The Legend of Ulenspiegel. Volume 2 of 2

Coster Charles de

The Legend of Ulenspiegel, Volume 2 (of 2) / And Lamme Goedzak, and their Adventures Heroical, Joyous and Glorious in the Land of Flanders and Elsewhere

Book III

I

He goes away, the Silent One, God guideth him.

The two counts have been seized already; Alba promises the Silent One lenity and pardon if he will present himself before him.

At this news, Ulenspiegel said to Lamme: “The Duke summons, at the instance of Dubois, the procurator general, the Prince of Orange, Ludwig his brother, De Hoogstraeten, Van den Bergh, Culembourg, de Brederode, and other friends of the Prince’s, to appear before him within thrice fourteen days, promising them good justice and grace. Listen, Lamme, and hearken: One day a Jew of Amsterdam summoned one of his enemies to come down into the street; the summoner was on the pavement and the summoned at a window.

“‘Come down, then,’ said the summoner to the summoned, ‘and I will give thee such a cuff on the head with my fist that it will tumble into thy breast, and thou shalt look through thy ribs like a thief through the bars of his prison.’

“The summoned replied: ‘Even if thou wast to promise me an hundredfold more, I would not come down even then.’ And so may Orange and the others answer.”

And they did so, refusing to appear. Egmont and de Hoorn did not follow their example. And weakness in duty evokes the hour of God and fate.

II

At this time were beheaded on the Horse Market at Brussels the sires d’Andelot, the sons of Battemberg and other renowned and valiant lords, that had wished to seize Amsterdam by surprise.

And while they were going to execution, being eighteen in number, and singing hymns, the drummers drummed before and behind, all along the way.

And the Spanish troopers escorting them and carrying blazing torches burned their bodies with them all over. And when they writhed because of the pain, the troopers would say: “What now, Lutherans, does that hurt then to be burned so soon?”

And he that had betrayed them was called Dierick Slosse, who brought them to Enkhuyse, that was still Catholic, to hand them over to the duke’s catchpolls.

And they died valiantly.

And the king inherited.

III

“Didst thou see him go by?” said Ulenspiegel, clad as a woodman, to Lamme similarly accoutred. “Didst thou see the foul duke with his forehead flat above like an eagle’s, and his long beard like a rope end dangling from a gallows? May God strangle him with it! Didst thou see that spider with his long hairy legs that Satan vomiting spat out upon our country? Come, Lamme, come; we will fling stones into his web…”

“Alas!” said Lamme, “we shall be burned alive.”

“Come to Groenendal, my dear friend; come to Groenendal, there is a noble cloister whither His Spiderly Dukishness goes to pray to the God of peace to allow him to perfect his work, which is to rejoice his black spirits wallowing in carrion. We are in Lent, and it is only blood from which His Dukishness has no mind to fast. Come, Lamme, there are five hundred armed horsemen roundabout the house of Ohain; three hundred footmen have set out in little bands and are entering the forest of Soignes.

“Presently, when Alba is at his devotions, we shall run out upon him, and having taken him, we shall put him in a good iron cage and send him to the prince.”

But Lamme, shivering in anguish:

“A great risk, my son,” he said to Ulenspiegel. “A great risk! I would follow you in this emprise were not my legs so weak, if my belly was not so blown out by reason of the thin sour beer they drink in this town of Brussels.”

This discourse was held in a hole dug in the earth in a wood, in the middle of the undergrowth. Suddenly, looking through the leaves as though out of a burrow, they saw the yellow and red coats of the Duke’s troopers, whose weapons glittered in the sun and who were going afoot through the wood.

“We are betrayed,” said Ulenspiegel.

When he saw the troopers no more, he ran at top speed as far as Ohain. The troopers let him pass without noticing him, because of his woodcutter’s clothes and the load of wood he carried on his back. There he found the horsemen waiting; he spread the news, all scattered and escaped except the sire de Bausart d’Armentières who was taken. As for the footmen that were coming from Brussels, they could not find a single one.

And it was a cowardly traitor in the regiment of the Sieur de Likes that betrayed them all.

The Sire de Bausart paid cruelly for the others.

Ulenspiegel went, his heart beating wildly with anguish, to see his cruel punishment in the Cattle Market at Brussels.

And poor d’Armentières, put upon the wheel, received thirty-seven blows of an iron bar on legs, arms, feet, and hands, which were broken to pieces one by one, for the murderers desired to see him suffer terribly.

And he received the thirty-seventh on the breast, and of that one he died.

IV

On a June day, bright and sweet, there was erected at Brussels, on the marketplace in front of the City Hall, a scaffold covered with black draperies, and hard by two tall stakes with iron spiked ends. Upon the scaffold were two black cushions and a little table on which there was a silver crucifix.

And on this scaffold were put to death by the sword the noble counts of Egmont and of Hoorn. And the king inherited.

And the ambassador of François, the first of that name, said, speaking of Egmont:

“I have just seen the head cut from off the man that twice caused France to tremble.”

And the heads of the counts were set on the iron spikes.

And Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:

“The bodies and the blood are covered with black cloth. Blessed be they that shall hold their heart high and the sword straight in the black days that are at hand!”

V

At this time the Silent One gathered an army and invaded the Low Countries from three sides.

And Ulenspiegel said at a meeting of Wild Beggars at Marenhout:

“Upon the advice of the Inquisitors, Philip, the king, has declared each and every inhabitant of the Low Countries guilty of treason through heresy, both for adherence to it and for not having opposed it, and in consideration of this execrable crime, condemns them all, without respect to sex or age, excepting those that are expressly noted by name, to the penalties attached to such misdemeanours; and that without hope of grace. The king inherits. Death is reaping throughout the wide rich lands that border on the Northern Sea, the country of Emden, the river Amise, the countries of Westphalia, of Clèves, of Juliers and of Liége, the bishoprics of Cologne and of Trèves, the countries of Lorraine and of France. Death is reaping over a land of three hundred and forty leagues, in two hundred walled cities, in a hundred and fifty villages holding city rights, in the countryside in bourgs and plains. The king inherits.

“It is nowise too much,” he went on, “eleven thousand butchers to do the work. Alba calls them soldiers. And the land of our fathers has become a charnel house whence the arts are taking flight, which the trades abandon, whence industries are departing to go and enrich foreigners, who allow them in their land to worship the God of the free conscience. Death and Ruin are reaping. The king inherits.

“The countries had acquired their privileges by dint of money given to needy princes; these privileges are confiscated. They had hoped, in accordance with the contracts entered upon and passed between them and the sovereigns, to enjoy riches as the fruit of their labours. They are deceived: the mason builds for the fire, the worker toils for the thief. The king inherits.

“Blood and tears! death reaps at the stake; upon the trees that serve as gallows all along the highways; in the open graves wherein poor girls are thrown alive; in the judicial drownings of the prisons, in the circles of blazing faggots within which the victims burn by slow fire, in the wrappings of burning straw in which the victims die in flame and smoke. The king inherits.

“So has willed the Pope in Rome.

“The cities are bursting with spies waiting for their share of the victims’ goods. The richer a man is, the guiltier he is. The king inherits.

“But the valiant men of the countries will not suffer themselves to be slain like lambs. Among those that flee there are armed men that take shelter in the woods. The monks had denounced them that they might be slain and their goods seized. And so by night, by day, by bands, like wild beasts they rush upon the cloisters, and take back from thence the money stolen from the poor people, in the shape of candelabra, gold and silver shrines, pyxes, patens, precious vases. Is not that so, good fellows? They drink from them the wine the monks were keeping for themselves. The vases melted down or pledged will serve for the holy war. Long live the Beggars!”

“They harass the king’s soldiers, slay them and strip them, and then they flee into their dens. Day and night fires are seen lighted and extinguished, changing place incessantly. They are the fires of our feastings. For us the game, both fur and feather. We are lords. The peasants give us bread and bacon when we want it. Lamme, look at them. Raggedy, fierce, resolute, and proud eyed, they wander about the woods with their hatchets, halberds, long swords, daggers, pikes, lances, crossbows, arquebuses, for all weapons are good to them, and they will never march under ensigns. Long live the Beggars!

And Ulenspiegel sang:

“Slaet op den trommele van dirre dom deyneSlaet op den trommele van dirre doum, doum.Beat upon the drum! van dirre dom deyne,Beat upon the drum of war.“Let them tear out his bowels from the Duke!Let them lash his face with them!Slaet op den trommele, beat upon the drumCursed be the Duke! Death to the murderer.“Let him be thrown to dogs! Death to theButcher! Long live the Beggars!Let him be hanged by the tongueAnd by the arm, by the tongue that orders,And by the arm that signs the sentence of death.Slaet op den trommele.Beat upon the war drum. Long live the Beggar!“Let the Duke be shut up alive with his victims’ bodies!In the noisome stenchLet him die of the corpse plague!Beat upon the war drum. Long live the Beggar!“Christ from on high look on thy soldiers,Risking the fire, the rope,The sword for thy word’s sake.They will deliverance for the land of their fathers.Slaet op den trommele, van dirre dom deyne.Beat upon the war drum. Long live the Beggar!”

And all set to drinking and shouting:

“Long live the Beggar!”

And Ulenspiegel, drinking from the gilt tankard of a monk, looked proudly round on the valiant faces of the Wild Beggars.

“Wild men,” said he, “ye are wolves, lions, and tigers. Eat the dogs of the bloody king.”

“Long live the Beggar!” said they, singing:

“Slaet op den trommele van dirre dom deyne;Slaet op den trommele van dirre dom dom:Beat upon the war drum. Long live the Beggar!”

VI

Ulenspiegel, being at Ypres, was recruiting soldiers for the Prince: pursued by the Duke’s catchpolls, he offered himself as beadle to the provost of Saint Martin. There he had for his companion a bellringer called Pompilius Numan, a coward of the deepest dye, who at night took his own shadow for the devil and his shirt for a ghost.

The provost was fat and plump as a hen fattened just ripe for the spit. Ulenspiegel soon saw on what grass he grazed to make himself so much pork. According to what he heard from the bellringer and saw with his own eyes, the provost dined at nine and supped at four by the clock. He stayed in bed until half-past eight; then before dinner he went walking in his church to see if the poor-boxes were well filled. And the half he put into his own pouch. At nine o’clock he dined on a bowl of milk, half a leg of mutton, a little heron pie, and emptied five tankards of Brussels wine. At ten, sucking a few prunes and washing them down with Orleans wine, he prayed God never to bring him in the way of gluttony. At noon, he ate, to pass the time, a wing and rump of a chicken. At one o’clock, thinking of his supper, he drained a big draught of Spanish wine; then stretching himself out on his bed, refreshed himself with a little nap.

Awaking, he would eat a little salted salmon to whet his appetite, and drink a great tankard of dobbel-knol of Antwerp. Then he would go down into the kitchen, sit down before the chimney place and the noble wood fire that flamed in it. There he watched roasting and browning for the abbey monks a big piece of veal or a well-scalded little pigling, that he would have eaten more gladly than a piece of bread. But his appetite was a little wanting. And he would study the spit, which turned by itself like a miracle. It was the work of Peter van Steenkiste the smith, who lived in the castellany of Courtrai. The provost paid him fifteen Paris livres for one of these spits.

Then he would go up again to his bed, and dozing upon it through fatigue, he would wake up about three o’clock to gulp in a little pig jelly washed down with wine of Romagna at two hundred and forty florins the hogshead. At three he would eat a fledgling chick with Madeira sugar and empty two glasses of malvoisie at seventeen florins the keg. At half-past three, he took half a pot of preserves and washed it down with hydromel. Being now well awaked, he would take one foot in his hand and rest in meditation.

The moment of supper being come, the curé of Saint Jean would often arrive to visit him at this succulent hour. They sometimes disputed which could eat most fish, poultry, game, and meat. The one that was quickest filled must pay a dish of carbonadoes for the other, with three hot wines, four spices, and seven vegetables.

Thus drinking and eating, they talked together of heretics, being of opinion anyhow that it was impossible to do away with too many of them. And then they never fell into any quarrel, except only when they were discussing the thirty-nine ways of making good soups with beer.

Then drooping their venerable heads upon their priestly paunches, they would snore. Sometimes half waking, one of them would say that life in this world is very sweet and that poor folk are very wrong to complain.

This was the saintly man whose beadle Ulenspiegel became. He served him well during mass, not without filling the flagons three times, twice for himself and once for the provost. The ringer Pompilius Numan helped him at it on occasion.

Ulenspiegel, who saw Pompilius so flourishing, paunchy, and full cheeked, asked him if it was in the provost’s service he had laid up for himself this treasure of enviable health.

“Aye, my son,” replied Pompilius, “but shut the door tight for fear that one might listen to us.”

Then speaking in a whisper:

“You know,” said he, “that our master the provost loveth all wines and beers, all meats and fowl, with a surpassing love. And so he locks his meats in a cupboard and his wines in a cellar, the keys of which are ever in his pouch. And he sleeps with his hand on them… By night when he sleeps I go and take his keys from his pouch and put them back again, not without trembling, my son, for if he knew my crime he would have me boiled alive.”

“Pompilius,” said Ulenspiegel, “it needs not to take all that trouble, but the keys one time only; I shall make keys on this pattern and we shall leave the others on the paunch of the good provost.”

“Make them, my son,” said Pompilius.

Ulenspiegel made the keys; as soon as he and Pompilius judged about eight of the clock in the evening that the good provost was asleep they would go down and take what they chose of meats and bottles. Ulenspiegel would carry two bottles and Pompilius the meats, because Pompilius always was trembling like a leaf, and hams and legs of mutton do not break in falling. They took possession of fowl more than once before they were cooked, which brought about the accusation of several cats belonging to the neighbourhood, which were done to death for the crime.

They went thereafter into the Ketel-straat, which is the street of the bona robas. There they spared nothing, giving liberally to their dears smoked beef and ham, saveloys and poultry, and gave them wine of Orleans and Romagna to drink, and Ingelsche bier, which they called ale on the other side of the sea, and which they poured in floods down the fresh throats of the pretty ladies. And they were paid in caresses.

However, one morning after dinner the provost sent for both of them. He had a formidable look, sucking a marrow bone in soup, not without anger.

Pompilius was trembling in his shoes, and his belly was shaken with fear. Ulenspiegel, keeping quiet, felt at the cellar keys in his pocket with pleased satisfaction.

The provost, addressing him, said:

“Someone is drinking my wine and eating my fowl, is it thou, my son?”

“No,” replied Ulenspiegel.

“And this ringer,” said the provost, pointing to Pompilius, “hath not he dipped his hands in this crime, for he is pallid as a dying man, assuredly because the stolen wine is poison to him.”

“Alas! Messire,” answered Ulenspiegel, “you wrongly accuse your ringer, for if he is pale, it is not from having drunk wine, but for want of drinking enough, from which cause he is so loosened that if he is not stopped his very soul will escape by streams into his shoes.”

“The poor we have always with us,” said the provost, taking a deep draught of wine from his tankard. “But tell me, my son, if thou, who hast the eyes of a lynx, hast not seen the robbers?”

“I will keep good watch for them, Messire Provost,” replied Ulenspiegel.

“May God have you both in his joy, my children,” said the provost, “and live soberly. For it is from intemperance that many evils come upon us in this vale of tears. Go in peace.”

And he blessed them.

And he sucked another marrow bone in soup, and drank another great draught of wine.

Ulenspiegel and Pompilius went out from him.

“This scurvy fellow,” said Ulenspiegel, “would not have given you a single drop of his wine to drink. It will be blessed bread to steal more from him still. But what ails you that you are shivering?”

“My shoes are full of water,” said Pompilius.

“Water dries quickly, my son,” said Ulenspiegel. “But be merry, to-night there will be flagon music in the Ketel-straat. And we will fill up the three night watchmen, who will watch the town with snores.”

Which was done.

However, they were close to Saint Martin’s day: the church was adorned for the feast. Ulenspiegel and Pompilius went in by night, shut the doors close, lit all the wax candles, took a viol and bagpipe, and began to play on these instruments all they might. And the candles flared like suns. But that was not all. Their task being done, they went to the provost, whom they found afoot, in spite of the late hour, munching a thrush, drinking Rhenish wine and opening both eyes to see the church windows lit up.

“Messire Provost,” said Ulenspiegel to him, “would you know who eats your meats and drinks your wines?”

“And this illumination,” said the provost, pointing to the windows of the church. “Ah! Lord God, dost thou allow Master Saint Martin thus to burn, by night and without paying, poor monks’ wax candles?”

“He is doing something besides, Messire Provost,” said Ulenspiegel, “but come.”

The provost took his crozier and followed with them; they went into the church.

There, he saw, in the middle of the great nave, all the saints come down from their niches, ranged round and as it seemed commanded by Saint Martin, who out-topped them all by a head, and from the forefinger of his hand, outstretched to bless, held up a roast turkey. The others had in their hands or were lifting to their mouths pieces of chicken or goose, sausages, hams, fish raw and cooked, and among other things a pike weighing full fourteen pounds. And every one had at his feet a flask of wine.

At this sight the provost, losing himself wholly in anger, became so red and his face was so congested, that Pompilius and Ulenspiegel thought he would burst, but the provost, without paying any heed to them, went straight up to Saint Martin, threatening him as if he would have laid the crime of the others to his charge, tore the turkey away from his finger and struck him such heavy blows that he broke his arm, his nose, his crozier, and his mitre.

As for the others, he did not spare them bangs and thumps, and more than one under his blows laid aside arms, hands, mitre, crozier, scythe, axes, gridirons, saw, and other emblems of dignity and of martyrdom. Then the provost, his belly shaking in front of him, went himself to put out all the candles with rage and speed.

He carried away all he could of hams, fowl, and sausages, and bending beneath the load he came back to his bedchamber so doleful and angry that he drank, draught upon draught, three great flasks of wine.

Ulenspiegel, being well assured that he was sleeping, took away to the Ketel-straat all the provost thought he had rescued, and also all that remained in the church, not without first supping on the best pieces. And they laid the remains and fragments at the feet of the saints.

Next day Pompilius was ringing the bell for matins; Ulenspiegel went up into the provost’s sleeping chamber and asked him to come down once more into the church.

There, showing him the broken pieces of saints and fowls, he said to him:

“Messire Provost, you did all in vain, they have eaten all the same.”

“Aye,” replied the provost, “they have come up to my sleeping chamber, like robbers, and taken what I had saved. Ah, master saints, I will complain to the Pope about this.”

“Aye,” replied Ulenspiegel, “but the procession is the day after to-morrow, the workmen will presently be coming into the church: if they see there all these poor mutilated saints, are you not afraid of being accused of iconoclasm?”

“Ah! Master Saint Martin,” said the provost, “spare me the fire, I knew not what I did!”

Then turning to Ulenspiegel, while the timid bellringer was swinging to his bells:

“They could never,” said he, “between now and Sunday, mend Saint Martin. What am I to do, and what will the people say?”

“Messire,” answered Ulenspiegel, “we must employ an innocent subterfuge. We shall glue on a beard on the face of Pompilius; it is always respectable, being always melancholic; we shall dight him up with the Saint’s mitre, alb, amice, and great cloak; we shall enjoin upon him to stand well and fast on his pedestal, and the people will take him for the wooden Saint Martin.”

The provost went to Pompilius who was swaying on the ropes.

“Cease to ring,” said he, “and listen to me: would you earn fifteen ducats? On Sunday, the day of the procession, you shall be Saint Martin. Ulenspiegel will get you up properly, and if when you are borne by your four men you make one movement or utter one word, I will have you boiled alive in oil in the great caldron the executioner has just had built on the market square.”

“Monseigneur, I give you thanks,” said Pompilius; “but you know that I find it hard to contain my water.”

“You must obey,” replied the provost.

“I shall obey, Monseigneur,” said Pompilius, very pitifully.

VII

Next day, in bright sunshine, the procession issued forth from the church. Ulenspiegel had, as best he could, patched up the twelve saints that balanced themselves on their pedestals between the banners of the guilds, then came the statue of Our Lady; then the daughters of the Virgin all clad in white and singing anthems; then the archers and crossbowmen; then the nearest to the dais and swaying more than the others, Pompilius sinking under the heavy accoutrements of Master Saint Martin.

Ulenspiegel, having provided himself with itching powder, had himself clothed Pompilius with his episcopal costume, had put on his gloves and given him his crozier and taught him the Latin fashion of blessing the people. He had also helped the priests to clothe themselves. On some he put their stole, on others their amice, on the deacons the alb. He ran hither and thither through the church, restoring the folds of doublet or breeches. He admired and praised the well-furbished weapons of the crossbowmen, and the formidable bows of the confraternity of the archers. And on everyone he poured, on ruff, on back or wrist, a pinch of itching powder. But the dean and the four bearers of Saint Martin were those that got most of it. As for the daughters of the Virgin, he spared them for the sake of their sweetness and grace.