Chapter III: Book III: I (3)

Bloody Duke, silly head,
Have you seen the newlywed?

And every time he had made a wrong manoeuvre the soldiers would sing:

The Duke has dust in eye:
He has seen the newlywed.

XXIV

In the meantime, King Philip was plunged in bitter melancholy. In his grievous pride he prayed to God to give him power to conquer England, to subdue France, to take Milan, Genoa, Venice, and great lord of all the seas, thus to reign over all Europe.

Thinking of this triumph, he laughed not.

He was continually and always cold; wine never warmed him, nor the fire of scented wood that was always burning in the chamber where he was. There always writing, sitting amid so many letters that a hundred casks might have been filled with them, he brooded over the universal domination of the whole world, such as was wielded by the emperors of Rome; on his jealous hatred of his son Don Carlos, since the latter had wanted to go to the Low Countries in the Duke of Alba's place, to seek to reign there, he thought, without doubt. And seeing him ugly, deformed, a savage and cruel madman, he hated him the more. But he never spoke of it.

Those who served King Philip and his son Don Carlos knew not which of the twain they ought to fear the most; whether the son, agile, murderous, tearing his servitors with his nails, or the cowardly and crafty father, using others to strike, and like a hyæna, living upon corpses.

The servitors were terrified to see them prowling around each other. And they said that there would soon be a death in the Escurial.

Now they learned presently that Don Carlos had been imprisoned for the crime of high treason. And they knew that he was devouring his soul with black spite, that he had hurt his face trying to get through the bars of his prison in order to escape, and that Madame Isabelle of France, his mother, was weeping without ceasing.

But King Philip was not weeping.

The rumour came to them that Don Carlos had been given green figs and that he was dead the next day as if he had gone to sleep. The physicians said as soon as he had eaten the figs the blood ceased to beat, the functions of life, as Nature meant them, were interrupted; he could neither spit, nor vomit, nor get rid of anything from out of his body. His belly swelled at his death.

King Philip heard the death mass for Don Carlos, had him buried in the chapel of his royal residence and marble set over his body; but he did not weep.

And the lords in waiting said to one another, mocking the princely epitaph that was on the tombstone:

HERE LIES ONE WHO, EATING GREEN FIGS,
DIED WITHOUT HAVING BEEN SICK

A qui jaze qui en para desit verdad,
Morio s'in infirmidad

And King Philip looked with a lustful eye upon the Princess of Eboli, who was married. He besought her love, and she yielded.

Madame Isabelle of France, of whom it was said that she had favoured the designs of Don Carlos upon the Low Countries, became haggard and woebegone. And her hair fell out in great handfuls at a time. Often she vomited, and the nails of her feet and her hands came out. And she died.

And King Philip did not weep.

The hair of the Prince of Eboli fell out also. He became sad and always complaining. Then the nails of his feet and his hands came out, too.

And King Philip had him buried.

And he paid for the widow's mourning and did not weep.

XXV

At this time certain women and girls of Damme came to ask Nele if she would be the May bride and hide among the brushwood with the groom that would be found for her; "for," said the women, not without jealousy, "there is not one young man in all Damme and round about who would not fain be betrothed to you, who stay so lovely, good, and fresh: the gift of a witch, doubtless."

"Goodwives," answered Nele, "say to the young men that seek after me: 'Nele's heart is not here, but with him that wandereth to deliver the land of our fathers.' And if I am fresh, even as you say, it is no gift of a witch, but the gift of good health."

The goodwives replied:

"All the same, Katheline is suspect."

"Do not believe what ill folk say," answered Nele; "Katheline is no witch. The law-men burned tow upon her head and God struck her with witlessness."

And Katheline, nodding her head in a corner where she was sitting all huddled up, said:

"Take away the fire; he will come back, my darling Hanske."

The goodwives asking who was this Hanske, Nele replied:

"It is the son of Claes, my foster brother, whom she thinks she lost since God struck her."

And the kindly goodwives gave silver patards to Katheline. And when they were new she showed them to someone that nobody could see, saying:

"I am rich, rich in shining silver. Come, Hanske, my darling; I will pay for my love."

And the goodwives being gone, Nele wept in the lonely cottage. And she thought on Ulenspiegel wandering in far-off countries where she might not follow him, and on Katheline who, often groaning "take away the fire," held her bosom with both hands, showing in this way that the fire of madness burned her head and her body feverishly.

And in the meanwhile the bride and groom of May hid in the grass.

He or she who found one of them was, according to the sex of the one found, and his or her own, King or Queen of the feast.

Nele heard the cries of joy of the lads and lasses when the May bride was found on the edge of a ditch, hidden among the tall grasses.

And she wept, thinking on the sweet time when they hunted for her and her friend Ulenspiegel.

XXVI

Meanwhile, Lamme and he were riding along well astraddle upon their asses.

"Listen here, Lamme," said Ulenspiegel, "the nobles of the Low Countries, through jealousy against Orange, have betrayed the cause of the confederates, the holy alliance, the valiant covenant signed for the good of the land of our fathers. Egmont and de Hoorn were traitors alike and with no advantage to themselves. Brederode is dead; in this war there is nothing left us now but the poor common folk of Brabant and Flanders waiting for loyal chiefs to go forward; and then, my son, the isles, the isles of Zealand, North Holland, too, over which the Prince is governor; and farther still and on the sea, Edzard, Count of Emden and East Frisia."

"Alas," said Lamme, "I see it clear; we journey between rope, rack, and stake, dying of hunger, gaping for thirst, and with no hope of rest."

"We are but at the beginning," replied Ulenspiegel. "Deign to consider how that all in this is pleasure for us, slaying our enemies, mocking them, having our pouches full of florins; well laden with meat, with beer, with wine, with brandy. What would you have more, feather bed? Would you like us to sell our asses and buy horses?"

"My son," said Lamme, "the trotting of a horse is very severe on a man of my corpulence."

"You will sit on your steed as peasants do," said Ulenspiegel, "and no man will mock at you, since you are clad like a peasant, and do not wear the sword like me, but only carry a pikestaff."

"My son," said Lamme, "are you sure that our two passes will avail for the little towns?"

"Have not I the curé's certificate," said Ulenspiegel, "with the great seal of the Church in red wax hanging from it by two tails of parchment, and our confession cards? The soldiers and catchpolls of the duke have no power against two men so well armed. And the black paternosters we have for sale? We are two reiters, both of us, you a Fleming and I a German, travelling by express command from the duke, to win over the heretics of this land to the Holy Catholic faith by the sale of sacred articles. We shall thus enter everywhere the houses of noble lords and the fat abbés. And they will give us rich hospitality. And we shall surprise their secrets. Lick your chops, my gentle friend."

"My son," said Lamme, "we will then be carrying on the trade of spies."

"By law and right of war," replied Ulenspiegel.

"If they hear of the affair of the three preachers, we shall die without a doubt," said Lamme.

Ulenspiegel sang:

"My standards 'Live' as motto bear
Live ever in a sunshine land
My skin the first is buff well tanned
And steel the second skin I wear."

But Lamme, sighing:

"I have nothing but one skin, and a soft one; the least stroke of a dagger would make a hole in it immediately. We should do better to settle in some useful trade than to gad about in this way over hill and valley, to serve all these great princes who, with their feet in velvet hose, eat ortolans on gilded tables. To us the blows, perils, battle, rain, hail, snow, the thin soups that fall to vagabonds. To them the fine sausages, fat capons, savoury thrushes, succulent fowls."

"The water is coming into your mouth, my gentle friend," said Ulenspiegel.

"Where are ye, fresh bread, golden koekebakken, delicious creams? But where art thou, my wife?"

Ulenspiegel replied:

"The ashes beat upon my heart and drive me on to the battle. But thou, mild lamb that hast naught to avenge, neither the death of thy father nor of thy mother, nor the grief of those thou lovest, nor thy present poverty, leave me alone to march whither I say, if the toils of war affright thee."

"Alone?" said Lamme.

And he pulled up his ass, which began to eat a tuft of thistles, of which there was a great plantation on that wayside. Ulenspiegel's ass stopped and ate likewise.

"Alone," said Lamme. "You will not leave me alone, my son; that would be an infamous cruelty. To have lost my wife and then further to lose my friend, that is impossible. I will whine no more, I promise you. And since it must be"--and he raised his head proudly--"I will go under the rain of bullets. Aye! And in the midst of swords; aye! in the face of those foul soldiers that drink blood like wolves. And if one day I fall at your feet bloody and death-stricken, bury me; and if you see my wife, tell her that I died because I could not bear to live without being loved by someone in this world. No, I could not do it, my son Ulenspiegel."

And Lamme wept. And Ulenspiegel was moved to see that mild courage.

XXVII

At this time the duke, dividing his army into two corps, made the one march towards the Duchy of Luxembourg and the other towards the Marquisate of Namur.

"This," said Ulenspiegel, "is some military decision unknown to me; it is all one to me, let us go towards Maestricht boldly."

As they went alongside the Meuse near the city Lamme saw Ulenspiegel looking attentively at all the boats that were moving in the river; and he stopped before one of them that bore a siren on the prow. And this siren held a scutcheon on which there was marked in gold letters on a sable ground the sign J. H. S., which is that of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ulenspiegel signed to Lamme to stop and began to sing merrily like a lark.

A man came up on the boat, crowed like a cock, and then, on a sign from Ulenspiegel, who brayed like a donkey and pointed him to the people gathered on the quay, he began to bray terribly like a donkey. Ulenspiegel's two asses laid back their ears and sang their native song.

Women were passing; men, too, riding the towing horses, and Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:

"That boatman is mocking us and our steeds. Suppose we go and attack him on his boat?"

"Let him rather come hither," replied Lamme.

Then a woman spoke and said:

"If you do not want to come back with arms cut off, broken backs, faces in bits, let that Stercke Pier bray in peace as he pleases."

"Hee haw! hee haw! hee haw!" went the boatman.

"Let him sing," said the goodwife, "we saw him the other day lift up on his shoulders a cart laden with huge casks of beer, and stop another cart pulled by a powerful horse. There," she said, pointing to the inn of the Blauwe-Toren, the Blue Tower, "he pierced with his knife, thrown from twenty paces off, an oaken plank twelve inches thick."

"Hee haw! hee haw! hee haw!" went the boatman, while a lad of twelve years old got up on the bridge of the boat and started to bray also.

Ulenspiegel replied:

"Much we care for your strong Peter! However Stercke Pier he may be, we are more of it than he is, and there is my friend Lamme who would eat two of his size without a hiccup."

"What are you saying, my son?" asked Lamme.

"What is," replied Ulenspiegel; "do not contradict me through modesty. Aye, good people, goodwives and artisans, soon you will behold him try the work of his arms and annihilate this famous Stercke Pier."

"Hold your tongue," said Lamme.

"Your might is well known," replied Ulenspiegel, "you could never hide it."

"Hee haw!" went the boatman; "hee haw!" went the lad.

Suddenly Ulenspiegel sang again, most melodiously like a lark. And the men, the women, and the artisans, ravished with delight, asked him where he had learned that divine whistle.

"In paradise, whence I have come direct," answered Ulenspiegel.

Then, speaking to the man who never stopped braying and pointing with his finger for mockery:

"Why do you stay there on your boat, rascal? Do you not dare to come to land and mock at us and our steeds?"

"Do you not dare?" said Lamme.

"Hee haw! hee haw!" went the boatman. "Masters, donkeys, playing the donkey, come up on my boat."

"Do as I do," said Ulenspiegel in a low voice to Lamme.

And speaking to the boatman:

"If you are the Stercke Pier, I, I am Thyl Ulenspiegel. And these twain are our asses, Jef and Jan, who can bray better than you, for it is their native tongue. As for going up on your rickety planks, we have no mind to it. Your boat is like a tub; every time a wave strikes it it goes back, and it can only move like the crabs, sideways."

"Aye, like the crabs!" said Lamme.

Then the boatman, speaking to Lamme:

"What are you muttering between your teeth, lump of bacon?"

Lamme, becoming furious, said:

"Evil Christian, who reproached me with my infirmity, know that my bacon is my own and comes from my good food; while thou, old rusty nail, thou livest but on old red herrings, candle wicks, skins of stockfish, to judge from thy scrawny beef that can be seen sticking through the holes in thy breeches."

"They'll be giving each other a stiff drubbing," said the men, women, and artisans, delighted and full of curiosity.

"Hee haw! hee haw!" went the boatman.

"Do not throw stones," said Ulenspiegel.

The boatman said a word in the ear of the lad hee-hawing beside him on the boat, and with the help of a boat hook, which he handled dexterously, came to the bank. When he was quite close, he said, standing proudly upright:

"My baes asks if you dare to come on board his boat and wage battle with him with fist and foot. These goodmen and goodwives will be witnesses."

"We will," said Ulenspiegel with much dignity.

"We accept the combat," said Lamme with great stateliness.

It was noon; the workmen, navvies, paviours, ship-makers, their wives armed with their husbands' luncheons, the children that came to see their fathers refresh themselves with beans or boiled meat, all laughed and clapped their hands at the idea of a battle at hand, gaily hoping that one or the other of the combatants would have a broken head or would fall into the river all in pieces for their delectation.

"My son," said Lamme in a low voice, "he will throw us into the water."

"Let yourself be thrown," said Ulenspiegel.

"The big man is afraid," said the crowd of workmen.

Lamme, still sitting on his ass, turned on them and looked wrathfully at them, but they hooted him.

"Let us go on the boat," said Lamme, "they will see if I am afraid."

At these words he was hooted again, and Ulenspiegel said:

"Let us go on the boat."

Alighting from their asses, they threw the bridles to the boy who patted the donkeys in friendly fashion, and led them where he saw thistles growing.

Then Ulenspiegel took the boat hook, made Lamme get into the dinghy, sculled along towards the boat, where by the help of a rope he climbed up, preceded by Lamme, sweating and blowing hard.

When he was upon the bridge of the vessel, Ulenspiegel stooped down as though he meant to lace up his boots, and said a few words to the boatman, who smiled and looked at Lamme. Then he roared a thousand insults at him, calling him rascal, stuffed with guilty fat, gaol seed, pap-eter, eater of pap, and saying: "Big whale, how many hogsheads of oil do you give when you are bled?"

All at once, without answering him, Lamme hurled himself on him like a wild bull, flung him down, struck him with all his might, but did him little harm because of the fat pithlessness of his arms. The boatman, while pretending to struggle, let him do as he would, and Ulenspiegel said: "This rascal will pay for liquor."

The men, women, and workmen, who from the bank looked on at the battle, said: "Who would have imagined that this big man was so impetuous?"

And they clapped their hands while Lamme struck like a deaf man. But the boatman took care for nothing except to save his face. Suddenly Lamme was seen with his knee on Stercke Pier's breast, holding him by the throat with one hand and raising the other to strike.

"Cry for mercy," he said in fury, "or I will drive you through the ribs of your tub!"

The boatman, coughing to show that he could not cry out, asked for mercy with his hand.

Then Lamme was seen generously lifting up his enemy, who was soon on his feet, and turning his back on the spectators, put out his tongue at Ulenspiegel, who was bursting with laughter to see Lamme, proudly shaking the feather in his cap, walking up and down the boat in mighty triumph.

And the men, women, lads, and lasses, who were on the bank, applauded with all their might, saying: "Hurrah for the conqueror of Stercke Pier! He is a man of iron. Did ye see how he thumped him with his fist and how he stretched him on his back with a blow from his head? There they are, going to drink now to make peace. Stercke Pier is coming up from the hold with wine and sausages."

In very deed, Stercke Pier had come up with two tankards and a great quart of white Meuse wine. And Lamme and he had made peace. And Lamme, all gay and jolly because of his triumph, because of the wine and the sausages, asked him, pointing to an iron chimney that was disgorging a black thick smoke, what were the fricassees he was making in his hold.

"War cookery," replied Stercke Pier, smiling.

The crowd of artisans, women, and children being dispersed to go back to their work or to their homes, the rumour ran speedily from mouth to mouth that a great fat man, mounted on an ass and accompanied by a little pilgrim, also mounted on an ass, was stronger than Samson and that care must be taken not to offend him.

Lamme drank and looked at the boatman with a conquering air.

The other said suddenly:

"Your donkeys are tired of being over yonder."

Then, bringing the boat up against the quay, he got out on the earth, took one of the asses by the hind legs and the forelegs, and carrying him as Jesus carried the lamb, set it down on the bridge of the boat. Then having done the same with the other one without so much as drawing a quicker breath, he said:

"Let us drink."

The lad leaped on the bridge.

And they drank. Lamme, all in a maze, no longer knew if it was himself, native of Damme, who had beaten this strong man, and he no longer dared to look at him, save by stealth, without any triumphing, fearing that he might take a notion to lay hold of him as he had done with the donkeys and throw him alive into the Meuse, for spite at his overthrow.

But the boatman, smiling, invited him gaily to drink again, and Lamme recovered from his fright and looked on him once more with victorious assurance.

And the boatman and Ulenspiegel laughed.

In the meanwhile, the donkeys, dumbfounded to find themselves on a floor that was not the cows' floor, as the peasants call dry land, had hung their heads, laid back their ears, and dared not drink for fear. The boatman went off to fetch them one of the pecks of corn he gave the horses that towed his boat, buying it himself so as not to be cheated by the drivers in the price of fodder.

When the donkeys saw the grain they murmured paternosters of the jaw while staring at the deck of the boat in melancholy fashion and not daring to move a hoof for fear of slipping.

Thereupon the boatman said to Lamme and to Ulenspiegel:

"Let us go into the kitchen."

"A war kitchen, but you may go down into it without fear, my conqueror."

"I am nowise afraid, and I follow you," said Lamme.

The lad took the tiller.

Going down they saw everywhere bags of grain, of beans, peas, carrots, and other vegetables.

The boatman then said to them, opening the door of a small forge:

"Since ye are men of valiant heart and know the cry of the lark, the bird of the free, and the warrior clarion of the cock, and the braying of the ass, the gentle worker, I am minded to show you my war kitchen. This little forge you will find such an one in most Meuse boats. No one can be suspicious of it, for it serves to mend and repair the ironwork of the vessels; but what all do not possess is the goodly vegetables contained in these cupboards."

Then removing some stones that covered the floor of the hold, he raised a few planks, and pulled up a fine sheaf of musket barrels, and lifting it as if it had been a feather, he put it back in its place; then he showed them lance heads, halberds, sword blades; bags of bullets, bags of powder.

"Long live the Beggar!" said he; "here are beans and their sauce, the musket stocks are legs of mutton, the salads are these halberd heads, and these musket barrels are ox shins for the soup of freedom. Long live the Beggar! Where am I to take this victual?" he asked Ulenspiegel.

"To Niméguen, where you will enter with your boat still more heavily laden, with real vegetables, brought you by the peasants, which you will take on board at Etsen, at Stephansweert, and at Ruremonde. And they, too, will sing like the lark, the bird of the free; you shall answer with the warlike clarion of the cock. You are to go to the house of Doctor Pontus, who lives beside the Nieuwe-Waal; you are to tell him you are coming to the city with vegetables, but that you fear the drought. While the peasants go to the market to sell the vegetables at a price too dear for any to buy, he will tell you what you are to do with your weapons. I think, too, that he will direct you to pass, not without danger, by the Wahal, the Meuse, or the Rhine, exchanging vegetables for nets for sale, so that you may wander with the Harlingen fishing boats, where there are many sailors that know the lark's song; skirt the coast by the Waden, and get to the Lauwer-Zee; exchange the nets for iron and lead; give costumes of Marken, Vlieland, and Ameland to your peasants; remain awhile on the coasts, fishing and salting down your fish to keep it and not to sell it, for to drink cool and make war on salt is a lawful thing."

"Wherefore, let us drink," said the boatman.

And they went up on the deck.

But Lamme, falling into melancholy:

"Master boatman," said he, suddenly, "you have here in your forge a little fire so bright that for certain one might cook with it the most delicious of hotpots. My throat is thirsty for soup."

"I will refresh you," said the man.

And speedily he served him a rich soup, in which he had boiled a thick slice of salt ham.

When Lamme had swallowed a few spoonfuls, he said to the boatman:

"My throat is peeling, my tongue is burning: this is no hotpot."

"'Cool drink and salt war', it was written," replied Ulenspiegel.

Then the boatman filled up the tankards, and said:

"I drink to the lark, the bird of freedom."

Ulenspiegel said:

"I drink to the cock, blowing the clarion of war."

Lamme said:

"I drink to my wife; may she never be athirst, the poor darling."

"You are to go as far as Emden by the North Sea," said Ulenspiegel to the boatman. "Emden is a refuge for us."

"The sea is wide," said the boatman.

"Wide for the battle," said Ulenspiegel.

"God is with us," said the boatman.

"Who then shall be against us?" replied Ulenspiegel.

"When do you depart?" said he.

"Immediately," replied Ulenspiegel.

"Good voyage and a following wind. Here are powder and bullets." And kissing them, he brought them ashore, after carrying the two donkeys on his neck and shoulders like lambs.

Ulenspiegel and Lamme having mounted them, they started for Liége.

"My son," said Lamme, as they went on their way, "how did that man, so strong as he is, allow himself to be so cruelly thumped by me?"

"So that everywhere we go," said Ulenspiegel, "terror may precede you. That will be a better escort to us than twenty landsknechts. Who would henceforth dare to attack Lamme the mighty, the conqueror; Lamme the bull without peer, who with his head, before the eyes and to the knowledge of everyone, overthrew the Stercke Pier, Peter the Strong, who carries asses like lambs and lifts with one shoulder a cart of beer barrels? Everyone knows you here already; you are Lamme the terrible, Lamme the invincible, and I walk in the shadow of your protection. Everyone will know you along the way we are to go, no one will dare to look on you with an unfriendly eye, and considering the great valour of mankind, you will find nothing on your path but louting, salutations, homage, and venerations offered to the might of your redoubtable fist."

"You speak well, my son," said Lamme, drawing himself up in his saddle.

"And I speak the truth," replied Ulenspiegel. "Do you see these curious faces in the first houses of this village? They are pointing the finger, showing to one another Lamme, the terrific conqueror. Do you see these men that look at you with envy and these poor cowards that doff their kerchiefs! Reply to their salutation, Lamme, my dear; disdain not the poor weak common herd. See the children know your name and repeat it with awe and fear."

And Lamme passed by, proud and stately, saluting to the right and to the left like a king. And the word of his prowess followed him from burg to burg, from city to city, to Liége, Choquier, to Neuville, Vesin, and Namur which they avoided because of the three preachers.

They went on thus a long time, following up rivers, streams, and canals. And everywhere to the lark's song answered the crowing of the cock. And everywhere for the work of liberty men founded forges and furbished the weapons that went away on the ships that skirted along the coasts.

And they passed the tolls in casks, in cases, in baskets.

And there were found always good folk to receive them and to conceal them in a sure place, with powder and bullets, until the hour of God.

And Lamme wending his way with Ulenspiegel, still preceded by his victorious reputation, began himself to believe in his great strength, and becoming proud and bellicose, he let his hair grow long. And Ulenspiegel christened him "Lamme the Lion."

But Lamme did not hold steadfast in the design because of the irritation of the young growth on the fourth day. And he had the razor passed over his conquering face, which appeared to Ulenspiegel once more, round and full like a sun, lit up with the flame of good victual.

In this wise they came to Stockem.

XXVIII

About nightfall, having left their asses at Stockem, they entered into the city of Antwerp.

And Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:

"Lo this great city; here the whole world piles up its riches: gold, silver, spices, gilded leather, Gobelin tapestry cloth, stuffs of velvet, wool, and silk; beans, peas, grain, meat, and flour, salted hides, Louvain wines, wines of Namur, of Luxembourg, Liége, Landtwyn from Brussels and from Aerschot, Buley wines whose vineyard is beside the Plante gate at Namur, Rhine wines, wines from Spain and Portugal; grape oil from Aerschot that they call Landolium; wines of Burgundy, Malvoisie and so many more. And the quays are cumbered with merchandise.

"These riches of earth and of human toil bring into this place the most beautiful light ladies that are."

"You are growing dreamy," said Lamme.

Ulenspiegel answered:

"I shall find the Seven among them. It was told me:

In ruins, blood and tears, seek!

What then is there that causeth more of ruin than light wenches? Is it not in their company that poor witless men lose their goodly carolus, shining and chinking; their jewels, chains, and rings, and come away without a doublet, ragged and despoiled, even without their linen; while the girls grow fat upon their spoils? Where is the red clear blood that used to course in their veins? 'Tis leek juice now. Or else, indeed, to enjoy their sweet and lovely bodies do they not fight with knife, with dagger, with sword, without pity? The corpses borne away, pale, and bloody, are corpses of the love-distraught. When the father scolds and remains on his chair with forbidding looks; when his white hairs seem whiter and stiffer; when from his dry eyes, wherein burns the grief at a son's loss, the tears refuse to flow; when the mother, silent and pale as a dead woman, weeps as if she saw nothing before her now save all the sorrows that this world holdeth, who is it makes those tears to fall? The gay ladies that love but themselves and money, and hold the world, thinking or working or philosophizing, fastened to the end of their golden girdle. Aye, it is there the Seven are, and we shall go, Lamme, among the girls. Perchance thy wife is among them; that will be a double sweep of the net."

"I am willing," said Lamme.

It was then in the month of June, towards the end of the summer, when the sun was already reddening the leaves on the chestnuts, when the little birds sing in the trees and there is never a mite so small that he does not chirp for pleasure to be so warm in the grass.

Lamme wandered beside Ulenspiegel through the streets of Antwerp, hanging his head and dragging his body along like a house.

"Lamme," said Ulenspiegel, "you are plunged in melancholy; do you not know that nothing is worse for the skin; if you persist in your grief, you will lose it in strips. And it will be a fine word to hear when they say of you: 'Lamme the flayed.'"

"I am hungry," said Lamme.

"Come and eat," said Ulenspiegel.

And they went together to the Old Stairs, where they ate choesels and drank dobbel-cuyt as much as they could carry.

And Lamme wept no more.

And Ulenspiegel said:

"Blessed be the good beer that maketh thy soul all sunny! Laughest and shakest thy big paunch. How I love to see thee dance of the merry entrails."

"My son," said Lamme, "they would dance far more if I had the good luck to find my wife again."

"Let us go and seek for her," said Ulenspiegel.

They came thus to the quarter of the Lower Scheldt.

"Look," said Ulenspiegel to Lamme, "see that little house all made of wood, with handsome windows, well opened and glazed with little square panes; consider these yellow curtains and that red lamp. There, my son, behind four casks of bruinbier, of uitzet, of dobbel-cuyt, and Amboise wine, sits a beauteous baesine of fifty years or upwards. Every year she lived gave her a fresh layer of bacon. Upon one of the casks shines a candle, and there is a lantern hung to the beams of the roof. It is bright and dark there, dark for love, bright for payment."

"But," said Lamme, "this is a convent of the devil's nuns, and this baesine is its abbess."

"Aye," said Ulenspiegel, "'tis she that leadeth in Beelzebub's name, down the path of sin fifteen lovely girls of amorous life, which find with her shelter and food, but it is forbidden to them to sleep there."

"Do you know this convent?" said Lamme.

"I am going to look for your wife therein. Come."

"No," said Lamme, "I have taken thought and will not go in."

"Wilt thou let thy friend expose himself all alone in the midst of these Astartes?"

"Let him not go there," said Lamme.

"But if he must go in to find the Seven and your wife?" replied Ulenspiegel.

"I would rather sleep," said Lamme.

"Come on then," said Ulenspiegel, opening the door and thrusting Lamme in front of him. "See, the baesine stays behind her casks, between two candles; the chamber is large, with a roof of blackened oak with smoked beams. All around reign benches, lame-legged tables covered with glasses, quart pots, goblets, tankards, jugs, flasks, bottles, and other implements of drinking. In the middle are still more tables and chairs whereon are enthroned odds and ends, the which are women's capes, gilded belts, velvet shoes, bagpipes, fifes, shawms. In a corner is a ladder leading to the upper story. A little bald hunchback plays on a clavecin mounted on glass feet that make the sound of the instrument grating. Dance, my fat lad. Fifteen lovely ladies are sitting, some on the tables, some on the chairs, a leg here, a leg there, bending, upright, leaning on an elbow, thrown back, lying on their back or on their side, at their pleasure, clad in white, in red, their arms bare like their shoulders, too, and their bosom down to the waist. There are some of every kind; choose! For some the light of the candles, caressing their fair hair, leaves in the shadow their blue eyes, of which nothing can be seen but the gleaming of their liquid fire. Others, looking at the ceiling, sigh to the viol some German ballade. Some round, brown, plump, brazen-faced, are drinking from full tankards Amboise wine, and show their round arms, bare to the shoulder, their half-opened dress, whence come out the apples of their breasts, and shamelessly talk with their mouths full, one after the other or all at once. Listen to them."

"A straw for money to-day! it is love we must have, love at our own choice," said the lovely ladies, "child's love, youth's love, whoever pleases us, and no paying."--"Yesterday was the day when one paid, to-day is the day when one loves!" "Who so would fain drink at our lips, they are still moist from the bottle. Wine and kisses, it is a whole feast!" "A straw for widows that lie all alone!" "We are girls! 'Tis the day of charity to-day. To the young, the strong, and the comely, we will open our arms. Something to drink!" "Darling, is it for the battle of love that your heart is beating the tambourine in your breast! What a pendulum! 'Tis the clock of kisses. When will they come, full hearts and empty purses? Do they not scent out dainty adventures? What is the difference between a young Beggar and Monsieur the Markgrave? Monsieur pays in florins and the young Beggar in caresses. Long live the Beggar! Who will go and wake up the graveyards?"

Thus spake the good, the ardent, and the gay among the ladies of amorous life.

But there were others of them with narrow faces, lean shoulders, who made of their bodies a shop for savings, and liard by liard harvested the price of their thin flesh. And these were fuming among themselves: "It is very foolish for us to refuse payment in this fatiguing trade, for these ridiculous whimsies running in the heads of girls that are wild over men. If they have a cantle of the moon in their heads, we have none, and prefer not to have to drag around in our old age like them, in rags in the gutter, but to be paid since we are for sale. A straw for this gratis! Men are ugly, stinking, grumbling, greedy, drunken. It is nothing but them that turns poor women to ill!"

But the young and beautiful ones did not hear these speeches, and all in their pleasure and drinkings said: "Do you hear the passing bells ringing in Notre Dame? We are on fire! Who will go and waken the graveyards?"

Lamme seeing so many women all at once, brunette and fair, fresh and withered, was ashamed; lowering his eyes he cried out: "Ulenspiegel, where are you?"

"He is dead and gone, my friend," said a great stout girl taking hold of his arm.

"Dead and gone?" said Lamme.

"Aye," said she, "three hundred years ago, in the company of Jacobus de Coster van Maerlandt."

"Let me go," said Lamme, "and do not pinch me. Ulenspiegel, where are you? Come and save your friend! I am going away immediately if you do not let me go."

"You will not go away," they said.

"Ulenspiegel," said Lamme, again, piteously, "where are you, my son? Madame, do not pull my hair in this way; it is not a wig, I assure you. Help! Do you not think my ears red enough, without your bringing the blood to them besides? There is that other one filliping me all the time. You are hurting me! Alas! what are they rubbing my face with now? A looking glass! I am black as the jaws of an oven. I will be angry in a minute if you do not stop; it is ill done of you to torment a poor man like this. Let me go! When you have tugged me by my breeches to right, to left, from all sides, and have made me go like a shuttle, will you be any the fatter for it? Aye, I shall get angry without a doubt."

"He will get angry," said they, mocking; "he will get angry, the good man. Laugh rather, and sing us a love lay."

"I will sing one of blows, if you wish, but let me alone."

"Whom do you love here?"

"Nobody, neither you nor the others. I will complain to the magistrates and he will have you whipped."

"Oh, indeed!" they said. "Whipped! And suppose we were to kiss you by main force before this whipping?"

"Me?" said Lamme.

"You," said they all.

And thereupon the lovely and the ugly, the fresh and the faded, the brown and the fair all rushed upon Lamme, flung his bonnet into the air, and his cloak, too, and fell to caressing him, kissing him on the cheek, the nose, the back, with all their might.

The baesine laughed between her candles.

"Help!" cried Lamme; "help, Ulenspiegel; sweep away all this rubbish. Let me go. I want none of your kisses; I am married, God's blood! and keep all for my wife."

"Married," said they; "but your wife has over much: a man of your corpulence. Give us a little. Faithful woman, 'tis well and good; a faithful man, he is a capon. God keep you! you must choose, or we shall whip you in our turn."

"I will do no such thing," said Lamme.

"Choose," said they.

"No," said he.

"Will you have me?" said a pretty, fair girl: "See, I am gentle, and I love whoever loves me."

"Let me alone," said Lamme.

"Will you have me?" said a delicious girl, who had black hair, eyes and complexion all brown, and in everything else made to perfection by the angels.

"I don't like gingerbread," said Lamme.

"And what of me, would you not take me?" said a tall girl, who had a brow almost covered by her hair, heavy eyebrows joined together, big drowned eyes, lips thick as eels and all red, and red, too, of face, neck, and shoulders.

"I don't like," said Lamme, "burnt bricks."

"Take me," said a girl of sixteen with a little squirrel face.

"I don't like nut crunchers," said Lamme.

"We must whip him," said they, "with what? Fine whips with a lash of dried hide. A sound lashing. The toughest skin cannot resist it. Take ten of them. Carters' and donkey drivers' whips."

"Help! Ulenspiegel!" cried Lamme.

But Ulenspiegel made no answer.

"Ye have a bad heart," said Lamme, seeking his friend on every side.

The whips were brought; two of the girls set to work to strip Lamme of his doublet.

"Alas!" said he; "my poor fat, that I had so much trouble to make, they will doubtless lift it off with their keen whips. But, pitiless females, my fat will be no use to you, not even to make sauces."

They replied:

"We shall make candles with it. Is it nothing to see clear without paying for it! She that will henceforth say that out of the whip comes forth candle will seem mad to everybody. We will uphold it to the death, and win more than one wager. Steep the rods in vinegar. There, your doublet is off. The hour is striking at Saint Jacques! Nine o'clock. At the last stroke of the clock, if you have not made your choice, we shall strike."

Lamme, paralyzed, said:

"Have pity and compassion upon me; I have sworn faithfulness to my poor wife and will keep it, although she left me in evil fashion. Ulenspiegel, dear friend, help!"

But Ulenspiegel did not show himself.

"See me," said Lamme to the light ladies, "see me at your knees. Is there a humbler posture? Is it not enough to say that I honour your great beauties like the very saints? Happy is he that, not being married, can enjoy your charms! 'Tis paradise, without doubt; but do not beat me, if you please."

Suddenly the baesine, who remained between her two candles, spoke in a strong and threatening voice:

"Good women and girls," said she, "I take my oath on my great devil that if, in a moment, you have not, by laughter and gentle ways, brought this man to a good mind, that is to say into your bed, I will go fetch the night watch and have you all whipped instead of him. Ye do not deserve to be called girls of amorous life if in vain you have free mouth, wanton hand, and flaming eyes to excite the males, as do the females of the glow-worms that have their lanterns but to this end. And you shall be whipped without mercy for your simpleness."

At that word the girls trembled and Lamme became joyful.

"Now, then, good women, what news bring you from the land of sharp thongs? I will myself go and fetch the watch. They will do their duty, and I shall help them with it. It will give me great pleasure."

But then a pretty little girl of fifteen threw herself at Lamme's knees:

"Messire," said she, "you see me here before you, humbly resigned; if you do not deign to choose me from among us, I must needs be beaten for you, monsieur. And the baesine there will put me into a foul cellar, under the Scheldt, where the water oozes from the wall, and where I shall have but black bread to eat."

"Will she verily be beaten for me, Madame baesine," said Lamme.

"Till the blood runs," replied she.

Lamme then, considering the girl, said: "I see thee fresh, perfumed, thy shoulder coming out from thy robe like a great petal of a white rose; I would not have this lovely skin under which the blood flows so young, suffer under the whip, nor that those eyes bright with the fire of youth should weep for the anguish of the strokes, nor that the cold of the prison should make thy body shiver, thy body like a love fay. And so I had rather choose thee than know that thou wert beaten."

The girl took him away. So sinned he, as he did all things in his life, through kindness of heart.

Meanwhile, Ulenspiegel and a tall handsome brown girl with curling waving hair were standing before one another. The girl, without saying a word, was looking at Ulenspiegel coquettishly and seemed not to wish to have anything to do with him.

"Love me," said he.

"Love thee," said she, "wild lover who lovest only at thine own hour?"

Ulenspiegel answered: "The bird that passes above thy head sings his song and flies away. And so with me, sweetheart: wilt thou that we sing together?"

"Aye," said she, "a song of laughter and of tears."

And the girl flung herself on Ulenspiegel's neck.

Suddenly, as both were happy in the arms of their darlings, lo! there came into the house, to the sound of fife and drum, and jostling, pushing, singing, whistling, crying, shouting, bawling, a gay company of meesevangers, who at Antwerp are titmouse catchers. They were carrying bags and cages full of these little birds, and the owls that had helped them in the sport were opening wide their eyes, gilded in the light.

The meesevangers were full ten in number, all red, bloated with wine and cervoise ale, with waggling heads, dragging their tottering legs and crying out in a voice so hoarse and so broken that it seemed to the timid girls that they were rather listening to wild beasts in a wood than men in a house.

However, as they never stopped saying, speaking singly or all at once: "I would have the one I love." "We are his that pleaseth us. To-morrow to the rich in florins! To-day to the rich in love!" the meesevangers replied: "Florins we have and love as well; to us then the light ladies. He that draws back is a capon. These are tits, and we are sportsmen. Rescue! Brabant for the good duke!"

But the women said, laughing loudly: "Fie! the ugly muzzles that think to eat us! 'Tis not to swine that men give sherbets. We take whom we please and do not want you. Barrels of oil, bags of lard, thin nails, rusty blades, you stink of sweat and mud. Get out of here; you will be well and duly damned without our help."

But the men: "The Frenchies are dainty to-day. Disgusted ladies, you can well give us what you sell to everybody."

But the women: "To-morrow," they said, "we will be slaves and dogs, and will accept you; to-day we are free women and we cast you out."

The men: "Enough words," they cried. "Who is thirsty? Let us pluck the apples!"

And so saying they threw themselves upon them, without distinction of age or beauty. The girls, resolute in their minds, threw at their heads chairs, quart pots, jugs, goblets, tankards, flasks, bottles, raining thick as hail, wounding them, bruising them, knocking out their eyes.

Ulenspiegel and Lamme came down at the tumult, leaving their trembling lovers above at the top of the ladder. When Ulenspiegel saw these men striking at the women, he took up a broom in the courtyard, tore away the twigs from the head, gave another to Lamme, and with them they beat the meesevangers without pity.

The game seemed hard to the drunkards; thus belaboured, they stopped for an instant, by which profited the thin girls who desired to sell themselves and not to give, even in this great day of love voluntary as Nature wills it. Like snakes they glided among the injured, caressed them, tended their wounds, drank wine of Amboise for them, and emptied so well their pouches of florins and other moneys, that they had left not a single liard. Then, as the curfew was ringing, they put them to the door through which Ulenspiegel and Lamme had already taken their way.

XXIX

Ulenspiegel and Lamme were marching towards Ghent and came at daybreak to Lokeren. The earth in the distance sweated dew; white cool mists glided along the meadows. Ulenspiegel, as he passed before a forge, whistled like the lark, the bird of liberty. And straightway appeared a head, tousled and white, at the door of the forge, and imitated the warlike clarion of the cock in a weak voice.

Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:

"This is the smitte Wasteele, who forges by day spades, mattocks, plough shares, hammering the iron when it is hot to fashion with it fine gratings for the choirs of churches, and oftentimes, at night, making and furbishing arms for the soldiers of freedom of conscience. He has not won the looks of health at this game, for he is pale as a ghost, sad as a damned soul, and so lean that his bones poke holes in his skin. He has not yet gone to rest, having doubtless toiled all night long."

"Come in, both of you," said the smitte Wasteele, "and lead your asses into the meadow behind the house."

This being done, Lamme and Ulenspiegel being in the forge, the smitte Wasteele took down into a cellar of his house all the swords he had furbished and the lance heads he had cast during the night, and made ready the day's work for his men.

Looking at Ulenspiegel with lack-lustre eye, he said to him:

"What news do you bring me from the Silent?"

"The prince has been driven out of the Low Countries with his army because of the misconduct of his mercenaries, who shout 'Geld, Geld! money, money!' when they ought to fight. He has gone away towards France with the faithful soldiers, his brother Count Ludovic and the Duke of Deux-Ponts, to help the King of Navarre and the Huguenots; from thence he passed over into Germany, to Dillenbourg, where many that have fled from the Low Countries are with him. You must send him arms and what money you have collected, while we, we shall ply the task of free men upon the sea."

"I shall do what is to be done," said the smitte Wasteele; "I have arms and nine thousand florins. But did you not come riding on asses?"

"Aye," they said.

"And have you not, on your way, heard news of three preachers, slain and stripped and thrown into a hole among the rocks of the Meuse?"

"Aye," said Ulenspiegel, with the utmost boldness, "these three preachers were three spies of the duke's, assassins, paid to kill the prince of freedom. Together we two, Lamme and I, sent them from life to death. Their money is ours and their papers likewise. We shall take what we need from it for our journey; the rest we shall give to the prince."

And Ulenspiegel, opening his own doublet and Lamme's, pulled out from them papers and parchments. The smitte Wasteele having read them:

"They contain," he said, "plans of battle and conspiracy. I will have them sent to the prince, and he will be told that Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak, his trusty vagabonds, saved his noble life. I will have your asses sold that you may not be recognized from your mounts."

Ulenspiegel asked the smitte Wasteele if the sheriff's court at Namur had already set their catchpolls on their track.