Chapter VI: Book I: I (6)

All this while the baesine's old dog was coughing, but without spitting.

"When didst thou do this?" asked the old woman.

"The month before the last," answered Ulenspiegel, "I arrived, being looked for, and knocked at the door. 'Who is there?' asked the chamberlain arch-cardinal, arch-privy, arch-extraordinary to His Most Holy Holiness.' ''Tis I,' I answered, 'Monseigneur Cardinal, come from Flanders expressly to kiss the Pope's foot and heal his dog of his rheum.' 'Ah! 'tis thou, Ulenspiegel?' said the Pope, speaking from the other side of a little door. 'I would rejoice to see thee, but that is a thing for the moment impossible. I am forbidden by the Holy Decretals to display my face to strangers when the holy razor is being passed over it.' 'Alas!' said I, 'I am an unfortunate man, I that am come from a land so far to kiss Your Holiness his foot and cure his dog of the rheum. Must I indeed return without being satisfied?' 'Nay,' said the Holy Father; and then I heard him call. 'Arch-chamberlain, roll my chair as far as the door, and open the little wicket at the foot of the door.' The which was done. And I beheld thrust through the wicket a foot shod with a golden slipper, and I heard a voice, speaking like a peal of thunder, saying: 'This is the redoubtable foot of the Prince of Princes, King of Kings, Emperor of Emperors. Kiss it, Christian man, kiss the holy slipper.' And I kissed the holy slipper, and my nose was sweetly filled with the celestial perfume that was exhaled from that foot. Then the wicket was shut again, and the same formidable voice bade me to wait. The wicket opened once more, and from it there issued, with all due respect, an animal bereft of its hair, blear-eyed, coughing, swollen like a wine skin and forced to walk with its legs straddling by reason of the hugeness of its belly.

"The Holy Father deigned to address me again: 'Ulenspiegel,' said he, 'thou dost look upon my dog; he was seized with a rheum and other maladies through gnawing the bones of heretics that had been broken for them. Cure him, my son; thou wilt have much good thereby.'"

"Drink," said the old woman.

"Pour out," answered Ulenspiegel. Continuing his tale: "I purged the dog," said he, "by the aid of a wonder-working draught concocted by myself. He made water through this for three days and three nights without ceasing, and was cured."

"Jesus God en Maria!" said the old woman; "let me kiss thee, glorious pilgrim, who hast seen the Pope and mayst also cure my dog."

But Ulenspiegel, recking little of the old woman's kisses, said to her: "Those who have touched with their lips the holy slipper may not within a space of two years receive the kisses of any woman. First give me for supper some goodly carbonadoes, a black pudding or so, and a sufficiency of beer, and I shall make your dog's voice so clear that he will be able to chant the aves in e la in the rood-loft of the great church."

"May it be true what thou sayest," whined the old woman, "and I shall give thee a florin."

"I shall accomplish it," said Ulenspiegel, "but only after supper."

She served him all he had asked for. He ate and drank his fill, and he would even have embraced the old woman for gratitude of his jaw, had it not been for what he had said to her.

While he was eating, the old dog put his paws on his knee to have a bone. Ulenspiegel gave him several; then he said to his hostess:

"If a man had eaten in your inn and not paid, what would you do?"

"I would have his best garment off that robber," answered the old woman.

"'Tis well," replied Ulenspiegel; then he took the dog under his arm and went into the stable. There he shut him up along with a bone, took the dead dog's skin out of his satchel, and coming back to the old woman, he asked her if she had said she would have his best garment off the man who would refuse to pay for his meal.

"Well, then, your dog dined with me and did not pay: so I have, following your own rede, taken his best and his only coat."

And he showed her the skin of the dead dog.

"Ah!" said the old woman, weeping, "it is cruel of thee, master doctor. Poor old dog! he was my child to me, a poor widow. Why didst thou take from me the only friend I had in the world? I have no more now to do but to die."

"I will bring him to life again," said Ulenspiegel.

"Bring him to life!" said she. "And he will fawn on me again, and he will look at me again, and he will lick me again, and he will wag his poor old stump of a tail again when he looks at me! Do this, master doctor, and thou shalt have dined here gratis, a most costly dinner, and I shall give thee a florin still over and above the bargain."

"I will bring him to life again," said Ulenspiegel; "but I must have hot water, syrup to glue the seams together, a needle and thread and sauce from the carbonadoes; and I would be alone during the operation."

The old woman gave him what he asked for; he took up the skin of the dead dog and went off to the stable.

There he smeared the old dog's muzzle with sauce, and the brute submitted to it with delight; he drew a great stripe of syrup under his belly, put syrup on his paws and sauce on his tail.

Then crying out loudly three times, he said: "Staet op! staet op! ik bevel 't, vuilen hond!"

And then lightly putting the dead dog's skin in his satchel he fetched the living dog a great kick and so pitched him into the inn chamber.

The old woman, seeing her dog alive and licking himself, was eager to embrace him; but Ulenspiegel did not permit this.

"You may not," said he, "caress this dog until he has washed off with his tongue all the syrup with which he is anointed; only then will the seams in the skin be closed up. Count out to me now my ten florins."

"I said one," answered the old woman.

"One for the operation, nine for the resurrection," replied Ulenspiegel.

She counted them out to him. Ulenspiegel went off, flinging into the inn chamber the skin of the dead dog and saying:

"There, woman, keep his old skin: it will serve you to patch up the new one when it will have holes in it."

LXVII

On that Sunday at Bruges was held the procession of the Blessed Blood. Claes said to his wife and to Nele to go to see it and that mayhap they might find Ulenspiegel in the town. As for himself, said he, he would keep the cottage if the pilgrim should perchance return thither.

The two women went off together; Claes, remaining at Damme, sate on the doorstep and found the town very empty and deserted. He heard nothing except the crystalline chime of some village bell, while from Bruges there came to him by fits and starts the music of the carillons and a great din of falconets and fireworks let off in honour of the Blessed Blood.

Claes, looking pensively for Ulenspiegel along the roads, saw nothing, only the sky pure and blue and cloudless, a few dogs lying tongue out in the sun, bold sparrows bathing and twittering in the dust, a cat spying after them, and the sunlight entering every house like a friend and making the brass kettles and pewter tankards on every dresser glisten and shine.

But Claes was downcast amid all this glee, and looking for his son he sought to see him behind the gray mist along the meadows, to hear him in the glad rustling of the leaves and the gay concert of the birds in the trees. Suddenly he saw on the road from Maldeghem a man of great stature, and knew it was not Ulenspiegel. He saw him pause at the edge of a field of carrots and eat eagerly.

"There's a man mightily an-hungered," said Claes.

Having lost sight of him for a moment, he saw him reappear at the corner of the street of the Heron, and he recognized the messenger from Josse who had brought him the seven hundred gold carolus. He went to him in the highway and said:

"Come to my house."

The man replied:

"Blessed are they that are kind to the wandering travelling man."

On the outer sill of the cottage window there was crumbled bread that Soetkin kept for the birds of the neighbourhood. Here they came in the winter to find their food. The man caught up these crumbs and ate them.

"You are hungry and thirsty," said Claes.

The man replied:

"Since I was stripped by robbers a week past, I have lived only on carrots from the fields and roots in the woods."

"It is then," said Claes, "time to indulge in feasting. And here," said he, opening the cupboard, "here is a full bowlful of peas, eggs, black puddings, hams, sausage of Ghent, waterzoey: hotchpotch of fish. Below, in the cellar, sleeps Louvain wine, made in the manner of the wines of Burgundy, red and clear as a ruby; it asks but the awakening of glasses. Come, now, let us put a faggot on the fire. Do you hear the black puddings sizzling on the grid? 'Tis the song of good feeding."

Claes, turning them over, said to the man:

"Have you not seen my boy Ulenspiegel?"

"Nay," he answered.

"Do you bring me any tidings of my brother Josse?" said Claes, putting upon the table grilled puddings, an omelette of fat ham, cheese, and great tankards, and red clear wine of Louvain sparkling in the flasks.

The man replied:

"Thy brother Josse died upon the rack at Sippenaken, near Aix. And that was for having borne arms, being a heretic, against the Emperor."

Claes was as one beside himself, and said, trembling in every limb, for his wrath was extreme:

"Evil murderers! Josse! my poor brother!"

The man said then in no gentle tone:

"Our joys and our woes are not of this world."

And he began to eat. Then he said:

"I gave thy brother help in his prison, passing myself off for a countryman from Nieswiller, a relation of his. I have come hither because he said to me: 'If thou dost not die for the faith as I do, go to my brother Claes; enjoin upon him to live in the Lord's peace, doing the works of mercy, rearing his son in secret in the law of Christ. The money I gave him was taken from the poor and ignorant people; let him use it to bring Thyl up in the knowledge of God and the word.'"

Having said this, the messenger gave Claes the kiss of peace.

And Claes, lamenting:

"Died on the rack," said he, "my poor brother!"

And he could not recover himself out of his great sorrow. All the same, as he saw that the man was thirsty and held out his glass, he poured wine for him, but he ate and drank joylessly.

Soetkin and Nele were away during seven days; during this time the messenger from Josse lived under Claes's roof.

Every night they heard Katheline crying terribly in the cottage:

"The fire, the fire! Make a hole: the soul would fain escape!"

And Claes would go to her, and calm her with soothing speech, then come back into his own house.

At the end of seven days the man departed and would accept no more from Claes but two carolus to feed and shelter him upon his way.

LXVIII

Nele and Soetkin being come back from Bruges, Claes, in his kitchen, seated on the floor after the fashion of tailors, was putting buttons on an old pair of breeches. Nele was close by him tarring on against the stork Titus Bibulus Schnouffius who, dashing at the bird and retreating by turns, was yelping in the shrillest voice. The stork standing on one foot, looking at him gravely and pensively, withdrew her long neck into the feathers on her breast. Titus Bibulus Schnouffius, seeing her so pacific, yelped more and more terribly. But all of a sudden the bird, tired and sick of this music, lashed out her bill like an arrow on the back of the dog, who fled yelling:

"Help, help!"

Claes laughed, Nele, too, and Soetkin never ceased looking into the street, seeking if she could not see Ulenspiegel coming.

Suddenly she said:

"Here is the provost and four constables. It cannot surely be us they want. There are two of them turning behind the cottage."

Claes lifted his nose from his task.

"And two that are stopping in front," went on Soetkin.

Claes got up.

"Who are they going to arrest in this street?" said she. "Jesus God! my husband, they are coming in here."

Claes leaped from the kitchen into the garden, followed by Nele.

He said to her:

"Save the carolus, they are behind the chimney-back."

Nele understood, then seeing that he was making through the hedge, that the constables seized him by the collar, that he was fighting to get loose from them, she cried and wept:

"He is innocent! he is innocent! do not hurt Claes, my father! Ulenspiegel, where art thou? Thou wouldst kill both of them!"

And she threw herself upon one of the constables and tore his face with her nails. Then crying out "They will kill him!" she fell down on the sward of the garden and rolled about on it, distraught.

Katheline had come at the noise, and standing straight and motionless, was contemplating the sight, saying as she shook her head from side to side: "The fire! the fire! Make a hole! the soul would fain escape!"

Soetkin saw nothing, and speaking to the constables that had come into the cottage:

"Sirs, whom seek ye in our poor dwelling? If it is my son, he is far away. Are your legs long ones?"

Saying so, she was full of mirth.

At this moment Nele, crying out for help, Soetkin ran into the garden, saw her husband seized by the collar and struggling on the highway close to the hedge.

"Strike!" she said. "Kill! Where art thou, Ulenspiegel?"

And she would have gone to help her husband, but one of the constables seized her round the body, not without peril.

Claes struggled and struck so hard that he might well have escaped, if the two constables to whom Soetkin had spoken had not come to the help of the two that were holding him.

They brought him with both his hands tied into the kitchen where Soetkin and Nele were weeping and sobbing.

"Messire provost," said Soetkin, "what hath my poor man done then, that you should bind him thus with ropes?"

"Heretic," said one of the constables.

"Heretic?" returned Soetkin, "thou a heretic, thou? These devils have lied."

Claes answered:

"I place myself in God's keeping."

He went out; Nele and Soetkin followed him weeping and believing that they also were to be brought before the judge. Men and women came to them; when they knew that Claes was going thus bound because he was suspect of heresy, they were so sore afraid that they went back into their homes in haste, and shut all the doors behind them. Only a few girls dared go to Claes and say to him:

"Whither goest thou thus bound, coal man?"

"To the grace of God, my girls," he replied.

They brought him to the prison of the commune; Soetkin and Nele sat down upon the threshold. Towards evening, Soetkin bade Nele leave her and go to see if Ulenspiegel was not coming back.

LXIX

Soon the news ran abroad through the villages round about that a man had been cast into prison for heresy and that the inquisitor Titelman, the dean of Renaix, nicknamed the Inquisitor Pitiless, would conduct the interrogatories. Ulenspiegel was then living at Koolkerke, in the most private favours of a pretty farmer, an amiable widow that denied him nothing that was hers. There he was very well off, spoiled and caressed until the day when a treacherous rival, the sheriff of the commune, lay in wait for him one morning as he came out of the tavern and would fain have rubbed him down with an oaken towel. But Ulenspiegel, to cool his anger, cast him in a pond whence the sheriff crept out as best he could, green as a toad and steeped full as a sponge.

Ulenspiegel for this high feat, must leave Koolkerke and set off with all speed towards Damme, fearing the sheriff's vengeance.

The evening was falling cool, Ulenspiegel ran swiftly; fain would he have been at home already, in his mind's eye he saw Nele sewing, Soetkin preparing supper, Claes binding faggots, Schnouffius gnawing on a bone and the stork knocking with her bill on the housewife's front to have some scraps of food.

A pedlar afoot said to him as he passed:

"Whither away in such hurry?"

"To Damme, to my own home," replied Ulenspiegel.

The pedlar answered:

"The town is not safe now by reason of the folk of the reformed faith that are being arrested there."

And he went on his way.

Arrived before the inn of the Roode-Schildt, Ulenspiegel went in to drink a glass of dobbel-cuyt. The baes said to him:

"Are not you the son of Claes?"

"I am," answered Ulenspiegel.

"Make haste, then," said the baes, "for the ill hour has struck for your father."

Ulenspiegel asked what he meant.

The baes replied that he would know all too soon.

And Ulenspiegel continued to run.

As he was at the entrance to Damme, the dogs that were on the doorsteps jumped out at his legs yelping and barking. The goodwives came out at the noise and said to him, all talking at once:

"Whence come you?" "Have you news of your father?" "Where is your mother?" "Is she with him in prison, too?" "Alas! if only they do not burn him!"

Ulenspiegel ran the harder.

He met Nele, who said to him:

"Thyl, do not go to your house: the town governors have put a guard in it on behalf of His Majesty."

Ulenspiegel stopped.

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

"Yea," said Nele, "and Soetkin weeps on the threshold."

Then the heart of the prodigal son was swollen with anguish and he said to Nele:

"I am going to see them."

"That is not what you should do," said she, "but you should obey Claes instead, who said to me before he was taken: 'save the carolus, they are behind the chimney-back.' They are what you must save first and foremost, for it is the inheritance of Soetkin, the poor woman."

Ulenspiegel, listening no whit, ran to the gaol. There he saw Soetkin seated on the threshold; she embraced him with tears, and they wept together.

The people assembling, because of these two, in a crowd in front of the gaol, the constables came and told Ulenspiegel and Soetkin that they were to be off out of that and at the speediest possible.

Mother and son went away to Nele's cottage, next door to their own home, before which they saw one of the lansquenet troopers summoned from Bruges through fear of the troubles that might arise during the trial and during the execution. For the folk of Damme loved Claes greatly.

The trooper was sitting on the pavement, before the door, busy sucking the last drop of brandy out of a flask. Finding nothing more in it, he flung it some paces away, and drawing his dagger, he amused himself in digging up the paving stones.

Soetkin, all tears, entered Katheline's house.

And Katheline shaking her head: "The fire! Make a hole, the soul would fain escape," said she.

LXX

The bell that is called Borgstorm--the storm of the burg--having summoned the judges to the tribunal, they met in the Vierschare, at the stroke of four, about the linden tree of judgment.

Claes was brought before them and saw seated beneath the canopy the bailiff of Damme, and beside him and opposite him the mayor, the aldermen, and the clerk.

The people flocked up at the sound of the bell in great multitude. Many said:

"The judges are not there to do the works of justice, but of imperial serfdom."

The clerk announced that the tribunal having first met in the Vierschare, around the linden tree, had decided that, considering the denunciations and testimonies before it, there had been good ground for seizing the body of Claes, coal vendor, native of Damme, husband of Soetkin, the daughter of Joostens. They would now, he added, proceed to the hearing of the witnesses.

Hans Barbier, a neighbour of Claes, was the first heard. Having taken the oath, he said: "Upon my soul's salvation, I affirm and asseverate that Claes, present before this court, has been known to me for almost seventeen years, that he has always lived honestly and decently, and according to the laws and rules of our holy mother the Church, has never spoken opprobriously of her, nor to my knowledge harboured any heretic, nor hidden Luther's book, nor spoken of the said book, nor done anything that could bring him into suspicion of having transgressed the laws and regulations of the empire. So help me God and all His saints."

Jan Van Roosebekke was next heard, and said "that during the absence of Soetkin, Claes's wife, he had often thought he heard in the accused man's house the voices of two men, and that often at night, after the curfew, he had seen in a small chamber beneath the roof a light, and two men, one of them was Claes, conversing together. As for saying whether the other man was heretic or no, he could not, having only seen him at a distance. As for what concerns Claes," he added, "I will say, speaking in all truth, that since I have known him, he always kept his Easter regularly, communicated on the principal feast days, went to mass every Sunday, except that of the Blessed Blood and those following. And I know nothing further but this. So help me God and all His saints."

Questioned if he had not seen Claes in the tavern of the Blauwe Torre selling indulgences and mocking at purgatory, Jan Van Roosebekke replied that in fact Claes had sold indulgences, but without contempt or mockery, and that he, Jan Van Roosebekke, had bought even as also was fain to do Josse Grypstuiver, the dean of the fishmongers, who was there present among the crowd.

Thereafter the bailiff said he would proclaim the actions and conduct for the which Claes was brought before the court of the Vierschare.

"The informer," said he, "having, as it happened, remained at Damme, so as not to go to Bruges to spend his money in riot and revelry, as is too often done at these holy times, was soberly taking the air on his own doorstep. Being there he saw a man walking in the street of the Heron. Claes, perceiving this man, went to him and saluted him. The man was arrayed in black cloth. He went into Claes's house, and the door of the cottage was left ajar. Curious to know what this man might be, the informer went into the porch, heard Claes speaking in the kitchen with the stranger, of a certain Josse, his brother, who having been taken prisoner among the reformed troops, had been for this put to death on the rack not far from Aix. The stranger said to Claes that the money he had received from his brother being money gained through the ignorance of poor folk, he was to employ it in bringing up his son in the reformed religion. He had enjoined Claes also to leave the bosom of our Mother Holy Church, and uttered other impious words to which Claes made answer only with these words: 'Cruel murderers! my poor brother!' And the accused thus blasphemed against our Holy Father the Pope and his Royal Majesty, accusing them of cruelty because they most justly punished heresy as a crime, being treason divine and human. When the man had made an end of eating, the informer heard Claes cry aloud: 'Poor Josse, may God have thee in His glory, they were cruel to thee!' Thus he even accused God of impiety, deeming that He may receive heretics into His heaven. And Claes ceased not to say 'My poor brother!' The stranger, then entering into frenzy like a preacher in his preaching, cried: 'She shall fall, great Babylon the Romish whore, and she shall become the habitation of demons and the haunt of every obscene bird!' Claes said: 'Cruel murderers! My poor brother!' The stranger, continuing his discourse, said: 'For the angel will take up that stone which is as great as a millstone. And it shall be cast into the sea, and he will say: 'Thus great Babylon shall be cast out, and she shall no more be found.' 'Messire,' said Claes, 'your mouth is filled with anger, but tell me when shall come the reign when they that are meek and lowly of heart shall be able to live in peace upon the earth?' 'Never,' replied the stranger, 'so long as Antichrist, which is the Pope and the enemy of truth, reigneth.' 'Ah,' said Claes, 'you speak of our Holy Father without respect. Assuredly he knoweth naught of the cruel torments with which the poor reformers are punished.' The stranger made answer: 'He is not ignorant of these, for it is he that issueth the edicts, hath them enforced by the Emperor, now by the king, who hath the profit of confiscations, inherits from the dead, and readily brings suit for heresy against the rich.' Claes replied: 'These things are told in the country of Flanders, I must needs believe them; man's flesh is weak, even when it is royal flesh. My poor Josse!' And Claes by this signified that it was through base desire of lucre that His Majesty punished heresiarchs. The stranger, wishing to harangue further, Claes replied: 'Be so good, messire, as to hold no more such discourses with me, for if they were overheard, they would stir up some grievous suit against me.'

"Claes arose to go to the cellar and came up thence with a jug of beer. 'I will shut the door,' said he then, and the informer heard no more, for he must needs lightly leave the house. The door that had been shut was nevertheless opened again at nightfall. The stranger came out, but went back speedily and knocked at it saying: 'Claes, I am cold, I have nowhere to lodge: give me shelter, no one has seen me come in, the town is deserted and empty.' Claes received him in his house, lighted a lantern, and was seen preceding the heretic, mounting the stairs and bringing the stranger underneath the roof to a little chamber whose window looked towards the country...."

"Who, then," cried Claes, "who can have recounted all if not thou, vile fishmonger, whom I saw on that Sunday upon thy threshold, stiff as a post, hypocritically watching the swallows flying through the air?"

And with his finger he pointed to Josse Grypstuiver, the dean of the fishmongers, who showed his ugly face amid the crowd of the people.

The fishmonger smiled cruelly, seeing Claes betray himself in this fashion. All the people, men, women, and girls, said one to the other:

"The poor fellow, his words will past doubt cause his death."

But the clerk continued his announcement:

"The heretic and Claes," said he, "conversed together for long that night, and also during other nights, during which the stranger could be seen making many gestures of threatening or blessing, and lifting his arms to heaven as the manner is of his fellows in heresy. Claes seemed to approve of his words.

"Certes, during these days, evenings and nights, they talked opprobriously of the mass, of confession, of indulgences, and of His Royal Majesty...."

"No man hath heard it," said Claes, "and I cannot be accused thus without proofs!"

The clerk continued:

"Another thing was heard. When the stranger came out from thy house, on the seventh day at the tenth hour, the night being fallen already, thou didst walk in the way with him as far as close to the boundary of the field of Katheline. There he asked what thou hadst done with the wicked idols"--and at that the bailiff crossed himself--"of Madame Virgin, Master Saint Nicholas, and Master Saint Martin. Thou didst answer that thou hadst broken them to pieces and cast them into the well. And they were in fact found in thy well last night, and the fragments are in the torture-chamber."

At this word Claes appeared overwhelmed. The bailiff asked him if he had nothing to say in answer: Claes made a sign with his head to say no.

The bailiff asked him if he did not wish to retract the evil thought that had made him break up the images and the impious error that by reason whereof he had uttered words opprobrious to His Divine Majesty and His Royal Majesty.

Claes answered that his body was His Royal Majesty's but that his conscience was Christ's, whose law he meant to follow. The bailiff asked him if this law was that of our Mother Holy Church. Claes made answer:

"It is contained in the holy Gospel."

Called upon to answer the question whether the Pope is the representative of God upon earth:

"No," said he.

Asked if he believed it was forbidden to worship the images of Madame the Virgin and Messieurs the Saints, he replied that it was idolatry. Questioned on the point as to whether auricular confession be a good and salutary thing, he replied:

"Christ said: 'Confess yourselves one to another'."

He was valiant and stout in his answers, though he seemed sorely troubled and affrighted at the bottom of his heart.

Eight o'clock having struck, and the night falling, the members of the court withdrew, deferring till the morrow their final judgment.

LXXI

In Katheline's cottage Soetkin wept distraught with anguish. And she said over and over again:

"My husband! my poor husband!"

Ulenspiegel and Nele embraced her with utmost tenderness. Then taking them into her arms she wept in silence. And then she signed to them to leave her alone. Nele said to Ulenspiegel:

"Let us leave her there, it is her own wish: let us save the carolus."

They went away together; Katheline kept moving round Soetkin, saying:

"Make a hole: the soul would fain escape!"

And Soetkin, with fixed eyes, looked at her without seeing her.

The cottages of Claes and Katheline touched, that of Claes set back with a little garden in front, Katheline's had a patch of ground planted with beans giving upon the street. This patch was surrounded with a green hedge in which Ulenspiegel to get to Nele's and Nele to get to Ulenspiegel's, had made a big hole in their childish days.

Ulenspiegel and Nele came into this garden patch, and from there saw the trooper who with head wagging spat into the air, but the spittle fell back on his doublet. A wicker flask lay by his side:

"Nele," said Ulenspiegel, in a whisper, "this drunken trooper has not drunk out his thirst; he must drink more still. We shall then be his master. Let us take his flask."

At the sound of their voices, the lansquenet turned his heavy head in their direction, hunted for his flask, and not finding it, he went on spitting into the air and tried to see his spittle falling back in the moonlight.

"He is full of brandy to the teeth," said Ulenspiegel; "do you hear how he can hardly spit?"

However, the trooper, having spit and stared in the air a long while, put out his arm again to get his hand on the flask. He found it, put his mouth to its neck, threw his head back, turned the flagon upside down, tapped on it to make it give up all its juice and sucked at it like a babe at its mother's breast. Finding nothing in it, he resigned himself, put the flask down beside him, swore a little in high German, spat again, waggled his head to right and left, and went to sleep muttering inarticulate and unintelligible paternosters.

Ulenspiegel, knowing that this sleep would not last, and that it must be thickened further, slipped through the hole in the hedge, took the trooper's flask, and gave it to Nele, who filled it with brandy.

The trooper did not cease to snore; Ulenspiegel passed again through the hole in the hedge and put the full flask between his legs, came back into Katheline's bean patch and waited behind the hedge with Nele.

Because of the chill of the newly drawn liquor the trooper awoke a little, and with his first movement sought what was making him cold under the doublet.

Judging with drunken intuition that this might well be a full flask, he put his hand to it. Ulenspiegel and Nele saw him, in the light of the moon, shake the flask to hear the lap of the liquor, taste it, laugh, marvel that it should be so full, drink a mouthful, then a good gulp, put it down on the ground, take it up again and drink once more.

Then he sang:

When Seigneur Maan comes up the way
To bid good e'en to lady Zee,

To high Germans, dame Zee, which is the sea, is the wife of Seigneur Maan, which is the moon and the master of women. And so he sang:

When Seigneur Maan comes up the way
To bid good e'en to lady Zee,
The lady Zee will straight purvey
A cup of wine spiced daintily,
When Seigneur Maan comes up the way.

With him she then will sup that day
And give of kisses a relay:
And when he's cleared the supper tray
Within her bed to slumber lay
When Seigneur Maan comes up the way.

Just so, my dear, provide for me,
Good food and wine spiced daintily
Just so, my dear, provide for me
When Seigneur Maan comes up the way.

Then drinking and singing a quatrain turn and turn about, he went to sleep. And he could not hear Nele saying: "They are in a pot behind the chimney-back"; nor see Ulenspiegel go through the stable into Claes's kitchen, lift the slab of the chimney-back, find the pot and the carolus, come back into Katheline's garden, hide the carolus there beside the well wall, knowing full well that if they were searched for it would be inside and not outside.

Then they returned to Soetkin and found the sad wife weeping and saying:

"My husband! My poor husband!"

Nele and Ulenspiegel watched by her until morning.

LXXII

On the morrow, the Borgstorm summoned with loud peals the judges to the court of the Vierschare.

When they were seated on the four benches, about the tree of justice, they interrogated Claes afresh and asked him if he wished to recant his errors.

Claes raised his hand towards heaven:

"Christ, my Lord, seeth me from on high," said he, "I looked upon his sun when my boy Ulenspiegel was born. Where is he now, the runagate? Soetkin, my gentle goodwife, wilt thou be brave against ill fortune?"

Then looking at the linden tree, he said, cursing it:

"Storm winds and drought! make all the trees of the land of our father die as they stand rather than see freedom of conscience condemned to death under their shade. Where art thou, my son Ulenspiegel? I was hard to thee. Messieurs, have pity upon me and judge me as Our Compassionate Lord would judge me."

All that heard him wept, save the judges.

Then he asked if there was no pardon for him, saying:

"I toiled all my days, earning but little; I was good to the poor and comfortable to all men. I left the Romish Church to obey the spirit of God that spoke to me. I ask for no other boon than to commute the penalty of the fire into that of perpetual banishment for life from the land of Flanders, a penalty already full grievous."

All that were present cried aloud:

"Pity, sirs! Mercy!"

But Josse Grypstuiver did not cry with them.

The bailiff signed to the people there to be silent and said that the edicts contained an express prohibition against asking mercy for heretics; but that if Claes would abjure his error, he should be executed by the rope instead of by fire.

And among the people ran the word:

"Fire or rope, it is death."

And the women wept, and the men growled sullen and low.

Then said Claes:

"I will not abjure. Do with my body as your mercy pleases."

The dean of Renaix, Titelman, cried out:

"It is intolerable to see such heretic vermin lift up its head before its judges; to burn their bodies is but a fleeting pain; we must save their souls and force them by the torment to deny their errors, that they may not give the people the dangerous spectacle of heretics dying in final impenitence."

At this word the women wept more and more and the men said:

"Where confession is made, there is penalty, but no torture."

The court decided that, torture not being laid down in the Ordinances, there was no ground for making Claes undergo it. Once more called upon to abjure he replied:

"I cannot."

He was, in accordance with the edicts, declared guilty of simony, because of the sale of the indulgences, a heretic, harbourer of heretics, and as such, condemned to be burned alive until death ensued before the doors of the Townhall.

His body would be left for two days' space fastened to the stake to serve as an example and warning, and thereafter interred in that place where the bodies of executed criminals are wont to be buried.

The court awarded to the informer, Josse Grypstuiver, who was not named, fifty florins on the first hundred florins of the inheritance, and a tenth part of the remainder.

Having heard this sentence, Claes said to the dean of the fishmongers:

"Thou shalt come to an ill death and a bad end, thou man of evil, who for wretched pelf dost make a widow of a happy wife, and an unhappy orphan of a lighthearted son."

The judges had allowed Claes to speak, for they also, all but Titelman, held in scorn and loathing the informing of the dean of the fishmongers.

The latter appeared all livid with shame and rage.

And Claes was taken back to gaol.

LXXIII

On the morrow, which was the day before Claes was to die, the sentence was made known to Nele, to Ulenspiegel, and to Soetkin.

They asked the judges for permission to enter the prison, which was granted, but not to Nele.

When they went in, they saw Claes fastened to the wall with a long chain. A little wood fire was burning in the fireplace because of the dampness. For it is ordained by law and justice, in Flanders, to be indulgent with those that are to die, and to give them bread, meat or cheese, and wine. But the greedy gaolers often violate the law, and many of them eat the greater part and the best of the poor prisoners' food.

Claes embraced Ulenspiegel and Soetkin weeping, but he was the first to dry his eyes, because such was his will, being a man and head of a family.

Soetkin wept and Ulenspiegel said:

"I will break these cruel irons."

Soetkin wept, saying:

"I will go to King Philip, he will grant pardon."

Claes replied:

"The king inherits the goods of the martyrs." Then he added: "Beloved wife and son, I am about to go sadly and dolorously out of this world. If I have some fear of suffering for my body, I am sore troubled also thinking that, when I am no more, ye will both be poor and in need, for the king will take all your goods."

Ulenspiegel answered, speaking in a whisper:

"Nele saved all yesterday with me."

"I am full glad of it," replied Claes; "the informer will not laugh over my spoils."

"Rather let him die first," said Soetkin, her eye full of hate and without weeping.

But Claes, thinking of the carolus, said:

"Thou wast cunning, Thylken my dear boy; she will not be hungry then in her old age, Soetkin my widow."

And Claes embraced her, pressing her body tightly to his breast, and she wept more, thinking that soon she must lose his sweet protection.

Claes looked at Ulenspiegel and said:

"Son, thou didst often sin as thou didst run upon the highways, as do wicked lads; thou must do so no more, my child, nor leave the afflicted widow alone in her house, for thou owest her protection and defence, thou the male."

"Father, this I shall do," said Ulenspiegel.

"O my poor husband!" said Soetkin, embracing him. "What great crime have we committed? We lived by us two peaceably, an honest simple life, loving one another well, Lord God, thou knowest it. We arose betimes to labour, and at night, giving thee thanks, we ate our daily bread. I will go to the king and rend him with my nails. Lord God, we were not guilty folk!"

But the gaoler came in and they must needs depart.

Soetkin begged to remain. Claes felt her poor face burn his own, and Soetkin's tears, falling in floods, wetting his cheeks, and all her poor body shivering and trembling in his arms. He begged that she might stay with him.

The gaoler said again that they must go, and took Soetkin from out of Claes's arms.

Claes said to Ulenspiegel:

"Watch over her."

Ulenspiegel said he would do this. Then he went away with Soetkin, the son supporting the mother.

LXXIV

On the morrow, which was the day of execution, the neighbours came and in pity shut up Ulenspiegel, Soetkin, and Nele, in Katheline's house.

But they had not thought that they could hear from afar the cries of the victim, and through the windows see the flame of the fire.

Katheline went roaming about the town, nodding her head and saying:

"Make a hole, the soul would fain come forth!"

At nine o'clock Claes was brought out from the prison, in his shirt, his hands bound behind his back. In accordance with the sentence, the pyre was prepared in the street of Notre Dame around a stake set up before the doors of the Townhall. The executioner and his assistants had not yet made an end of piling up the wood.

Claes, in the midst of his gaolers, waited patiently till this task was finished, while the provost, on horseback, and the liveried men of the bailiwick, and the nine lansquenets summoned from Bruges, could barely keep within bounds of respect the people growling and unruly.

All said, it was sheer cruelty to murder thus in his old age, unjustly, a poor fellow so kind hearted, compassionate, and stout hearted in toil.

Suddenly they all knelt down and prayed. The bells of Notre Dame were tolling for the dead.

Katheline also was in the crowd of the common people, in the first row, and all beside herself. Looking at Claes and the pyre, she said, nodding her head:

"The fire! the fire! Make a hole; the soul would fain escape!"

Soetkin and Nele, hearing the bells tolling, both crossed themselves. But Ulenspiegel did not, saying that he would no longer worship God after the fashion of murderers. And he ran about the cottage, seeking to break down doors and to leap out through windows; but all were guarded.

Suddenly Soetkin cried out, hiding her face in her apron:

"The smoke!"

The three afflicted ones saw indeed in the sky a great whirl of smoke, all black. It was the smoke of the pyre on which was Claes bound to a stake, and which the executioner had just set fire to in three places in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Claes looked about him, and not perceiving Soetkin and Ulenspiegel in the crowd, he was glad, thinking they would not behold him suffering.

No other sound was to be heard but the voice of Claes praying, the wood crackling, men growling, women weeping, Katheline saying:--"Take away the fire, make a hole: the soul would fain escape."--and the bells of Notre Dame tolling for the dead.

Suddenly Soetkin became white as snow, shuddered in all her body without weeping, and pointed with her finger to the sky. A long narrow flame had just spouted up from the pyre and rose at moments above the roofs of the low houses. It was cruelly tormenting to Claes, for according to the whims of the wind it gnawed at his legs, touched his beard and made it frizzle and smoke, licked at his hair and burned it.

Ulenspiegel held Soetkin in his arms and would have dragged her away from the window. They heard a piercing cry, it came from Claes whose body was burning on one side only. But he held his tongue and wept, and his breast was all wet with his tears.

Then Soetkin and Ulenspiegel heard a great noise of voices. This was the citizens, women and children, crying out:

"Claes was not condemned to burn by a slow fire, but by a great one. Executioner, make the pyre burn up!"

The executioner did so, but the fire did not catch quickly enough.

"Strangle him," they cried.

And they cast stones at the provost.

"The flame! The great flame!" cried Soetkin.

In very deed, a red flame climbed up the sky in the midst of the smoke.

"He is about to die," said the widow. "Lord God, have pity upon the soul of the innocent. Where is the king, that I may rip out his heart with my nails?"

The bells of Notre Dame were tolling for the dead.

Soetkin heard Claes again utter a loud cry, but she saw not his body writhing from the torment of the flame, nor his face twisting, nor his head that he turned every way and beat against the wood of the stake. The people continued to cry out and to hiss; women and boys threw stones, and all heard Claes saying, from the midst of the flame and the smoke:

"Soetkin! Thyl!"

And his head fell forward on his breast like a head of lead.

And a lamentable shrill and piercing cry was heard coming from out of Katheline's cottage. Then none heard aught else, save the poor witless woman nodding her head and saying: "The soul would fain escape!"

Claes was dead. The pyre having burned out sank down at the foot of the stake. And the poor body, all blackened, stayed on it hanging by the neck.

And the bells of Notre Dame tolled for the dead.

LXXV

Soetkin was in Katheline's standing against the wall, her head hanging low and her hands joined together. She was holding Ulenspiegel in her embrace, neither speaking nor weeping.

Ulenspiegel also remained silent; he was terrified to feel the fire of fever with which his mother's body burned.

The neighbours, being back from the place of execution, said that Claes had ended his sufferings.

"He is in glory," said the widow.

"Pray," said Nele to Ulenspiegel: and she gave him her rosary; but he would by no means make use of it, because, said he, the beads had been blessed by the Pope.

Night having fallen, Ulenspiegel said to the widow: "Mother, we must put you in bed: I shall watch beside you."

But Soetkin: "I have no need," said she, "that you should watch; sleep is good for young men."

Nele made ready a bed for each in the kitchen, then she went away.

They stayed together as long as the remains of a fire of roots burned in the chimney place.

Soetkin went to bed, Ulenspiegel likewise, and heard her weeping beneath the coverlets.

Outside, in the silence of night, the wind made the trees by the canal complain with a sound as of the sea, and, harbinger of autumn, flung dust in whirlwinds against the cottage windows.

Ulenspiegel saw as it might be a man coming and going; he heard as it might be a sound of feet in the kitchen. Looking, he saw no man; hearkening, he heard nothing now but the wind soughing in the chimney and Soetkin weeping under her bedclothes.

Then he heard steps again, and behind him, at his head, a sigh.... "Who is there?" he said.

None answered, but three knocks were given on the table. Ulenspiegel grew afraid, and trembling: "Who is there?" he said again. He received no answer but three knocks on the table and he felt two arms clasp and strain him, and a body lean upon his face, a body whose skin was wrinkled and that had a great hole in its breast and a smell of burning:

"Father," said Ulenspiegel, "is it thy poor body that weighs thus upon me?"

He got no answer, and although the shade was beside him, he heard a cry without: "Thyl! Thyl!" Suddenly Soetkin rose and came to Ulenspiegel's bed, "Dost thou hear naught?" said she.

"Aye," said he, "the father calling on me."

"I," said Soetkin, "I felt a cold body beside me in my bed; and the mattresses moved, and the curtains were shaken and I heard a voice saying: Soetkin; a voice low as a breath, and a step light as the sound of a gnat's wings." Then speaking to Claes's spirit:--"Husband," she said, "if thou desirest aught in heaven where God keeps thee in his glory, thou must tell us what it is, that we may carry out thy will."

Suddenly a blast blew the door open impetuously, filling the chamber with dust, and Ulenspiegel and Soetkin heard the far-off croakings of ravens.

They went out together and came to the pyre.

The night was black, save when the clouds, driven away by the sharp north wind and galloping like stags across the sky, left the face of the moon clear and shining.

A constable of the commune was patrolling, keeping guard on the pyre. Ulenspiegel and Soetkin heard the sound of his steps upon the hard ground and the voice of a raven, doubtless calling others, for from afar croakings answered him.

Ulenspiegel and Soetkin having drawn near to the dead fire, the raven alit upon Claes's shoulder; they heard the blows of his beak upon the body, and soon other ravens arrived.

Ulenspiegel would have leaped upon the pyre and struck at the ravens: the constable said to him:

"Wizard, seekest thou hands of glory? Know that the hands of men burned do not render invisible, but only the hands of men hanged as thou shalt be one day."

"Messire Constable," answered Ulenspiegel, "I am no wizard, but the orphaned son of him who is there fastened, and this woman is his widow. We were but minded to kiss him once again and to have a little of his ashes in memory of him. Give us leave for this, messire, who art no trooper from a foreign country, but a very son of this land."

"Be it as thou wouldst," replied the constable.

The orphan and the widow, going over the burnt wood, came to the body; both kissed with tears the face of Claes.

Ulenspiegel took from the place of the heart, where the flames had made a great hole, a little of the dead man's ashes. Then kneeling, Soetkin and he prayed. When the dawn appeared pallid in the heavens, they were both there still; but the constable drove them away for fear of being punished because of his good-will.

Returning, Soetkin took a piece of red silk and a piece of black silk; with these she made a sachet, and then put the ashes in it, and to the sachet sewed two ribbands, so that Ulenspiegel could always wear it on his neck. When she was putting the sachet in its place on him, she said to him:

"Let these ashes, that are the heart of my man, this red that is his blood, this black that is our mourning, be ever on thy breast, like the fire of vengeance upon the murderers."

"I would have it even so," said Ulenspiegel.

And the widow embraced the orphan, and the sun arose.

LXXVI