

“And why, pray, do you, you other noble Lords, seek to be
faithful to the King even unto beggary? Is it for the great good that
he wishes you? Or for the fair friendship that he bears you? How is it
that instead of being faithful to the King even unto beggary you do not
so act rather that the brute himself may be despoiled of his country,
and thus be made faithful for ever to beggary himself?”

And Lamme nodded his head to show his agreement with what his friend
had said:

Brederode looked at Ulenspiegel with his keen glance, and smiled
with pleasure at his handsome appearance.

“Either you are a spy of King Philip,” he said,
“or else a good man of Flanders; and for whichever you are I will
pay you your due.”

So saying he led Ulenspiegel to his pantry, and Lamme followed close
behind. When they were come there, Brederode pulled Ulenspiegel’s
ear till the blood flowed.

“This for the spy,” he said.

But Ulenspiegel remained quite quiet and said nothing.

Then Brederode, pointing to a pipkin of cinnamon wine, bade his
butler bring it to him.

“Drink,” said Brederode, “this for the good
Fleming.”

Ah!” cried Ulenspiegel, “good Fleming means sweet
[174]tongue for cinnamon! Verily the saints
themselves do not know the likes of it!”

When he had drunk half the tankard he passed the remainder to
Lamme.

“And who,” said Brederode, “who is this
papzak, this belly-carrier that needs must be recompensed for
having done nothing?”

“This,” said Ulenspiegel, “is my friend Lamme
Goedzak, and whenever he drinks mulled wine he thinks that he is going
to find the wife he has lost.”

“That’s so,” said Lamme, sucking up the wine from
the goblet most devotedly.

“And where may you be going to now?” asked
Brederode.

“In quest of the Seven,” said Ulenspiegel, “the
Seven that shall save the land of Flanders.”

“And who may they be?” asked Brederode.

“When I have found them,” said Ulenspiegel, “then
I will tell you.”

But Lamme, who was grown sprightly with what he had been drinking,
suggested to Ulenspiegel that they should go there and then to the
moon, to see if his wife perchance was there.

“All right,” said Ulenspiegel, “if you’ll
provide a ladder!”

And it was May, the green month of May, and Ulenspiegel said to
Lamme:

“Ah! The lovely month of May!”

“O Lamme, behold the lovely month of May! Ah, the bright blue
of the sky! The joy of the swallows! And behold, the branches of the
trees, how they are all red with sap, and the very earth is in love!
Verily this is now the time both to hang and to burn for the Faith. For
they are ready, the good little Inquisitors. Ah, what noble faces they
have! And theirs is the power to correct us and to punish us and to
degrade, and hand us over to the secular judges, or to imprison
us—O the fine month of May!—and to [175]take
us captive, and to proceed to trial against us without serving any
writ, and to burn, hang, behead us, and to dig the grave of premature
death for our women and our girls. In the trees the chaffinch is
singing! But upon him that is rich and wealthy the good Inquisitors
have cast a favourable eye! And it is the King himself that shall enter
into their inheritance. Then go, my girls, dance in the meadows to the
sound of bagpipes and shawms. O the fine month of May!”

And the ashes of Claes beat upon the breast of Ulenspiegel.

“On, on!” said he to Lamme. “Happy are they that
shall keep heart high and sword drawn in the dark days that are
coming!”

Lamme and Ulenspiegel, each mounted upon a donkey
given him by Simon Simonsen, one of the followers of the Prince of
Orange, went riding far and wide, warning the people concerning the
bloodthirsty designs of King Philip, and always on the look-out for any
news from Spain. They frequented all the markets and fairs of the
countryside, selling vegetables and habited like peasants.

One day as they were returning from the market at Brussels, they
passed a stone house on the Quai aux Briques, and there, in a room on
the ground floor, they beheld a beautiful dame dressed all in satin.
She had a high complexion, a lively look in her eyes, and her neck was
most fair to behold. By her side was a young, fresh-looking cook, to
whom she was addressing words like these:

“Clean me this saucepan, will you! No rusty sauce for
me!”

“As for me,” cried Ulenspiegel, poking in his nose at
the window, “any kind of soup is good enough! For a hungry man
cannot afford to be particular.”

The lady turned towards him:

“And who,” she said, “who is this little man, I
wonder, that must needs concern himself with my soup?”
[176]

“Alas, my lovely lady,” said Ulenspiegel, “if only
you will consent to make soup in my company, I will teach you how to
prepare a traveller’s relish of a sort that is quite unknown to
lovely ladies who stay at home.”

And then, smacking his lips:

“I am hungry,” he said.

“Hungry for what?” she asked him.

“For you.”

“Sure, he’s a nice enough looking fellow,” said
the cook to her mistress. “Let him come in a while and tell us
his adventures.”

“But there are two of them!” said the lady.

“I’ll look after the other,” said the cook.

“Madame,” said Ulenspiegel, “it is true that there
are two of us, I and my poor friend Lamme here, whose back cannot
support so much as the weight of a hundred pounds, yet who carries in
his stomach five hundred pounds at the least of food and drink, and
that right willingly!”

“My son,” Lamme said, “do not make mock of me,
unfortunate that I am, for my belly costs a deal to fill.”

“To-day, at any rate, it shall not cost you so much as a
liard,” said the lady. “Come in, both of
you.”

“But what about these donkeys of ours?” said Lamme.

“There is no lack of fodder,” answered the lady,
“in the stable of Monsieur le Comte de Meghen!”

Thereupon the cook left her saucepan, and led Lamme and Ulenspiegel
into the stable yard, they still riding on their donkeys, who now began
to bray inordinately.

“Hark,” cried Ulenspiegel, “hearken to the fanfare
with which they greet their coming nourishment. They are blowing their
trumpets for joy, the poor beasts!”

But when they were dismounted, Ulenspiegel said to the cook:

“Come now, my dear, tell me, if you were a she-ass would you
choose for your mate a donkey like me?” [177]

“If I were a woman,” the cook replied, “I would
desire a fellow that had a merry countenance.”

“What are you then,” asked Lamme, “being neither
woman nor she-ass?”

“I am a maid,” quoth she, “and that is neither
woman nor she-ass into the bargain. Now do you understand,
fat-belly?”

Meantime the lady was inviting Ulenspiegel to drink a pint of
bruinbier and to partake of some ham, a gigot, a
pâté, and some salad. Ulenspiegel clapped his
hands.

“Ham!” he cried, “that’s good to eat; and
bruinbier is a drink divine. Gigot is food fit for the
Gods! And the thought of a pâté is enough to send
one’s tongue a-tremble in one’s mouth for joy! A rich salad
is worthy victual for a king, forsooth. But blessed above all men shall
that man be to whom it is given to dine off thy loveliness, O lady
mine!”

“How the fellow does run on!” she exclaimed. And then:
“Eat first, you rogue.”

“Shall we not say grace ere we consume all these
dainties?” said Ulenspiegel.

“Nay,” answered the lady.

But Lamme began to make moan, complaining that he was hungry.

“Eat, then, your fill,” said the beautiful dame,
“for well I see that you have no other thoughts but of meats well
cooked.”

“And fresh withal,” Lamme added, “even as was my
wife.”

At this the cook grew moody; nevertheless they ate and drank their
fill, and that night also did the beautiful dame give his supper to
Ulenspiegel, and so the next day, and the days that followed.

As for the donkeys, they were given double feeds, and for Lamme
there was always a double ration. And throughout a whole week he never
once went outside the kitchen, [178]playing the wanton with many
a dish of food, but never with the cook, for he was thinking of his
wife all the time.

This annoyed the girl, and she went so far as to say that it was not
worth while to cumber the earth if one thought of nothing but
one’s belly.

But all this time Ulenspiegel and the beautiful dame were passing
the time together in right friendly wise, till one day she said to
him:

“Tyl, I think you have no principles at all. Who are
you?”

“I am,” said he, “a son that Chance begat one day
on High Adventure.”

“You are not afraid to speak well of yourself,” she told
him.

“That’s for fear that others will praise me.”

“Would you go so far as to help such of your brethren who have
suffered for the Faith?”

“The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast.”

“There is something splendid about you, Tyl, when you say
that,” she told him, “but who is this Claes?”

“He was my father,” answered Ulenspiegel, “that
was burnt alive for the Faith.”

“Verily you are not at all like my husband, the Count de
Meghen,” she said, “for he, if he could, would bleed to
death the country that I love. For you must know that I was born in the
glorious city of Antwerp. And now I will make known to you that the
Count has entered into an agreement with the Councillor of Brabant to
bring into that very city of Antwerp a regiment of infantry.”

“I must inform the citizens of this,” said Ulenspiegel.
“Behold, I will go there immediately, swift as a
ghost.”

He departed there and then; and by the following morning the
citizens of Antwerp were in arms. But Ulenspiegel and Lamme, having
sent their donkeys to a farmer that was a friend of Simon Simonsen,
were themselves obliged to go into [179]hiding for fear of the Count
de Meghen, who was seeking for them everywhere to have them hanged; for
it had been reported to him that there were two heretics that had drunk
of his wine and eaten of his meat. And he was jealous and spoke
concerning this matter to his lovely dame, who ground her teeth in
anger, and wept and swooned seventeen times. The cook behaved in a
similar fashion, but swooned not so often, and swore by her hope of
Paradise and by the eternal salvation of her soul, that neither she nor
her mistress had done anything wrong unless it had been to give what
was left of their dinner to a couple of poor pilgrims who, mounted on
two wretched donkeys, had stopped for a moment at the kitchen
window.

All that day there was a great shedding of tears, so that the floors
of the house became quite damp with them. And when he saw this,
Monsieur de Meghen felt reassured that he was being told the truth and
nothing but the truth.

Lamme did not dare to show himself again there, for the cook always
jeered at him, calling after him, “My wife!” And for this
cause he was very sorry for himself, thinking of all the good food that
he was missing. But Ulenspiegel continued his visits to the beautiful
dame, entering the house by the rue Sainte-Catherine, and hiding
himself in the storeroom. And he always took care to bring back to
Lamme some dainty morsel.

Now one evening the Count de Meghen informed his lady that before
morning dawned he was resolved to lead his men-at-arms into the city of
Bois-le-Duc. When he had told her this he went to sleep. But the
beautiful dame went straightway to the storeroom, and apprised
Ulenspiegel of what had happened.

Ulenspiegel, in the garb of a pilgrim, and with no
provision of food or money, departed incontinently for Bois-le-Duc,
with the intention of warning the citizens. He reckoned [180]to
find a horse at the house of Jeroen Praet, the brother of Simon
Simonsen, for whom he carried letters from the Prince. From thence he
would go by side roads to Bois-le-Duc as fast as his horse would carry
him.

As he was crossing the road he spied a company of soldiers coming
towards him. This gave him a great fright because of the letters which
he carried; but being resolved to put the best face on the
misadventure, he awaited the arrival of the soldiers with all the
courage at his command, standing still by the roadside telling his
beads. When the soldiers came up with him he joined them, and soon
discovered that they also were going to Bois-le-Duc.

At the head of the troop marched a company of Walloons led by a
captain, Lamotte by name, with his bodyguard of six halberdiers. Then
followed the other officers each according to rank, and with a smaller
bodyguard: the provost with his halberdiers and two bailiffs, the chief
watchman with the baggage-carriers, the executioner with his
assistants, and a band of drums and fifes making a great row.
Thereafter came a company of Flemish soldiers, two hundred strong, with
their captain and his ensign-bearers. They were divided into two
divisions, each of one hundred men, under the command of two sergeants,
and in squads of ten under the command of corporals. The provost and
his lieutenants were likewise preceded by a band of drums and fifes,
beating and screaming.

Behind these, again, came two open wagons wherein rode the loving
companions of the soldiers, pealing with laughter, twittering like
birds, singing like nightingales, eating, drinking, dancing, standing,
lying down, or sitting astride—all gay and pretty girls.

Many of them were dressed like foot-soldiers, but in fine white
cloth which was cut away at the arms and legs and at the neck so as to
show their sweet white flesh. And on their heads they wore bonnets of
fine linen trimmed with [181]gold and surmounted with
magnificent ostrich plumes that fluttered in the wind. Their belts were
of cloth of gold crimped with red satin, from which hung the scabbards
of their daggers, made of cloth of gold. And their shoes, their
stockings, their hose, their doublets, shoulder-knots and fitments were
all of gold and white silk. Others there were, dressed also in the
uniform of infantrymen but with uniforms of divers colours, blue,
green, scarlet, sky-blue, and crimson, cut away and embroidered or
emblazoned according to their fancy. But on the arm of each and all was
to be seen the coloured band that indicated her calling.

The girls were in charge of a sergeant who did his best to keep them
in order, but they made no pretence of obeying him, but bombarded him
with japes and sweet grimaces so that he found it hard to keep his
countenance.

Ulenspiegel meanwhile, in his dress of a pilgrim and telling his
beads, went marching along by the side of the two ensign-bearers and
their guard, for all the world like a little boat by the side of a big
ship. Suddenly Lamotte inquired of him whither he was going.

“Sir Captain,” answered Ulenspiegel, who was growing
hungry, “you must know that I am one that has committed a
grievous sin, for which I have been condemned by the Chapter of Notre
Dame to journey to Rome on foot and to ask pardon there from the Holy
Father. This he has granted, and now I am shriven and suffered to
return to my own country on the one condition that I am to preach the
Holy Mysteries to whatsoever soldiers I may encounter on the way; and
they for their part are enjoined to give me bread and wine in return
for my preaching. And thus by my sermons do I sustain my wretched life.
Would you now give me permission to fulfil my vow at the next
halt?”

“I will,” said Monsieur de Lamotte.

After this, Ulenspiegel began to mingle with the Walloons and
Flemings in right brotherly fashion, but all the time he [182]kept
fingering those letters which he kept concealed under his doublet. And
the girls began to cry out to him:

“Come hither, handsome pilgrim, come hither and show us the
strength of your pilgrim’s oyster-shells!”

And Ulenspiegel drew nigh to them with modest mien, and said:

“O my sisters in God, pray you do not make mock of the poor
pilgrim that wendeth up hill and down dale preaching ever the Holy
Faith to the soldiers.”

But with his eyes he feasted himself upon the sight of their sweet
charms. And the wanton girls, thrusting their lively faces betwixt the
canvas curtains of the wagons, cried out to him yet the more:

“Surely you are too young a man to go preaching to soldiers?
Climb up into our wagon and we will teach thee more gentle subjects of
conversation!”

And right willingly would Ulenspiegel have done as they bade him,
but he dared not, by reason of the letters which he carried. And
already two of the girls were leaning out of the wagon trying to hoist
him up with their white, round arms. But the sergeant was jealous.

“Be off with you, or else I’ll off with your
head!” he threatened.

So Ulenspiegel removed himself away, but not without a sly look
behind him at the fresh young beauty of those joysome girls, all golden
in the sun which now shone brightly.

They came at last to Berchem, where Philip de Lannoy, Lord of
Beauvoir, ordered a halt. For he it was that was in command of the
Flemings.

Now in that place was an oak-tree, of medium height, but despoiled
of all its branches save one only, a big branch that was broken off
short in the middle; for only a month before an Anabaptist had been
hanged there by the neck.

Here then the soldiers came to a halt, and the keepers of the
canteen came up and began to sell to them bread, wine, [183]beer, with meats of every kind. And to the gay
girls they sold all manner of sugared sweets, and castrelins, and
almonds, and tartlets, the which when Ulenspiegel saw, he felt hungrier
than ever.

All at once Ulenspiegel climbed up like a monkey into the tree, and
seated himself astride on the big branch, seven feet above the ground
at the least. And then, when he had given himself a few strokes from
his pilgrim’s scourge, he began his sermon, while the soldiers
and their gay girls sat round him in a circle.

“It is written,” he began, “that whosoever giveth
to the poor, the same lendeth to God. Very well then, O soldiers
present here to-day, and you, fair ladies, sweet comrades in love of
all these valiant warriors, do you lend now to God. That is to say,
give me, I beg you, some of your bread, meat, wine, beer, if you
please, and eke your tartlets, and I promise you that God, who is very
rich, shall give you back in exchange many pieces of ortolan, rivers of
malmsey wine, mountains of sugar-candy, and great pieces of that lovely
rystpap which they eat in Paradise from silver
spoons.”

Then, changing to a more sorrowful tone, he continued:

“Behold now, with what cruel tortures do I strive to merit
pardon for my sins! Will you do nothing to assuage the smarting pain of
this scourge by which my back is lacerated till the blood
flows?”

“Who is this madman?” cried the soldiers.

“My friends,” answered Ulenspiegel, “I am no
madman but one that is repentant even to the point of starvation. For
while my soul weeps for its sins, my stomach weeps for want of food.
Good soldiers, and you, fair damosels, I see you well provided with ham
and goose, with fat sausages and wine and beer and all manner of
tartlets. Will you not give so much as a morsel to the wandering
pilgrim?”

“Yes, yes, we will,” cried the Flemish soldiers,
“for the preacher hath a merry countenance.” [184]

And now they all began to throw him chunks of bread as though they
had been balls, and Ulenspiegel did not cease from talking and from
eating, astride as he was on the branch.

“Hunger,” he said, “makes a man hard of heart and
little apt for prayer, yet a piece of ham removes that evil disposition
in no time.”

“Look out for your head,” shouted a sergeant as he threw
him a bottle half full of wine. Ulenspiegel caught the bottle in
mid-air, and began to drink in little gulps, talking all the while.

“If hunger, sharp and raging, is bane to the poor body of a
pilgrim, there is something else that is equally harmful to his soul;
nothing less than his fear that the generosity of his soldier friends
may lead him on to drunkenness. For as a general rule the pilgrim is a
right sober fellow, but when, as now, one soldier gives him a slice of
ham, and another a bottle of beer, he is mightily afraid lest by
drinking thus upon an empty, or nearly empty, stomach he may lose his
head.”

And even as he spoke, he caught hold of the leg of a goose that came
whizzing to him through the air.

“This truly is a miracle,” he cried, “that one
should go fishing in the air for a bird of the field! And see! Hey,
presto! it has disappeared, bone and all! Verily, what is it that is
greedier than dry sand? I will tell you. A barren woman and a hungry
man.”

Scarcely had he spoken than he clapped his hand to his face, for two
tartlets had flattened themselves, one on his eye, the other on his
cheek. The gay girls who had thrown them laughed aloud, but Ulenspiegel
made answer:

“Many thanks, my pretties, many thanks for thus embracing me
with this jammy accolade.”

Nevertheless the tartlets had fallen to the ground.

And then suddenly the drums began to beat, the fifes screamed, and
the soldiers fell in again.

Monsieur de Beauvoir ordered Ulenspiegel to come down [185]from
his tree and to march by the side of the soldiers. Ulenspiegel would
willingly have been parted from them by a hundred leagues, for he had
gathered from the remarks let fall by certain thin-faced foot-soldiers
that he was already under suspicion, and that he ran danger of being
arrested for a spy; and if this was so, he knew that they would most
certainly search his pockets, and have him hanged when they found the
letters which he carried. So in a little while he purposely let himself
stumble into the ditch which ran by the wayside, and as he fell he
cried out loudly:

“Mercy, soldiers, mercy! My leg is broken, and now I cannot
walk any more. You must let me get up into the cart with the
girls!”

But to this he knew that the jealous sergeant would never
consent.

The girls, meanwhile, cried out from the carts:

“Come, come, jolly pilgrim, and we will succour you, and
caress and make much of you, and cure you all in a day.”

“I know it,” said Ulenspiegel, “for a
woman’s hand is balm celestial for all and every
wound.”

But the jealous sergeant consulted with Monsieur de Lamotte,
saying:

“Sir, I suspect that this pilgrim is playing some trick upon
us with his tale of a broken leg. All he wants is to have the chance of
getting up into the cart with the girls. Order him rather to be left
behind on the road.”

“Very well,” answered Monsieur de Lamotte.

So Ulenspiegel was left where he was in the ditch.

Some soldiers, who really believed that his leg was broken, were
sorry for him because of his gaiety, and they left with him a two
days’ ration of food and wine. And the girls would have got down
and run to his assistance, but as this was forbidden they threw him all
that was left of their castrelins.

As soon as the soldiers had disappeared in the distance Ulenspiegel,
still in his pilgrim’s dress, recovered his liberty, [186]purchased a horse, and rode like the wind by
roads and by-paths to Bois-le-Duc.

When he told them the news of the approach of Monsieur de Lamotte,
the townspeople flew to arms to the number of eight hundred men, and
they chose out their leaders, and sent off Ulenspiegel, disguised as a
charcoal-burner, to Antwerp to summon help from Hercule Brederode,
surnamed the Toper.

And the soldiers of de Lamotte and de Beauvoir were able to gain no
entry into Bois-le-Duc, most vigilant of cities, most valiant in
defence.

One day Simon Simonsen said to Ulenspiegel:

“Hearken, brother mine, and tell me, are you a brave man think
you?”

“Brave enough,” answered Ulenspiegel, “to whip a
Spaniard to death, to kill an assassin, or to murder a
murderer.”

“Do you think you could hide yourself in a chimney and wait
there patiently so as to overhear what was being said in the room
below?”

“God has given me strong legs,”
answered Ulenspiegel, “and a supple back, and in virtue of these
gifts I could stand a long time in whatever position I would, like a
cat.”

“Have you patience and a good memory?” asked Simon.

“The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast,” answered
Ulenspiegel.

“Very well then,” said Simon, “you will take this
playing card, folded as you see it, and you will go to Dendermonde to a
house, a drawing of which I will give you, and you will knock at the
door twice loudly and once softly. Some one will open to you and will
ask if you are the chimney-sweep; you will answer that you are he and
that you have not lost the card. Then you will show the card to him who
opened the door. After that, Tyl, you must do as best you can. For
great are the evils that are a-planning against the [187]land
of Flanders. And you will be conducted to a chimney that has been swept
and cleaned against your arrival, and in it you will find a series of
strong cramp-irons made ready for you to climb by, and a little wooden
shelf securely fastened to the side of the chimney for a seat; and when
he that has opened the door shall direct you, you will climb up into
your hiding-place, and there remain. In the chamber below, and in front
of the chimney where you will be hidden, a conference is to be held
between certain noble Lords: William the Silent, Prince of Orange, and
the Counts d’Egmont, de Hoorn, de Hoogstraeten, and Ludwig of
Nassau, the brother of William. And we Reformers desire to find out
whether these noble Lords are able and willing to undertake the saving
of our country.”

Well, on the first day of April, Ulenspiegel did as he had been
bidden and took up his place in the chimney. Luckily for him there was
no fire in the grate, and it seemed that the absence of smoke would not
make it any the less easy for him to hear properly. After a little
while the door of the room was opened, and Ulenspiegel was pierced
through and through by a draught of cold wind blowing up the chimney.
But he endured the wind with patience, telling himself that it would
serve to keep him alert and attentive.

After a while he could hear my Lords of Orange, Egmont and the rest
making their entrance into the room. They began by speaking of the
fears they felt, of the wrath of the King and of the maladministration
of the revenue and finances of the country. One of them spoke in a
sharp, clear, and haughty tone of voice, which Ulenspiegel recognized
as that of my Lord of Egmont; just as he recognized de Hoogstraeten by
his husky tones, and de Hoorn by his loud voice, the Count Ludwig of
Nassau by his firm and soldierly manner of speech, and William the
Silent by that slow, deliberate way of enunciating his words as if they
had all been thought out beforehand and weighed in a balance.
[188]

The Count d’Egmont asked why they had been summoned to this
second conference when they had had plenty of time at Hellegat to come
to a decision on what they meant to do. De Hoorn replied that the days
passed quickly, that the King was growing angry, and that they must be
careful to lose no time.

Then spake William the Silent.

“The country is in danger. It must be defended against the
attack of a foreign army.”

At this d’Egmont grew excited, and said that he was indeed
astonished to hear that the King his master had thought it necessary to
send an army when all was so peaceful by reason of the watchful care of
their noble Lordships, and of himself especially.

But William the Silent made answer:

“King Philip already has an army in the Low Countries
consisting of not less than fourteen regiments of artillery, and they
are under the control of him who commanded them at Gravelines, a
general to whom all the soldiers are devoted.”

D’Egmont said that he could scarcely believe it.

“I will say no more,” said William, “but there are
certain letters which shall be read to you and to the assembled Lords,
and to begin with, letters from the poor prisoner, Monsieur de
Montigny.”

And in these letters it was told how that the King was extremely
vexed with what was happening in the Low Countries, and that when the
hour was come he had determined to punish the fomenters of
disturbance.

It was at this juncture that the Count d’Egmont complained of
the cold, and desired to have the fire lit; the which was done while
the two Lords continued their discussion of those letters. Now it was a
big fire of wood, but it did not burn well on account of that big
obstruction which was hidden in the chimney, and the room became
quickly full of smoke. [189]

Then the Count de Hoogstraeten began to read (for all that he was
coughing continually because of the smoke) certain letters which had
been intercepted on their way from Alava, the Spanish ambassador, to
the Governess of the Netherlands.

“The ambassador,” he said, “writes that all the
evil that has happened in the Low Countries was the work of three men:
the Lords of Orange, Egmont, and Hoorn. But it were desirable, he adds,
to appear well disposed to these three, and to tell them that the King
recognizes that it is thanks to them that their lands have been kept
loyal to him. As for the two others, Montigny and de Berghes, let them
alone where they are.”

“Ah!” said Ulenspiegel, “I had rather a smoky
chimney in the land of Flanders than a damp prison in the land of
Spain; for garrotters grow between damp walls.”

But the Count de Hoogstraeten continued:

“The said ambassador adds that on one occasion the King, being
in the city of Madrid, spoke these words: ‘By all accounts that
come from the Low Countries it is evident that our royal reputation is
diminished, and we are ready therefore to abandon all our other
possessions rather than leave such a rebellion unpunished. We are
decided to proceed to the Netherlands in person, and to claim the
assistance of the Pope and of the Emperor. For beneath the present evil
is concealed a future good. We shall reclaim the Low Countries to
absolute obedience, and according to our own will we shall modify the
constitution of that State, its religion and its
government.’”

“Ah, King Philip,” said Ulenspiegel, “if only I
could modify yours to mine! Verily you would suffer, under the blows of
my trusty Flemish stick, a wondrous modification of your thighs and
arms and legs! I would fix your head in the middle of your back with a
couple of nails, and as you viewed from this position the charnel-house
you have created, [190]you should sing at your good ease a pretty
song of tyrannous modification!”

Now wine was brought, and de Hoogstraeten rose upon his feet and
said:

“I drink to our country!” and every one followed his
example, and when he had finished the toast he threw his empty tankard
down on the table, and said: “Now sounds an evil hour for the
nobility of Belgium. Let us take counsel as to how we may best defend
ourselves.”

He awaited some response, and looked at d’Egmont, but he
uttered not a word, and it was left to William of Orange to break the
silence.

“We can offer resistance,” he said, “provided that
the Count d’Egmont—who at Saint-Quentin and at Gravelines
has twice made France to tremble and who holds complete sway over the
Flemish soldiery—provided that he, I repeat, is willing to come
to our assistance in our endeavour to prevent the Spaniard from
entering the fatherland.”

To this my Lord of Egmont made answer:

“I have too much respect for the King to think that it is
right that we should take up arms against him like rebels. Let those
who fear his wrath retire before it. I shall remain where I am, for I
have no means of living if I am deprived of his help.”

“Philip knows how to avenge himself most cruelly,” said
William the Silent.

“I trust him,” answered d’Egmont.

“You would trust him with your heads?” asked Ludwig of
Nassau.

“Head, body, and soul,” replied d’Egmont.

“Friend, faithful and true, I will do likewise,” said de
Hoorn.

But William said:

“It behoves us to be far-sighted, and not to wait for things
to happen.” [191]

And then my Lord of Egmont spoke again, very excitedly.

“I have arrested twenty-two Reformers at Grammont,” he
said, “and if their preachings come to an end, and if punishment
is meted out to the iconoclasts, the anger of the King will be
appeased.”

But William said:

“These are mere hopes.”

“Let us arm ourselves with trust,” said
d’Egmont.

“Let us arm ourselves with trust,” echoed de Hoorn.

“It is cold steel rather than trust that should be our
weapons,” replied de Hoogstraeten.

Whereupon William the Silent made a sign to the effect that he
wished to depart.

“Adieu, Prince without a country,” said the Count
d’Egmont.

“Adieu, Prince without a head,” answered William.

“The sheep are for the butcher,” said Ludwig of Nassau,
“but glory waits the soldier that saves the land of his
fathers.”

“That I cannot,” said d’Egmont, “neither do
I desire to.”

“May the blood of the victims fall once again upon the head of
the flatterer,” said Ulenspiegel.

And then those Lords retired.

Whereupon did Ulenspiegel come down from his chimney, and go
straightway to carry the news to Praet. And the latter said:
“D’Egmont is nothing better than a traitor. But God is with
the Prince.”

The Duke! The Duke at Brussels! Where are the safes and coffers
that have wings?

William the Silent went in the way by God appointed.
As for the two Counts, they had already given themselves up to the Duke
of Alba, who offered pardon to William as well if only he would appear
before him. [192]

At this news Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:

“My good friend, what do you think now? The Duke has sent out
a summons through Dubois, the Attorney-General, by which the Prince of
Orange, Ludwig his brother, de Hoogstraeten, Van den Bergh, Culembourg,
de Brederode, and other friends of the Prince are cited to appear
before him within forty days; and if they do this they are assured of
justice and mercy. But listen, Lamme, and I will tell you a story. One
day there was a Jew of Amsterdam who summoned one of his enemies to
come down and join him in the street, for the Jew was standing on the
pavement, but his enemy was looking out of a window just above.
‘Come down at once,’ said the Jew, ‘and I will give
you such a blow on the head as will squash it down into your chest, so
that your two eyes will look out from your sides like the eyes of a
thief from betwixt prison-bars.’ But the other answered:
‘Even if you promised me a hundred times as much, still I would
not come down.’ Even so may the Prince of Orange and his friends
make reply to him that summons them!”

And so they did, refusing point-blank to appear before the Duke. But
the Counts d’Egmont and de Hoorn were not of this mind. And their
failure to do their duty brought them nearer to their doom.

One day in June, a fine warm day it was, a scaffold
was set up in the market square at Brussels, in front of the Town Hall.
The scaffold was draped in black, and close to it were two tall posts
tipped with steel. On the scaffold were a couple of black cushions and
a little table with a silver cross thereon.

And on this scaffold were beheaded the noble Counts d’Egmont
and de Hoorn. And the King entered into their inheritance. And it was
of the Count d’Egmont that the ambassador of Francis spake,
saying: [193]

“This day have I seen a man beheaded who twice made the
Kingdom of France to tremble.”

And the heads of the two Counts were placed upon the posts with the
iron tips. And Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:

“With a black cloth have they covered both their flesh and
their blood. Verily, blessed now are they who keep heart high and sword
drawn in the dark days that are coming!”

In those days William the Silent gathered together an
army and invaded the country of the Netherlands from three sides.

And Ulenspiegel was at a meeting of his countrymen at Marenhout. And
they were wild with anger and he addressed them in this wise:

“Know you, my friends, that King Philip has taken counsel with
the Holy Inquisition, and by their advice he has declared all the
inhabitants of the Netherlands to be guilty of high treason. And the
charge against them is one of heresy, namely, that either they are
heretics themselves, or else that they have put no obstacles in the way
of the spread of heretical doctrine. And for this execrable crime the
King has condemned them all, without regard to age or sex, to suffer
the appropriate penalties—all except a few here and there that
are exempted by name. And there is no hope of grace or pardon. And the
King will enter into their inheritance. For the scythes of Death are
busy through all the wide land that borders the North Sea: the Duchy of
Emden, the river-land of Amise, and the countries of Westphalia and of
Cleves, of Juliers and Liége, together with the Bishoprics of
Cologne and Treves and the lands of France and Lorraine. The scythes of
Death are busy over more than three hundred leagues of our soil, and in
two hundred of our walled towns, in a hundred and fifty boroughs, in
the countrysides and villages and level lands of the whole country. And
the [194]King is taking all for his own. And I tell
you,” Ulenspiegel continued, “that eleven thousand
executioners will not be too many for this business. But the Duke of
Alba calls them soldiers. And all the land of our fathers is become a
charnel-house. Fugitive are all the arts of peace, and all the crafts
and industries abandon us now to enrich those foreign lands which still
permit a man to worship at home the God of conscience. But here the
scythes of Death are busy, and the King takes all for his own.

“Our country, as you know, had gained various privileges by
gifts of money to princes when they were in need. But now these
privileges have all been annulled. And as the result of many an
agreement made between ourselves and our overlords we had hoped to
enjoy the wealth that came to us as the fruit of our
labours.
Yet were we deceived. The stone-mason builded for the incendiary, the
labourer laboured for the thief. And the King takes all for his
own.

“Blood and tears! Everywhere naught but blood and tears! For
the scythes of Death are busy—busy at the places of execution and
at the trees that serve for gallows by the roadsides; and at many an
open grave wherein are thrown the living bodies of our maids. And they
are busy in the prison dungeons and within those circles of faggots
that flame around the victims, scorching them little by little to
death; or in the huts of straw where they fall suffocated in the fire
and the smoke. And the King takes all for his own. And this, forsooth,
by the will of the Pope of Rome. The very cities teem with spies that
await their share of the plunder. The richer one is the more likely one
is to be found guilty. And the King takes all for his own.

“But never shall the valiant men of Flanders suffer themselves
to be butchered thus like lambs. For among those who fly away for
refuge there are some who carry arms, and these are hiding in the
woods…. [195]

“The monks verily have denounced them and hold themselves free
to kill them and take possession of their goods. But by night and day
these refugees, banded together like wild beasts, rush down upon the
monasteries and seize the money that has been stolen from the poor, and
take it away under the form of candlesticks and reliquaries of gold and
silver, ciboria and patens, and other precious vessels of the kind….
Do I not speak truth, my friends? And they drink therefrom that wine
which the monks had been keeping for themselves. And when melted down
or mortgaged, these vessels will serve to provide money for the Holy
War. Long live the Beggarmen!

“And even now they begin to harass the soldiers of the King,
killing and plundering, then back into their lairs. And in the woods by
day and night are to be seen the fires which have been lit during the
hours of darkness, flaring up or dying down and ever breaking out in
some fresh place. These are the fires of our banquetings. All for us
the game of the woods, both furred and feathered. We are the masters
here. And the peasants load us with bread and bacon whenever we are in
need. Look at them Lamme; fierce and talkative, resolute and proud of
bearing, they wander through the woods. And they are armed with
hatchets and halberds, and with long swords and bragmarts, with
arquebuses, pikes, lances, and crossbows. For any kind of weapon is
good enough for such brave men, and they need no officers to lead them.
Long live the Beggarmen!”

And Ulenspiegel sang this song:

And all drank the toast and cried aloud:

“Long live the Beggarmen!”

And Ulenspiegel drank in his turn from a golden goblet that had once
belonged to some monk or other, and proudly he gazed on the wild faces
of the brave Beggarmen that stood before him.

“Men,” he cried, “wild beasts rather that are my
comrades, be you wolves lions, or tigers in very deed, and eat up all
the cursed dogs of this King of Blood!”

“Long live the Beggarmen!” they shouted, and yet again
they sang the song of

William the Silent, with his army, was at the gates of
Liége. But before crossing the Meuse he made sundry marches and
counter-marches, leading the Duke astray, for all his vigilance.

Ulenspiegel applied himself most diligently to his duties as a
soldier, worked his arquebus most skilfully, and kept his eyes and ears
wide open. [197]

Now at that time there arrived in the camp certain gentlemen of
Flanders and Brabant, and these lived in friendly fashion with the
colonels and captains of the Prince’s following.

But soon there came into being two parties in the camp, who began to
dispute one with the other continually, some saying that William was a
traitor, others that such accusation was a gross libel on the Prince,
and that they who had made it should be forced to eat their words.
Suspicion grew and grew like a spot of oil, and at length they came to
blows—small companies of six, eight, or a dozen men fighting
together in single combat, with all kinds of weapons and sometimes with
arquebuses even.

One day the Prince, hearing the noise, came to see what was going
on, and walked straight in between the combatants. It chanced that a
piece of shot hit his sword and struck it from his side. He stopped the
combat, and visited the whole camp, intending to put an end once for
all to these combats and to these cries of “Death to
William!” “Death to the war!”

Now the day after this adventure, Ulenspiegel had been to the house
of a Walloon maiden to sing to her some Flemish love-songs of his. And
it was near midnight, and very misty, and Ulenspiegel, being just about
to leave the house, thought he heard the cawing of a crow, three times
repeated. And the sound came from the door of a cottage close by. And
from far off came other cawings, three times repeated, as if in answer.
Presently a peasant made his appearance at the doorway of the cottage,
and at the same time Ulenspiegel heard steps on the road. Two men came
up to the peasant and began to talk to him in the Spanish tongue. The
peasant spoke to them, also in Spanish:

“Well? And how goes it?” asked the cottager.

“Well, indeed,” the two men answered. “We have
been spreading rumours on behalf of the King, and it is thanks to us
[198]that the captains and their soldiers are
everywhere suspicious and talking among themselves in this wise:

“‘The Prince, so the gossip goes—is resisting the
King for vile ambition and for nothing else. For by this means he
thinks to make himself feared so that he may acquire cities and
overlordships as the price of peace. For five hundred thousand florins
he would leave in the lurch all the brave nobles who have come out to
fight for their country. And it is a fact that the Duke has offered him
a complete amnesty, and has promised to restore both him and his chief
officers in their possessions, if only the Prince will return to the
obedience of the King, and will negotiate with him alone.’

“But they that remain faithful to the Prince make answer to us
in this wise:

“‘By no means will William have aught to do with the
proposals of the Duke. For these are but snares and treachery. For the
Prince must surely call to mind what happened to d’Egmont and de
Hoorn. And it is well known that the Cardinal de Granville said at
Rome, when the two Counts had been taken: “The two gudgeon,
verily, have been caught, but the pike has been allowed to
escape.” For nothing has been taken while William still remains
at large.’”

“Is the camp divided in twain then?” asked the
peasant.

“It is,” replied the two men, “and the division
grows greater every day. But whom are those letters for?”

Whereupon they all entered into the cottage. A lantern was lit
inside, and looking through a crack in the door Ulenspiegel could see
them unsealing two letters. These they read with every appearance of
enjoyment, and then they all fell to drinking honey-wine. After which
the two men came out of the cottage and said to the peasant, still
speaking in Spanish:

“The camp split in two, and the Prince captured—that
will be worth a dozen glasses, eh?” [199]

“Those men,” said Ulenspiegel to himself, “cannot
longer be allowed to live.”

But even now they were disappearing in the thick mist, with the
lantern which the peasant had brought for them. The light of the
lantern shone out intermittently, as if continually intercepted by some
dark body. From this Ulenspiegel concluded that the two men must be
walking one behind the other.

He raised his arquebus to his shoulder and fired. Then he saw the
lantern raised and lowered several times, as if the man who carried it
was looking at his fallen comrade, trying to discover where he had been
hit and the nature of the wound.

Yet again did Ulenspiegel raise his arquebus, and then when the
lantern began to steady itself and to retreat speedily towards the
camp, he fired again. Now the lantern swayed, fell to the ground and
went out, leaving all in darkness.

Ulenspiegel ran on to the camp, and there he soon encountered the
provost with a number of soldiers who had been awakened by the noise of
the firing. Ulenspiegel accosted them, saying: “I am the
huntsman. Go you now and find the game.”

“Brave Fleming,” said the provost, “methinks you
are a man that knows other ways of talking besides with your
tongue.”

“Words of the tongue they are but so much wind,”
answered Ulenspiegel. “But words of lead—they know how to
find for themselves a lasting habitation in the carcass of a traitor!
Come then, follow me.”

And so saying he led them to the place where the two men had fallen.
And in very deed the soldiers saw by the light of their lanterns two
bodies stretched out on the ground. One was dead, and the other at the
last gasp, holding his hand to his heart, and in his hand a letter all
crumpled in the agony of death. The soldiers lifted the two bodies,
whose [200]clothes clearly showed them to be the bodies of
gentlemen, and straightway carried them, still by the light of their
lanterns, to the Prince.

Now William was about to hold a council with Frederick of
Hollenhausen, the Margrave of Hesse, and other nobles. But the
soldiers, who had now been joined by a company of other troopers in
green and yellow jackets, stood before the tent, demanding with shouts
and cries that the Prince should give them audience.

At length William of Orange came out to them, and the provost began
to clear his throat and make other preliminaries for the accusation of
Ulenspiegel. But the latter cut in before him, saying:

“My Lord, I had thought to kill two crows, but I have killed
two traitors in their stead—two noblemen—belonging to your
suite.”

Then he told the story of all that he had seen and heard and done.
William did not utter a word, but the two bodies were carefully
examined in the presence of Ulenspiegel himself and William the Silent,
together with Frederick of Hollenhausen, the Margrave of Hesse,
Dietrich of Schoonenbergh, Count Albert of Nassau, the Count de
Hoogstraeten, and Antoine de Lailang, Governor of Malines. And the
soldiers stood by, with Lamme Goedzak, his great belly all of a
tremble. Sealed letters were found on the persons of the deceased
gentlemen, which had been sent by Granvelles and Noircames, and engaged
the recipients to sow division in the Prince’s entourage, and by
that means to diminish his power and to compel him to yield, so that he
might ultimately be delivered up to the Duke and beheaded according to
his deserts. “The right procedure is,” continued the
letter, “to act at first with caution and to use allusive phrases
only, so that the army may be led to think that the Prince has already
come to a secret understanding with the Duke, for his own advantage.
This will arouse the anger of his [201]captains and soldiers, and
they will assuredly take him prisoner.” Now as a reward for this
service it appeared that notes to the value of some five hundred ducats
were being sent them on the Fugger Bank at Antwerp, and they were
promised a thousand more as soon as the four hundred thousand ducats
which were already on their way from Spain had arrived in Zeeland.

The whole plot having been now unmasked, the Prince turned in
silence towards the gentlemen, Lords, and soldiers who stood round him.
Many of these men he knew to be suspicious of him already,
nevertheless, he pointed at the two bodies without speaking a word,
intending by this gesture to reproach them for their mistrust. And at
this every one present there exclaimed and shouted aloud:

“Long live the Prince of Orange! The Prince is faithful and
true!” And such was their anger that they were desirous to throw
the two dead bodies to the dogs; but William forbade them, saying:

“It is not these two poor corpses that deserve to be thrown to
the dogs so much as that littleness of mind which must needs be
suspicious of the purest intentions.”

And the Lords and soldiers cried out again:

“Long live the Prince! Long live the Prince of Orange, the
friend of our country!”

And the sound of their voices was like the noise of thunder
threatening injustice. And the Prince pointed to the two corpses and
ordered that they should be given Christian burial.

“And I,” demanded Ulenspiegel, “what shall be done
to me, faithful and true? If I have done evil let me be beaten, but if
good—why then let me be suitably rewarded!”

Then the Prince addressed him, saying:

“This soldier is to receive fifty strokes from the green wood
in my presence for having killed two gentlemen without orders, to the
contempt of all discipline. At the same time [202]let
him receive a reward of thirty florins for having used his eyes and
ears to some purpose.”

“My Lord,” answered Ulenspiegel, “give me the
thirty florins first, and I shall then be able to support my beating
with equanimity.”

“Yes, yes,” murmured Lamme Goedzak, “give him the
thirty florins first, and then he will bear the rest with
equanimity.”

“One thing more,” said Ulenspiegel, “since my soul
is admittedly free from fault, is there any real reason why I must be
cleansed with the wood of the oak or washed with the branch of the
cherry-tree?”

“No,” murmured Lamme again, “Ulenspiegel surely
has no need to be washed or cleansed. For his soul is without stain. Do
not wash it, my masters, do not wash it.”

But when Ulenspiegel had received the thirty florins the provost
ordered him to give himself up to the Stock-meester.

“Behold, my Lords,” said Lamme, “behold how
piteous he looks. There’s no love lost between the hard wood and
him—my beloved Ulenspiegel.”

But Ulenspiegel answered:

“Of a truth I love a fine ash-tree in full leaf, growing up
towards the sun in all its native verdure, but I agree I loathe like
poison these heavy cudgels of wood with their sap still oozing out of
them, stripped of their branches and without any leaves or twigs
growing thereon, for they are rough to look upon and hard to
feel.”

“Are you ready?” demanded the provost.

“Ready?” Ulenspiegel repeated. “Ready for what?
Ready to be flogged do you mean? No, I cannot, nor will I, be flogged
by you, Mr. Stock-meester. You have a red beard certainly, and
your appearance is formidable. Nevertheless, I am sure that you have a
kind heart and would have no desire to thrash a poor fellow like me.
And now to tell you the truth I should be loath to do such a thing
myself, much [203]less to see any one else do it. For the back of
a Christian is a sacred thing, as sacred as his breast which holds the
lungs, those trusty organs whereby we breathe the goodly air of God.
And think how bitter would be your remorse if a too brutal blow from
your cudgel should chance to break me in pieces!”

“Make haste,” said the Stock-meester.

“My Lord,” said Ulenspiegel, addressing himself to the
Prince, “believe me, there is no need for all this hurry. First
of all the wood of the cudgel ought to be allowed to dry. For I have
heard that wood while still green is like to communicate a mortal
poison to any flesh with which it comes in contact. Would your Highness
desire to see me die such an ugly death? My Lord, my back I hold most
pitifully at your service. Have it flogged, if you must, with rods and
lashed with whips. But unless you wish to see me dead, spare me, I pray
you, from the wood while it is still green.”

“Have mercy on him, Prince,” cried my Lords of
Hoogstraeten and of Schoonenbergh both together; while the others all
began to smile compassionately. Lamme also put in a word of his own,
“Have mercy, my Lord. Green wood is poison, neither more nor less
than rank poison!”

The Prince said:

“Very well.”

Thereupon Ulenspiegel leapt in the air again and again, and smote
Lamme on his belly and compelled him to dance too, saying: “Join
me now in praising the good Duke who has delivered me from the green
wood.”

And Lamme did his best to dance, but could not very well because of
his belly. And Ulenspiegel gave him to eat and to drink as much as he
was able. [204]

It was now at the end of October. The Prince was in
want of money, and his army of food. The soldiers too began to murmur,
and he marched them towards the French frontier to offer battle to the
Duke. But the Duke would not fight.

Leaving Quesnoy-le-Comte to go to Cambrésis, the
Prince’s army fell in with ten companies of Germans and eight
Spanish ensigns and three cohorts of cavalry. They at once joined
battle, and in the midst of the mêlée was Ruffele
Henricis, the Duke’s son, crying out at the top of his voice:

“No quarter! No quarter! Long live the Pope!”

Now Don Henricis found himself opposite to a company of arquebusiers
which was led by Ulenspiegel, and he threw himself upon them with all
his men. Ulenspiegel said to his sergeant:

“I will cut out this murderer’s tongue for
him!”

“Very good,” said the sergeant.

And Ulenspiegel took careful aim, and his bullet shattered the
tongue and the entire jaw-bone of Don Ruffele Henricis, son of the
Duke. At the same time Ulenspiegel brought down the son of the Marquess
Delmares, and in a little while more the eight ensigns and the three
cohorts of cavalry were thoroughly worsted.

After this victory Ulenspiegel went seeking for Lamme everywhere
through the camp, but he could not find him.

“Alas,” he said, “he is gone! Lamme is gone; my
friend, my great fat friend! In his warlike ardour he must have
forgotten how heavy his belly was, and tried to follow the Spaniards in
their flight. Out of breath he must have fallen like a sack on the
wayside. And then the enemy will have picked him up for ransom—a
ransom of good Christian fat! O Lamme, my friend, where are you? Where
are you, my great fat friend?” [205]

Ulenspiegel sought him everywhere but found him not and had to nurse
his grief in silence.

And now November was come, the month of snow-storms, and
Ulenspiegel, having been ordered to report himself before William,
found the Prince brooding in silence, and biting the lacings of his
coat of mail.

“Listen to me,” the Prince said presently, “and
give me your whole attention.”

Ulenspiegel answered: “My ears are like the gates of a prison.
One enters easily but to get out again is a different
matter.”

“Very good,” said William, “but now I would have
you go for me to Namur, and to Flanders, Hainaut, Sud-Brabant, Antwerp,
Nord-Brabant, and to Gueldre, Overyssel, and the North of Holland,
telling the people everywhere that, although it seems that the fates on
land are hostile to our most Holy and Christian Cause, we will yet
continue the struggle by sea, no matter what the evil powers that are
arrayed against us. For God holds the issue in His own good providence,
whether in success or failure. And when you are come to Amsterdam you
will render an account of all that you have done to Paul Bruys who is
my trusty vassal. Here are three passports, signed by the Duke of Alba
himself, which were found on certain bodies of the dead at
Quesnoy-le-Comte. My secretary has filled them in afresh. And it may be
that on your journey you will meet some good companion in whom you can
trust. Let him go with you. And those are to be accounted trustworthy
who know how to answer the song of the lark with a warlike cockcrow.
Here are fifty florins. Be valiant and faithful.”

“The ashes of Claes beat upon my heart,” answered
Ulenspiegel.

And he went his way. [206]

Now the passports were countersigned both by the King
and the Duke, and they authorized the bearer to carry any kind of arms
at his convenience. So Ulenspiegel took with him his trusty arquebus as
well as a good supply of cartridges and dry gunpowder. He dressed
himself in a short cloak and a shabby doublet and hose made after the
Spanish fashion, and thus accoutred, with a plumed cap on his head and
a sword at his side, he made his departure from the Prince’s army
where it lay at the French frontier, and set out for Maestricht.

The roitelets, those heralds of bad weather, were flying around the
houses seeking asile from the storm, and on the third day snow fell.
Many times during the journey did Ulenspiegel have to show his
safe-conduct. But they always let him pass, and so he came at length to
the confines of Liége. He was plodding along over a level heath,
and a fierce wind was driving the swirling snowflakes against his face,
and in front and on every side the heath stretched out all white under
the snow that fell in eddies, which themselves were whirled about
hither and thither in the squalls of wind. And there were three wolves
that began to follow him. But one of them he killed with a shot from
his arquebus, and the other two flung themselves upon their wounded
comrade, and then made off into the woods, each carrying a piece of the
corpse.

Delivered from this peril, Ulenspiegel peered about him, fearing
lest there might be other bands of wolves in that country, but he saw
nothing except, in the far distance, certain objects that looked like
grey statues moving slowly along in the falling snow. Behind these
again, Ulenspiegel could descry the dark figures of a couple of
soldiers on horseback. To see the better what all this might portend,
Ulenspiegel [207]climbed up into a tree, and there the wind
brought to him a far-off sound of lamentation. “It may be,”
Ulenspiegel said to himself, “these people are pilgrims, clad in
white habits; for I can scarcely distinguish their figures against the
snow.” But after a little while he saw that they were men
running, quite naked, and that behind them were two German troopers in
black uniforms riding on horses. And they were driving the poor
wretches in front of them with whips. Ulenspiegel took aim with his
arquebus. Now he could distinguish the individual figures of that
mournful company—old men and young men naked, shivering, and
quaking with cold, hardly able to stand some of them, but running all,
for fear of the cruel whips of the two soldiers who, themselves being
warmly clad and red with brandy and good food, took pleasure in lashing
the bodies of naked men to make them run the faster.

Ulenspiegel said: “You shall be avenged, ashes of
Claes!” And he killed one of the soldiers outright with a bullet
from his arquebus. The soldier fell from his horse, and his companion
took fright, not knowing whence the shot had come. But concluding that
his assailant must be hiding somewhere in the wood, he decided to make
good his escape, together with the horse of his dead companion. The man
contrived to get hold of the horse’s bridle, but while he himself
was dismounting to plunder the body of the dead, he was hit by a bullet
in the neck and fell to the ground.

As for the naked prisoners, they imagined that some angel from
heaven, who was also forsooth a fine marksman, had descended from the
sky to aid them, and they all fell down upon their knees in the snow.
At this Ulenspiegel descended from his tree, and was at once recognized
by the company who had previously served with him as soldiers in the
armies of the Prince. They said to him:

“O Ulenspiegel, we are come from France, and we were being
driven in this piteous plight to Maestricht, where the [208]Duke
is, to be treated there as rebel prisoners because we cannot pay our
ransom, and are therefore condemned in advance to be tortured, cut into
pieces, or sent to row like caitiffs and criminals in the galleys of
the King.”

Ulenspiegel gave his opperst-kleed to the oldest of the
soldiers, saying:

“Come with me, my friends. I will accompany you as far as
Mézières; but first of all let us strip these two dead
soldiers and take possession of their horses.” Thereupon the
doublets, hose, boots, head-gear, and body-armour of the soldiers were
divided up among the sick and feeble, and Ulenspiegel said:

“We shall soon be entering the wood, where the air is thicker
and more gentle. You had better run, my brothers.”

Suddenly one of the men fell down on the ground, crying: “I am
hungry and cold, and I am going to God to bear witness that the Pope is
Antichrist on earth.” And he died, and the others agreed to carry
the body with them that it might be given Christian burial.

While thus proceeding along the road, they met a peasant driving a
cart with a canvas hood. Seeing the men all naked, the peasant had
compassion on them and invited them to ride in his cart. There they
found some hay to lie on, and some empty sacks to cover them withal.
And they were warmed and gave thanks to God. Ulenspiegel rode beside
the cart on one of the two horses that had belonged to the German
troopers, leading the other by the bridle.

At Mézières they all alighted. Good hot soup and beer
and bread and cheese were handed round, with some meat for the older
men and women. And they were nobly entertained; and they were clothed
and armed again, all at the expense of the commune. And every one
joined in giving thanks and praise to Ulenspiegel, who received it
gladly. Ulenspiegel also sold the horses of the German troopers for
[209]eight-and-forty florins, out of which he
distributed thirty florins among the Frenchmen.

Thereafter he took the road again, and as he walked solitarily along
he said to himself:

“Verily now do I wander through a land of ruin, blood, and
tears. Nevertheless, I find nothing. Those spirits lied to me without a
doubt. For where is Lamme? Where is Nele! Where are the
Seven?”

And he heard a voice speaking to him as though in a whisper:

“In death, in ruin, and in tears, seek!”

And he went his way.

It was the month of March when Ulenspiegel came to
Namur. There he found Lamme, who, having conceived a violent passion
for the fish of the Meuse, and for the trout especially, had hired a
boat and spent all day fishing in the river by permission of the
commune. But for this privilege he had been obliged to pay the sum of
fifty florins to the Guild of the Fishmongers.

Some of his fish he sold. But the rest he ate himself, and by this
means he gained a finer belly than ever, and a small sack of money.
When he saw his friend and comrade walking along the banks of the Meuse
and about to enter the town, Lamme was mightily rejoiced and pushed his
boat to the shore, and there springing on to the bank rushed up to
Ulenspiegel, blowing and puffing and stammering for joy.