The Legend of Ulenspiegel. Volume 2 of 2

“As Michielkin persisted in saying he was innocent, Spelle had him tortured afresh, while giving him to understand that if he would give him 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 the torture, desired to be witness par turbes, which is the testimony of all the reputable inhabitants of a commune. ‘Michielkin,’ said they, unanimously, ‘is in no way or guise heretical; he goes every Sunday to mass and to the holy table; he has never said anything else of Our Lady than to call on her to succour him in difficult circumstances; having never spoken ill, even of an earthly woman, he would much less ever have dared to speak ill of the heavenly Mother of God. As for the blasphemies that the false witnesses declared they had heard him utter in 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 free without examination or torture, in consideration of one hundred florins paid down in one sum.

“Pieter de Roose, fearing that the money he still had left might attract Spelle’s attention to him once again, fled from Meulestee, while Michielkin, my poor brother, died of the gangrene that had caught hold of his feet.

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

“Ha!” said she, “he who would avenge upon Spelle the death of my beloved kind Michielkin would be my master forever, and I would obey him like a dog.”

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

Boelkin (that was the girl’s name) returned to Meulestee, well assured in her home against the vengeance of Pieter de Roose, for a cattle dealer, passing by Destelberg, informed her that the curé and the townsfolk 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 chamber in Michielkin’s house, and saw there a portrait of a master pastry cook 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 seeing it 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 have me hanged before him.”

“That is true,” said she.

“Then,” said Ulenspiegel, “go fetch me good potter’s clay, a double quart of bruinbier, clear water, and a few slices of beef. All separate.”

“The beef will be for me, the bruinbier for the beef, the water for the clay, and the clay for the portrait.”

Eating and drinking Ulenspiegel kneaded the clay, and now and then swallowed a morsel of it, but heeded it little, and looked most attentively at Michielkin’s portrait. When the clay was kneaded, he made a mask out of it, with a nose, a mouth, eyes, ears so much like 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 painted it the colour corpses are, showing the haggard eyes, the solemn face, and the various contractions of a man in the act of dying. Then the girl, ceasing to be astonied, looked at the mask, without being able to 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 the murderer.” 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 of Ypres, who keeps this tavern. He was my brother’s best friend and comrade. Tell him it is Boelkin that sends you.”

Ulenspiegel did as she bade him.

After having laboured for death, the provost Spelle went to drink in’t Valck, at the Falcon, a hot mixture of dobbel-clauwert, with cinnamon 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 to Meulestee. Everywhere he followed Spelle and his catchpolls to have their protection. Sometimes Spelle paid the wherewithal for him to drink. 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 the village lived joyously, serving God after the Catholic fashion; and not 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 dogs searching among the rubbish heaps for their rotten food.

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

Ulenspiegel went in den Blauwe Gans, to the Blue Goose, to Joos Lansaem, who was at the bar.

Ulenspiegel took from his pocket a little flask of brandy, and said to him:

“Boelkin has two casks for sale.”

“Come into my kitchen,” said the baes.

There, shutting the door, and looking fixedly at him:

“You are no brandy merchant; what do these winkings of your eyes mean? Who are you?”

Ulenspiegel replied:

“I am the son of Claes that was burned at Damme; the ashes of the dead man beat upon my breast; I would fain kill Spelle, the murderer.”

“It is Boelkin who sends you?” asked the host.

“Boelkin sends me,” replied Ulenspiegel. “I will kill Spelle; you shall help me in it.”

“I will,” said the baes. “What must I do?”

Ulenspiegel replied:

“Go to the curé, the good pastor, an enemy to Spelle. Assemble your friends together and be with them to-morrow, after the curfew, on the Everghem road, above Spelle’s house, between the Falcon and the house aforesaid. All post yourselves in the shadows and have no white on your clothes. At the stroke of ten you will see Spelle coming out from the tavern and a wagon coming from the other side.

“Do not tell your friends to-night; they sleep too near to their wives’ ears. Go and find them to-morrow. Come, now, listen to everything closely and remember well.”

“We shall remember,” said Joos. And raising his goblet: “I drink to Spelle’s halter.”

“To the halter,” said Ulenspiegel. Then he went back with the baes into the tavern chamber where there sate drinking certain old clothes merchants of Ghent who were coming back from the Saturday market at Bruges, where they had sold for high prices doublets and short mantles of cloth of gold and silver bought for a few sous from ruined nobles who desired by their luxury and splendour to imitate the Spaniards.

And they kept revels and feasting because of their big profits.

Ulenspiegel and Joos Lansaem, sitting in a corner, as they drank, and without being heard, agreed that Joos should go to the curé of the church, a good pastor, incensed against Spelle, the murderer of innocent men. After that he would go to his friends.

On the morrow, Joos Lansaem and Michielkin’s friends, having been forewarned, left the Blauwe Gans, where they had their pints as usual, and so as to conceal their plans went off at curfew by different ways, and came to the Everghem causeway. They were seventeen in number.

At ten o’clock Spelle left the Falcon, followed by his two catchpolls and Pieter de Roose. Lansaem and his troop were hidden in the barn belonging to Samson Boene, a friend of Michielkin. The door of the barn was open. Spelle never saw them.

They heard him pass by, staggering with drink like Pieter de Roose and his two catchpolls also, and saying, in a thick voice and with many hiccups:

“Provosts! provosts! life is good to them in this world; hold me up, gallows birds that live on my leavings!”

Suddenly were heard upon the road, from the direction of the open country, the braying of an ass and the crack of a whip.

“There is a restive donkey indeed,” said Spelle, “that won’t go on in spite of that good warning.”

Suddenly they heard a great noise of wheels and a cart leaping along and coming down the middle of the road.

“Stop it!” cried Spelle.

As the cart passed beside them, Spelle and his two catchpolls threw themselves on the donkey’s head.

“This cart is empty,” said one of the catchpolls.

“Lubber,” said Spelle, “do empty carts gallop about by night all alone? There is somebody in this cart a-hiding; light the lanterns, hold them up, I am going to look in it.”

The lanterns were lighted and Spelle climbed up on the cart, holding his own lamp; but scarcely had he looked than he uttered a great cry, and falling back, said:

“Michielkin! Michielkin! Jesu! have pity upon me!”

Then there rose up from the floor of the cart a man clad in white as pastry cooks are and holding in his hands two bloody feet.

Pieter de Roose, seeing the man stand up, illuminated by the lanterns, cried with the two catchpolls:

“Michielkin! Michielkin, the dead man! Lord have pity upon us!”

The seventeen came at the noise to look at the spectacle and were affrighted to see in the light of the clear moon how like was the image of Michielkin, the poor deceased.

And the ghost waved his bleeding feet.

It was his same full round visage, but pale through death, threatening, livid, and eaten under the chin by worms.

The ghost, still waving his bleeding feet, said to Spelle, who was groaning, lying flat on his back:

“Spelle, Provost Spelle, awake!”

But Spelle never moved.

“Spelle,” said the ghost again, “Provost Spelle, awake or I fetch thee down with me into the mouth of gaping hell.”

Spelle got up, and with his hair straight up for terror, cried lamentably:

“Michielkin! Michielkin, have pity!”

Meanwhile, the townsfolk had come up, but Spelle saw nothing save the lanterns, which he took for the eyes of devils. He confessed as much later.

“Spelle,” said the ghost of Michielkin, “art thou prepared to die?”

“Nay,” replied the provost, “nay, Messire Michielkin; I am nowise prepared for it, and I would not appear before God with my soul all black with sin.”

“Dost thou know me?” said the ghost.

“May God be my helper,” said Spelle, “yea, I know thee; thou art the ghost of Michielkin, the pastry cook, who died, innocently in his bed, of the after effects of torture, and the two bleeding feet are those upon each of which I had a weight of fifty pounds hung. Ha! Michielkin, forgive me, this Pieter de Roose was so strong a tempter; he offered me fifty florins, which I accepted, to put thy name on the list.”

“Dost thou desire to confess thyself?” said the ghost.

“Aye, Messire, I desire to confess myself, to tell all and do penance. But deign to send away these demons that are there, ready to devour me. I will tell all. Take away those fiery eyes! I did the same thing at Tournay, with respect to five townsmen; the same at Bruges, with four. I no longer know their names, but I will tell them you if you insist; elsewhere, too, I have sinned, lord, and of my doing there are nine and sixty innocents in the grave. Michielkin, the king needed money. I had been informed of that, but I needed money even likewise; it is at Ghent, in the cellar, under the pavement, in the house of old Grovels my real mother. I have told all, all: grace and mercy! Take away the devils. Lord God, Virgin Mary, Jesus, intercede for me: save me from the fires of hell, I will sell all I have, I will give everything to the poor, and I will do penance.”

Ulenspiegel, seeing that the crowd of the townsmen was ready to uphold him, leapt from the cart at Spelle’s throat and would have strangled him.

But the curé came up.

“Let him live,” said he; “it is better that he should die by the executioner’s rope than by the fingers of a ghost.”

“What are you going to do with him?” asked Ulenspiegel.

“Accuse him before the duke and have him hanged,” replied the curé. “But who art thou?” asked he.

“I,” replied Ulenspiegel, “am the mask of Michielkin and the person of a poor Flemish fox who is going back into his earth for fear of the Spanish hunters.”

In the meantime, Pieter de Roose was running away at full speed.

And Spelle having been hanged, his goods were confiscated.

And the king inherited.

XXXIII

The next day Ulenspiegel went towards Courtray, going alongside the Lys, the clear river.

Lamme went pitifully along.

Ulenspiegel said to him:

“You whine, cowardly heart, regretting the wife that made you wear the horned crown of cuckoldom.”

“My son,” said Lamme, “she was always faithful, loving me enough as I loved her over well, sweet Jesus. One day, being gone to Bruges, she came back thence changed. From then, when I prayed her of love, she would say to me:

“‘I must live with you as a friend, and not otherwise.’

“Then, sad in my heart:

“‘Beloved darling,’ I would say, ‘we were married before God. Did I not for you everything you ever wished? Did not I many a time clothe myself with a doublet of black linen and a fustian cloak that I might see you clad in silk and brocade despite the royal ordinances? Darling, will you never love me again?’

“‘I love thee,’ she would say, ‘according to God and His laws, according to holy discipline and penance. Yet I shall be a virtuous companion to thee.’

“‘I care naught for thy virtue,’ I replied, ‘’tis thou I want, thou, my wife.’

“Nodding her head:

“‘I know thou art good,’ she said; ‘until to-day thou wast cook in the house to spare me the labour of fricassees; thou didst iron our blankets, ruffs, and shirts, the irons being too heavy for me; thou didst wash our linen, thou didst sweep the house and the street before the door, so as to spare me all fatigue. Now I desire to work instead of you, but nothing more, husband.’

“‘That is all one to me,’ I replied; ‘I will be, as in the past, thy tiring maid, thy laundress, thy cook, thy washwoman, thy slave, thy very own, submissive; but wife, sever not these two hearts and bodies that make but one; break not that soft bond of love that clasped us so tenderly together.’

“‘I must,’ she replied.

“‘Alas!’ I would say, ‘was it at Bruges that thou didst come to this harsh resolve?’

“She replied:

“‘I have sworn before God and His saints.’

“‘Who, then,’ I cried, ‘forced thee to take an oath not to fulfil your duties as a wife?’

“‘He that hath the spirit of God, and ranks me among the number of his penitents,’ said she.

“From that moment she ceased to be mine as much as if she had been the faithful wife of another man. I implored her, tormented her, threatened her, wept, begged, but in vain. One night, coming back from Blanckenberghe, where I had been to receive the rent of one of my farms, I found the house empty. Without doubt fatigued with my entreaties, grieved and sad at my distress, my wife had taken flight. Where is she now?”

And Lamme sat down on the bank of the Lys, hanging his head and looking at the water.

“Ah!” said he, “my dear, how plump, tender, and delicious thou wast! Shall I ever find a lass like thee? Daily bread of love, shall I never eat of thee again? Where are thy kisses, as full of fragrance as thyme; thy delicious mouth whence I gathered pleasure as the bee gathers the honey from the rose; thy white arms that wrapped me round caressing? Where is thy beating heart, thy round bosom, and the sweet shudder of thy fairy body all panting with love? But where are thy old waves, cool river that rollest so joyously thy new waves in the sunshine?”

XXXIV

Passing before the wood of Peteghem, Lamme said to Ulenspiegel:

“I am roasting hot; let us seek the shade.”

“Let us,” replied Ulenspiegel.

They sat down in the wood, upon the grass, and saw a herd of stags pass in front of them.

“Look well, Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel, priming his German musket. “There are the tall old stags that still have their dowcets, and carry proud and stately their nine-point antlers; lovely brockets, that are their squires, trot by their side, ready to do them service with their pointed horns. They are going to their lair. Turn the musket lock as I do. Fire! The old stag is wounded. A brocket is hit in the thigh; he is in flight. Let us follow him till he falls. Do as I do: run, jump, and fly.”

“There is my mad friend,” said Lamme, “following stags on foot. Fly not without wings; it is labour lost. You will never catch them. Oh! the cruel comrade! Do you imagine I am as agile as you? I sweat, my son; I sweat and I am going to fall. If the ranger catches you, you will be hanged. Stag is kings’ game; let them run, my son, you will never catch them.”

“Come,” said Ulenspiegel, “do you hear the noise of his antlers in the foliage? It is a water spout passing. Do you see the young branches broken, the leaves strewing the ground? He has another bullet in his thigh this time; we will eat him.”

“He is not cooked yet,” said Lamme. “Let these poor beasts run. Ah! how hot it is! I am going to fall down there without doubt and I shall never rise again.”

Suddenly, on all sides, men clad in rags and armed filled the forest. Dogs bayed and dashed in pursuit of the stags. Four fierce fellows surrounded Lamme and Ulenspiegel and brought them into a clearing, in the middle of a brake, where they saw encamped there, among women and children, men in great numbers, armed diversely with swords, arbalests, arquebuses, lances, pikestaff, and reiter’s pistols.

Ulenspiegel, seeing them, said to them:

“Are ye the leafmen or Brothers of the Woods, that ye seem to live here in common to flee the persecution?”

“We are Brothers of the Woods,” replied an old man sitting beside the fire and frying some birds in a saucepan. “But who art thou?”

“I,” replied Ulenspiegel, “am of the goodly country of Flanders, a painter, a rustic, a noble, a sculptor, all together. And through the world in this wise I journey, praising things lovely and good and mocking loudly at all stupidity.”

“If thou hast seen so many countries,” said the ancient man, “thou canst pronounce: Schild ende Vriendt, buckler and friend, in the fashion of Ghent folk; if not, thou art a counterfeit Fleming and thou shalt die.”

Ulenspiegel pronounced: Schild ende Vriendt.

“And thou, big belly,” asked the ancient man, speaking to Lamme, “what is thy trade?”

Lamme replied:

“To eat and drink my lands, farms, fees, and revenues, to seek for my wife, and to follow in all places my friend Ulenspiegel.”

“If thou hast travelled so much,” said the old man, “thou art not without knowledge of how they call the folk of Weert in Limbourg.”

“I do not know it,” replied Lamme; “but would you not tell me the name of the scandalous vagabond who drove my wife from her home? Give it to me; I will go and slay him straightway.”

The ancient man made answer:

“There are two things in this world which never return once having taken flight: they are money spent and a woman grown tired and run away.”

Then speaking to Ulenspiegel:

“Dost thou know,” said he, “how they call the men of Weert in Limbourg?”

“De reakstekers, the exorcisers of skates,” replied Ulenspiegel, “for one day a live ray having fallen from a fishmonger’s cart, old women seeing it leap about took it for the devil. ‘Let us go fetch the curé to exorcise the skate,’ said they. The curé exorcised it, and carrying it off with him, made a noble fricassee in honour of the folk of Weert. Thus may God do with the bloody king.”

Meanwhile, the barking of the dogs reëchoed in the forest. The armed men, running in the wood, were shouting to frighten the beast.

“’Tis the stag and the brocket I put up,” said Ulenspiegel.

“We shall eat him,” said the old man. “But how do they call the folk of Eindhoven in Limbourg?”

“De pinnemakers, boltmakers,” replied Ulenspiegel. “One day the enemy was at the gate of their city; they bolted it with a carrot. The geese came and ate the carrot with great pecks of their greedy beaks, and the enemies came into Eindhoven. But it will be iron beaks that will eat the bolts of the prisons wherein they seek to lock up freedom of conscience.”

“If God be with us, who shall be against us?” replied the ancient man.

Ulenspiegel said:

“Dogs baying, men shouting, branches broken; ’tis a storm in the forest.”

“Is it good meat, stag meat?” asked Lamme, looking at the fricassees.

“The cries of the trackers come nearer,” said Ulenspiegel to Lamme; “the dogs are close at hand. What thunder! The stag! the stag! take care, my son. Fie! the foul beast; he has flung my big friend down to the earth in the midst of the pans, saucepans, cooking pots, boilers, and fricassees. There are the women and girls fleeing daft with fright. You are bleeding, my son?”

“You are laughing, scoundrel,” said Lamme. “Aye, I am bleeding; he hath landed his antlers in my seat. There, see my breeches torn, and my flesh, too, and all those lovely fricassees on the ground. There, I am losing all my blood down my hose.”

“This stag is a foresighted surgeon; he is saving you from an apoplexy,” replied Ulenspiegel.

“Fie! rascal without a heart,” said Lamme. “But I will follow you no more. I will stay here in the midst of these good fellows and these good women. Can you, without any shame, be so hardhearted to my woes, when I walk at your heels like a dog, through snow, frost, rain, hail, wind, and when it is hot weather, sweating my very soul out through my skin?”

“Your wound is nothing. Clap an olie-koekje on it; that will be both plaster and fry to it,” answered Ulenspiegel. “But do you know how they call the folk of Louvain? You do not know it, poor friend. Well, then, I am about to tell you to keep you from whimpering. They call them de koeye-schieters, cow shooters, for they were one day silly enough to fire on cows, which they took for enemy soldiers. As for us, we fire on Spanish goats; their flesh is stinking stuff, but their skin is good to make drums withal. And the folk of Tirlemont? Do you know it? Not that, either. They carry the proud nickname of kirekers. For in their town, in the great church, on Whit Sunday, a drake flies from the rood-loft altar, and that is the image of their Holy Ghost. Put a koeke-bakke on your wound. You pick up without a word the cooking pots and fricassees overturned by the stag. ’Tis kitchen courage. You relight the fire, and set up the soup pot again upon its three stakes; you are busying yourself very attentively with the cooking. Do you know why there are four wonders in Louvain? No. I will tell you why. In the first place, because the living there pass underneath the dead, for the church of Saint-Michel is built close to the gate of the town. Its graveyard is therefore above. Secondly, because the bells there are outside the towers, as is seen at the church of Saint-Jacques, where there is a great bell and a little bell; being unable to place the little one inside the bell tower, they placed it outside. Thirdly, because of the Tower-without-Nails, because the spire of the church of Saint-Gertrude is made of stone instead of being made of wood, and because men do not nail stones, except the bloody king’s heart which I would fain nail above the great gate of Brussels. But you are not listening to me. Is there no salt in the sauces? Do you know why the folk of Tirlemont call themselves warming pans, de vierpannen? Because a young prince being come in winter to sleep at the inn of the Arms of Flanders, the innkeeper did not know how to air the blankets, for he had no warming pan. He had the bed aired by his daughter, who, hearing the prince coming, made off running, and the prince asked why they had not left the warming pan in the bed. May God bring it about that Philip, shut in a box of red-hot iron, may serve as warming pan in the bed of Madame Astarte.”