The Legend of Ulenspiegel, Volume 2 (of 2)

by Charles de Coster

  And they stopped at Meulestee, the little town of the mills, whosered roofs are seen everywhere, and there they agreed to carry on theirtrades apart and to meet each other at night before curfew in de Zwaen,at the Swan Inn.

  Lamme wandered about the streets of Ghent selling olie-koekjes gettinga liking for this trade, seeking for his wife, emptying many a quartpot and eating continually. Ulenspiegel had delivered letters fromthe prince to Jacob Scoelap, licentiate in medicine; to Lieven Smet,cloth seller; to Jan Wulfschaeger, to Gillis Coorne, the scarlet dyer,and to Jan de Roose, tile maker, who gave him the money harvested bythem for the Prince, and bade him wait some days longer at Ghent andin the neighbourhood, and he would be given still more.

  Those men having been hanged later on the New Gibbet for heresy,their bodies were buried in the Gallows Field, near the Bruges Gate.

  XXX

  Meanwhile, the provost Spelle le Roux, armed with his red wand, washurrying from town to town on his lean horse, everywhere setting upscaffolds, lighting fires of execution, digging graves to bury poorwomen and girls alive in them. And the King inherited.

  Ulenspiegel being at Meulestee with Lamme, under a tree, found himselffull of weary lassitude. It was cold although the month was June. Fromthe skies, laden with gray clouds, there fell a fine hail.

  "My son," said Lamme, "you are for the past four nights shamelesslyrunning wild, gadding after the bona robas, you go to sleep in deZoeten Inval, at the Sweet Fall; you will do like the man on the sign,falling head foremost into a hive of bees. Vainly do I wait for you inde Zwaen, and I draw evil forebodings from this liquorish living. Whydo you not take a wife virtuously?"

  "Lamme," said Ulenspiegel, "he to whom one woman is all women, andto whom all women are one in this gentle combat that they call love,must not lightly rush upon his choice."

  "And Nele, do you not think at all on her?"

  "Nele is at Damme, far away," said Ulenspiegel.

  While he was in this posture and the hail was falling thick, a youngand pretty woman passed by, running and covering up her head inher petticoat.

  "Eh," said she, "dreamy one, what dost thou under that tree?"

  "I am dreaming," said Ulenspiegel, "of a woman that should make mea roof against the hail with her petticoat."

  "Thou hast found her," said the woman. "Rise up."

  "Wilt thou leave me alone again?" said Lamme.

  "Aye," said Ulenspiegel, "but go in de Zwaen, eat a leg of mutton ortwo, drink a dozen tankards of beer; you will sleep and you will notbe forlorn then."

  "I will do that," said Lamme.

  Ulenspiegel went up to the woman.

  "Pick up my skirt on one side," said she, "I will lift it on the other,and now let us run."

  "Why run?" asked Ulenspiegel.

  "Because," she said, "I am fain to flee from Meulestee; the provostSpelle is in it with two catchpolls and he has sworn to have all thelight ladies whipped if they will not pay him five florins each. Thatis why I am running: run, too, and stay with me to defend me."

  "Lamme," cried Ulenspiegel, "Spelle is in Meulestee. Go off and awayto Destelberg, to the Star of the Wise Men."

  And Lamme, getting up affrighted, took his belly in both hands andbegan to run.

  "Whither is this fat hare going?" said the girl.

  "To a burrow where I shall find him again," replied Ulenspiegel.

  "Let us run," said she, beating the ground with her foot like arestive filly.

  "I would fain be virtuous without running," said Ulenspiegel.

  "What does that mean?" asked she.

  Ulenspiegel made answer:

  "The fat hare wants me to renounce good wine, cervoise ale, and thefresh skin of women."

  The girl looked at him with an ugly eye.

  "Your breath is short; you must rest," said she.

  "Rest myself? I see no shelter," replied Ulenspiegel.

  "Your virtue," said the girl, "will serve for a quilt."

  "I like your petticoat better," said he.

  "My petticoat," said the girl, "would not be worthy to cover a saintsuch as you would fain be. Take yourself off that I may run alone."

  "Do you not know," replied Ulenspiegel, "that a dog goes swifter withfour feet than a man with two? And so, having four feet, we shallrun better."

  "You have a lively tongue for a virtuous man."

  "Aye," said he.

  "But," said she, "I have always observed that virtue is a quiet,sleepy, thick, and chilly quality. It is a mask to hide grumblingfaces, a velvet cloak on a man of stone. I like men that have intheir breast a stove well lighted with the fire of virility, whichexciteth to valiant and gay enterprises."

  "It was ever thus," replied Ulenspiegel, "that the lovely she-devilspake to the glorious Saint Anthony."

  There was an inn a score of paces from the road.

  "You have spoken well," said Ulenspiegel, "now you must drink well."

  "My tongue is still cool and fresh," said the girl.

  They went in. On a chest there slumbered a big jug nicknamed "belly,"because of its wide paunch.

  Ulenspiegel said to the baes:

  "Dost thou see this florin?"

  "I see it," said the baes.

  "How many patards would thou extract from it to fill up that bellythere with dobbel-clauwert?"

  The baes said to him:

  "With negen mannekens (nine little men), you will be clear."

  "That," said Ulenspiegel, "is six Flanders mites, and overmuch bytwo mites. But fill it, anyhow."

  Ulenspiegel poured out a goblet for the woman, then rising up proudlyand applying the beak of the belly to his mouth, he emptied it allevery drop into his throat. And it was as the noise of a cataract.

  The girl, dumbfounded, said to him:

  "How did you manage to put so big a belly into your lean stomach?"

  Without replying, Ulenspiegel said to the baes:

  "Bring a knuckle of ham and some bread, and another full belly,that we may eat and drink."

  Which they did.

  While the girl was munching a piece of the rind he took her so subtly,that she was startled, charmed, and compliant all at once.

  Then questioning him:

  "Whence," she said, "have they come to your virtue, this thirst likea sponge, this wolf's hunger, and these amorous audacities?"

  Ulenspiegel replied:

  "Having sinned a hundred ways, I swore, as you know, to dopenance. That lasted a whole long hour. Thinking during that hourupon my life that was to come, I saw myself fed meagrely on bread,dully refreshed with water; sadly fleeing from love; daring neitherto move nor sneeze, for fear to commit wickedness; esteemed by all,feared by each; alone like a leper; sad as a dog orphaned of hismaster, and after fifty years of martyrdom, ending by undergoing mydeath in melancholy fashion on a pallet. The penance was long enough:so kiss me, my darling, and let us go out from purgatory together."

  "Ah!" said she, obeying cheerfully, "what a good sign virtue is toput on the end of a pole!"

  Time passed in these amorous doings; nevertheless they must needsrise and go, for the girl feared to see in the midst of their pleasurethe provost Spelle suddenly appear with his catchpolls.

  "Truss up thy petticoat then," said Ulenspiegel.

  And they ran like stags towards Destelberg, where they found Lammeeating at the Star of the Three Wise Men.

  XXXI

  Ulenspiegel often saw at Ghent, Jacob Scoelap, Lieven Smet, and Jande Wulfschaeger, who gave him news of the good or bad fortune ofthe Silent.

  And every time that Ulenspiegel came back to Destelberg, Lamme saidto him:

  "What do you bring? Good luck or bad luck?"

  "Alas!" said Ulenspiegel, "the Silent, his brother Ludwig, the otherchiefs and the Frenchmen were determined to go farther into France andjoin with the Prince of Conde. Thus they would save the poor Belgianfatherland and freedom of conscience. God willed it otherwise; theGerman reiters and landsknechts refused to go farther, and said the
iroath was to go against the Duke of Alba and not against France. Havingvainly entreated them to do their duty, the Silent was forced to takethem through Champagne and Lorraine as far as Strasbourg, whence theywent back into Germany. All has gone awry through this sudden andobstinate departure: the King of France, despite his contract withthe prince, refuses to give over the money he promised; the Queenof England would have sent him money to get back the town and thedistrict of Calais; her letters were intercepted and despatched tothe Cardinal at Lorraine, who forged an answer in the contrary sense.

  "Thus we see melt away, like ghosts at the crowing of the cock, thatgoodly army, our hope; but God is with us, and if the earth fail us,the water will do its work. Long live the Beggar!"

  XXXII

  The girl came one day, all weeping, to say to Lamme and to Ulenspiegel:

  "Spelle is allowing murderers and robbers in Meulestee to escape formoney. He is putting the innocent to death. My brother Michielkin isamong them. Alas! Let me tell you, ye will avenge him, being men. Avile and infamous debauchee, Pieter de Roose, an habitual seducer ofchildren and girls, does all the harm. Alas! my poor brother Michielkinand Pieter de Roose were one evening, but not at the same table, inthe tavern of the Valck, where Pieter de Roose was avoided by everyone like the plague.

  "My brother, not willing to see him in the same room as himself,called him a lecherous blackguard, and ordered him to purge thechamber of his presence.

  "Pieter de Roose replied:

  "'The brother of a public baggage has no need to show such a loftynose.'

  "He lied. I am not public, and give myself only to whomsoeverI please.'

  "Michielkin, then, flinging his quart of cervoise ale in his face, toldhim he had lied like the filthy debauchee that he was, threatening,if he did not decamp, to make him eat his fist up to the elbow.

  "The other would have talked more, but Michielkin did what he hadsaid: he gave him two great blows on the jaw and dragged him by theteeth, with which he was biting, out on to the road, where he lefthim battered and bruised, without pity.

  "Pieter de Roose, being healed, and unable to live a solitary life,went in 't Vagevuur, a veritable purgatory and a gloomy tavern, wherethere were none but poor people. There also he was left to himself,even by all those ragamuffins. And no man spoke to him, save a fewcountry folk to whom he was unknown, and a few wandering rogues, ordeserters from some troop or other. He was even beaten there severaltimes, for he was quarrelsome.

  "The provost Spelle had come to Meulestee with two catchpolls, andPieter de Roose followed them everywhere about like a dog, fillingthem up at his expense with wine, with meat, and many other pleasuresthat are bought with money. And so he became their companion andtheir comrade, and he began to do his wicked best to torment all hehated; which was all the inhabitants of Meulestee, but especially mypoor brother.

  "First of all he attacked Michielkin. False witnesses, gallows birds,greedy for florins, declared that Michielkin was a heretic, had utteredfoulness about Notre Dame, and oftentimes blasphemed the name of Godand the saints in the tavern of the Falcon, and that, besides all,he had full three hundred florins in a coffer.

  "Notwithstanding that the witnesses were not of good life and conduct,Michielkin was arrested, and the proofs being declared by Spelle andthe catchpolls good and sufficient to warrant putting the accused tothe torture, Michielkin was hung up by the arms to a pulley fastened tothe ceiling, and they put a weight of fifty pounds on each of his feet.

  "He denied the charge, saying that if in Meulestee there was a rogue,a blackguard, a blasphemer and a lecherous brute, it was no otherthan Pieter de Roose, and not he.

  "But Spelle would listen to nothing, and bade his catchpolls hoistMichielkin right up to the ceiling, and to let him drop heavilywith his weights on his feet. And this they did, and so cruelly thatthe skin and the muscles of the victim were torn, and that the footscarcely held to the leg.

  "As Michielkin persisted in saying he was innocent, Spelle had himtortured afresh, while giving him to understand that if he would givehim a hundred florins he would leave him free and acquitted.

  "Michielkin said that he would die first.

  "The folk of Meulestee, having learned the fact of the arrest and thetorture, desired to be witness par turbes, which is the testimony ofall the reputable inhabitants of a commune. 'Michielkin,' said they,unanimously, 'is in no way or guise heretical; he goes every Sundayto mass and to the holy table; he has never said anything else of OurLady than to call on her to succour him in difficult circumstances;having never spoken ill, even of an earthly woman, he would much lessever have dared to speak ill of the heavenly Mother of God. As for theblasphemies that the false witnesses declared they had heard him utterin the tavern of the Falcon, that was in all points false and lies.'

  "Michielkin having been released, the false witnesses were punished,and Spelle cited Pieter de Roose before his court, but set him freewithout examination or torture, in consideration of one hundredflorins paid down in one sum.

  "Pieter de Roose, fearing that the money he still had left mightattract Spelle's attention to him once again, fled from Meulestee,while Michielkin, my poor brother, died of the gangrene that hadcaught hold of his feet.

  "He who no longer wished to see me, yet had me sent for to bid mebeware well of the fire in my body that would bring me into the fireof hell. And I could but weep, for the fire is within me. And he gaveup his soul in my arms."

  "Ha!" said she, "he who would avenge upon Spelle the death of mybeloved kind Michielkin would be my master forever, and I would obeyhim like a dog."

  While she spake, the ashes of Claes beat upon the breast ofUlenspiegel. And he determined to bring Spelle the murderer to thegallows.

  Boelkin (that was the girl's name) returned to Meulestee, well assuredin her home against the vengeance of Pieter de Roose, for a cattledealer, passing by Destelberg, informed her that the cure and thetownsfolk had declared that if Spelle touched Michielkin's sister,they would cite him before the duke.

  Ulenspiegel, having followed her to Meulestee, came into a low chamberin Michielkin's house, and saw there a portrait of a master pastrycook which he supposed to be that of the poor victim....

  And Boelkin said to him:

  "It is my brother's portrait."

  Ulenspiegel took the picture and said, going away:

  "Spelle shall be hanged!"

  "What will you do?" said she.

  "If you knew that," said he, "you would have no pleasure in seeingit done."

  Boelkin nodded her head and said in a grieving voice:

  "You show no confidence in me."

  "Is it not," said he, "showing you extreme confidence to say to you'Spelle shall be hanged!' For with this mere word alone you can haveme hanged before him."

  "That is true," said she.

  "Then," said Ulenspiegel, "go fetch me good potter's clay, a doublequart of bruinbier, clear water, and a few slices of beef. Allseparate."

  "The beef will be for me, the bruinbier for the beef, the water forthe clay, and the clay for the portrait."

  Eating and drinking Ulenspiegel kneaded the clay, and now and thenswallowed a morsel of it, but heeded it little, and looked mostattentively at Michielkin's portrait. When the clay was kneaded,he made a mask out of it, with a nose, a mouth, eyes, ears so muchlike the portrait of the dead man, that Boelkin was astonied at it.

  After that he put the mask in the oven, and when it was dry, he paintedit the colour corpses are, showing the haggard eyes, the solemn face,and the various contractions of a man in the act of dying. Then thegirl, ceasing to be astonied, looked at the mask, without being ableto take her eyes off it, grew pale and livid, covered up her face,and said shuddering:

  "It is he, my poor Michielkin!"

  He made also two bloody feet.

  Then having conquered her first fright:

  "Blessed will he be," said she, "that will slay themurderer." Ulenspiegel, taking the mask and the feet, said:

 
; "I must have an assistant."

  Boelkin replied:

  "Go in den Blauwe Gans, to the Blue Goose, to Joos Lansaem ofYpres, who keeps this tavern. He was my brother's best friend andcomrade. Tell him it is Boelkin that sends you."

  Ulenspiegel did as she bade him.

  After having laboured for death, the provost Spelle went to drinkin't Valck, at the Falcon, a hot mixture of dobbel-clauwert, withcinnamon and Madeira sugar. They dared refuse him nothing at his inn,for fear of the rope.

  Pieter de Roose, having plucked up courage again, had come back toMeulestee. Everywhere he followed Spelle and his catchpolls to havetheir protection. Sometimes Spelle paid the wherewithal for him todrink. And they drank up merrily the money of the victims.

  The inn of the Falcon was not filled now as in the good days when thevillage lived joyously, serving God after the Catholic fashion; andnot tormented because of religion. Now it was as though in mourning,as could be seen from its numerous houses that were empty or shut up,from its deserted streets in which there wandered a few starved dogssearching among the rubbish heaps for their rotten food.

  There was no place now in Meulestee for any but the two evil and cruelmen. The timid dwellers in the village saw them by day insolent andnoting the houses of future victims, drawing up the lists of death;and by night venturing from the Falcon singing filthy choruses, whiletwo catchpolls, drunk like them, followed them armed to the teeth tobe their escort.