IX

IXRunning thus at full speed, followed by Lamme, he found in the Eikenstraat a savage lampoon on Brederode. He went and took it to him directly.“Monseigneur,” he said, “I am that good Fleming and that king’s spy whose ears you dressed down so well, and to whom you gave such good mulled wine to drink. He brings you a pretty little pamphlet in which among other things you are accused of callingyourself Count of Holland, like the king. It is fresh and hot from the press of Jan a Calumnia, living near the Vagabonds’ Quay, in the blind alley of the Thieves of Honour.”Brederode answered, smiling:“I shall have you flogged for two hours if you do not tell me the scribe’s real name.”“Monseigneur,” replied Ulenspiegel, “have me flogged for two years if you will, but you will not be able to make my back tell you what my mouth does not know.”And he went away, not without getting a florin for his trouble.XSince June, the month of roses, the preachings had begun in the country of Flanders.And the apostles of the primitive Christian Church preached everywhere, in every place, in fields and in gardens, on the hillocks which in times of flood were used to keep cattle on, upon rivers, in boats.On land, they entrenched themselves as in a camp, surrounding themselves with their wains. Upon the rivers and in harbours, boats filled with armed men kept guard round about them.And thus the word of freedom was heard on every side on the soil of our fathers.XIUlenspiegel and Lamme being at Bruges, with their cart, which they left in a yard close by, went into the church of Saint Sauveur, instead of going to thetavern, for there was in their pouches no more the merry clink of coins.Father Cornelis Adriensen, a minor friar, dirty, brazen, furious, and a bellowing preacher, was on that day occupying the pulpit of truth.Beautiful young devout women were thronging all around.Father Cornelis was discoursing of the Passion. When he came to the passage in the Holy Gospel where the Jews cried to Pilate, speaking of our Lord Jesus, “Crucify him, crucify him, for we have our law, and by that law he must die,” Broer Cornelis exclaimed:“Ye have just heard it, good people, if Our Lord Jesus Christ endured a dreadful and a shameful death, it is because there have at all times been laws to punish heretics. He was justly condemned, because he had disobeyed those laws. And to-day they would fain regard as naught the edicts and proclamations. Ah! Jesus! What curse wouldst thou set upon these lands. Honoured Mother of God, if the Emperor Charles were still alive, and could he see the scandal of these confederate nobles who have dared to present to the Lady Governor a request against the Inquisition and against the proclamations made for an aim so good, which are so ripely thought out, and promulgated after so long and so wise reflection and deliberation, to destroy all sects and heresies! And they would fain reduce them to nothing, though they are more necessary than bread and than cheese! In what foul, loathsome, abominable gulf are we to be made to fall to-day? Luther, that vile Luther, that mad ox, triumphs in Saxony, in Brunswick, in Lunebourg, in Mecklenburg; Brentius, that dung Brentiuswho lived in Germany upon acorns the pigs refused, Brentius triumphs in Württemberg; Servetus the Lunatic, who hath a quarter of the moon in his head, the Trinitarian Servetus, reigns in Pomerania, in Denmark and in Sweden, and there he dares to blaspheme the holy, glorious, and mighty Trinity. Aye. But I am informed that he hath been burned alive by Calvin, who was never right or good save in that; aye, by the stinking Calvin who smells of musty sourness; aye, with his long face like a leather bottle; a face of cheese, with his big teeth like a gardener’s shovel. Aye, these wolves eat one another; aye, the ox Luther, the mad ox, roused the princes of Germany to arms against the Anabaptist Münzer, who was a good man, they say, and lived according to the Gospel. And through all Germany the bellowings of this ox have been heard, aye!“Aye, and what do we see in Flanders, Gueldre, Frisia, Holland, Zealand? Adamites running naked through the streets; yea, good people, naked in the streets, showing their lean flesh without shame to the passers-by. There was but one of them, say you: aye—let it pass—one is as good as a hundred, a hundred is even as one. And he was burned, say you, and he was burned alive, at the request of the Calvinists and Lutherans. These wolves eat one another, I say unto you!“Aye, and what do we see in Flanders, Gueldre, Frisia, Holland, Zealand? Free thinkers teaching that all servitude is contrary to the word of God. They lie, the stinking heretics; we must submit to the Holy Mother Church of Rome. And there, in that accursed city of Antwerp, the rendezvous and meeting-ground of all the heretic dogs in the world, they have dared topreach that we prepare and bake the host with dog’s grease. Another saith, ’tis that beggar upon the chamber pot at the corner of the street, ‘There is no God, nor life eternal, nor resurrection of the body, nor everlasting damnation.’ ‘We can,’ saith another yonder, in a whining voice, ‘baptise without salt, or lard, or spittle, without exorcism and without candle.’ ‘There is no purgatory,’ says another. There is no purgatory, good people! Ah! it were better for you to have committed sin with your mothers, your sisters, and your daughters, than to doubt purgatory.“Aye, and they turn up their nose at the Inquisitor, that holy man, aye. They came to Belem, near this place, as many as four thousand Calvinists, with weaponed men, banners and drums. Aye. And you can smell from here the smoke of their cooking fires. They have taken the Church of Saint Catholyne to dishonour it, profane it, desecrate it by their damnable preachifying.“What is this impious and scandalous tolerance? By the thousand devils of hell, ye supine, faint-hearted Catholics, why do not ye also take weapons into your hands? Ye have, even as these damned Calvinists, cuirasses, lances, halberds, swords, daggers, arbalests, knives, cudgels, pikes, the town falconets and culverins.“They are peaceful folk, say you; they desire in all freedom and tranquillity to hear the word of God. That is all one to me. Go forth from Bruges! hunt me, slay me, blow me up all these Calvinists that are without the pale of the Church. Ye are not yet started! Fie on you! Ye are hens trembling with fear on your dunghill. I see the moment when these damned Calvinists will drum on your wives’ and daughters’bellies, and you will let them, men of tow and putty. Go not over yonder, go not ... ye will get your stockings wet in the battle. Fie upon you, men of Bruges! fie upon you, Catholics! That is well done and like true Catholics, O cowardly poltroons! Shame upon you, ducks and drakes, geese and turkeys that you are!“Are not they goodly preachers, that you should go in crowds to hearken to the lies they belch forth, that the young girls should go by night to their sermons, aye, and that in nine months the town should be full of little beggar-boys and beggar-girls? There were four of them there, four scandalous vagabonds, that preached in the cemetery of the church. The first of these vagabonds, livid and lean, the ugly loose-belly, had a dirty hat upon his head. Thanks to it his ears were not to be seen. Which of you hath seen the ears of a preacher? He had no shirt, for his bare arms came linenless out through his doublet. I saw it well, though he tries to cover himself up with a dirty little cloak, and I saw, too, all right in his black canvas breeches, full of open work like the spire of Notre Dame, the swinging of his bells and clapper. The other vagabond preached in a doublet, and no shoes. Nobody saw his ears. And he had to stop short in his preachifying, and the boys and girls began to hoot him, crying: ‘Yah! Yah! he doesn’t know his lesson!’ The third of these scandalous vagabonds had on his head a dirty ugly little hat, with a little feather sticking out of the top. And his ears were not to be seen, either. The fourth of the rascals, Hermanus, better arrayed than the others, must have been branded on the shoulder twice by the executioner, aye, verily.“They all wear under their headgear greasy silk caps that hide their ears. Did you ever see the ears of a preacher? Which of these rogues ever dared to show his ears? His ears! Ah! yes, show his ears; they have all been cut off. Aye, the executioner has cut the ears off every one of them.“And yet it was round about these scandalous rogues, these cut purses, these cobblers that have run away from their stools, these ragamuffin preachers, that all the whole populace went crying and shouting: ‘Long live the Beggars!’ as if they had all been mad, drunk, or fools.“Ah, it only remains for us poor Roman Catholics to leave the Low Countries, since there they allow this bawling cry: ‘Long live the Beggars! Long live the Beggars!’ What a millstone of a curse hath therefore fallen upon this bewitched and foolish folk, ah! Jesus! Everywhere, rich and poor, noble and base, young and old, men and women, all cry out: ‘Long live the Beggars!’“And what are all these lords, these scald leather seats that have come to us from Germany? All their having is gone on harlots, or gaming, lechery, lewdness, long-drawn debauchery, rooted villainies, abominations of dice and ostentation of outward array. They have not even a rusty nail to scratch themselves with where they itch. And now they must needs have the goods and wealth of churches and convents.“And there at their banquet in the house of that rogue De Culembourg, with that other rogue De Brederode, they drank in wooden bowls, for scorn of Messire de Berlaymont and Madame the Lady Governor. Aye, and they shouted ‘Long live the Beggars!’ Ah! if I had been the good God (with all respect), I wouldhave caused their drink, whether it was beer or wine, to be changed into a foul and loathy dishwater, aye, into foul, abominable, stinking suds, in which they had washed their shirts and foul sheets.“Aye, bawl, donkeys that you are, bawl ‘Long live the Beggars!’ Aye! and I am a prophet. And all the curses, miseries, fevers, plagues, conflagrations, ruins, desolations, cankers, English sweating sickness and black plagues will fall upon the Low Countries. Aye, thus will God be revenged upon your filthy braying of ‘Long live the Beggars!’ And there will not be left one stone of your houses upon another, and not a morsel of bone in your damned legs that ran to this accursed Calvinistry and preachifying. And so, so, so, so, so be it. Amen!”“Let us go, my son,” said Ulenspiegel to Lamme.“In a moment,” said Lamme.And he looked and searched among the beautiful young devotees there present at the sermon, but he did not discover his wife.XIIUlenspiegel and Lamme came to the place called Minne-Water, Love-Water; but the great doctors and Wysneusen Pedants say it is Minre-Water, Minim-Water. Ulenspiegel and Lamme sat down upon the brink, seeing pass by beneath the trees all leafy down to their very heads, like a low roof, men, women, girls, and boys, hand in hand, garlanded with flowers, walking hip to hip, looking tenderly in one another’s eyes, without seeing anything in this world but themselves.Ulenspiegel, thinking of Nele, gazed at them. In his melancholy, he said:“Let us go drink.”But Lamme, not hearkening Ulenspiegel, also looked upon the pairs of lovers:“In the old days we, too, used to pass, my wife and I, loving each other under the eyes of those who like you and me, on the edge of ditches, were stretched out solitary and without a woman.”“Come and drink,” said Ulenspiegel, “we shall find the Seven at the bottom of a quart.”“A drinker’s word,” answered Lamme: “you know the Seven are giants who could not stand upright under the big dome of the church of Saint Sauveur.”Ulenspiegel, thinking wretchedly of Nele, and also that in some hostelry he might perchance find a good bed, good supper, a comely hostess, said yet again:“Let us go and drink!”But Lamme paid no heed, and said, looking at the tower of Notre Dame:“Madame Holy Mary, patroness of lawful loves, grant me to see again her white bosom, that soft pillow.”“Come and drink,” said Ulenspiegel, “you shall find her, displaying it to the drinkers, in a tavern.”“Dost thou dare think so ill of her?” said Lamme.“Let us go and drink,” said Ulenspiegel, “she isbaesinesomewhere, without a doubt.”“Thirst talk,” said Lamme.Ulenspiegel went on:“Perchance keepeth she in reserve for poor travellers a dish of goodly stewed beef, whose spices perfume the air, not too rich, tender, succulent as rose leaves, and swimming like Shrove Tuesday fishes amid cloves, nutmeg, cocks’ combs, sweetbreads, and other celestial dainties.”“Cruel!” said Lamme, “you mean to kill me for sure. Do you not know that for two days we have lived on nothing but dry bread and small beer?”“Hunger talk,” answered Ulenspiegel. “You are weeping with appetite; come and eat and drink. I have here a fine half florin that will defray the cost of our feast.”Lamme laughed. They went to find their cart and thus went about the town, seeking to know which was the best inn. But seeing several crabbed countenances on thebaesand no wise pleasing on thebaesines, they passed on, thinking that a sour face is a poor sign for a hospitable kitchen.They arrived at the Saturday Market and went into the hostelry calledde Blauwe-Lanteern, the Blue-Lantern. Here there was abaesof pleasant aspect.They put up their cart and had the ass lodged in the stable, in company with a peck of oats. They ordered supper to be served, ate their fill, slept well, and rose to eat again. Lamme, bursting with comfort, said:“I hear heavenly music in my stomach.”When the time came to pay, thebaescame to Lamme and said to him:“Ten patards, if you please.”“He has them,” said Lamme, pointing to Ulenspiegel who answered:“I have not.”“And the half florin?” said Lamme.“I have not got it,” said Ulenspiegel.“This is all very well,” said thebaes: “I shall take the doublet and the shirt off both of you.”Suddenly Lamme, plucking up bottle courage:“And if I want to eat and drink, I,” exclaimed he,“to eat and drink, aye, drink for twenty-seven florins worth or more, I will do it. Dost thou think there is not a sou’s value in this belly of mine? Good God! it was never fed till now but on ortolans. Never didst thou carry the like under thy greasy girdle. For like an ill fellow thou hast thy tallow on the collar of thy doublet, and not like me, three inches of dainty fat on the paunch!”Thebaeshad fallen into an ecstasy of rage. A stammerer by nature, he wanted to speak quickly; the more he hurried, the more he sneezed and sputtered like a dog coming out of the water. Ulenspiegel threw little balls of bread at his nose. And Lamme, becoming hotter, went on:“Aye, I have wherewith to pay for your three scraggy hens, your four mangy pullets, and that big idiot of a peacock dragging his dirty tail in your yard. And if your skin was not drier than an old cock’s, if your bones were not crumbling to dust in your breast, I would have still enough to eat you, yourself, your snot of a man, your one-eyed maid and your cook, who if he had itch would have arms too short to scratch himself.“Do you see,” he went on, “do you see this fine bird that, for half a florin, wants to seize our doublets and our shirts? Tell me what your wardrobe is worth, tattered impertinence, and I will give you three liards for it.”But thebaes, becoming angrier and angrier, puffed and blew the more.And Ulenspiegel flung balls in his face.Lamme, like a roaring lion, said:“How much do you think, scrawny face, a fine ass is worth, with a fine muzzle, long ears, wide chested,with legs of iron? Eighteen florins at the least, is not that so, miserablebaes? How many old nails have you in your coffers to pay for so fine a beast?”Thebaessputtered more and more, but dared not budge.Lamme said:“How much do you think a fine cart is worth, all made of ash painted red, and equipped all over with Courtrai canvas against the sun and the showers? Twenty-four florins at least, hey? And how much is twenty-four florins and eighteen florins? Answer that, leper devoid of arithmetic. And as it is a market day, and as there are farming folk in your miserable hostelry, I am going to sell cart and donkey to them at once.”And so it was done, for all knew Lamme. And in fact he got for his ass and his cart forty-four florins and ten patards. Then, clinking the gold under the nose of thebaes, he said to him:“Dost thou smell in that the savour of feasting to come?”“Aye,” replied the host.And he said under his breath:“When you are selling your skin, I will buy a liard’s worth to make a charm against prodigality with it.”In the meantime, a pretty, taking woman who was in the dark of the yard had come again and again to look at Lamme through the window, and drew back every time he might have caught sight of her pretty face.That night, on the staircase, as he was going up without a light, tottering a little from the wine he had drunk, he felt a woman who flung her arms about him, kissed him on the cheek, the mouth, even on the nose,gluttonously, and wetting his face with amorous tears, then left him.Lamme, all sleepy from his drink, went to bed, fell asleep, and next day went off to Ghent with Ulenspiegel.XIIIThere he sought for his wife in all thekaberdoesjen, musicos, tafelhooren, and taverns. At night, he rejoined Ulenspiegelin den zingende Zwaan, at the Singing Swan. Ulenspiegel went wherever he could, spreading alarm and rousing the people against the butchers of the land of their fathers.Finding himself in the Friday Market, near theDulle-Griet, the Great Cannon, Ulenspiegel lay down flat on his face on the pavement.A coalman came and said to him:“What are you doing there?”“I am damping my nose to know which way the wind blows,” replied Ulenspiegel.A carpenter came along.“Do you take the pavement,” said he, “for a mattress?”“There are some,” replied Ulenspiegel, “who will soon take it for a quilt.”A monk stopped.“What is this moon calf doing there?” he asked.“He is on his face begging for your blessing, Father,” replied Ulenspiegel.The monk having bestowed it, went on his way.Ulenspiegel then lay with his ear against the ground. A peasant came by.“Dost thou hear any noise from below?” he said.“Aye,” replied Ulenspiegel, “I hear the wood growing, the wood whose faggots will serve to burn poor heretics.”“Dost thou hear naught else?” said a constable of the commune to him.“I hear,” said Ulenspiegel, “the gendarmerie coming from Spain; if thou hast aught to keep, bury it, for soon the towns will be safe no longer by reason of robbers.”“He is mad,” said the constable.“He is mad,” repeated the townsfolk.XIVMeanwhile, Lamme could not eat, thinking of the sweet vision of the stairs at theBlauwe-Lanteern. His heart turning to Bruges, he was led perforce by Ulenspiegel to Antwerp, where he continued his sorrowful searchings.Ulenspiegel being in the taverns, in the midst of good Flemings of the reformed faith, or even Catholics that were lovers of liberty, would say to them about the proclamations: “They bring us the Inquisition under pretext of purging us from heresy, but it is meant for our purses, this rhubarb. We have no love to be physicked save at our own will and as we choose; we shall be wroth, we shall rebel and take arms in our hands. The king knew this well beforehand. Seeing that we have no mind to rhubarb, he will advance the syringes, to wit the great guns and the little guns, serpents, falconets, and mortars with their big mouths. A kingly clyster! There will not be left a single rich Fleming in all Flanders physicked in this fashion. Happy is our land to have so royal a physician.”But the townsfolk could only laugh.Ulenspiegel would say: “Laugh to-day, but flee or arm on that day when something is broken at Notre Dame.”XVOn the 15th of August, the great feast of Mary and of the blessing of herbs and roots, when filled with corn the hens are deaf to the bugle of the cock imploring love, a great stone crucifix was broken at one of the gates of Antwerp by an Italian in the pay of the Cardinal de Granvelle, and the procession of the Virgin, preceded by fools in green, in yellow, and in red, came forth out of the church of Notre Dame.But the Virgin’s statue, having been insulted on the way by men whom no one knew, was hastily taken back into the choir of the church, the iron gates of which were shut.Ulenspiegel and Lamme went into Notre Dame. Young beggars and ragamuffins, and some grown men among them, that nobody knew were in front of the choir, making certain signs and grimaces one to another. They were making a great din with feet and tongues. No one had seen them before in Antwerp, no one ever saw them again. One of them, with a face like a burned onion, asked if Mieke, that was Our Lady, had been afraid that she had gone back to the church in such a hurry.“It is not of thee that she is afeared, ugly blackamoor,” replied Ulenspiegel.The young man to whom he spoke went up to him, to beat him, but Ulenspiegel, gripping him by the collar:“If you strike me,” said he, “I will make you spew out your tongue.”Then turning towards certain men of Antwerp that were present:“Signorkesandpagaders,” said he, pointing out the ragged young men, “be cautious, these are spurious Flemings, traitors paid to bring us to ill, to misery, and to ruin.”Then speaking to the strangers:“Hey,” said he, “donkey faces, withered with want, whence have ye the money that chinks to-day in your pouches? Have ye perchance sold your skins beforehand for drumheads?”“Look at the sermonizer!” said the strangers.Then they all began to shout together with one accord speaking of Our Lady:“Mieke has a fine robe. Mieke has a fine crown! I will give them to my doxy.”They went away, while one of them had got up into a pulpit to proclaim insulting and outrageous things from it, and they came back crying:“Come down, Mieke, come down before we go and fetch you. Perform a miracle, that we may see if you can walk as well as you can have Mieke carried about, the lazy thing!”But Ulenspiegel cried in vain: “Workers of ruin, have done with your vile talk; all pillage is a crime!” They ceased not at all from their talk; and some spoke even of breaking into the choir to force Mieke to come down.Hearing this, an old woman, who sold candles in the church, flung in their faces the ashes of her foot warmer; but she was beaten and flung down on the floor, and then the riot began.The markgrave came to the church with his sergeants. Seeing the populace assembled, he exhorted them to leave the church, but so feebly that only a few went away; the others said:“First we want to hear the canons singing vespers in honour of Mieke.”The markgrave replied:“There shall be no singing.”“We will sing ourselves,” answered the ragged strangers.Which they did in the naves and near the porch of the church. Some played atKrieke-steenen, at cherry-stones, and said: “Mieke, you never game in paradise and you are bored there; play with us.”And insulting the statue without ceasing, they cried out, hooted and whistled.The markgrave pretended to be afraid and departed. By his orders all the doors of the church were shut save one.Without the populace having any hand in it, the ragtag and bobtail of the strangers became bolder and shouted more and more. And the roofs reëchoed as though to the din of a hundred cannon.One of them, he of the face like a burned onion, appearing to have some authority among them, got up into a pulpit, made a sign with his hand to them, and began to preach:“In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” said he: “the three making but one, and the one making three, God keep us in paradise from arithmetic; this day the twenty-ninth of August, Mieke went forth in great pomp of array to show her wooden face to thesignorkesandpagadersof Antwerp.But Mieke, in the procession met the devil Satanas. And Satanas said to her, mocking her: ‘There you are, high and mighty, prinked up like a queen, Mieke, and borne by foursignorkes, and you will not look now at the poorpagaderSatanas that makes his way on foot.’ And Mieke answered: ‘Begone, Satanas, or I bruise thy head still more than ever, foul serpent!’ ‘Mieke,’ said Satanas, ‘that is the task in which you have been spending your time for fifteen hundred years, but the Spirit of the Lord, your master, hath delivered me. I am stronger than you are; you shall not walk over my head any more, and I am going to make you dance now.’ Satanas took a great whip, sharp and cutting, and started to flog Mieke, who dared not cry out for fear of showing her terror, and then she began to run as hard as she could, forcing thesignorkesthat were carrying her to run, too, so as not to let her fall with her gold crown and her jewels among the poor common folk. And now Mieke stays as stiff and as still as a frightened mouse in her niche, watching Satan, who is seated up at the top of the pillar under the little dome, and who says to her, still grasping his whip and grinning, ‘I will make you pay for the blood and tears that flow in your name! Mieke, how goes your virgin birth? This is the time to flit. You shall be cut in twain, evil statue of wood, for all the statues of flesh and bone that were burned in your name, burned, hanged, buried alive without pity.’ So spake Satanas; and he spoke well. And thou must come down from thy niche, bloody Mieke, Mieke the cruel, that wast in no way like thy son Christus.”And all the band of the strangers, hooting and crying out, shouted: “Mieke! Mieke! it is time to come out!Are you wetting your linen for fear in your niche? Up Brabant for the good Duke. Away with the wooden saints! Who will have a bath in the Scheldt! Wood swims better than fishes.”The populace listened to them without saying a word.But Ulenspiegel, getting up into the pulpit, threw down the stair by main force the one that was haranguing.“Fools fit to tie,” he said, speaking to the populace; “lunatic fools, idiot fools, who see no further than the end of your dirty noses, do ye not see that all this is the work of traitors? They mean to make you commit sacrilege and pillage that they may declare you rebels, empty your coffers, cut off your heads, and burn you alive! And the king will inherit.Signorkesandpagaders, do not believe in the speeches of these artificers of woes: leave Notre Dame in her niche, live stoutly, working happily, spending your earnings and profits. The black devil of ruin has his eye upon you, and it is through sackings and destruction that he will call up the army of your foes to treat you as rebels and make Alba reign over you with dictatorship, inquisition, confiscation, and death.”“And he will inherit!”“Alas,” said Lamme, “do not pillage anything,signorkesandpagaders; the king is already very angry. The daughter of the embroideress told my friend Ulenspiegel so. Do not indulge in pillage, sirs!”But the populace would not give ear to them.The unknown kept shouting:“Sack and turn out! Sack Brabant for the good Duke! To the river with wooden saints! They swim better than fishes!”Ulenspiegel, still in the pulpit, cried in vain:“Signorkesandpagadersdo not suffer pillage! Do not call down ruin upon the town!”He was plucked away from there all torn, face, doublet, and breeches, though he avenged himself with both feet and hands. And all bleeding he never ceased to cry out:“Do not suffer pillage!”But it was in vain.The unknown and the ragtag and bobtail of the city flung themselves on the iron grille of the choir, which they broke through, crying:“Long live the Beggar!”They all set to work to break, sack, destroy. Before midnight this great church, in which there were seventy altars, every kind of noble paintings and precious things, was empty as a nut. The altars were broken, the images flung down, and all the locks smashed.This being done, the same unknown set off to treat like Notre Dame, the Minor Brothers, the Franciscans, Saint Peter, Saint Andrew, Saint Michael, Saint Pierre-au-Pot, the Bourg, the Fawkens, the White Sisters, the Gray Sisters, the Third Order, the Preachers, and all the churches and chapels in the city. They took candles and torches out of them and ran around everywhere in this manner.Among them there was no quarrel nor dispute; not one of them was hurt in that great demolishing of wood and other materials.They betook themselves to The Hague to proceed there to the overthrow of statues and altars, without the reformed lending them any aid either there or elsewhere.At The Hague, the magistrate asked them where was their commission.“It is here,” said one of them, striking upon his heart.“Their commission, hear you,signorkesandpagaders?” said Ulenspiegel, having been informed of this. “So then there is someone who deputes them to this work of sacrilege. Let some robber thief come into my cottage; I will do as did the magistrate of The Hague, I will say, taking off my bonnet: ‘Gentle robber, gracious rogue, worshipful rascal, show me your commission.’ He will reply that it is in his heart that is greedy for my goods. And I shall give him the keys of everything. Seek, seek out who it is that profits by this pillage. Beware of the Red Dog. The great stone crucifix is flung down. Beware of the Red Dog!”The Great Sovereign Council of Malines having given orders through its president Viglius, not to put any obstacle in the way of image breaking:—“Alas!” said Ulenspiegel, “the harvest is ripe for the Spanish reapers. The Duke! the Duke is marching upon you. Flemings, the sea rises, the sea of vengeance. Poor women and girls, flee the living grave! Poor men, flee the gallows, the fire, and the sword! Philip means to finish the bloody work of Charles. The father sowed death and exile, the son hath sworn that he would rather rule over a cemetery than over a heretic folk. Flee; here be the executioner and the gravediggers.”The populace hearkened to Ulenspiegel, and families left the cities by hundreds, and the roads were encumbered with carts laden with the household stuff of those that were going into exile.And Ulenspiegel went everywhere, followed by Lamme grieving and looking for his beloved.And at Damme Nele wept by the side of Katheline the madwife.XVIUlenspiegel being at Ghent in the barley month which is October, saw Egmont returning from revelling and feasting in the noble company of the Abbot of Saint Bavon. Being in a singing humour, he was absentmindedly allowing his horse to go at a foot pace. Suddenly he saw a man who, carrying a lighted lantern, was walking alongside him.“What wouldst thou of me?” asked Egmont.“Good,” replied Ulenspiegel, “the good of a lantern when it is lit.”“Begone and leave me,” replied the Count.“I will not begone,” rejoined Ulenspiegel.“Wouldst thou have a stroke of the whip then?”“I would willingly have ten, if I can put in your head such a lantern that you might see clear from here to the Escurial.”“I take no stock in thy lantern nor in the Escurial,” replied the Count.“Well, for my part,” answered Ulenspiegel, “it burns in me to give you a good advice.”Then taking by the bridle the Count’s horse, rearing and kicking:“Monseigneur,” said he, “think that now you dance well on your horse and that your head dances also very well upon your shoulders; but the king, they say, means to interrupt this fine dance, to leave you your body,but to take your head and make it dance in a land so far away that you will never be able to overtake it. Give me a florin, I have earned it.”“The whip, if thou wilt not be off, evil newsmonger.”“Monseigneur, I am Ulenspiegel, the son of Claes, that was burned alive for his belief and of Soetkin that died of sorrow. The ashes beating upon my breast tell me that Egmont, the gallant soldier, might with the gendarmerie in his command oppose the thrice-victorious troops of the Duke of Alba.”“Begone,” replied Egmont, “I am no traitor.”“Save the countries; you alone can save them,” said Ulenspiegel.The Count would have beaten Ulenspiegel; but he had not waited for this and fled away, crying:“Eat lanterns, eat lanterns, Messire Count. Save the countries.”Another day, Egmont being athirst had stopped in front of the innIn ’t bondt verken, the Piebald Pig—kept by a woman of Courtrai, a pretty piece, called Musekin, the Little Mouse.The Count, rising up in his stirrups, cried out:“Bring me to drink!”Ulenspiegel, who was in Musekin’s service, came up to the Count holding a pewter tankard in one hand and in the other a flask of red wine.The Count, seeing him:“Are you there,” said he, “ill-omened raven?”“Monseigneur,” answered Ulenspiegel, “if my omens are black, ’tis because they are ill washen; but will you tell me which is the redder, the wine that goes down the throat or the blood that leaps out of the neck? That is what my lantern asked.”The Count made no answer, but paid and departed.XVIIUlenspiegel and Lamme, each mounted on an ass, which Simon Simonsen had given them, one of the faithfuls of the Prince of Orange, went everywhere, warning the burgesses of the black designs of the king of blood, and ever on the watch to discover news coming from Spain.They sold vegetables, being clad like country folk, and haunted all the markets.Coming back from the Brussels market, they saw in a stone house, on the Brick Quay, in a low chamber, a handsome dame clad in satin, high coloured, well bosomed, and with a lively eye.She was saying to a fresh young cookmaid:“Scour me this pan, I do not like rust sauce.”Ulenspiegel put his nose in at the window.“I,” said he, “I like every sauce, for a hungry belly is no great picker and chooser among fricassees.”The dame turning round:“Who,” said she, “is this fellow that interferes with my soup?”“Alas! fair dame,” answered Ulenspiegel, “if you would only make it in my company, I would teach you travellers’ stews unknown to fair dames that sit at home.”Then clacking with his tongue, he said:“I am thirsty.”“For what?” said she.“For thee,” said he.“He is a pretty fellow,” said the cookmaid to thedame. “Let us bring him in and let him tell us his adventures.”“But there are two of them,” said the dame.“I will look after one,” replied the maid.“Madame,” said Ulenspiegel, “we are two, it is true, myself and my poor Lamme, who cannot carry five pounds on his back, but carries five hundred on his stomach in meats and drinks with the best will in the world.”“My son,” said Lamme, “do not mock at an unhappy man to whom it costs so much to fill his paunch.”“It will not cost thee a liard to-day,” said the dame. “Come within, both of you.”“But,” said Lamme, “there are also two asses upon which we are.”“Pecks of corn,” replied the dame, “are nowise lacking in the stable of the Count of Meghem.”The cookmaid left her pan and drew into the yard Ulenspiegel and Lamme bestriding their asses, which began to bray incontinent.“That,” said Ulenspiegel, “is the flourish for food near at hand. They are trumpeting their joy, the poor asses!”And having both dismounted, Ulenspiegel said to the cookmaid:“If you were a she-ass, would you like an ass like me?”“If I was a woman,” she replied, “I should like a young man with a jolly face.”“What are you, then, being neither woman nor ass?” asked Lamme.“A virgin,” quoth she, “a virgin is neither woman nor ass either: do you understand, big belly?”Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:“Do not believe her, ’tis half a wild girl and quarter of two she-devils. Her carnal tricks have already bespoken for her in hell a place on a mattress to fondle Beelzebub.”“Evil mocker,” said the cook, “if your hairs were horsehair I would not have them even to walk on them.”“For my part,” said Ulenspiegel, “I would like to eat all your hair.”“Golden tongue,” said the dame, “must you have them all?”“No,” replied Ulenspiegel, “a thousand would suffice me melted down into one like you.”The dame said to him:“Drink first a quart ofbruinbier, eat a piece of ham, cut deep into this leg of mutton, disembowel me this pie, swallow me this salad.”Ulenspiegel joined his hands.“Ham,” said he, “is a good meat;bruinbier, heavenly beer; leg of mutton, divine flesh; a pie that one disembowels makes one’s tongue tremble with pleasure in the mouth; a fat salad is princely swallowing. But blessed will he be to whom you will give to sup on your beauty.”“See how he rattles on,” said she. “Eat first of all, vagabond!”Ulenspiegel replied:“Shall we not say thebenedicitebefore the graces?”“No,” said she.Then Lamme, whining, said:“I am hungry.”“You shall eat,” said the fair dame, “since you have no other care than for cooked meat.”“And fresh, too, as my wife was,” said Lamme. The cookmaid became sullen at this word. All the same they ate copiously and drank in floods. And the dame that night gave Ulenspiegel his supper, and next day and the days that followed.The asses had double measure of corn and Lamme a double portion. For a whole week he never left the kitchen, and he played with the dishes, but not with the cook, for he thought of his wife.That angered the girl, who said it was hardly worth while to cumber the world only to think of one’s belly.Meanwhile, Ulenspiegel and the dame lived in good amity. And one day she said to him:“Thyl, thou hast no manners: who art thou?”“I am,” said he, “a son that Happy Chance had one day on Good Adventure.”“Thou dost not missay thyself,” said she.“’Tis for fear others may not praise me,” replied Ulenspiegel.“Wouldst thou undertake the defence of thy brothers that are persecuted?”“The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast,” replied Ulenspiegel.“How goodly thou art there!” said she. “Who is this Claes?”Ulenspiegel replied:“My father, burned for his belief.”“The Count of Meghem is not like thee,” she said. “He would bleed the country I love, for I was born at Antwerp the glorious city. Know then that he has accorded with the Councillor Scheyf of Brabant to admit him into Antwerp with his ten companies of infantry.”“I will denounce him to the citizens,” said Ulenspiegel, “and I go immediately, light as a ghost.”He went, and on the morrow the townsfolk were in arms.However, Ulenspiegel and Lamme, having left their asses with a farmer of Simon Simonsen’s, were forced to hide for fear of the Count de Meghem who had them searched for everywhere to have them hanged; for he had been told that two heretics had drunk of his wine and eaten of his meat.He was jealous, and said so to the fair dame, who gnashed her teeth with anger, wept, and fainted seventeen times. The cookmaid did the same, but not so often, and declared upon her share of Paradise and eternal salvation that she nor her lady had done nothing, except to give the remains of a dinner to two poor pilgrims who, mounted on wretched donkeys, had stopped at the kitchen window.And that day there were shed so many tears that the floor was all damp with them. Seeing which, Messire de Meghem was assured that they were not lying.Lamme dared not show himself again at M. de Meghem’s house, for the cook always called him “My wife!”And he was exceedingly grieved, thinking of the food; but Ulenspiegel always brought him some good dish, for he used to go into the house by the rue Sainte Catherine and hide in the garret.The next day, at vespers, the Count de Meghem confessed to the handsome goodwife how that he had determined to fetch the gendarmerie he commanded into Bois-le-Duc before daybreak. Thegoodwife went to the garret to recount this to Ulenspiegel.

IXRunning thus at full speed, followed by Lamme, he found in the Eikenstraat a savage lampoon on Brederode. He went and took it to him directly.“Monseigneur,” he said, “I am that good Fleming and that king’s spy whose ears you dressed down so well, and to whom you gave such good mulled wine to drink. He brings you a pretty little pamphlet in which among other things you are accused of callingyourself Count of Holland, like the king. It is fresh and hot from the press of Jan a Calumnia, living near the Vagabonds’ Quay, in the blind alley of the Thieves of Honour.”Brederode answered, smiling:“I shall have you flogged for two hours if you do not tell me the scribe’s real name.”“Monseigneur,” replied Ulenspiegel, “have me flogged for two years if you will, but you will not be able to make my back tell you what my mouth does not know.”And he went away, not without getting a florin for his trouble.XSince June, the month of roses, the preachings had begun in the country of Flanders.And the apostles of the primitive Christian Church preached everywhere, in every place, in fields and in gardens, on the hillocks which in times of flood were used to keep cattle on, upon rivers, in boats.On land, they entrenched themselves as in a camp, surrounding themselves with their wains. Upon the rivers and in harbours, boats filled with armed men kept guard round about them.And thus the word of freedom was heard on every side on the soil of our fathers.XIUlenspiegel and Lamme being at Bruges, with their cart, which they left in a yard close by, went into the church of Saint Sauveur, instead of going to thetavern, for there was in their pouches no more the merry clink of coins.Father Cornelis Adriensen, a minor friar, dirty, brazen, furious, and a bellowing preacher, was on that day occupying the pulpit of truth.Beautiful young devout women were thronging all around.Father Cornelis was discoursing of the Passion. When he came to the passage in the Holy Gospel where the Jews cried to Pilate, speaking of our Lord Jesus, “Crucify him, crucify him, for we have our law, and by that law he must die,” Broer Cornelis exclaimed:“Ye have just heard it, good people, if Our Lord Jesus Christ endured a dreadful and a shameful death, it is because there have at all times been laws to punish heretics. He was justly condemned, because he had disobeyed those laws. And to-day they would fain regard as naught the edicts and proclamations. Ah! Jesus! What curse wouldst thou set upon these lands. Honoured Mother of God, if the Emperor Charles were still alive, and could he see the scandal of these confederate nobles who have dared to present to the Lady Governor a request against the Inquisition and against the proclamations made for an aim so good, which are so ripely thought out, and promulgated after so long and so wise reflection and deliberation, to destroy all sects and heresies! And they would fain reduce them to nothing, though they are more necessary than bread and than cheese! In what foul, loathsome, abominable gulf are we to be made to fall to-day? Luther, that vile Luther, that mad ox, triumphs in Saxony, in Brunswick, in Lunebourg, in Mecklenburg; Brentius, that dung Brentiuswho lived in Germany upon acorns the pigs refused, Brentius triumphs in Württemberg; Servetus the Lunatic, who hath a quarter of the moon in his head, the Trinitarian Servetus, reigns in Pomerania, in Denmark and in Sweden, and there he dares to blaspheme the holy, glorious, and mighty Trinity. Aye. But I am informed that he hath been burned alive by Calvin, who was never right or good save in that; aye, by the stinking Calvin who smells of musty sourness; aye, with his long face like a leather bottle; a face of cheese, with his big teeth like a gardener’s shovel. Aye, these wolves eat one another; aye, the ox Luther, the mad ox, roused the princes of Germany to arms against the Anabaptist Münzer, who was a good man, they say, and lived according to the Gospel. And through all Germany the bellowings of this ox have been heard, aye!“Aye, and what do we see in Flanders, Gueldre, Frisia, Holland, Zealand? Adamites running naked through the streets; yea, good people, naked in the streets, showing their lean flesh without shame to the passers-by. There was but one of them, say you: aye—let it pass—one is as good as a hundred, a hundred is even as one. And he was burned, say you, and he was burned alive, at the request of the Calvinists and Lutherans. These wolves eat one another, I say unto you!“Aye, and what do we see in Flanders, Gueldre, Frisia, Holland, Zealand? Free thinkers teaching that all servitude is contrary to the word of God. They lie, the stinking heretics; we must submit to the Holy Mother Church of Rome. And there, in that accursed city of Antwerp, the rendezvous and meeting-ground of all the heretic dogs in the world, they have dared topreach that we prepare and bake the host with dog’s grease. Another saith, ’tis that beggar upon the chamber pot at the corner of the street, ‘There is no God, nor life eternal, nor resurrection of the body, nor everlasting damnation.’ ‘We can,’ saith another yonder, in a whining voice, ‘baptise without salt, or lard, or spittle, without exorcism and without candle.’ ‘There is no purgatory,’ says another. There is no purgatory, good people! Ah! it were better for you to have committed sin with your mothers, your sisters, and your daughters, than to doubt purgatory.“Aye, and they turn up their nose at the Inquisitor, that holy man, aye. They came to Belem, near this place, as many as four thousand Calvinists, with weaponed men, banners and drums. Aye. And you can smell from here the smoke of their cooking fires. They have taken the Church of Saint Catholyne to dishonour it, profane it, desecrate it by their damnable preachifying.“What is this impious and scandalous tolerance? By the thousand devils of hell, ye supine, faint-hearted Catholics, why do not ye also take weapons into your hands? Ye have, even as these damned Calvinists, cuirasses, lances, halberds, swords, daggers, arbalests, knives, cudgels, pikes, the town falconets and culverins.“They are peaceful folk, say you; they desire in all freedom and tranquillity to hear the word of God. That is all one to me. Go forth from Bruges! hunt me, slay me, blow me up all these Calvinists that are without the pale of the Church. Ye are not yet started! Fie on you! Ye are hens trembling with fear on your dunghill. I see the moment when these damned Calvinists will drum on your wives’ and daughters’bellies, and you will let them, men of tow and putty. Go not over yonder, go not ... ye will get your stockings wet in the battle. Fie upon you, men of Bruges! fie upon you, Catholics! That is well done and like true Catholics, O cowardly poltroons! Shame upon you, ducks and drakes, geese and turkeys that you are!“Are not they goodly preachers, that you should go in crowds to hearken to the lies they belch forth, that the young girls should go by night to their sermons, aye, and that in nine months the town should be full of little beggar-boys and beggar-girls? There were four of them there, four scandalous vagabonds, that preached in the cemetery of the church. The first of these vagabonds, livid and lean, the ugly loose-belly, had a dirty hat upon his head. Thanks to it his ears were not to be seen. Which of you hath seen the ears of a preacher? He had no shirt, for his bare arms came linenless out through his doublet. I saw it well, though he tries to cover himself up with a dirty little cloak, and I saw, too, all right in his black canvas breeches, full of open work like the spire of Notre Dame, the swinging of his bells and clapper. The other vagabond preached in a doublet, and no shoes. Nobody saw his ears. And he had to stop short in his preachifying, and the boys and girls began to hoot him, crying: ‘Yah! Yah! he doesn’t know his lesson!’ The third of these scandalous vagabonds had on his head a dirty ugly little hat, with a little feather sticking out of the top. And his ears were not to be seen, either. The fourth of the rascals, Hermanus, better arrayed than the others, must have been branded on the shoulder twice by the executioner, aye, verily.“They all wear under their headgear greasy silk caps that hide their ears. Did you ever see the ears of a preacher? Which of these rogues ever dared to show his ears? His ears! Ah! yes, show his ears; they have all been cut off. Aye, the executioner has cut the ears off every one of them.“And yet it was round about these scandalous rogues, these cut purses, these cobblers that have run away from their stools, these ragamuffin preachers, that all the whole populace went crying and shouting: ‘Long live the Beggars!’ as if they had all been mad, drunk, or fools.“Ah, it only remains for us poor Roman Catholics to leave the Low Countries, since there they allow this bawling cry: ‘Long live the Beggars! Long live the Beggars!’ What a millstone of a curse hath therefore fallen upon this bewitched and foolish folk, ah! Jesus! Everywhere, rich and poor, noble and base, young and old, men and women, all cry out: ‘Long live the Beggars!’“And what are all these lords, these scald leather seats that have come to us from Germany? All their having is gone on harlots, or gaming, lechery, lewdness, long-drawn debauchery, rooted villainies, abominations of dice and ostentation of outward array. They have not even a rusty nail to scratch themselves with where they itch. And now they must needs have the goods and wealth of churches and convents.“And there at their banquet in the house of that rogue De Culembourg, with that other rogue De Brederode, they drank in wooden bowls, for scorn of Messire de Berlaymont and Madame the Lady Governor. Aye, and they shouted ‘Long live the Beggars!’ Ah! if I had been the good God (with all respect), I wouldhave caused their drink, whether it was beer or wine, to be changed into a foul and loathy dishwater, aye, into foul, abominable, stinking suds, in which they had washed their shirts and foul sheets.“Aye, bawl, donkeys that you are, bawl ‘Long live the Beggars!’ Aye! and I am a prophet. And all the curses, miseries, fevers, plagues, conflagrations, ruins, desolations, cankers, English sweating sickness and black plagues will fall upon the Low Countries. Aye, thus will God be revenged upon your filthy braying of ‘Long live the Beggars!’ And there will not be left one stone of your houses upon another, and not a morsel of bone in your damned legs that ran to this accursed Calvinistry and preachifying. And so, so, so, so, so be it. Amen!”“Let us go, my son,” said Ulenspiegel to Lamme.“In a moment,” said Lamme.And he looked and searched among the beautiful young devotees there present at the sermon, but he did not discover his wife.XIIUlenspiegel and Lamme came to the place called Minne-Water, Love-Water; but the great doctors and Wysneusen Pedants say it is Minre-Water, Minim-Water. Ulenspiegel and Lamme sat down upon the brink, seeing pass by beneath the trees all leafy down to their very heads, like a low roof, men, women, girls, and boys, hand in hand, garlanded with flowers, walking hip to hip, looking tenderly in one another’s eyes, without seeing anything in this world but themselves.Ulenspiegel, thinking of Nele, gazed at them. In his melancholy, he said:“Let us go drink.”But Lamme, not hearkening Ulenspiegel, also looked upon the pairs of lovers:“In the old days we, too, used to pass, my wife and I, loving each other under the eyes of those who like you and me, on the edge of ditches, were stretched out solitary and without a woman.”“Come and drink,” said Ulenspiegel, “we shall find the Seven at the bottom of a quart.”“A drinker’s word,” answered Lamme: “you know the Seven are giants who could not stand upright under the big dome of the church of Saint Sauveur.”Ulenspiegel, thinking wretchedly of Nele, and also that in some hostelry he might perchance find a good bed, good supper, a comely hostess, said yet again:“Let us go and drink!”But Lamme paid no heed, and said, looking at the tower of Notre Dame:“Madame Holy Mary, patroness of lawful loves, grant me to see again her white bosom, that soft pillow.”“Come and drink,” said Ulenspiegel, “you shall find her, displaying it to the drinkers, in a tavern.”“Dost thou dare think so ill of her?” said Lamme.“Let us go and drink,” said Ulenspiegel, “she isbaesinesomewhere, without a doubt.”“Thirst talk,” said Lamme.Ulenspiegel went on:“Perchance keepeth she in reserve for poor travellers a dish of goodly stewed beef, whose spices perfume the air, not too rich, tender, succulent as rose leaves, and swimming like Shrove Tuesday fishes amid cloves, nutmeg, cocks’ combs, sweetbreads, and other celestial dainties.”“Cruel!” said Lamme, “you mean to kill me for sure. Do you not know that for two days we have lived on nothing but dry bread and small beer?”“Hunger talk,” answered Ulenspiegel. “You are weeping with appetite; come and eat and drink. I have here a fine half florin that will defray the cost of our feast.”Lamme laughed. They went to find their cart and thus went about the town, seeking to know which was the best inn. But seeing several crabbed countenances on thebaesand no wise pleasing on thebaesines, they passed on, thinking that a sour face is a poor sign for a hospitable kitchen.They arrived at the Saturday Market and went into the hostelry calledde Blauwe-Lanteern, the Blue-Lantern. Here there was abaesof pleasant aspect.They put up their cart and had the ass lodged in the stable, in company with a peck of oats. They ordered supper to be served, ate their fill, slept well, and rose to eat again. Lamme, bursting with comfort, said:“I hear heavenly music in my stomach.”When the time came to pay, thebaescame to Lamme and said to him:“Ten patards, if you please.”“He has them,” said Lamme, pointing to Ulenspiegel who answered:“I have not.”“And the half florin?” said Lamme.“I have not got it,” said Ulenspiegel.“This is all very well,” said thebaes: “I shall take the doublet and the shirt off both of you.”Suddenly Lamme, plucking up bottle courage:“And if I want to eat and drink, I,” exclaimed he,“to eat and drink, aye, drink for twenty-seven florins worth or more, I will do it. Dost thou think there is not a sou’s value in this belly of mine? Good God! it was never fed till now but on ortolans. Never didst thou carry the like under thy greasy girdle. For like an ill fellow thou hast thy tallow on the collar of thy doublet, and not like me, three inches of dainty fat on the paunch!”Thebaeshad fallen into an ecstasy of rage. A stammerer by nature, he wanted to speak quickly; the more he hurried, the more he sneezed and sputtered like a dog coming out of the water. Ulenspiegel threw little balls of bread at his nose. And Lamme, becoming hotter, went on:“Aye, I have wherewith to pay for your three scraggy hens, your four mangy pullets, and that big idiot of a peacock dragging his dirty tail in your yard. And if your skin was not drier than an old cock’s, if your bones were not crumbling to dust in your breast, I would have still enough to eat you, yourself, your snot of a man, your one-eyed maid and your cook, who if he had itch would have arms too short to scratch himself.“Do you see,” he went on, “do you see this fine bird that, for half a florin, wants to seize our doublets and our shirts? Tell me what your wardrobe is worth, tattered impertinence, and I will give you three liards for it.”But thebaes, becoming angrier and angrier, puffed and blew the more.And Ulenspiegel flung balls in his face.Lamme, like a roaring lion, said:“How much do you think, scrawny face, a fine ass is worth, with a fine muzzle, long ears, wide chested,with legs of iron? Eighteen florins at the least, is not that so, miserablebaes? How many old nails have you in your coffers to pay for so fine a beast?”Thebaessputtered more and more, but dared not budge.Lamme said:“How much do you think a fine cart is worth, all made of ash painted red, and equipped all over with Courtrai canvas against the sun and the showers? Twenty-four florins at least, hey? And how much is twenty-four florins and eighteen florins? Answer that, leper devoid of arithmetic. And as it is a market day, and as there are farming folk in your miserable hostelry, I am going to sell cart and donkey to them at once.”And so it was done, for all knew Lamme. And in fact he got for his ass and his cart forty-four florins and ten patards. Then, clinking the gold under the nose of thebaes, he said to him:“Dost thou smell in that the savour of feasting to come?”“Aye,” replied the host.And he said under his breath:“When you are selling your skin, I will buy a liard’s worth to make a charm against prodigality with it.”In the meantime, a pretty, taking woman who was in the dark of the yard had come again and again to look at Lamme through the window, and drew back every time he might have caught sight of her pretty face.That night, on the staircase, as he was going up without a light, tottering a little from the wine he had drunk, he felt a woman who flung her arms about him, kissed him on the cheek, the mouth, even on the nose,gluttonously, and wetting his face with amorous tears, then left him.Lamme, all sleepy from his drink, went to bed, fell asleep, and next day went off to Ghent with Ulenspiegel.XIIIThere he sought for his wife in all thekaberdoesjen, musicos, tafelhooren, and taverns. At night, he rejoined Ulenspiegelin den zingende Zwaan, at the Singing Swan. Ulenspiegel went wherever he could, spreading alarm and rousing the people against the butchers of the land of their fathers.Finding himself in the Friday Market, near theDulle-Griet, the Great Cannon, Ulenspiegel lay down flat on his face on the pavement.A coalman came and said to him:“What are you doing there?”“I am damping my nose to know which way the wind blows,” replied Ulenspiegel.A carpenter came along.“Do you take the pavement,” said he, “for a mattress?”“There are some,” replied Ulenspiegel, “who will soon take it for a quilt.”A monk stopped.“What is this moon calf doing there?” he asked.“He is on his face begging for your blessing, Father,” replied Ulenspiegel.The monk having bestowed it, went on his way.Ulenspiegel then lay with his ear against the ground. A peasant came by.“Dost thou hear any noise from below?” he said.“Aye,” replied Ulenspiegel, “I hear the wood growing, the wood whose faggots will serve to burn poor heretics.”“Dost thou hear naught else?” said a constable of the commune to him.“I hear,” said Ulenspiegel, “the gendarmerie coming from Spain; if thou hast aught to keep, bury it, for soon the towns will be safe no longer by reason of robbers.”“He is mad,” said the constable.“He is mad,” repeated the townsfolk.XIVMeanwhile, Lamme could not eat, thinking of the sweet vision of the stairs at theBlauwe-Lanteern. His heart turning to Bruges, he was led perforce by Ulenspiegel to Antwerp, where he continued his sorrowful searchings.Ulenspiegel being in the taverns, in the midst of good Flemings of the reformed faith, or even Catholics that were lovers of liberty, would say to them about the proclamations: “They bring us the Inquisition under pretext of purging us from heresy, but it is meant for our purses, this rhubarb. We have no love to be physicked save at our own will and as we choose; we shall be wroth, we shall rebel and take arms in our hands. The king knew this well beforehand. Seeing that we have no mind to rhubarb, he will advance the syringes, to wit the great guns and the little guns, serpents, falconets, and mortars with their big mouths. A kingly clyster! There will not be left a single rich Fleming in all Flanders physicked in this fashion. Happy is our land to have so royal a physician.”But the townsfolk could only laugh.Ulenspiegel would say: “Laugh to-day, but flee or arm on that day when something is broken at Notre Dame.”XVOn the 15th of August, the great feast of Mary and of the blessing of herbs and roots, when filled with corn the hens are deaf to the bugle of the cock imploring love, a great stone crucifix was broken at one of the gates of Antwerp by an Italian in the pay of the Cardinal de Granvelle, and the procession of the Virgin, preceded by fools in green, in yellow, and in red, came forth out of the church of Notre Dame.But the Virgin’s statue, having been insulted on the way by men whom no one knew, was hastily taken back into the choir of the church, the iron gates of which were shut.Ulenspiegel and Lamme went into Notre Dame. Young beggars and ragamuffins, and some grown men among them, that nobody knew were in front of the choir, making certain signs and grimaces one to another. They were making a great din with feet and tongues. No one had seen them before in Antwerp, no one ever saw them again. One of them, with a face like a burned onion, asked if Mieke, that was Our Lady, had been afraid that she had gone back to the church in such a hurry.“It is not of thee that she is afeared, ugly blackamoor,” replied Ulenspiegel.The young man to whom he spoke went up to him, to beat him, but Ulenspiegel, gripping him by the collar:“If you strike me,” said he, “I will make you spew out your tongue.”Then turning towards certain men of Antwerp that were present:“Signorkesandpagaders,” said he, pointing out the ragged young men, “be cautious, these are spurious Flemings, traitors paid to bring us to ill, to misery, and to ruin.”Then speaking to the strangers:“Hey,” said he, “donkey faces, withered with want, whence have ye the money that chinks to-day in your pouches? Have ye perchance sold your skins beforehand for drumheads?”“Look at the sermonizer!” said the strangers.Then they all began to shout together with one accord speaking of Our Lady:“Mieke has a fine robe. Mieke has a fine crown! I will give them to my doxy.”They went away, while one of them had got up into a pulpit to proclaim insulting and outrageous things from it, and they came back crying:“Come down, Mieke, come down before we go and fetch you. Perform a miracle, that we may see if you can walk as well as you can have Mieke carried about, the lazy thing!”But Ulenspiegel cried in vain: “Workers of ruin, have done with your vile talk; all pillage is a crime!” They ceased not at all from their talk; and some spoke even of breaking into the choir to force Mieke to come down.Hearing this, an old woman, who sold candles in the church, flung in their faces the ashes of her foot warmer; but she was beaten and flung down on the floor, and then the riot began.The markgrave came to the church with his sergeants. Seeing the populace assembled, he exhorted them to leave the church, but so feebly that only a few went away; the others said:“First we want to hear the canons singing vespers in honour of Mieke.”The markgrave replied:“There shall be no singing.”“We will sing ourselves,” answered the ragged strangers.Which they did in the naves and near the porch of the church. Some played atKrieke-steenen, at cherry-stones, and said: “Mieke, you never game in paradise and you are bored there; play with us.”And insulting the statue without ceasing, they cried out, hooted and whistled.The markgrave pretended to be afraid and departed. By his orders all the doors of the church were shut save one.Without the populace having any hand in it, the ragtag and bobtail of the strangers became bolder and shouted more and more. And the roofs reëchoed as though to the din of a hundred cannon.One of them, he of the face like a burned onion, appearing to have some authority among them, got up into a pulpit, made a sign with his hand to them, and began to preach:“In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” said he: “the three making but one, and the one making three, God keep us in paradise from arithmetic; this day the twenty-ninth of August, Mieke went forth in great pomp of array to show her wooden face to thesignorkesandpagadersof Antwerp.But Mieke, in the procession met the devil Satanas. And Satanas said to her, mocking her: ‘There you are, high and mighty, prinked up like a queen, Mieke, and borne by foursignorkes, and you will not look now at the poorpagaderSatanas that makes his way on foot.’ And Mieke answered: ‘Begone, Satanas, or I bruise thy head still more than ever, foul serpent!’ ‘Mieke,’ said Satanas, ‘that is the task in which you have been spending your time for fifteen hundred years, but the Spirit of the Lord, your master, hath delivered me. I am stronger than you are; you shall not walk over my head any more, and I am going to make you dance now.’ Satanas took a great whip, sharp and cutting, and started to flog Mieke, who dared not cry out for fear of showing her terror, and then she began to run as hard as she could, forcing thesignorkesthat were carrying her to run, too, so as not to let her fall with her gold crown and her jewels among the poor common folk. And now Mieke stays as stiff and as still as a frightened mouse in her niche, watching Satan, who is seated up at the top of the pillar under the little dome, and who says to her, still grasping his whip and grinning, ‘I will make you pay for the blood and tears that flow in your name! Mieke, how goes your virgin birth? This is the time to flit. You shall be cut in twain, evil statue of wood, for all the statues of flesh and bone that were burned in your name, burned, hanged, buried alive without pity.’ So spake Satanas; and he spoke well. And thou must come down from thy niche, bloody Mieke, Mieke the cruel, that wast in no way like thy son Christus.”And all the band of the strangers, hooting and crying out, shouted: “Mieke! Mieke! it is time to come out!Are you wetting your linen for fear in your niche? Up Brabant for the good Duke. Away with the wooden saints! Who will have a bath in the Scheldt! Wood swims better than fishes.”The populace listened to them without saying a word.But Ulenspiegel, getting up into the pulpit, threw down the stair by main force the one that was haranguing.“Fools fit to tie,” he said, speaking to the populace; “lunatic fools, idiot fools, who see no further than the end of your dirty noses, do ye not see that all this is the work of traitors? They mean to make you commit sacrilege and pillage that they may declare you rebels, empty your coffers, cut off your heads, and burn you alive! And the king will inherit.Signorkesandpagaders, do not believe in the speeches of these artificers of woes: leave Notre Dame in her niche, live stoutly, working happily, spending your earnings and profits. The black devil of ruin has his eye upon you, and it is through sackings and destruction that he will call up the army of your foes to treat you as rebels and make Alba reign over you with dictatorship, inquisition, confiscation, and death.”“And he will inherit!”“Alas,” said Lamme, “do not pillage anything,signorkesandpagaders; the king is already very angry. The daughter of the embroideress told my friend Ulenspiegel so. Do not indulge in pillage, sirs!”But the populace would not give ear to them.The unknown kept shouting:“Sack and turn out! Sack Brabant for the good Duke! To the river with wooden saints! They swim better than fishes!”Ulenspiegel, still in the pulpit, cried in vain:“Signorkesandpagadersdo not suffer pillage! Do not call down ruin upon the town!”He was plucked away from there all torn, face, doublet, and breeches, though he avenged himself with both feet and hands. And all bleeding he never ceased to cry out:“Do not suffer pillage!”But it was in vain.The unknown and the ragtag and bobtail of the city flung themselves on the iron grille of the choir, which they broke through, crying:“Long live the Beggar!”They all set to work to break, sack, destroy. Before midnight this great church, in which there were seventy altars, every kind of noble paintings and precious things, was empty as a nut. The altars were broken, the images flung down, and all the locks smashed.This being done, the same unknown set off to treat like Notre Dame, the Minor Brothers, the Franciscans, Saint Peter, Saint Andrew, Saint Michael, Saint Pierre-au-Pot, the Bourg, the Fawkens, the White Sisters, the Gray Sisters, the Third Order, the Preachers, and all the churches and chapels in the city. They took candles and torches out of them and ran around everywhere in this manner.Among them there was no quarrel nor dispute; not one of them was hurt in that great demolishing of wood and other materials.They betook themselves to The Hague to proceed there to the overthrow of statues and altars, without the reformed lending them any aid either there or elsewhere.At The Hague, the magistrate asked them where was their commission.“It is here,” said one of them, striking upon his heart.“Their commission, hear you,signorkesandpagaders?” said Ulenspiegel, having been informed of this. “So then there is someone who deputes them to this work of sacrilege. Let some robber thief come into my cottage; I will do as did the magistrate of The Hague, I will say, taking off my bonnet: ‘Gentle robber, gracious rogue, worshipful rascal, show me your commission.’ He will reply that it is in his heart that is greedy for my goods. And I shall give him the keys of everything. Seek, seek out who it is that profits by this pillage. Beware of the Red Dog. The great stone crucifix is flung down. Beware of the Red Dog!”The Great Sovereign Council of Malines having given orders through its president Viglius, not to put any obstacle in the way of image breaking:—“Alas!” said Ulenspiegel, “the harvest is ripe for the Spanish reapers. The Duke! the Duke is marching upon you. Flemings, the sea rises, the sea of vengeance. Poor women and girls, flee the living grave! Poor men, flee the gallows, the fire, and the sword! Philip means to finish the bloody work of Charles. The father sowed death and exile, the son hath sworn that he would rather rule over a cemetery than over a heretic folk. Flee; here be the executioner and the gravediggers.”The populace hearkened to Ulenspiegel, and families left the cities by hundreds, and the roads were encumbered with carts laden with the household stuff of those that were going into exile.And Ulenspiegel went everywhere, followed by Lamme grieving and looking for his beloved.And at Damme Nele wept by the side of Katheline the madwife.XVIUlenspiegel being at Ghent in the barley month which is October, saw Egmont returning from revelling and feasting in the noble company of the Abbot of Saint Bavon. Being in a singing humour, he was absentmindedly allowing his horse to go at a foot pace. Suddenly he saw a man who, carrying a lighted lantern, was walking alongside him.“What wouldst thou of me?” asked Egmont.“Good,” replied Ulenspiegel, “the good of a lantern when it is lit.”“Begone and leave me,” replied the Count.“I will not begone,” rejoined Ulenspiegel.“Wouldst thou have a stroke of the whip then?”“I would willingly have ten, if I can put in your head such a lantern that you might see clear from here to the Escurial.”“I take no stock in thy lantern nor in the Escurial,” replied the Count.“Well, for my part,” answered Ulenspiegel, “it burns in me to give you a good advice.”Then taking by the bridle the Count’s horse, rearing and kicking:“Monseigneur,” said he, “think that now you dance well on your horse and that your head dances also very well upon your shoulders; but the king, they say, means to interrupt this fine dance, to leave you your body,but to take your head and make it dance in a land so far away that you will never be able to overtake it. Give me a florin, I have earned it.”“The whip, if thou wilt not be off, evil newsmonger.”“Monseigneur, I am Ulenspiegel, the son of Claes, that was burned alive for his belief and of Soetkin that died of sorrow. The ashes beating upon my breast tell me that Egmont, the gallant soldier, might with the gendarmerie in his command oppose the thrice-victorious troops of the Duke of Alba.”“Begone,” replied Egmont, “I am no traitor.”“Save the countries; you alone can save them,” said Ulenspiegel.The Count would have beaten Ulenspiegel; but he had not waited for this and fled away, crying:“Eat lanterns, eat lanterns, Messire Count. Save the countries.”Another day, Egmont being athirst had stopped in front of the innIn ’t bondt verken, the Piebald Pig—kept by a woman of Courtrai, a pretty piece, called Musekin, the Little Mouse.The Count, rising up in his stirrups, cried out:“Bring me to drink!”Ulenspiegel, who was in Musekin’s service, came up to the Count holding a pewter tankard in one hand and in the other a flask of red wine.The Count, seeing him:“Are you there,” said he, “ill-omened raven?”“Monseigneur,” answered Ulenspiegel, “if my omens are black, ’tis because they are ill washen; but will you tell me which is the redder, the wine that goes down the throat or the blood that leaps out of the neck? That is what my lantern asked.”The Count made no answer, but paid and departed.XVIIUlenspiegel and Lamme, each mounted on an ass, which Simon Simonsen had given them, one of the faithfuls of the Prince of Orange, went everywhere, warning the burgesses of the black designs of the king of blood, and ever on the watch to discover news coming from Spain.They sold vegetables, being clad like country folk, and haunted all the markets.Coming back from the Brussels market, they saw in a stone house, on the Brick Quay, in a low chamber, a handsome dame clad in satin, high coloured, well bosomed, and with a lively eye.She was saying to a fresh young cookmaid:“Scour me this pan, I do not like rust sauce.”Ulenspiegel put his nose in at the window.“I,” said he, “I like every sauce, for a hungry belly is no great picker and chooser among fricassees.”The dame turning round:“Who,” said she, “is this fellow that interferes with my soup?”“Alas! fair dame,” answered Ulenspiegel, “if you would only make it in my company, I would teach you travellers’ stews unknown to fair dames that sit at home.”Then clacking with his tongue, he said:“I am thirsty.”“For what?” said she.“For thee,” said he.“He is a pretty fellow,” said the cookmaid to thedame. “Let us bring him in and let him tell us his adventures.”“But there are two of them,” said the dame.“I will look after one,” replied the maid.“Madame,” said Ulenspiegel, “we are two, it is true, myself and my poor Lamme, who cannot carry five pounds on his back, but carries five hundred on his stomach in meats and drinks with the best will in the world.”“My son,” said Lamme, “do not mock at an unhappy man to whom it costs so much to fill his paunch.”“It will not cost thee a liard to-day,” said the dame. “Come within, both of you.”“But,” said Lamme, “there are also two asses upon which we are.”“Pecks of corn,” replied the dame, “are nowise lacking in the stable of the Count of Meghem.”The cookmaid left her pan and drew into the yard Ulenspiegel and Lamme bestriding their asses, which began to bray incontinent.“That,” said Ulenspiegel, “is the flourish for food near at hand. They are trumpeting their joy, the poor asses!”And having both dismounted, Ulenspiegel said to the cookmaid:“If you were a she-ass, would you like an ass like me?”“If I was a woman,” she replied, “I should like a young man with a jolly face.”“What are you, then, being neither woman nor ass?” asked Lamme.“A virgin,” quoth she, “a virgin is neither woman nor ass either: do you understand, big belly?”Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:“Do not believe her, ’tis half a wild girl and quarter of two she-devils. Her carnal tricks have already bespoken for her in hell a place on a mattress to fondle Beelzebub.”“Evil mocker,” said the cook, “if your hairs were horsehair I would not have them even to walk on them.”“For my part,” said Ulenspiegel, “I would like to eat all your hair.”“Golden tongue,” said the dame, “must you have them all?”“No,” replied Ulenspiegel, “a thousand would suffice me melted down into one like you.”The dame said to him:“Drink first a quart ofbruinbier, eat a piece of ham, cut deep into this leg of mutton, disembowel me this pie, swallow me this salad.”Ulenspiegel joined his hands.“Ham,” said he, “is a good meat;bruinbier, heavenly beer; leg of mutton, divine flesh; a pie that one disembowels makes one’s tongue tremble with pleasure in the mouth; a fat salad is princely swallowing. But blessed will he be to whom you will give to sup on your beauty.”“See how he rattles on,” said she. “Eat first of all, vagabond!”Ulenspiegel replied:“Shall we not say thebenedicitebefore the graces?”“No,” said she.Then Lamme, whining, said:“I am hungry.”“You shall eat,” said the fair dame, “since you have no other care than for cooked meat.”“And fresh, too, as my wife was,” said Lamme. The cookmaid became sullen at this word. All the same they ate copiously and drank in floods. And the dame that night gave Ulenspiegel his supper, and next day and the days that followed.The asses had double measure of corn and Lamme a double portion. For a whole week he never left the kitchen, and he played with the dishes, but not with the cook, for he thought of his wife.That angered the girl, who said it was hardly worth while to cumber the world only to think of one’s belly.Meanwhile, Ulenspiegel and the dame lived in good amity. And one day she said to him:“Thyl, thou hast no manners: who art thou?”“I am,” said he, “a son that Happy Chance had one day on Good Adventure.”“Thou dost not missay thyself,” said she.“’Tis for fear others may not praise me,” replied Ulenspiegel.“Wouldst thou undertake the defence of thy brothers that are persecuted?”“The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast,” replied Ulenspiegel.“How goodly thou art there!” said she. “Who is this Claes?”Ulenspiegel replied:“My father, burned for his belief.”“The Count of Meghem is not like thee,” she said. “He would bleed the country I love, for I was born at Antwerp the glorious city. Know then that he has accorded with the Councillor Scheyf of Brabant to admit him into Antwerp with his ten companies of infantry.”“I will denounce him to the citizens,” said Ulenspiegel, “and I go immediately, light as a ghost.”He went, and on the morrow the townsfolk were in arms.However, Ulenspiegel and Lamme, having left their asses with a farmer of Simon Simonsen’s, were forced to hide for fear of the Count de Meghem who had them searched for everywhere to have them hanged; for he had been told that two heretics had drunk of his wine and eaten of his meat.He was jealous, and said so to the fair dame, who gnashed her teeth with anger, wept, and fainted seventeen times. The cookmaid did the same, but not so often, and declared upon her share of Paradise and eternal salvation that she nor her lady had done nothing, except to give the remains of a dinner to two poor pilgrims who, mounted on wretched donkeys, had stopped at the kitchen window.And that day there were shed so many tears that the floor was all damp with them. Seeing which, Messire de Meghem was assured that they were not lying.Lamme dared not show himself again at M. de Meghem’s house, for the cook always called him “My wife!”And he was exceedingly grieved, thinking of the food; but Ulenspiegel always brought him some good dish, for he used to go into the house by the rue Sainte Catherine and hide in the garret.The next day, at vespers, the Count de Meghem confessed to the handsome goodwife how that he had determined to fetch the gendarmerie he commanded into Bois-le-Duc before daybreak. Thegoodwife went to the garret to recount this to Ulenspiegel.

IXRunning thus at full speed, followed by Lamme, he found in the Eikenstraat a savage lampoon on Brederode. He went and took it to him directly.“Monseigneur,” he said, “I am that good Fleming and that king’s spy whose ears you dressed down so well, and to whom you gave such good mulled wine to drink. He brings you a pretty little pamphlet in which among other things you are accused of callingyourself Count of Holland, like the king. It is fresh and hot from the press of Jan a Calumnia, living near the Vagabonds’ Quay, in the blind alley of the Thieves of Honour.”Brederode answered, smiling:“I shall have you flogged for two hours if you do not tell me the scribe’s real name.”“Monseigneur,” replied Ulenspiegel, “have me flogged for two years if you will, but you will not be able to make my back tell you what my mouth does not know.”And he went away, not without getting a florin for his trouble.

IX

Running thus at full speed, followed by Lamme, he found in the Eikenstraat a savage lampoon on Brederode. He went and took it to him directly.“Monseigneur,” he said, “I am that good Fleming and that king’s spy whose ears you dressed down so well, and to whom you gave such good mulled wine to drink. He brings you a pretty little pamphlet in which among other things you are accused of callingyourself Count of Holland, like the king. It is fresh and hot from the press of Jan a Calumnia, living near the Vagabonds’ Quay, in the blind alley of the Thieves of Honour.”Brederode answered, smiling:“I shall have you flogged for two hours if you do not tell me the scribe’s real name.”“Monseigneur,” replied Ulenspiegel, “have me flogged for two years if you will, but you will not be able to make my back tell you what my mouth does not know.”And he went away, not without getting a florin for his trouble.

Running thus at full speed, followed by Lamme, he found in the Eikenstraat a savage lampoon on Brederode. He went and took it to him directly.

“Monseigneur,” he said, “I am that good Fleming and that king’s spy whose ears you dressed down so well, and to whom you gave such good mulled wine to drink. He brings you a pretty little pamphlet in which among other things you are accused of callingyourself Count of Holland, like the king. It is fresh and hot from the press of Jan a Calumnia, living near the Vagabonds’ Quay, in the blind alley of the Thieves of Honour.”

Brederode answered, smiling:

“I shall have you flogged for two hours if you do not tell me the scribe’s real name.”

“Monseigneur,” replied Ulenspiegel, “have me flogged for two years if you will, but you will not be able to make my back tell you what my mouth does not know.”

And he went away, not without getting a florin for his trouble.

XSince June, the month of roses, the preachings had begun in the country of Flanders.And the apostles of the primitive Christian Church preached everywhere, in every place, in fields and in gardens, on the hillocks which in times of flood were used to keep cattle on, upon rivers, in boats.On land, they entrenched themselves as in a camp, surrounding themselves with their wains. Upon the rivers and in harbours, boats filled with armed men kept guard round about them.And thus the word of freedom was heard on every side on the soil of our fathers.

X

Since June, the month of roses, the preachings had begun in the country of Flanders.And the apostles of the primitive Christian Church preached everywhere, in every place, in fields and in gardens, on the hillocks which in times of flood were used to keep cattle on, upon rivers, in boats.On land, they entrenched themselves as in a camp, surrounding themselves with their wains. Upon the rivers and in harbours, boats filled with armed men kept guard round about them.And thus the word of freedom was heard on every side on the soil of our fathers.

Since June, the month of roses, the preachings had begun in the country of Flanders.

And the apostles of the primitive Christian Church preached everywhere, in every place, in fields and in gardens, on the hillocks which in times of flood were used to keep cattle on, upon rivers, in boats.

On land, they entrenched themselves as in a camp, surrounding themselves with their wains. Upon the rivers and in harbours, boats filled with armed men kept guard round about them.

And thus the word of freedom was heard on every side on the soil of our fathers.

XIUlenspiegel and Lamme being at Bruges, with their cart, which they left in a yard close by, went into the church of Saint Sauveur, instead of going to thetavern, for there was in their pouches no more the merry clink of coins.Father Cornelis Adriensen, a minor friar, dirty, brazen, furious, and a bellowing preacher, was on that day occupying the pulpit of truth.Beautiful young devout women were thronging all around.Father Cornelis was discoursing of the Passion. When he came to the passage in the Holy Gospel where the Jews cried to Pilate, speaking of our Lord Jesus, “Crucify him, crucify him, for we have our law, and by that law he must die,” Broer Cornelis exclaimed:“Ye have just heard it, good people, if Our Lord Jesus Christ endured a dreadful and a shameful death, it is because there have at all times been laws to punish heretics. He was justly condemned, because he had disobeyed those laws. And to-day they would fain regard as naught the edicts and proclamations. Ah! Jesus! What curse wouldst thou set upon these lands. Honoured Mother of God, if the Emperor Charles were still alive, and could he see the scandal of these confederate nobles who have dared to present to the Lady Governor a request against the Inquisition and against the proclamations made for an aim so good, which are so ripely thought out, and promulgated after so long and so wise reflection and deliberation, to destroy all sects and heresies! And they would fain reduce them to nothing, though they are more necessary than bread and than cheese! In what foul, loathsome, abominable gulf are we to be made to fall to-day? Luther, that vile Luther, that mad ox, triumphs in Saxony, in Brunswick, in Lunebourg, in Mecklenburg; Brentius, that dung Brentiuswho lived in Germany upon acorns the pigs refused, Brentius triumphs in Württemberg; Servetus the Lunatic, who hath a quarter of the moon in his head, the Trinitarian Servetus, reigns in Pomerania, in Denmark and in Sweden, and there he dares to blaspheme the holy, glorious, and mighty Trinity. Aye. But I am informed that he hath been burned alive by Calvin, who was never right or good save in that; aye, by the stinking Calvin who smells of musty sourness; aye, with his long face like a leather bottle; a face of cheese, with his big teeth like a gardener’s shovel. Aye, these wolves eat one another; aye, the ox Luther, the mad ox, roused the princes of Germany to arms against the Anabaptist Münzer, who was a good man, they say, and lived according to the Gospel. And through all Germany the bellowings of this ox have been heard, aye!“Aye, and what do we see in Flanders, Gueldre, Frisia, Holland, Zealand? Adamites running naked through the streets; yea, good people, naked in the streets, showing their lean flesh without shame to the passers-by. There was but one of them, say you: aye—let it pass—one is as good as a hundred, a hundred is even as one. And he was burned, say you, and he was burned alive, at the request of the Calvinists and Lutherans. These wolves eat one another, I say unto you!“Aye, and what do we see in Flanders, Gueldre, Frisia, Holland, Zealand? Free thinkers teaching that all servitude is contrary to the word of God. They lie, the stinking heretics; we must submit to the Holy Mother Church of Rome. And there, in that accursed city of Antwerp, the rendezvous and meeting-ground of all the heretic dogs in the world, they have dared topreach that we prepare and bake the host with dog’s grease. Another saith, ’tis that beggar upon the chamber pot at the corner of the street, ‘There is no God, nor life eternal, nor resurrection of the body, nor everlasting damnation.’ ‘We can,’ saith another yonder, in a whining voice, ‘baptise without salt, or lard, or spittle, without exorcism and without candle.’ ‘There is no purgatory,’ says another. There is no purgatory, good people! Ah! it were better for you to have committed sin with your mothers, your sisters, and your daughters, than to doubt purgatory.“Aye, and they turn up their nose at the Inquisitor, that holy man, aye. They came to Belem, near this place, as many as four thousand Calvinists, with weaponed men, banners and drums. Aye. And you can smell from here the smoke of their cooking fires. They have taken the Church of Saint Catholyne to dishonour it, profane it, desecrate it by their damnable preachifying.“What is this impious and scandalous tolerance? By the thousand devils of hell, ye supine, faint-hearted Catholics, why do not ye also take weapons into your hands? Ye have, even as these damned Calvinists, cuirasses, lances, halberds, swords, daggers, arbalests, knives, cudgels, pikes, the town falconets and culverins.“They are peaceful folk, say you; they desire in all freedom and tranquillity to hear the word of God. That is all one to me. Go forth from Bruges! hunt me, slay me, blow me up all these Calvinists that are without the pale of the Church. Ye are not yet started! Fie on you! Ye are hens trembling with fear on your dunghill. I see the moment when these damned Calvinists will drum on your wives’ and daughters’bellies, and you will let them, men of tow and putty. Go not over yonder, go not ... ye will get your stockings wet in the battle. Fie upon you, men of Bruges! fie upon you, Catholics! That is well done and like true Catholics, O cowardly poltroons! Shame upon you, ducks and drakes, geese and turkeys that you are!“Are not they goodly preachers, that you should go in crowds to hearken to the lies they belch forth, that the young girls should go by night to their sermons, aye, and that in nine months the town should be full of little beggar-boys and beggar-girls? There were four of them there, four scandalous vagabonds, that preached in the cemetery of the church. The first of these vagabonds, livid and lean, the ugly loose-belly, had a dirty hat upon his head. Thanks to it his ears were not to be seen. Which of you hath seen the ears of a preacher? He had no shirt, for his bare arms came linenless out through his doublet. I saw it well, though he tries to cover himself up with a dirty little cloak, and I saw, too, all right in his black canvas breeches, full of open work like the spire of Notre Dame, the swinging of his bells and clapper. The other vagabond preached in a doublet, and no shoes. Nobody saw his ears. And he had to stop short in his preachifying, and the boys and girls began to hoot him, crying: ‘Yah! Yah! he doesn’t know his lesson!’ The third of these scandalous vagabonds had on his head a dirty ugly little hat, with a little feather sticking out of the top. And his ears were not to be seen, either. The fourth of the rascals, Hermanus, better arrayed than the others, must have been branded on the shoulder twice by the executioner, aye, verily.“They all wear under their headgear greasy silk caps that hide their ears. Did you ever see the ears of a preacher? Which of these rogues ever dared to show his ears? His ears! Ah! yes, show his ears; they have all been cut off. Aye, the executioner has cut the ears off every one of them.“And yet it was round about these scandalous rogues, these cut purses, these cobblers that have run away from their stools, these ragamuffin preachers, that all the whole populace went crying and shouting: ‘Long live the Beggars!’ as if they had all been mad, drunk, or fools.“Ah, it only remains for us poor Roman Catholics to leave the Low Countries, since there they allow this bawling cry: ‘Long live the Beggars! Long live the Beggars!’ What a millstone of a curse hath therefore fallen upon this bewitched and foolish folk, ah! Jesus! Everywhere, rich and poor, noble and base, young and old, men and women, all cry out: ‘Long live the Beggars!’“And what are all these lords, these scald leather seats that have come to us from Germany? All their having is gone on harlots, or gaming, lechery, lewdness, long-drawn debauchery, rooted villainies, abominations of dice and ostentation of outward array. They have not even a rusty nail to scratch themselves with where they itch. And now they must needs have the goods and wealth of churches and convents.“And there at their banquet in the house of that rogue De Culembourg, with that other rogue De Brederode, they drank in wooden bowls, for scorn of Messire de Berlaymont and Madame the Lady Governor. Aye, and they shouted ‘Long live the Beggars!’ Ah! if I had been the good God (with all respect), I wouldhave caused their drink, whether it was beer or wine, to be changed into a foul and loathy dishwater, aye, into foul, abominable, stinking suds, in which they had washed their shirts and foul sheets.“Aye, bawl, donkeys that you are, bawl ‘Long live the Beggars!’ Aye! and I am a prophet. And all the curses, miseries, fevers, plagues, conflagrations, ruins, desolations, cankers, English sweating sickness and black plagues will fall upon the Low Countries. Aye, thus will God be revenged upon your filthy braying of ‘Long live the Beggars!’ And there will not be left one stone of your houses upon another, and not a morsel of bone in your damned legs that ran to this accursed Calvinistry and preachifying. And so, so, so, so, so be it. Amen!”“Let us go, my son,” said Ulenspiegel to Lamme.“In a moment,” said Lamme.And he looked and searched among the beautiful young devotees there present at the sermon, but he did not discover his wife.

XI

Ulenspiegel and Lamme being at Bruges, with their cart, which they left in a yard close by, went into the church of Saint Sauveur, instead of going to thetavern, for there was in their pouches no more the merry clink of coins.Father Cornelis Adriensen, a minor friar, dirty, brazen, furious, and a bellowing preacher, was on that day occupying the pulpit of truth.Beautiful young devout women were thronging all around.Father Cornelis was discoursing of the Passion. When he came to the passage in the Holy Gospel where the Jews cried to Pilate, speaking of our Lord Jesus, “Crucify him, crucify him, for we have our law, and by that law he must die,” Broer Cornelis exclaimed:“Ye have just heard it, good people, if Our Lord Jesus Christ endured a dreadful and a shameful death, it is because there have at all times been laws to punish heretics. He was justly condemned, because he had disobeyed those laws. And to-day they would fain regard as naught the edicts and proclamations. Ah! Jesus! What curse wouldst thou set upon these lands. Honoured Mother of God, if the Emperor Charles were still alive, and could he see the scandal of these confederate nobles who have dared to present to the Lady Governor a request against the Inquisition and against the proclamations made for an aim so good, which are so ripely thought out, and promulgated after so long and so wise reflection and deliberation, to destroy all sects and heresies! And they would fain reduce them to nothing, though they are more necessary than bread and than cheese! In what foul, loathsome, abominable gulf are we to be made to fall to-day? Luther, that vile Luther, that mad ox, triumphs in Saxony, in Brunswick, in Lunebourg, in Mecklenburg; Brentius, that dung Brentiuswho lived in Germany upon acorns the pigs refused, Brentius triumphs in Württemberg; Servetus the Lunatic, who hath a quarter of the moon in his head, the Trinitarian Servetus, reigns in Pomerania, in Denmark and in Sweden, and there he dares to blaspheme the holy, glorious, and mighty Trinity. Aye. But I am informed that he hath been burned alive by Calvin, who was never right or good save in that; aye, by the stinking Calvin who smells of musty sourness; aye, with his long face like a leather bottle; a face of cheese, with his big teeth like a gardener’s shovel. Aye, these wolves eat one another; aye, the ox Luther, the mad ox, roused the princes of Germany to arms against the Anabaptist Münzer, who was a good man, they say, and lived according to the Gospel. And through all Germany the bellowings of this ox have been heard, aye!“Aye, and what do we see in Flanders, Gueldre, Frisia, Holland, Zealand? Adamites running naked through the streets; yea, good people, naked in the streets, showing their lean flesh without shame to the passers-by. There was but one of them, say you: aye—let it pass—one is as good as a hundred, a hundred is even as one. And he was burned, say you, and he was burned alive, at the request of the Calvinists and Lutherans. These wolves eat one another, I say unto you!“Aye, and what do we see in Flanders, Gueldre, Frisia, Holland, Zealand? Free thinkers teaching that all servitude is contrary to the word of God. They lie, the stinking heretics; we must submit to the Holy Mother Church of Rome. And there, in that accursed city of Antwerp, the rendezvous and meeting-ground of all the heretic dogs in the world, they have dared topreach that we prepare and bake the host with dog’s grease. Another saith, ’tis that beggar upon the chamber pot at the corner of the street, ‘There is no God, nor life eternal, nor resurrection of the body, nor everlasting damnation.’ ‘We can,’ saith another yonder, in a whining voice, ‘baptise without salt, or lard, or spittle, without exorcism and without candle.’ ‘There is no purgatory,’ says another. There is no purgatory, good people! Ah! it were better for you to have committed sin with your mothers, your sisters, and your daughters, than to doubt purgatory.“Aye, and they turn up their nose at the Inquisitor, that holy man, aye. They came to Belem, near this place, as many as four thousand Calvinists, with weaponed men, banners and drums. Aye. And you can smell from here the smoke of their cooking fires. They have taken the Church of Saint Catholyne to dishonour it, profane it, desecrate it by their damnable preachifying.“What is this impious and scandalous tolerance? By the thousand devils of hell, ye supine, faint-hearted Catholics, why do not ye also take weapons into your hands? Ye have, even as these damned Calvinists, cuirasses, lances, halberds, swords, daggers, arbalests, knives, cudgels, pikes, the town falconets and culverins.“They are peaceful folk, say you; they desire in all freedom and tranquillity to hear the word of God. That is all one to me. Go forth from Bruges! hunt me, slay me, blow me up all these Calvinists that are without the pale of the Church. Ye are not yet started! Fie on you! Ye are hens trembling with fear on your dunghill. I see the moment when these damned Calvinists will drum on your wives’ and daughters’bellies, and you will let them, men of tow and putty. Go not over yonder, go not ... ye will get your stockings wet in the battle. Fie upon you, men of Bruges! fie upon you, Catholics! That is well done and like true Catholics, O cowardly poltroons! Shame upon you, ducks and drakes, geese and turkeys that you are!“Are not they goodly preachers, that you should go in crowds to hearken to the lies they belch forth, that the young girls should go by night to their sermons, aye, and that in nine months the town should be full of little beggar-boys and beggar-girls? There were four of them there, four scandalous vagabonds, that preached in the cemetery of the church. The first of these vagabonds, livid and lean, the ugly loose-belly, had a dirty hat upon his head. Thanks to it his ears were not to be seen. Which of you hath seen the ears of a preacher? He had no shirt, for his bare arms came linenless out through his doublet. I saw it well, though he tries to cover himself up with a dirty little cloak, and I saw, too, all right in his black canvas breeches, full of open work like the spire of Notre Dame, the swinging of his bells and clapper. The other vagabond preached in a doublet, and no shoes. Nobody saw his ears. And he had to stop short in his preachifying, and the boys and girls began to hoot him, crying: ‘Yah! Yah! he doesn’t know his lesson!’ The third of these scandalous vagabonds had on his head a dirty ugly little hat, with a little feather sticking out of the top. And his ears were not to be seen, either. The fourth of the rascals, Hermanus, better arrayed than the others, must have been branded on the shoulder twice by the executioner, aye, verily.“They all wear under their headgear greasy silk caps that hide their ears. Did you ever see the ears of a preacher? Which of these rogues ever dared to show his ears? His ears! Ah! yes, show his ears; they have all been cut off. Aye, the executioner has cut the ears off every one of them.“And yet it was round about these scandalous rogues, these cut purses, these cobblers that have run away from their stools, these ragamuffin preachers, that all the whole populace went crying and shouting: ‘Long live the Beggars!’ as if they had all been mad, drunk, or fools.“Ah, it only remains for us poor Roman Catholics to leave the Low Countries, since there they allow this bawling cry: ‘Long live the Beggars! Long live the Beggars!’ What a millstone of a curse hath therefore fallen upon this bewitched and foolish folk, ah! Jesus! Everywhere, rich and poor, noble and base, young and old, men and women, all cry out: ‘Long live the Beggars!’“And what are all these lords, these scald leather seats that have come to us from Germany? All their having is gone on harlots, or gaming, lechery, lewdness, long-drawn debauchery, rooted villainies, abominations of dice and ostentation of outward array. They have not even a rusty nail to scratch themselves with where they itch. And now they must needs have the goods and wealth of churches and convents.“And there at their banquet in the house of that rogue De Culembourg, with that other rogue De Brederode, they drank in wooden bowls, for scorn of Messire de Berlaymont and Madame the Lady Governor. Aye, and they shouted ‘Long live the Beggars!’ Ah! if I had been the good God (with all respect), I wouldhave caused their drink, whether it was beer or wine, to be changed into a foul and loathy dishwater, aye, into foul, abominable, stinking suds, in which they had washed their shirts and foul sheets.“Aye, bawl, donkeys that you are, bawl ‘Long live the Beggars!’ Aye! and I am a prophet. And all the curses, miseries, fevers, plagues, conflagrations, ruins, desolations, cankers, English sweating sickness and black plagues will fall upon the Low Countries. Aye, thus will God be revenged upon your filthy braying of ‘Long live the Beggars!’ And there will not be left one stone of your houses upon another, and not a morsel of bone in your damned legs that ran to this accursed Calvinistry and preachifying. And so, so, so, so, so be it. Amen!”“Let us go, my son,” said Ulenspiegel to Lamme.“In a moment,” said Lamme.And he looked and searched among the beautiful young devotees there present at the sermon, but he did not discover his wife.

Ulenspiegel and Lamme being at Bruges, with their cart, which they left in a yard close by, went into the church of Saint Sauveur, instead of going to thetavern, for there was in their pouches no more the merry clink of coins.

Father Cornelis Adriensen, a minor friar, dirty, brazen, furious, and a bellowing preacher, was on that day occupying the pulpit of truth.

Beautiful young devout women were thronging all around.

Father Cornelis was discoursing of the Passion. When he came to the passage in the Holy Gospel where the Jews cried to Pilate, speaking of our Lord Jesus, “Crucify him, crucify him, for we have our law, and by that law he must die,” Broer Cornelis exclaimed:

“Ye have just heard it, good people, if Our Lord Jesus Christ endured a dreadful and a shameful death, it is because there have at all times been laws to punish heretics. He was justly condemned, because he had disobeyed those laws. And to-day they would fain regard as naught the edicts and proclamations. Ah! Jesus! What curse wouldst thou set upon these lands. Honoured Mother of God, if the Emperor Charles were still alive, and could he see the scandal of these confederate nobles who have dared to present to the Lady Governor a request against the Inquisition and against the proclamations made for an aim so good, which are so ripely thought out, and promulgated after so long and so wise reflection and deliberation, to destroy all sects and heresies! And they would fain reduce them to nothing, though they are more necessary than bread and than cheese! In what foul, loathsome, abominable gulf are we to be made to fall to-day? Luther, that vile Luther, that mad ox, triumphs in Saxony, in Brunswick, in Lunebourg, in Mecklenburg; Brentius, that dung Brentiuswho lived in Germany upon acorns the pigs refused, Brentius triumphs in Württemberg; Servetus the Lunatic, who hath a quarter of the moon in his head, the Trinitarian Servetus, reigns in Pomerania, in Denmark and in Sweden, and there he dares to blaspheme the holy, glorious, and mighty Trinity. Aye. But I am informed that he hath been burned alive by Calvin, who was never right or good save in that; aye, by the stinking Calvin who smells of musty sourness; aye, with his long face like a leather bottle; a face of cheese, with his big teeth like a gardener’s shovel. Aye, these wolves eat one another; aye, the ox Luther, the mad ox, roused the princes of Germany to arms against the Anabaptist Münzer, who was a good man, they say, and lived according to the Gospel. And through all Germany the bellowings of this ox have been heard, aye!

“Aye, and what do we see in Flanders, Gueldre, Frisia, Holland, Zealand? Adamites running naked through the streets; yea, good people, naked in the streets, showing their lean flesh without shame to the passers-by. There was but one of them, say you: aye—let it pass—one is as good as a hundred, a hundred is even as one. And he was burned, say you, and he was burned alive, at the request of the Calvinists and Lutherans. These wolves eat one another, I say unto you!

“Aye, and what do we see in Flanders, Gueldre, Frisia, Holland, Zealand? Free thinkers teaching that all servitude is contrary to the word of God. They lie, the stinking heretics; we must submit to the Holy Mother Church of Rome. And there, in that accursed city of Antwerp, the rendezvous and meeting-ground of all the heretic dogs in the world, they have dared topreach that we prepare and bake the host with dog’s grease. Another saith, ’tis that beggar upon the chamber pot at the corner of the street, ‘There is no God, nor life eternal, nor resurrection of the body, nor everlasting damnation.’ ‘We can,’ saith another yonder, in a whining voice, ‘baptise without salt, or lard, or spittle, without exorcism and without candle.’ ‘There is no purgatory,’ says another. There is no purgatory, good people! Ah! it were better for you to have committed sin with your mothers, your sisters, and your daughters, than to doubt purgatory.

“Aye, and they turn up their nose at the Inquisitor, that holy man, aye. They came to Belem, near this place, as many as four thousand Calvinists, with weaponed men, banners and drums. Aye. And you can smell from here the smoke of their cooking fires. They have taken the Church of Saint Catholyne to dishonour it, profane it, desecrate it by their damnable preachifying.

“What is this impious and scandalous tolerance? By the thousand devils of hell, ye supine, faint-hearted Catholics, why do not ye also take weapons into your hands? Ye have, even as these damned Calvinists, cuirasses, lances, halberds, swords, daggers, arbalests, knives, cudgels, pikes, the town falconets and culverins.

“They are peaceful folk, say you; they desire in all freedom and tranquillity to hear the word of God. That is all one to me. Go forth from Bruges! hunt me, slay me, blow me up all these Calvinists that are without the pale of the Church. Ye are not yet started! Fie on you! Ye are hens trembling with fear on your dunghill. I see the moment when these damned Calvinists will drum on your wives’ and daughters’bellies, and you will let them, men of tow and putty. Go not over yonder, go not ... ye will get your stockings wet in the battle. Fie upon you, men of Bruges! fie upon you, Catholics! That is well done and like true Catholics, O cowardly poltroons! Shame upon you, ducks and drakes, geese and turkeys that you are!

“Are not they goodly preachers, that you should go in crowds to hearken to the lies they belch forth, that the young girls should go by night to their sermons, aye, and that in nine months the town should be full of little beggar-boys and beggar-girls? There were four of them there, four scandalous vagabonds, that preached in the cemetery of the church. The first of these vagabonds, livid and lean, the ugly loose-belly, had a dirty hat upon his head. Thanks to it his ears were not to be seen. Which of you hath seen the ears of a preacher? He had no shirt, for his bare arms came linenless out through his doublet. I saw it well, though he tries to cover himself up with a dirty little cloak, and I saw, too, all right in his black canvas breeches, full of open work like the spire of Notre Dame, the swinging of his bells and clapper. The other vagabond preached in a doublet, and no shoes. Nobody saw his ears. And he had to stop short in his preachifying, and the boys and girls began to hoot him, crying: ‘Yah! Yah! he doesn’t know his lesson!’ The third of these scandalous vagabonds had on his head a dirty ugly little hat, with a little feather sticking out of the top. And his ears were not to be seen, either. The fourth of the rascals, Hermanus, better arrayed than the others, must have been branded on the shoulder twice by the executioner, aye, verily.

“They all wear under their headgear greasy silk caps that hide their ears. Did you ever see the ears of a preacher? Which of these rogues ever dared to show his ears? His ears! Ah! yes, show his ears; they have all been cut off. Aye, the executioner has cut the ears off every one of them.

“And yet it was round about these scandalous rogues, these cut purses, these cobblers that have run away from their stools, these ragamuffin preachers, that all the whole populace went crying and shouting: ‘Long live the Beggars!’ as if they had all been mad, drunk, or fools.

“Ah, it only remains for us poor Roman Catholics to leave the Low Countries, since there they allow this bawling cry: ‘Long live the Beggars! Long live the Beggars!’ What a millstone of a curse hath therefore fallen upon this bewitched and foolish folk, ah! Jesus! Everywhere, rich and poor, noble and base, young and old, men and women, all cry out: ‘Long live the Beggars!’

“And what are all these lords, these scald leather seats that have come to us from Germany? All their having is gone on harlots, or gaming, lechery, lewdness, long-drawn debauchery, rooted villainies, abominations of dice and ostentation of outward array. They have not even a rusty nail to scratch themselves with where they itch. And now they must needs have the goods and wealth of churches and convents.

“And there at their banquet in the house of that rogue De Culembourg, with that other rogue De Brederode, they drank in wooden bowls, for scorn of Messire de Berlaymont and Madame the Lady Governor. Aye, and they shouted ‘Long live the Beggars!’ Ah! if I had been the good God (with all respect), I wouldhave caused their drink, whether it was beer or wine, to be changed into a foul and loathy dishwater, aye, into foul, abominable, stinking suds, in which they had washed their shirts and foul sheets.

“Aye, bawl, donkeys that you are, bawl ‘Long live the Beggars!’ Aye! and I am a prophet. And all the curses, miseries, fevers, plagues, conflagrations, ruins, desolations, cankers, English sweating sickness and black plagues will fall upon the Low Countries. Aye, thus will God be revenged upon your filthy braying of ‘Long live the Beggars!’ And there will not be left one stone of your houses upon another, and not a morsel of bone in your damned legs that ran to this accursed Calvinistry and preachifying. And so, so, so, so, so be it. Amen!”

“Let us go, my son,” said Ulenspiegel to Lamme.

“In a moment,” said Lamme.

And he looked and searched among the beautiful young devotees there present at the sermon, but he did not discover his wife.

XIIUlenspiegel and Lamme came to the place called Minne-Water, Love-Water; but the great doctors and Wysneusen Pedants say it is Minre-Water, Minim-Water. Ulenspiegel and Lamme sat down upon the brink, seeing pass by beneath the trees all leafy down to their very heads, like a low roof, men, women, girls, and boys, hand in hand, garlanded with flowers, walking hip to hip, looking tenderly in one another’s eyes, without seeing anything in this world but themselves.Ulenspiegel, thinking of Nele, gazed at them. In his melancholy, he said:“Let us go drink.”But Lamme, not hearkening Ulenspiegel, also looked upon the pairs of lovers:“In the old days we, too, used to pass, my wife and I, loving each other under the eyes of those who like you and me, on the edge of ditches, were stretched out solitary and without a woman.”“Come and drink,” said Ulenspiegel, “we shall find the Seven at the bottom of a quart.”“A drinker’s word,” answered Lamme: “you know the Seven are giants who could not stand upright under the big dome of the church of Saint Sauveur.”Ulenspiegel, thinking wretchedly of Nele, and also that in some hostelry he might perchance find a good bed, good supper, a comely hostess, said yet again:“Let us go and drink!”But Lamme paid no heed, and said, looking at the tower of Notre Dame:“Madame Holy Mary, patroness of lawful loves, grant me to see again her white bosom, that soft pillow.”“Come and drink,” said Ulenspiegel, “you shall find her, displaying it to the drinkers, in a tavern.”“Dost thou dare think so ill of her?” said Lamme.“Let us go and drink,” said Ulenspiegel, “she isbaesinesomewhere, without a doubt.”“Thirst talk,” said Lamme.Ulenspiegel went on:“Perchance keepeth she in reserve for poor travellers a dish of goodly stewed beef, whose spices perfume the air, not too rich, tender, succulent as rose leaves, and swimming like Shrove Tuesday fishes amid cloves, nutmeg, cocks’ combs, sweetbreads, and other celestial dainties.”“Cruel!” said Lamme, “you mean to kill me for sure. Do you not know that for two days we have lived on nothing but dry bread and small beer?”“Hunger talk,” answered Ulenspiegel. “You are weeping with appetite; come and eat and drink. I have here a fine half florin that will defray the cost of our feast.”Lamme laughed. They went to find their cart and thus went about the town, seeking to know which was the best inn. But seeing several crabbed countenances on thebaesand no wise pleasing on thebaesines, they passed on, thinking that a sour face is a poor sign for a hospitable kitchen.They arrived at the Saturday Market and went into the hostelry calledde Blauwe-Lanteern, the Blue-Lantern. Here there was abaesof pleasant aspect.They put up their cart and had the ass lodged in the stable, in company with a peck of oats. They ordered supper to be served, ate their fill, slept well, and rose to eat again. Lamme, bursting with comfort, said:“I hear heavenly music in my stomach.”When the time came to pay, thebaescame to Lamme and said to him:“Ten patards, if you please.”“He has them,” said Lamme, pointing to Ulenspiegel who answered:“I have not.”“And the half florin?” said Lamme.“I have not got it,” said Ulenspiegel.“This is all very well,” said thebaes: “I shall take the doublet and the shirt off both of you.”Suddenly Lamme, plucking up bottle courage:“And if I want to eat and drink, I,” exclaimed he,“to eat and drink, aye, drink for twenty-seven florins worth or more, I will do it. Dost thou think there is not a sou’s value in this belly of mine? Good God! it was never fed till now but on ortolans. Never didst thou carry the like under thy greasy girdle. For like an ill fellow thou hast thy tallow on the collar of thy doublet, and not like me, three inches of dainty fat on the paunch!”Thebaeshad fallen into an ecstasy of rage. A stammerer by nature, he wanted to speak quickly; the more he hurried, the more he sneezed and sputtered like a dog coming out of the water. Ulenspiegel threw little balls of bread at his nose. And Lamme, becoming hotter, went on:“Aye, I have wherewith to pay for your three scraggy hens, your four mangy pullets, and that big idiot of a peacock dragging his dirty tail in your yard. And if your skin was not drier than an old cock’s, if your bones were not crumbling to dust in your breast, I would have still enough to eat you, yourself, your snot of a man, your one-eyed maid and your cook, who if he had itch would have arms too short to scratch himself.“Do you see,” he went on, “do you see this fine bird that, for half a florin, wants to seize our doublets and our shirts? Tell me what your wardrobe is worth, tattered impertinence, and I will give you three liards for it.”But thebaes, becoming angrier and angrier, puffed and blew the more.And Ulenspiegel flung balls in his face.Lamme, like a roaring lion, said:“How much do you think, scrawny face, a fine ass is worth, with a fine muzzle, long ears, wide chested,with legs of iron? Eighteen florins at the least, is not that so, miserablebaes? How many old nails have you in your coffers to pay for so fine a beast?”Thebaessputtered more and more, but dared not budge.Lamme said:“How much do you think a fine cart is worth, all made of ash painted red, and equipped all over with Courtrai canvas against the sun and the showers? Twenty-four florins at least, hey? And how much is twenty-four florins and eighteen florins? Answer that, leper devoid of arithmetic. And as it is a market day, and as there are farming folk in your miserable hostelry, I am going to sell cart and donkey to them at once.”And so it was done, for all knew Lamme. And in fact he got for his ass and his cart forty-four florins and ten patards. Then, clinking the gold under the nose of thebaes, he said to him:“Dost thou smell in that the savour of feasting to come?”“Aye,” replied the host.And he said under his breath:“When you are selling your skin, I will buy a liard’s worth to make a charm against prodigality with it.”In the meantime, a pretty, taking woman who was in the dark of the yard had come again and again to look at Lamme through the window, and drew back every time he might have caught sight of her pretty face.That night, on the staircase, as he was going up without a light, tottering a little from the wine he had drunk, he felt a woman who flung her arms about him, kissed him on the cheek, the mouth, even on the nose,gluttonously, and wetting his face with amorous tears, then left him.Lamme, all sleepy from his drink, went to bed, fell asleep, and next day went off to Ghent with Ulenspiegel.

XII

Ulenspiegel and Lamme came to the place called Minne-Water, Love-Water; but the great doctors and Wysneusen Pedants say it is Minre-Water, Minim-Water. Ulenspiegel and Lamme sat down upon the brink, seeing pass by beneath the trees all leafy down to their very heads, like a low roof, men, women, girls, and boys, hand in hand, garlanded with flowers, walking hip to hip, looking tenderly in one another’s eyes, without seeing anything in this world but themselves.Ulenspiegel, thinking of Nele, gazed at them. In his melancholy, he said:“Let us go drink.”But Lamme, not hearkening Ulenspiegel, also looked upon the pairs of lovers:“In the old days we, too, used to pass, my wife and I, loving each other under the eyes of those who like you and me, on the edge of ditches, were stretched out solitary and without a woman.”“Come and drink,” said Ulenspiegel, “we shall find the Seven at the bottom of a quart.”“A drinker’s word,” answered Lamme: “you know the Seven are giants who could not stand upright under the big dome of the church of Saint Sauveur.”Ulenspiegel, thinking wretchedly of Nele, and also that in some hostelry he might perchance find a good bed, good supper, a comely hostess, said yet again:“Let us go and drink!”But Lamme paid no heed, and said, looking at the tower of Notre Dame:“Madame Holy Mary, patroness of lawful loves, grant me to see again her white bosom, that soft pillow.”“Come and drink,” said Ulenspiegel, “you shall find her, displaying it to the drinkers, in a tavern.”“Dost thou dare think so ill of her?” said Lamme.“Let us go and drink,” said Ulenspiegel, “she isbaesinesomewhere, without a doubt.”“Thirst talk,” said Lamme.Ulenspiegel went on:“Perchance keepeth she in reserve for poor travellers a dish of goodly stewed beef, whose spices perfume the air, not too rich, tender, succulent as rose leaves, and swimming like Shrove Tuesday fishes amid cloves, nutmeg, cocks’ combs, sweetbreads, and other celestial dainties.”“Cruel!” said Lamme, “you mean to kill me for sure. Do you not know that for two days we have lived on nothing but dry bread and small beer?”“Hunger talk,” answered Ulenspiegel. “You are weeping with appetite; come and eat and drink. I have here a fine half florin that will defray the cost of our feast.”Lamme laughed. They went to find their cart and thus went about the town, seeking to know which was the best inn. But seeing several crabbed countenances on thebaesand no wise pleasing on thebaesines, they passed on, thinking that a sour face is a poor sign for a hospitable kitchen.They arrived at the Saturday Market and went into the hostelry calledde Blauwe-Lanteern, the Blue-Lantern. Here there was abaesof pleasant aspect.They put up their cart and had the ass lodged in the stable, in company with a peck of oats. They ordered supper to be served, ate their fill, slept well, and rose to eat again. Lamme, bursting with comfort, said:“I hear heavenly music in my stomach.”When the time came to pay, thebaescame to Lamme and said to him:“Ten patards, if you please.”“He has them,” said Lamme, pointing to Ulenspiegel who answered:“I have not.”“And the half florin?” said Lamme.“I have not got it,” said Ulenspiegel.“This is all very well,” said thebaes: “I shall take the doublet and the shirt off both of you.”Suddenly Lamme, plucking up bottle courage:“And if I want to eat and drink, I,” exclaimed he,“to eat and drink, aye, drink for twenty-seven florins worth or more, I will do it. Dost thou think there is not a sou’s value in this belly of mine? Good God! it was never fed till now but on ortolans. Never didst thou carry the like under thy greasy girdle. For like an ill fellow thou hast thy tallow on the collar of thy doublet, and not like me, three inches of dainty fat on the paunch!”Thebaeshad fallen into an ecstasy of rage. A stammerer by nature, he wanted to speak quickly; the more he hurried, the more he sneezed and sputtered like a dog coming out of the water. Ulenspiegel threw little balls of bread at his nose. And Lamme, becoming hotter, went on:“Aye, I have wherewith to pay for your three scraggy hens, your four mangy pullets, and that big idiot of a peacock dragging his dirty tail in your yard. And if your skin was not drier than an old cock’s, if your bones were not crumbling to dust in your breast, I would have still enough to eat you, yourself, your snot of a man, your one-eyed maid and your cook, who if he had itch would have arms too short to scratch himself.“Do you see,” he went on, “do you see this fine bird that, for half a florin, wants to seize our doublets and our shirts? Tell me what your wardrobe is worth, tattered impertinence, and I will give you three liards for it.”But thebaes, becoming angrier and angrier, puffed and blew the more.And Ulenspiegel flung balls in his face.Lamme, like a roaring lion, said:“How much do you think, scrawny face, a fine ass is worth, with a fine muzzle, long ears, wide chested,with legs of iron? Eighteen florins at the least, is not that so, miserablebaes? How many old nails have you in your coffers to pay for so fine a beast?”Thebaessputtered more and more, but dared not budge.Lamme said:“How much do you think a fine cart is worth, all made of ash painted red, and equipped all over with Courtrai canvas against the sun and the showers? Twenty-four florins at least, hey? And how much is twenty-four florins and eighteen florins? Answer that, leper devoid of arithmetic. And as it is a market day, and as there are farming folk in your miserable hostelry, I am going to sell cart and donkey to them at once.”And so it was done, for all knew Lamme. And in fact he got for his ass and his cart forty-four florins and ten patards. Then, clinking the gold under the nose of thebaes, he said to him:“Dost thou smell in that the savour of feasting to come?”“Aye,” replied the host.And he said under his breath:“When you are selling your skin, I will buy a liard’s worth to make a charm against prodigality with it.”In the meantime, a pretty, taking woman who was in the dark of the yard had come again and again to look at Lamme through the window, and drew back every time he might have caught sight of her pretty face.That night, on the staircase, as he was going up without a light, tottering a little from the wine he had drunk, he felt a woman who flung her arms about him, kissed him on the cheek, the mouth, even on the nose,gluttonously, and wetting his face with amorous tears, then left him.Lamme, all sleepy from his drink, went to bed, fell asleep, and next day went off to Ghent with Ulenspiegel.

Ulenspiegel and Lamme came to the place called Minne-Water, Love-Water; but the great doctors and Wysneusen Pedants say it is Minre-Water, Minim-Water. Ulenspiegel and Lamme sat down upon the brink, seeing pass by beneath the trees all leafy down to their very heads, like a low roof, men, women, girls, and boys, hand in hand, garlanded with flowers, walking hip to hip, looking tenderly in one another’s eyes, without seeing anything in this world but themselves.

Ulenspiegel, thinking of Nele, gazed at them. In his melancholy, he said:

“Let us go drink.”

But Lamme, not hearkening Ulenspiegel, also looked upon the pairs of lovers:

“In the old days we, too, used to pass, my wife and I, loving each other under the eyes of those who like you and me, on the edge of ditches, were stretched out solitary and without a woman.”

“Come and drink,” said Ulenspiegel, “we shall find the Seven at the bottom of a quart.”

“A drinker’s word,” answered Lamme: “you know the Seven are giants who could not stand upright under the big dome of the church of Saint Sauveur.”

Ulenspiegel, thinking wretchedly of Nele, and also that in some hostelry he might perchance find a good bed, good supper, a comely hostess, said yet again:

“Let us go and drink!”

But Lamme paid no heed, and said, looking at the tower of Notre Dame:

“Madame Holy Mary, patroness of lawful loves, grant me to see again her white bosom, that soft pillow.”

“Come and drink,” said Ulenspiegel, “you shall find her, displaying it to the drinkers, in a tavern.”

“Dost thou dare think so ill of her?” said Lamme.

“Let us go and drink,” said Ulenspiegel, “she isbaesinesomewhere, without a doubt.”

“Thirst talk,” said Lamme.

Ulenspiegel went on:

“Perchance keepeth she in reserve for poor travellers a dish of goodly stewed beef, whose spices perfume the air, not too rich, tender, succulent as rose leaves, and swimming like Shrove Tuesday fishes amid cloves, nutmeg, cocks’ combs, sweetbreads, and other celestial dainties.”

“Cruel!” said Lamme, “you mean to kill me for sure. Do you not know that for two days we have lived on nothing but dry bread and small beer?”

“Hunger talk,” answered Ulenspiegel. “You are weeping with appetite; come and eat and drink. I have here a fine half florin that will defray the cost of our feast.”

Lamme laughed. They went to find their cart and thus went about the town, seeking to know which was the best inn. But seeing several crabbed countenances on thebaesand no wise pleasing on thebaesines, they passed on, thinking that a sour face is a poor sign for a hospitable kitchen.

They arrived at the Saturday Market and went into the hostelry calledde Blauwe-Lanteern, the Blue-Lantern. Here there was abaesof pleasant aspect.

They put up their cart and had the ass lodged in the stable, in company with a peck of oats. They ordered supper to be served, ate their fill, slept well, and rose to eat again. Lamme, bursting with comfort, said:

“I hear heavenly music in my stomach.”

When the time came to pay, thebaescame to Lamme and said to him:

“Ten patards, if you please.”

“He has them,” said Lamme, pointing to Ulenspiegel who answered:

“I have not.”

“And the half florin?” said Lamme.

“I have not got it,” said Ulenspiegel.

“This is all very well,” said thebaes: “I shall take the doublet and the shirt off both of you.”

Suddenly Lamme, plucking up bottle courage:

“And if I want to eat and drink, I,” exclaimed he,“to eat and drink, aye, drink for twenty-seven florins worth or more, I will do it. Dost thou think there is not a sou’s value in this belly of mine? Good God! it was never fed till now but on ortolans. Never didst thou carry the like under thy greasy girdle. For like an ill fellow thou hast thy tallow on the collar of thy doublet, and not like me, three inches of dainty fat on the paunch!”

Thebaeshad fallen into an ecstasy of rage. A stammerer by nature, he wanted to speak quickly; the more he hurried, the more he sneezed and sputtered like a dog coming out of the water. Ulenspiegel threw little balls of bread at his nose. And Lamme, becoming hotter, went on:

“Aye, I have wherewith to pay for your three scraggy hens, your four mangy pullets, and that big idiot of a peacock dragging his dirty tail in your yard. And if your skin was not drier than an old cock’s, if your bones were not crumbling to dust in your breast, I would have still enough to eat you, yourself, your snot of a man, your one-eyed maid and your cook, who if he had itch would have arms too short to scratch himself.

“Do you see,” he went on, “do you see this fine bird that, for half a florin, wants to seize our doublets and our shirts? Tell me what your wardrobe is worth, tattered impertinence, and I will give you three liards for it.”

But thebaes, becoming angrier and angrier, puffed and blew the more.

And Ulenspiegel flung balls in his face.

Lamme, like a roaring lion, said:

“How much do you think, scrawny face, a fine ass is worth, with a fine muzzle, long ears, wide chested,with legs of iron? Eighteen florins at the least, is not that so, miserablebaes? How many old nails have you in your coffers to pay for so fine a beast?”

Thebaessputtered more and more, but dared not budge.

Lamme said:

“How much do you think a fine cart is worth, all made of ash painted red, and equipped all over with Courtrai canvas against the sun and the showers? Twenty-four florins at least, hey? And how much is twenty-four florins and eighteen florins? Answer that, leper devoid of arithmetic. And as it is a market day, and as there are farming folk in your miserable hostelry, I am going to sell cart and donkey to them at once.”

And so it was done, for all knew Lamme. And in fact he got for his ass and his cart forty-four florins and ten patards. Then, clinking the gold under the nose of thebaes, he said to him:

“Dost thou smell in that the savour of feasting to come?”

“Aye,” replied the host.

And he said under his breath:

“When you are selling your skin, I will buy a liard’s worth to make a charm against prodigality with it.”

In the meantime, a pretty, taking woman who was in the dark of the yard had come again and again to look at Lamme through the window, and drew back every time he might have caught sight of her pretty face.

That night, on the staircase, as he was going up without a light, tottering a little from the wine he had drunk, he felt a woman who flung her arms about him, kissed him on the cheek, the mouth, even on the nose,gluttonously, and wetting his face with amorous tears, then left him.

Lamme, all sleepy from his drink, went to bed, fell asleep, and next day went off to Ghent with Ulenspiegel.

XIIIThere he sought for his wife in all thekaberdoesjen, musicos, tafelhooren, and taverns. At night, he rejoined Ulenspiegelin den zingende Zwaan, at the Singing Swan. Ulenspiegel went wherever he could, spreading alarm and rousing the people against the butchers of the land of their fathers.Finding himself in the Friday Market, near theDulle-Griet, the Great Cannon, Ulenspiegel lay down flat on his face on the pavement.A coalman came and said to him:“What are you doing there?”“I am damping my nose to know which way the wind blows,” replied Ulenspiegel.A carpenter came along.“Do you take the pavement,” said he, “for a mattress?”“There are some,” replied Ulenspiegel, “who will soon take it for a quilt.”A monk stopped.“What is this moon calf doing there?” he asked.“He is on his face begging for your blessing, Father,” replied Ulenspiegel.The monk having bestowed it, went on his way.Ulenspiegel then lay with his ear against the ground. A peasant came by.“Dost thou hear any noise from below?” he said.“Aye,” replied Ulenspiegel, “I hear the wood growing, the wood whose faggots will serve to burn poor heretics.”“Dost thou hear naught else?” said a constable of the commune to him.“I hear,” said Ulenspiegel, “the gendarmerie coming from Spain; if thou hast aught to keep, bury it, for soon the towns will be safe no longer by reason of robbers.”“He is mad,” said the constable.“He is mad,” repeated the townsfolk.

XIII

There he sought for his wife in all thekaberdoesjen, musicos, tafelhooren, and taverns. At night, he rejoined Ulenspiegelin den zingende Zwaan, at the Singing Swan. Ulenspiegel went wherever he could, spreading alarm and rousing the people against the butchers of the land of their fathers.Finding himself in the Friday Market, near theDulle-Griet, the Great Cannon, Ulenspiegel lay down flat on his face on the pavement.A coalman came and said to him:“What are you doing there?”“I am damping my nose to know which way the wind blows,” replied Ulenspiegel.A carpenter came along.“Do you take the pavement,” said he, “for a mattress?”“There are some,” replied Ulenspiegel, “who will soon take it for a quilt.”A monk stopped.“What is this moon calf doing there?” he asked.“He is on his face begging for your blessing, Father,” replied Ulenspiegel.The monk having bestowed it, went on his way.Ulenspiegel then lay with his ear against the ground. A peasant came by.“Dost thou hear any noise from below?” he said.“Aye,” replied Ulenspiegel, “I hear the wood growing, the wood whose faggots will serve to burn poor heretics.”“Dost thou hear naught else?” said a constable of the commune to him.“I hear,” said Ulenspiegel, “the gendarmerie coming from Spain; if thou hast aught to keep, bury it, for soon the towns will be safe no longer by reason of robbers.”“He is mad,” said the constable.“He is mad,” repeated the townsfolk.

There he sought for his wife in all thekaberdoesjen, musicos, tafelhooren, and taverns. At night, he rejoined Ulenspiegelin den zingende Zwaan, at the Singing Swan. Ulenspiegel went wherever he could, spreading alarm and rousing the people against the butchers of the land of their fathers.

Finding himself in the Friday Market, near theDulle-Griet, the Great Cannon, Ulenspiegel lay down flat on his face on the pavement.

A coalman came and said to him:

“What are you doing there?”

“I am damping my nose to know which way the wind blows,” replied Ulenspiegel.

A carpenter came along.

“Do you take the pavement,” said he, “for a mattress?”

“There are some,” replied Ulenspiegel, “who will soon take it for a quilt.”

A monk stopped.

“What is this moon calf doing there?” he asked.

“He is on his face begging for your blessing, Father,” replied Ulenspiegel.

The monk having bestowed it, went on his way.

Ulenspiegel then lay with his ear against the ground. A peasant came by.

“Dost thou hear any noise from below?” he said.

“Aye,” replied Ulenspiegel, “I hear the wood growing, the wood whose faggots will serve to burn poor heretics.”

“Dost thou hear naught else?” said a constable of the commune to him.

“I hear,” said Ulenspiegel, “the gendarmerie coming from Spain; if thou hast aught to keep, bury it, for soon the towns will be safe no longer by reason of robbers.”

“He is mad,” said the constable.

“He is mad,” repeated the townsfolk.

XIVMeanwhile, Lamme could not eat, thinking of the sweet vision of the stairs at theBlauwe-Lanteern. His heart turning to Bruges, he was led perforce by Ulenspiegel to Antwerp, where he continued his sorrowful searchings.Ulenspiegel being in the taverns, in the midst of good Flemings of the reformed faith, or even Catholics that were lovers of liberty, would say to them about the proclamations: “They bring us the Inquisition under pretext of purging us from heresy, but it is meant for our purses, this rhubarb. We have no love to be physicked save at our own will and as we choose; we shall be wroth, we shall rebel and take arms in our hands. The king knew this well beforehand. Seeing that we have no mind to rhubarb, he will advance the syringes, to wit the great guns and the little guns, serpents, falconets, and mortars with their big mouths. A kingly clyster! There will not be left a single rich Fleming in all Flanders physicked in this fashion. Happy is our land to have so royal a physician.”But the townsfolk could only laugh.Ulenspiegel would say: “Laugh to-day, but flee or arm on that day when something is broken at Notre Dame.”

XIV

Meanwhile, Lamme could not eat, thinking of the sweet vision of the stairs at theBlauwe-Lanteern. His heart turning to Bruges, he was led perforce by Ulenspiegel to Antwerp, where he continued his sorrowful searchings.Ulenspiegel being in the taverns, in the midst of good Flemings of the reformed faith, or even Catholics that were lovers of liberty, would say to them about the proclamations: “They bring us the Inquisition under pretext of purging us from heresy, but it is meant for our purses, this rhubarb. We have no love to be physicked save at our own will and as we choose; we shall be wroth, we shall rebel and take arms in our hands. The king knew this well beforehand. Seeing that we have no mind to rhubarb, he will advance the syringes, to wit the great guns and the little guns, serpents, falconets, and mortars with their big mouths. A kingly clyster! There will not be left a single rich Fleming in all Flanders physicked in this fashion. Happy is our land to have so royal a physician.”But the townsfolk could only laugh.Ulenspiegel would say: “Laugh to-day, but flee or arm on that day when something is broken at Notre Dame.”

Meanwhile, Lamme could not eat, thinking of the sweet vision of the stairs at theBlauwe-Lanteern. His heart turning to Bruges, he was led perforce by Ulenspiegel to Antwerp, where he continued his sorrowful searchings.

Ulenspiegel being in the taverns, in the midst of good Flemings of the reformed faith, or even Catholics that were lovers of liberty, would say to them about the proclamations: “They bring us the Inquisition under pretext of purging us from heresy, but it is meant for our purses, this rhubarb. We have no love to be physicked save at our own will and as we choose; we shall be wroth, we shall rebel and take arms in our hands. The king knew this well beforehand. Seeing that we have no mind to rhubarb, he will advance the syringes, to wit the great guns and the little guns, serpents, falconets, and mortars with their big mouths. A kingly clyster! There will not be left a single rich Fleming in all Flanders physicked in this fashion. Happy is our land to have so royal a physician.”

But the townsfolk could only laugh.

Ulenspiegel would say: “Laugh to-day, but flee or arm on that day when something is broken at Notre Dame.”

XVOn the 15th of August, the great feast of Mary and of the blessing of herbs and roots, when filled with corn the hens are deaf to the bugle of the cock imploring love, a great stone crucifix was broken at one of the gates of Antwerp by an Italian in the pay of the Cardinal de Granvelle, and the procession of the Virgin, preceded by fools in green, in yellow, and in red, came forth out of the church of Notre Dame.But the Virgin’s statue, having been insulted on the way by men whom no one knew, was hastily taken back into the choir of the church, the iron gates of which were shut.Ulenspiegel and Lamme went into Notre Dame. Young beggars and ragamuffins, and some grown men among them, that nobody knew were in front of the choir, making certain signs and grimaces one to another. They were making a great din with feet and tongues. No one had seen them before in Antwerp, no one ever saw them again. One of them, with a face like a burned onion, asked if Mieke, that was Our Lady, had been afraid that she had gone back to the church in such a hurry.“It is not of thee that she is afeared, ugly blackamoor,” replied Ulenspiegel.The young man to whom he spoke went up to him, to beat him, but Ulenspiegel, gripping him by the collar:“If you strike me,” said he, “I will make you spew out your tongue.”Then turning towards certain men of Antwerp that were present:“Signorkesandpagaders,” said he, pointing out the ragged young men, “be cautious, these are spurious Flemings, traitors paid to bring us to ill, to misery, and to ruin.”Then speaking to the strangers:“Hey,” said he, “donkey faces, withered with want, whence have ye the money that chinks to-day in your pouches? Have ye perchance sold your skins beforehand for drumheads?”“Look at the sermonizer!” said the strangers.Then they all began to shout together with one accord speaking of Our Lady:“Mieke has a fine robe. Mieke has a fine crown! I will give them to my doxy.”They went away, while one of them had got up into a pulpit to proclaim insulting and outrageous things from it, and they came back crying:“Come down, Mieke, come down before we go and fetch you. Perform a miracle, that we may see if you can walk as well as you can have Mieke carried about, the lazy thing!”But Ulenspiegel cried in vain: “Workers of ruin, have done with your vile talk; all pillage is a crime!” They ceased not at all from their talk; and some spoke even of breaking into the choir to force Mieke to come down.Hearing this, an old woman, who sold candles in the church, flung in their faces the ashes of her foot warmer; but she was beaten and flung down on the floor, and then the riot began.The markgrave came to the church with his sergeants. Seeing the populace assembled, he exhorted them to leave the church, but so feebly that only a few went away; the others said:“First we want to hear the canons singing vespers in honour of Mieke.”The markgrave replied:“There shall be no singing.”“We will sing ourselves,” answered the ragged strangers.Which they did in the naves and near the porch of the church. Some played atKrieke-steenen, at cherry-stones, and said: “Mieke, you never game in paradise and you are bored there; play with us.”And insulting the statue without ceasing, they cried out, hooted and whistled.The markgrave pretended to be afraid and departed. By his orders all the doors of the church were shut save one.Without the populace having any hand in it, the ragtag and bobtail of the strangers became bolder and shouted more and more. And the roofs reëchoed as though to the din of a hundred cannon.One of them, he of the face like a burned onion, appearing to have some authority among them, got up into a pulpit, made a sign with his hand to them, and began to preach:“In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” said he: “the three making but one, and the one making three, God keep us in paradise from arithmetic; this day the twenty-ninth of August, Mieke went forth in great pomp of array to show her wooden face to thesignorkesandpagadersof Antwerp.But Mieke, in the procession met the devil Satanas. And Satanas said to her, mocking her: ‘There you are, high and mighty, prinked up like a queen, Mieke, and borne by foursignorkes, and you will not look now at the poorpagaderSatanas that makes his way on foot.’ And Mieke answered: ‘Begone, Satanas, or I bruise thy head still more than ever, foul serpent!’ ‘Mieke,’ said Satanas, ‘that is the task in which you have been spending your time for fifteen hundred years, but the Spirit of the Lord, your master, hath delivered me. I am stronger than you are; you shall not walk over my head any more, and I am going to make you dance now.’ Satanas took a great whip, sharp and cutting, and started to flog Mieke, who dared not cry out for fear of showing her terror, and then she began to run as hard as she could, forcing thesignorkesthat were carrying her to run, too, so as not to let her fall with her gold crown and her jewels among the poor common folk. And now Mieke stays as stiff and as still as a frightened mouse in her niche, watching Satan, who is seated up at the top of the pillar under the little dome, and who says to her, still grasping his whip and grinning, ‘I will make you pay for the blood and tears that flow in your name! Mieke, how goes your virgin birth? This is the time to flit. You shall be cut in twain, evil statue of wood, for all the statues of flesh and bone that were burned in your name, burned, hanged, buried alive without pity.’ So spake Satanas; and he spoke well. And thou must come down from thy niche, bloody Mieke, Mieke the cruel, that wast in no way like thy son Christus.”And all the band of the strangers, hooting and crying out, shouted: “Mieke! Mieke! it is time to come out!Are you wetting your linen for fear in your niche? Up Brabant for the good Duke. Away with the wooden saints! Who will have a bath in the Scheldt! Wood swims better than fishes.”The populace listened to them without saying a word.But Ulenspiegel, getting up into the pulpit, threw down the stair by main force the one that was haranguing.“Fools fit to tie,” he said, speaking to the populace; “lunatic fools, idiot fools, who see no further than the end of your dirty noses, do ye not see that all this is the work of traitors? They mean to make you commit sacrilege and pillage that they may declare you rebels, empty your coffers, cut off your heads, and burn you alive! And the king will inherit.Signorkesandpagaders, do not believe in the speeches of these artificers of woes: leave Notre Dame in her niche, live stoutly, working happily, spending your earnings and profits. The black devil of ruin has his eye upon you, and it is through sackings and destruction that he will call up the army of your foes to treat you as rebels and make Alba reign over you with dictatorship, inquisition, confiscation, and death.”“And he will inherit!”“Alas,” said Lamme, “do not pillage anything,signorkesandpagaders; the king is already very angry. The daughter of the embroideress told my friend Ulenspiegel so. Do not indulge in pillage, sirs!”But the populace would not give ear to them.The unknown kept shouting:“Sack and turn out! Sack Brabant for the good Duke! To the river with wooden saints! They swim better than fishes!”Ulenspiegel, still in the pulpit, cried in vain:“Signorkesandpagadersdo not suffer pillage! Do not call down ruin upon the town!”He was plucked away from there all torn, face, doublet, and breeches, though he avenged himself with both feet and hands. And all bleeding he never ceased to cry out:“Do not suffer pillage!”But it was in vain.The unknown and the ragtag and bobtail of the city flung themselves on the iron grille of the choir, which they broke through, crying:“Long live the Beggar!”They all set to work to break, sack, destroy. Before midnight this great church, in which there were seventy altars, every kind of noble paintings and precious things, was empty as a nut. The altars were broken, the images flung down, and all the locks smashed.This being done, the same unknown set off to treat like Notre Dame, the Minor Brothers, the Franciscans, Saint Peter, Saint Andrew, Saint Michael, Saint Pierre-au-Pot, the Bourg, the Fawkens, the White Sisters, the Gray Sisters, the Third Order, the Preachers, and all the churches and chapels in the city. They took candles and torches out of them and ran around everywhere in this manner.Among them there was no quarrel nor dispute; not one of them was hurt in that great demolishing of wood and other materials.They betook themselves to The Hague to proceed there to the overthrow of statues and altars, without the reformed lending them any aid either there or elsewhere.At The Hague, the magistrate asked them where was their commission.“It is here,” said one of them, striking upon his heart.“Their commission, hear you,signorkesandpagaders?” said Ulenspiegel, having been informed of this. “So then there is someone who deputes them to this work of sacrilege. Let some robber thief come into my cottage; I will do as did the magistrate of The Hague, I will say, taking off my bonnet: ‘Gentle robber, gracious rogue, worshipful rascal, show me your commission.’ He will reply that it is in his heart that is greedy for my goods. And I shall give him the keys of everything. Seek, seek out who it is that profits by this pillage. Beware of the Red Dog. The great stone crucifix is flung down. Beware of the Red Dog!”The Great Sovereign Council of Malines having given orders through its president Viglius, not to put any obstacle in the way of image breaking:—“Alas!” said Ulenspiegel, “the harvest is ripe for the Spanish reapers. The Duke! the Duke is marching upon you. Flemings, the sea rises, the sea of vengeance. Poor women and girls, flee the living grave! Poor men, flee the gallows, the fire, and the sword! Philip means to finish the bloody work of Charles. The father sowed death and exile, the son hath sworn that he would rather rule over a cemetery than over a heretic folk. Flee; here be the executioner and the gravediggers.”The populace hearkened to Ulenspiegel, and families left the cities by hundreds, and the roads were encumbered with carts laden with the household stuff of those that were going into exile.And Ulenspiegel went everywhere, followed by Lamme grieving and looking for his beloved.And at Damme Nele wept by the side of Katheline the madwife.

XV

On the 15th of August, the great feast of Mary and of the blessing of herbs and roots, when filled with corn the hens are deaf to the bugle of the cock imploring love, a great stone crucifix was broken at one of the gates of Antwerp by an Italian in the pay of the Cardinal de Granvelle, and the procession of the Virgin, preceded by fools in green, in yellow, and in red, came forth out of the church of Notre Dame.But the Virgin’s statue, having been insulted on the way by men whom no one knew, was hastily taken back into the choir of the church, the iron gates of which were shut.Ulenspiegel and Lamme went into Notre Dame. Young beggars and ragamuffins, and some grown men among them, that nobody knew were in front of the choir, making certain signs and grimaces one to another. They were making a great din with feet and tongues. No one had seen them before in Antwerp, no one ever saw them again. One of them, with a face like a burned onion, asked if Mieke, that was Our Lady, had been afraid that she had gone back to the church in such a hurry.“It is not of thee that she is afeared, ugly blackamoor,” replied Ulenspiegel.The young man to whom he spoke went up to him, to beat him, but Ulenspiegel, gripping him by the collar:“If you strike me,” said he, “I will make you spew out your tongue.”Then turning towards certain men of Antwerp that were present:“Signorkesandpagaders,” said he, pointing out the ragged young men, “be cautious, these are spurious Flemings, traitors paid to bring us to ill, to misery, and to ruin.”Then speaking to the strangers:“Hey,” said he, “donkey faces, withered with want, whence have ye the money that chinks to-day in your pouches? Have ye perchance sold your skins beforehand for drumheads?”“Look at the sermonizer!” said the strangers.Then they all began to shout together with one accord speaking of Our Lady:“Mieke has a fine robe. Mieke has a fine crown! I will give them to my doxy.”They went away, while one of them had got up into a pulpit to proclaim insulting and outrageous things from it, and they came back crying:“Come down, Mieke, come down before we go and fetch you. Perform a miracle, that we may see if you can walk as well as you can have Mieke carried about, the lazy thing!”But Ulenspiegel cried in vain: “Workers of ruin, have done with your vile talk; all pillage is a crime!” They ceased not at all from their talk; and some spoke even of breaking into the choir to force Mieke to come down.Hearing this, an old woman, who sold candles in the church, flung in their faces the ashes of her foot warmer; but she was beaten and flung down on the floor, and then the riot began.The markgrave came to the church with his sergeants. Seeing the populace assembled, he exhorted them to leave the church, but so feebly that only a few went away; the others said:“First we want to hear the canons singing vespers in honour of Mieke.”The markgrave replied:“There shall be no singing.”“We will sing ourselves,” answered the ragged strangers.Which they did in the naves and near the porch of the church. Some played atKrieke-steenen, at cherry-stones, and said: “Mieke, you never game in paradise and you are bored there; play with us.”And insulting the statue without ceasing, they cried out, hooted and whistled.The markgrave pretended to be afraid and departed. By his orders all the doors of the church were shut save one.Without the populace having any hand in it, the ragtag and bobtail of the strangers became bolder and shouted more and more. And the roofs reëchoed as though to the din of a hundred cannon.One of them, he of the face like a burned onion, appearing to have some authority among them, got up into a pulpit, made a sign with his hand to them, and began to preach:“In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” said he: “the three making but one, and the one making three, God keep us in paradise from arithmetic; this day the twenty-ninth of August, Mieke went forth in great pomp of array to show her wooden face to thesignorkesandpagadersof Antwerp.But Mieke, in the procession met the devil Satanas. And Satanas said to her, mocking her: ‘There you are, high and mighty, prinked up like a queen, Mieke, and borne by foursignorkes, and you will not look now at the poorpagaderSatanas that makes his way on foot.’ And Mieke answered: ‘Begone, Satanas, or I bruise thy head still more than ever, foul serpent!’ ‘Mieke,’ said Satanas, ‘that is the task in which you have been spending your time for fifteen hundred years, but the Spirit of the Lord, your master, hath delivered me. I am stronger than you are; you shall not walk over my head any more, and I am going to make you dance now.’ Satanas took a great whip, sharp and cutting, and started to flog Mieke, who dared not cry out for fear of showing her terror, and then she began to run as hard as she could, forcing thesignorkesthat were carrying her to run, too, so as not to let her fall with her gold crown and her jewels among the poor common folk. And now Mieke stays as stiff and as still as a frightened mouse in her niche, watching Satan, who is seated up at the top of the pillar under the little dome, and who says to her, still grasping his whip and grinning, ‘I will make you pay for the blood and tears that flow in your name! Mieke, how goes your virgin birth? This is the time to flit. You shall be cut in twain, evil statue of wood, for all the statues of flesh and bone that were burned in your name, burned, hanged, buried alive without pity.’ So spake Satanas; and he spoke well. And thou must come down from thy niche, bloody Mieke, Mieke the cruel, that wast in no way like thy son Christus.”And all the band of the strangers, hooting and crying out, shouted: “Mieke! Mieke! it is time to come out!Are you wetting your linen for fear in your niche? Up Brabant for the good Duke. Away with the wooden saints! Who will have a bath in the Scheldt! Wood swims better than fishes.”The populace listened to them without saying a word.But Ulenspiegel, getting up into the pulpit, threw down the stair by main force the one that was haranguing.“Fools fit to tie,” he said, speaking to the populace; “lunatic fools, idiot fools, who see no further than the end of your dirty noses, do ye not see that all this is the work of traitors? They mean to make you commit sacrilege and pillage that they may declare you rebels, empty your coffers, cut off your heads, and burn you alive! And the king will inherit.Signorkesandpagaders, do not believe in the speeches of these artificers of woes: leave Notre Dame in her niche, live stoutly, working happily, spending your earnings and profits. The black devil of ruin has his eye upon you, and it is through sackings and destruction that he will call up the army of your foes to treat you as rebels and make Alba reign over you with dictatorship, inquisition, confiscation, and death.”“And he will inherit!”“Alas,” said Lamme, “do not pillage anything,signorkesandpagaders; the king is already very angry. The daughter of the embroideress told my friend Ulenspiegel so. Do not indulge in pillage, sirs!”But the populace would not give ear to them.The unknown kept shouting:“Sack and turn out! Sack Brabant for the good Duke! To the river with wooden saints! They swim better than fishes!”Ulenspiegel, still in the pulpit, cried in vain:“Signorkesandpagadersdo not suffer pillage! Do not call down ruin upon the town!”He was plucked away from there all torn, face, doublet, and breeches, though he avenged himself with both feet and hands. And all bleeding he never ceased to cry out:“Do not suffer pillage!”But it was in vain.The unknown and the ragtag and bobtail of the city flung themselves on the iron grille of the choir, which they broke through, crying:“Long live the Beggar!”They all set to work to break, sack, destroy. Before midnight this great church, in which there were seventy altars, every kind of noble paintings and precious things, was empty as a nut. The altars were broken, the images flung down, and all the locks smashed.This being done, the same unknown set off to treat like Notre Dame, the Minor Brothers, the Franciscans, Saint Peter, Saint Andrew, Saint Michael, Saint Pierre-au-Pot, the Bourg, the Fawkens, the White Sisters, the Gray Sisters, the Third Order, the Preachers, and all the churches and chapels in the city. They took candles and torches out of them and ran around everywhere in this manner.Among them there was no quarrel nor dispute; not one of them was hurt in that great demolishing of wood and other materials.They betook themselves to The Hague to proceed there to the overthrow of statues and altars, without the reformed lending them any aid either there or elsewhere.At The Hague, the magistrate asked them where was their commission.“It is here,” said one of them, striking upon his heart.“Their commission, hear you,signorkesandpagaders?” said Ulenspiegel, having been informed of this. “So then there is someone who deputes them to this work of sacrilege. Let some robber thief come into my cottage; I will do as did the magistrate of The Hague, I will say, taking off my bonnet: ‘Gentle robber, gracious rogue, worshipful rascal, show me your commission.’ He will reply that it is in his heart that is greedy for my goods. And I shall give him the keys of everything. Seek, seek out who it is that profits by this pillage. Beware of the Red Dog. The great stone crucifix is flung down. Beware of the Red Dog!”The Great Sovereign Council of Malines having given orders through its president Viglius, not to put any obstacle in the way of image breaking:—“Alas!” said Ulenspiegel, “the harvest is ripe for the Spanish reapers. The Duke! the Duke is marching upon you. Flemings, the sea rises, the sea of vengeance. Poor women and girls, flee the living grave! Poor men, flee the gallows, the fire, and the sword! Philip means to finish the bloody work of Charles. The father sowed death and exile, the son hath sworn that he would rather rule over a cemetery than over a heretic folk. Flee; here be the executioner and the gravediggers.”The populace hearkened to Ulenspiegel, and families left the cities by hundreds, and the roads were encumbered with carts laden with the household stuff of those that were going into exile.And Ulenspiegel went everywhere, followed by Lamme grieving and looking for his beloved.And at Damme Nele wept by the side of Katheline the madwife.

On the 15th of August, the great feast of Mary and of the blessing of herbs and roots, when filled with corn the hens are deaf to the bugle of the cock imploring love, a great stone crucifix was broken at one of the gates of Antwerp by an Italian in the pay of the Cardinal de Granvelle, and the procession of the Virgin, preceded by fools in green, in yellow, and in red, came forth out of the church of Notre Dame.

But the Virgin’s statue, having been insulted on the way by men whom no one knew, was hastily taken back into the choir of the church, the iron gates of which were shut.

Ulenspiegel and Lamme went into Notre Dame. Young beggars and ragamuffins, and some grown men among them, that nobody knew were in front of the choir, making certain signs and grimaces one to another. They were making a great din with feet and tongues. No one had seen them before in Antwerp, no one ever saw them again. One of them, with a face like a burned onion, asked if Mieke, that was Our Lady, had been afraid that she had gone back to the church in such a hurry.

“It is not of thee that she is afeared, ugly blackamoor,” replied Ulenspiegel.

The young man to whom he spoke went up to him, to beat him, but Ulenspiegel, gripping him by the collar:

“If you strike me,” said he, “I will make you spew out your tongue.”

Then turning towards certain men of Antwerp that were present:

“Signorkesandpagaders,” said he, pointing out the ragged young men, “be cautious, these are spurious Flemings, traitors paid to bring us to ill, to misery, and to ruin.”

Then speaking to the strangers:

“Hey,” said he, “donkey faces, withered with want, whence have ye the money that chinks to-day in your pouches? Have ye perchance sold your skins beforehand for drumheads?”

“Look at the sermonizer!” said the strangers.

Then they all began to shout together with one accord speaking of Our Lady:

“Mieke has a fine robe. Mieke has a fine crown! I will give them to my doxy.”

They went away, while one of them had got up into a pulpit to proclaim insulting and outrageous things from it, and they came back crying:

“Come down, Mieke, come down before we go and fetch you. Perform a miracle, that we may see if you can walk as well as you can have Mieke carried about, the lazy thing!”

But Ulenspiegel cried in vain: “Workers of ruin, have done with your vile talk; all pillage is a crime!” They ceased not at all from their talk; and some spoke even of breaking into the choir to force Mieke to come down.

Hearing this, an old woman, who sold candles in the church, flung in their faces the ashes of her foot warmer; but she was beaten and flung down on the floor, and then the riot began.

The markgrave came to the church with his sergeants. Seeing the populace assembled, he exhorted them to leave the church, but so feebly that only a few went away; the others said:

“First we want to hear the canons singing vespers in honour of Mieke.”

The markgrave replied:

“There shall be no singing.”

“We will sing ourselves,” answered the ragged strangers.

Which they did in the naves and near the porch of the church. Some played atKrieke-steenen, at cherry-stones, and said: “Mieke, you never game in paradise and you are bored there; play with us.”

And insulting the statue without ceasing, they cried out, hooted and whistled.

The markgrave pretended to be afraid and departed. By his orders all the doors of the church were shut save one.

Without the populace having any hand in it, the ragtag and bobtail of the strangers became bolder and shouted more and more. And the roofs reëchoed as though to the din of a hundred cannon.

One of them, he of the face like a burned onion, appearing to have some authority among them, got up into a pulpit, made a sign with his hand to them, and began to preach:

“In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” said he: “the three making but one, and the one making three, God keep us in paradise from arithmetic; this day the twenty-ninth of August, Mieke went forth in great pomp of array to show her wooden face to thesignorkesandpagadersof Antwerp.But Mieke, in the procession met the devil Satanas. And Satanas said to her, mocking her: ‘There you are, high and mighty, prinked up like a queen, Mieke, and borne by foursignorkes, and you will not look now at the poorpagaderSatanas that makes his way on foot.’ And Mieke answered: ‘Begone, Satanas, or I bruise thy head still more than ever, foul serpent!’ ‘Mieke,’ said Satanas, ‘that is the task in which you have been spending your time for fifteen hundred years, but the Spirit of the Lord, your master, hath delivered me. I am stronger than you are; you shall not walk over my head any more, and I am going to make you dance now.’ Satanas took a great whip, sharp and cutting, and started to flog Mieke, who dared not cry out for fear of showing her terror, and then she began to run as hard as she could, forcing thesignorkesthat were carrying her to run, too, so as not to let her fall with her gold crown and her jewels among the poor common folk. And now Mieke stays as stiff and as still as a frightened mouse in her niche, watching Satan, who is seated up at the top of the pillar under the little dome, and who says to her, still grasping his whip and grinning, ‘I will make you pay for the blood and tears that flow in your name! Mieke, how goes your virgin birth? This is the time to flit. You shall be cut in twain, evil statue of wood, for all the statues of flesh and bone that were burned in your name, burned, hanged, buried alive without pity.’ So spake Satanas; and he spoke well. And thou must come down from thy niche, bloody Mieke, Mieke the cruel, that wast in no way like thy son Christus.”

And all the band of the strangers, hooting and crying out, shouted: “Mieke! Mieke! it is time to come out!Are you wetting your linen for fear in your niche? Up Brabant for the good Duke. Away with the wooden saints! Who will have a bath in the Scheldt! Wood swims better than fishes.”

The populace listened to them without saying a word.

But Ulenspiegel, getting up into the pulpit, threw down the stair by main force the one that was haranguing.

“Fools fit to tie,” he said, speaking to the populace; “lunatic fools, idiot fools, who see no further than the end of your dirty noses, do ye not see that all this is the work of traitors? They mean to make you commit sacrilege and pillage that they may declare you rebels, empty your coffers, cut off your heads, and burn you alive! And the king will inherit.Signorkesandpagaders, do not believe in the speeches of these artificers of woes: leave Notre Dame in her niche, live stoutly, working happily, spending your earnings and profits. The black devil of ruin has his eye upon you, and it is through sackings and destruction that he will call up the army of your foes to treat you as rebels and make Alba reign over you with dictatorship, inquisition, confiscation, and death.”

“And he will inherit!”

“Alas,” said Lamme, “do not pillage anything,signorkesandpagaders; the king is already very angry. The daughter of the embroideress told my friend Ulenspiegel so. Do not indulge in pillage, sirs!”

But the populace would not give ear to them.

The unknown kept shouting:

“Sack and turn out! Sack Brabant for the good Duke! To the river with wooden saints! They swim better than fishes!”

Ulenspiegel, still in the pulpit, cried in vain:

“Signorkesandpagadersdo not suffer pillage! Do not call down ruin upon the town!”

He was plucked away from there all torn, face, doublet, and breeches, though he avenged himself with both feet and hands. And all bleeding he never ceased to cry out:

“Do not suffer pillage!”

But it was in vain.

The unknown and the ragtag and bobtail of the city flung themselves on the iron grille of the choir, which they broke through, crying:

“Long live the Beggar!”

They all set to work to break, sack, destroy. Before midnight this great church, in which there were seventy altars, every kind of noble paintings and precious things, was empty as a nut. The altars were broken, the images flung down, and all the locks smashed.

This being done, the same unknown set off to treat like Notre Dame, the Minor Brothers, the Franciscans, Saint Peter, Saint Andrew, Saint Michael, Saint Pierre-au-Pot, the Bourg, the Fawkens, the White Sisters, the Gray Sisters, the Third Order, the Preachers, and all the churches and chapels in the city. They took candles and torches out of them and ran around everywhere in this manner.

Among them there was no quarrel nor dispute; not one of them was hurt in that great demolishing of wood and other materials.

They betook themselves to The Hague to proceed there to the overthrow of statues and altars, without the reformed lending them any aid either there or elsewhere.

At The Hague, the magistrate asked them where was their commission.

“It is here,” said one of them, striking upon his heart.

“Their commission, hear you,signorkesandpagaders?” said Ulenspiegel, having been informed of this. “So then there is someone who deputes them to this work of sacrilege. Let some robber thief come into my cottage; I will do as did the magistrate of The Hague, I will say, taking off my bonnet: ‘Gentle robber, gracious rogue, worshipful rascal, show me your commission.’ He will reply that it is in his heart that is greedy for my goods. And I shall give him the keys of everything. Seek, seek out who it is that profits by this pillage. Beware of the Red Dog. The great stone crucifix is flung down. Beware of the Red Dog!”

The Great Sovereign Council of Malines having given orders through its president Viglius, not to put any obstacle in the way of image breaking:—“Alas!” said Ulenspiegel, “the harvest is ripe for the Spanish reapers. The Duke! the Duke is marching upon you. Flemings, the sea rises, the sea of vengeance. Poor women and girls, flee the living grave! Poor men, flee the gallows, the fire, and the sword! Philip means to finish the bloody work of Charles. The father sowed death and exile, the son hath sworn that he would rather rule over a cemetery than over a heretic folk. Flee; here be the executioner and the gravediggers.”

The populace hearkened to Ulenspiegel, and families left the cities by hundreds, and the roads were encumbered with carts laden with the household stuff of those that were going into exile.

And Ulenspiegel went everywhere, followed by Lamme grieving and looking for his beloved.

And at Damme Nele wept by the side of Katheline the madwife.

XVIUlenspiegel being at Ghent in the barley month which is October, saw Egmont returning from revelling and feasting in the noble company of the Abbot of Saint Bavon. Being in a singing humour, he was absentmindedly allowing his horse to go at a foot pace. Suddenly he saw a man who, carrying a lighted lantern, was walking alongside him.“What wouldst thou of me?” asked Egmont.“Good,” replied Ulenspiegel, “the good of a lantern when it is lit.”“Begone and leave me,” replied the Count.“I will not begone,” rejoined Ulenspiegel.“Wouldst thou have a stroke of the whip then?”“I would willingly have ten, if I can put in your head such a lantern that you might see clear from here to the Escurial.”“I take no stock in thy lantern nor in the Escurial,” replied the Count.“Well, for my part,” answered Ulenspiegel, “it burns in me to give you a good advice.”Then taking by the bridle the Count’s horse, rearing and kicking:“Monseigneur,” said he, “think that now you dance well on your horse and that your head dances also very well upon your shoulders; but the king, they say, means to interrupt this fine dance, to leave you your body,but to take your head and make it dance in a land so far away that you will never be able to overtake it. Give me a florin, I have earned it.”“The whip, if thou wilt not be off, evil newsmonger.”“Monseigneur, I am Ulenspiegel, the son of Claes, that was burned alive for his belief and of Soetkin that died of sorrow. The ashes beating upon my breast tell me that Egmont, the gallant soldier, might with the gendarmerie in his command oppose the thrice-victorious troops of the Duke of Alba.”“Begone,” replied Egmont, “I am no traitor.”“Save the countries; you alone can save them,” said Ulenspiegel.The Count would have beaten Ulenspiegel; but he had not waited for this and fled away, crying:“Eat lanterns, eat lanterns, Messire Count. Save the countries.”Another day, Egmont being athirst had stopped in front of the innIn ’t bondt verken, the Piebald Pig—kept by a woman of Courtrai, a pretty piece, called Musekin, the Little Mouse.The Count, rising up in his stirrups, cried out:“Bring me to drink!”Ulenspiegel, who was in Musekin’s service, came up to the Count holding a pewter tankard in one hand and in the other a flask of red wine.The Count, seeing him:“Are you there,” said he, “ill-omened raven?”“Monseigneur,” answered Ulenspiegel, “if my omens are black, ’tis because they are ill washen; but will you tell me which is the redder, the wine that goes down the throat or the blood that leaps out of the neck? That is what my lantern asked.”The Count made no answer, but paid and departed.

XVI

Ulenspiegel being at Ghent in the barley month which is October, saw Egmont returning from revelling and feasting in the noble company of the Abbot of Saint Bavon. Being in a singing humour, he was absentmindedly allowing his horse to go at a foot pace. Suddenly he saw a man who, carrying a lighted lantern, was walking alongside him.“What wouldst thou of me?” asked Egmont.“Good,” replied Ulenspiegel, “the good of a lantern when it is lit.”“Begone and leave me,” replied the Count.“I will not begone,” rejoined Ulenspiegel.“Wouldst thou have a stroke of the whip then?”“I would willingly have ten, if I can put in your head such a lantern that you might see clear from here to the Escurial.”“I take no stock in thy lantern nor in the Escurial,” replied the Count.“Well, for my part,” answered Ulenspiegel, “it burns in me to give you a good advice.”Then taking by the bridle the Count’s horse, rearing and kicking:“Monseigneur,” said he, “think that now you dance well on your horse and that your head dances also very well upon your shoulders; but the king, they say, means to interrupt this fine dance, to leave you your body,but to take your head and make it dance in a land so far away that you will never be able to overtake it. Give me a florin, I have earned it.”“The whip, if thou wilt not be off, evil newsmonger.”“Monseigneur, I am Ulenspiegel, the son of Claes, that was burned alive for his belief and of Soetkin that died of sorrow. The ashes beating upon my breast tell me that Egmont, the gallant soldier, might with the gendarmerie in his command oppose the thrice-victorious troops of the Duke of Alba.”“Begone,” replied Egmont, “I am no traitor.”“Save the countries; you alone can save them,” said Ulenspiegel.The Count would have beaten Ulenspiegel; but he had not waited for this and fled away, crying:“Eat lanterns, eat lanterns, Messire Count. Save the countries.”Another day, Egmont being athirst had stopped in front of the innIn ’t bondt verken, the Piebald Pig—kept by a woman of Courtrai, a pretty piece, called Musekin, the Little Mouse.The Count, rising up in his stirrups, cried out:“Bring me to drink!”Ulenspiegel, who was in Musekin’s service, came up to the Count holding a pewter tankard in one hand and in the other a flask of red wine.The Count, seeing him:“Are you there,” said he, “ill-omened raven?”“Monseigneur,” answered Ulenspiegel, “if my omens are black, ’tis because they are ill washen; but will you tell me which is the redder, the wine that goes down the throat or the blood that leaps out of the neck? That is what my lantern asked.”The Count made no answer, but paid and departed.

Ulenspiegel being at Ghent in the barley month which is October, saw Egmont returning from revelling and feasting in the noble company of the Abbot of Saint Bavon. Being in a singing humour, he was absentmindedly allowing his horse to go at a foot pace. Suddenly he saw a man who, carrying a lighted lantern, was walking alongside him.

“What wouldst thou of me?” asked Egmont.

“Good,” replied Ulenspiegel, “the good of a lantern when it is lit.”

“Begone and leave me,” replied the Count.

“I will not begone,” rejoined Ulenspiegel.

“Wouldst thou have a stroke of the whip then?”

“I would willingly have ten, if I can put in your head such a lantern that you might see clear from here to the Escurial.”

“I take no stock in thy lantern nor in the Escurial,” replied the Count.

“Well, for my part,” answered Ulenspiegel, “it burns in me to give you a good advice.”

Then taking by the bridle the Count’s horse, rearing and kicking:

“Monseigneur,” said he, “think that now you dance well on your horse and that your head dances also very well upon your shoulders; but the king, they say, means to interrupt this fine dance, to leave you your body,but to take your head and make it dance in a land so far away that you will never be able to overtake it. Give me a florin, I have earned it.”

“The whip, if thou wilt not be off, evil newsmonger.”

“Monseigneur, I am Ulenspiegel, the son of Claes, that was burned alive for his belief and of Soetkin that died of sorrow. The ashes beating upon my breast tell me that Egmont, the gallant soldier, might with the gendarmerie in his command oppose the thrice-victorious troops of the Duke of Alba.”

“Begone,” replied Egmont, “I am no traitor.”

“Save the countries; you alone can save them,” said Ulenspiegel.

The Count would have beaten Ulenspiegel; but he had not waited for this and fled away, crying:

“Eat lanterns, eat lanterns, Messire Count. Save the countries.”

Another day, Egmont being athirst had stopped in front of the innIn ’t bondt verken, the Piebald Pig—kept by a woman of Courtrai, a pretty piece, called Musekin, the Little Mouse.

The Count, rising up in his stirrups, cried out:

“Bring me to drink!”

Ulenspiegel, who was in Musekin’s service, came up to the Count holding a pewter tankard in one hand and in the other a flask of red wine.

The Count, seeing him:

“Are you there,” said he, “ill-omened raven?”

“Monseigneur,” answered Ulenspiegel, “if my omens are black, ’tis because they are ill washen; but will you tell me which is the redder, the wine that goes down the throat or the blood that leaps out of the neck? That is what my lantern asked.”

The Count made no answer, but paid and departed.

XVIIUlenspiegel and Lamme, each mounted on an ass, which Simon Simonsen had given them, one of the faithfuls of the Prince of Orange, went everywhere, warning the burgesses of the black designs of the king of blood, and ever on the watch to discover news coming from Spain.They sold vegetables, being clad like country folk, and haunted all the markets.Coming back from the Brussels market, they saw in a stone house, on the Brick Quay, in a low chamber, a handsome dame clad in satin, high coloured, well bosomed, and with a lively eye.She was saying to a fresh young cookmaid:“Scour me this pan, I do not like rust sauce.”Ulenspiegel put his nose in at the window.“I,” said he, “I like every sauce, for a hungry belly is no great picker and chooser among fricassees.”The dame turning round:“Who,” said she, “is this fellow that interferes with my soup?”“Alas! fair dame,” answered Ulenspiegel, “if you would only make it in my company, I would teach you travellers’ stews unknown to fair dames that sit at home.”Then clacking with his tongue, he said:“I am thirsty.”“For what?” said she.“For thee,” said he.“He is a pretty fellow,” said the cookmaid to thedame. “Let us bring him in and let him tell us his adventures.”“But there are two of them,” said the dame.“I will look after one,” replied the maid.“Madame,” said Ulenspiegel, “we are two, it is true, myself and my poor Lamme, who cannot carry five pounds on his back, but carries five hundred on his stomach in meats and drinks with the best will in the world.”“My son,” said Lamme, “do not mock at an unhappy man to whom it costs so much to fill his paunch.”“It will not cost thee a liard to-day,” said the dame. “Come within, both of you.”“But,” said Lamme, “there are also two asses upon which we are.”“Pecks of corn,” replied the dame, “are nowise lacking in the stable of the Count of Meghem.”The cookmaid left her pan and drew into the yard Ulenspiegel and Lamme bestriding their asses, which began to bray incontinent.“That,” said Ulenspiegel, “is the flourish for food near at hand. They are trumpeting their joy, the poor asses!”And having both dismounted, Ulenspiegel said to the cookmaid:“If you were a she-ass, would you like an ass like me?”“If I was a woman,” she replied, “I should like a young man with a jolly face.”“What are you, then, being neither woman nor ass?” asked Lamme.“A virgin,” quoth she, “a virgin is neither woman nor ass either: do you understand, big belly?”Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:“Do not believe her, ’tis half a wild girl and quarter of two she-devils. Her carnal tricks have already bespoken for her in hell a place on a mattress to fondle Beelzebub.”“Evil mocker,” said the cook, “if your hairs were horsehair I would not have them even to walk on them.”“For my part,” said Ulenspiegel, “I would like to eat all your hair.”“Golden tongue,” said the dame, “must you have them all?”“No,” replied Ulenspiegel, “a thousand would suffice me melted down into one like you.”The dame said to him:“Drink first a quart ofbruinbier, eat a piece of ham, cut deep into this leg of mutton, disembowel me this pie, swallow me this salad.”Ulenspiegel joined his hands.“Ham,” said he, “is a good meat;bruinbier, heavenly beer; leg of mutton, divine flesh; a pie that one disembowels makes one’s tongue tremble with pleasure in the mouth; a fat salad is princely swallowing. But blessed will he be to whom you will give to sup on your beauty.”“See how he rattles on,” said she. “Eat first of all, vagabond!”Ulenspiegel replied:“Shall we not say thebenedicitebefore the graces?”“No,” said she.Then Lamme, whining, said:“I am hungry.”“You shall eat,” said the fair dame, “since you have no other care than for cooked meat.”“And fresh, too, as my wife was,” said Lamme. The cookmaid became sullen at this word. All the same they ate copiously and drank in floods. And the dame that night gave Ulenspiegel his supper, and next day and the days that followed.The asses had double measure of corn and Lamme a double portion. For a whole week he never left the kitchen, and he played with the dishes, but not with the cook, for he thought of his wife.That angered the girl, who said it was hardly worth while to cumber the world only to think of one’s belly.Meanwhile, Ulenspiegel and the dame lived in good amity. And one day she said to him:“Thyl, thou hast no manners: who art thou?”“I am,” said he, “a son that Happy Chance had one day on Good Adventure.”“Thou dost not missay thyself,” said she.“’Tis for fear others may not praise me,” replied Ulenspiegel.“Wouldst thou undertake the defence of thy brothers that are persecuted?”“The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast,” replied Ulenspiegel.“How goodly thou art there!” said she. “Who is this Claes?”Ulenspiegel replied:“My father, burned for his belief.”“The Count of Meghem is not like thee,” she said. “He would bleed the country I love, for I was born at Antwerp the glorious city. Know then that he has accorded with the Councillor Scheyf of Brabant to admit him into Antwerp with his ten companies of infantry.”“I will denounce him to the citizens,” said Ulenspiegel, “and I go immediately, light as a ghost.”He went, and on the morrow the townsfolk were in arms.However, Ulenspiegel and Lamme, having left their asses with a farmer of Simon Simonsen’s, were forced to hide for fear of the Count de Meghem who had them searched for everywhere to have them hanged; for he had been told that two heretics had drunk of his wine and eaten of his meat.He was jealous, and said so to the fair dame, who gnashed her teeth with anger, wept, and fainted seventeen times. The cookmaid did the same, but not so often, and declared upon her share of Paradise and eternal salvation that she nor her lady had done nothing, except to give the remains of a dinner to two poor pilgrims who, mounted on wretched donkeys, had stopped at the kitchen window.And that day there were shed so many tears that the floor was all damp with them. Seeing which, Messire de Meghem was assured that they were not lying.Lamme dared not show himself again at M. de Meghem’s house, for the cook always called him “My wife!”And he was exceedingly grieved, thinking of the food; but Ulenspiegel always brought him some good dish, for he used to go into the house by the rue Sainte Catherine and hide in the garret.The next day, at vespers, the Count de Meghem confessed to the handsome goodwife how that he had determined to fetch the gendarmerie he commanded into Bois-le-Duc before daybreak. Thegoodwife went to the garret to recount this to Ulenspiegel.

XVII

Ulenspiegel and Lamme, each mounted on an ass, which Simon Simonsen had given them, one of the faithfuls of the Prince of Orange, went everywhere, warning the burgesses of the black designs of the king of blood, and ever on the watch to discover news coming from Spain.They sold vegetables, being clad like country folk, and haunted all the markets.Coming back from the Brussels market, they saw in a stone house, on the Brick Quay, in a low chamber, a handsome dame clad in satin, high coloured, well bosomed, and with a lively eye.She was saying to a fresh young cookmaid:“Scour me this pan, I do not like rust sauce.”Ulenspiegel put his nose in at the window.“I,” said he, “I like every sauce, for a hungry belly is no great picker and chooser among fricassees.”The dame turning round:“Who,” said she, “is this fellow that interferes with my soup?”“Alas! fair dame,” answered Ulenspiegel, “if you would only make it in my company, I would teach you travellers’ stews unknown to fair dames that sit at home.”Then clacking with his tongue, he said:“I am thirsty.”“For what?” said she.“For thee,” said he.“He is a pretty fellow,” said the cookmaid to thedame. “Let us bring him in and let him tell us his adventures.”“But there are two of them,” said the dame.“I will look after one,” replied the maid.“Madame,” said Ulenspiegel, “we are two, it is true, myself and my poor Lamme, who cannot carry five pounds on his back, but carries five hundred on his stomach in meats and drinks with the best will in the world.”“My son,” said Lamme, “do not mock at an unhappy man to whom it costs so much to fill his paunch.”“It will not cost thee a liard to-day,” said the dame. “Come within, both of you.”“But,” said Lamme, “there are also two asses upon which we are.”“Pecks of corn,” replied the dame, “are nowise lacking in the stable of the Count of Meghem.”The cookmaid left her pan and drew into the yard Ulenspiegel and Lamme bestriding their asses, which began to bray incontinent.“That,” said Ulenspiegel, “is the flourish for food near at hand. They are trumpeting their joy, the poor asses!”And having both dismounted, Ulenspiegel said to the cookmaid:“If you were a she-ass, would you like an ass like me?”“If I was a woman,” she replied, “I should like a young man with a jolly face.”“What are you, then, being neither woman nor ass?” asked Lamme.“A virgin,” quoth she, “a virgin is neither woman nor ass either: do you understand, big belly?”Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:“Do not believe her, ’tis half a wild girl and quarter of two she-devils. Her carnal tricks have already bespoken for her in hell a place on a mattress to fondle Beelzebub.”“Evil mocker,” said the cook, “if your hairs were horsehair I would not have them even to walk on them.”“For my part,” said Ulenspiegel, “I would like to eat all your hair.”“Golden tongue,” said the dame, “must you have them all?”“No,” replied Ulenspiegel, “a thousand would suffice me melted down into one like you.”The dame said to him:“Drink first a quart ofbruinbier, eat a piece of ham, cut deep into this leg of mutton, disembowel me this pie, swallow me this salad.”Ulenspiegel joined his hands.“Ham,” said he, “is a good meat;bruinbier, heavenly beer; leg of mutton, divine flesh; a pie that one disembowels makes one’s tongue tremble with pleasure in the mouth; a fat salad is princely swallowing. But blessed will he be to whom you will give to sup on your beauty.”“See how he rattles on,” said she. “Eat first of all, vagabond!”Ulenspiegel replied:“Shall we not say thebenedicitebefore the graces?”“No,” said she.Then Lamme, whining, said:“I am hungry.”“You shall eat,” said the fair dame, “since you have no other care than for cooked meat.”“And fresh, too, as my wife was,” said Lamme. The cookmaid became sullen at this word. All the same they ate copiously and drank in floods. And the dame that night gave Ulenspiegel his supper, and next day and the days that followed.The asses had double measure of corn and Lamme a double portion. For a whole week he never left the kitchen, and he played with the dishes, but not with the cook, for he thought of his wife.That angered the girl, who said it was hardly worth while to cumber the world only to think of one’s belly.Meanwhile, Ulenspiegel and the dame lived in good amity. And one day she said to him:“Thyl, thou hast no manners: who art thou?”“I am,” said he, “a son that Happy Chance had one day on Good Adventure.”“Thou dost not missay thyself,” said she.“’Tis for fear others may not praise me,” replied Ulenspiegel.“Wouldst thou undertake the defence of thy brothers that are persecuted?”“The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast,” replied Ulenspiegel.“How goodly thou art there!” said she. “Who is this Claes?”Ulenspiegel replied:“My father, burned for his belief.”“The Count of Meghem is not like thee,” she said. “He would bleed the country I love, for I was born at Antwerp the glorious city. Know then that he has accorded with the Councillor Scheyf of Brabant to admit him into Antwerp with his ten companies of infantry.”“I will denounce him to the citizens,” said Ulenspiegel, “and I go immediately, light as a ghost.”He went, and on the morrow the townsfolk were in arms.However, Ulenspiegel and Lamme, having left their asses with a farmer of Simon Simonsen’s, were forced to hide for fear of the Count de Meghem who had them searched for everywhere to have them hanged; for he had been told that two heretics had drunk of his wine and eaten of his meat.He was jealous, and said so to the fair dame, who gnashed her teeth with anger, wept, and fainted seventeen times. The cookmaid did the same, but not so often, and declared upon her share of Paradise and eternal salvation that she nor her lady had done nothing, except to give the remains of a dinner to two poor pilgrims who, mounted on wretched donkeys, had stopped at the kitchen window.And that day there were shed so many tears that the floor was all damp with them. Seeing which, Messire de Meghem was assured that they were not lying.Lamme dared not show himself again at M. de Meghem’s house, for the cook always called him “My wife!”And he was exceedingly grieved, thinking of the food; but Ulenspiegel always brought him some good dish, for he used to go into the house by the rue Sainte Catherine and hide in the garret.The next day, at vespers, the Count de Meghem confessed to the handsome goodwife how that he had determined to fetch the gendarmerie he commanded into Bois-le-Duc before daybreak. Thegoodwife went to the garret to recount this to Ulenspiegel.

Ulenspiegel and Lamme, each mounted on an ass, which Simon Simonsen had given them, one of the faithfuls of the Prince of Orange, went everywhere, warning the burgesses of the black designs of the king of blood, and ever on the watch to discover news coming from Spain.

They sold vegetables, being clad like country folk, and haunted all the markets.

Coming back from the Brussels market, they saw in a stone house, on the Brick Quay, in a low chamber, a handsome dame clad in satin, high coloured, well bosomed, and with a lively eye.

She was saying to a fresh young cookmaid:

“Scour me this pan, I do not like rust sauce.”

Ulenspiegel put his nose in at the window.

“I,” said he, “I like every sauce, for a hungry belly is no great picker and chooser among fricassees.”

The dame turning round:

“Who,” said she, “is this fellow that interferes with my soup?”

“Alas! fair dame,” answered Ulenspiegel, “if you would only make it in my company, I would teach you travellers’ stews unknown to fair dames that sit at home.”

Then clacking with his tongue, he said:

“I am thirsty.”

“For what?” said she.

“For thee,” said he.

“He is a pretty fellow,” said the cookmaid to thedame. “Let us bring him in and let him tell us his adventures.”

“But there are two of them,” said the dame.

“I will look after one,” replied the maid.

“Madame,” said Ulenspiegel, “we are two, it is true, myself and my poor Lamme, who cannot carry five pounds on his back, but carries five hundred on his stomach in meats and drinks with the best will in the world.”

“My son,” said Lamme, “do not mock at an unhappy man to whom it costs so much to fill his paunch.”

“It will not cost thee a liard to-day,” said the dame. “Come within, both of you.”

“But,” said Lamme, “there are also two asses upon which we are.”

“Pecks of corn,” replied the dame, “are nowise lacking in the stable of the Count of Meghem.”

The cookmaid left her pan and drew into the yard Ulenspiegel and Lamme bestriding their asses, which began to bray incontinent.

“That,” said Ulenspiegel, “is the flourish for food near at hand. They are trumpeting their joy, the poor asses!”

And having both dismounted, Ulenspiegel said to the cookmaid:

“If you were a she-ass, would you like an ass like me?”

“If I was a woman,” she replied, “I should like a young man with a jolly face.”

“What are you, then, being neither woman nor ass?” asked Lamme.

“A virgin,” quoth she, “a virgin is neither woman nor ass either: do you understand, big belly?”

Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:

“Do not believe her, ’tis half a wild girl and quarter of two she-devils. Her carnal tricks have already bespoken for her in hell a place on a mattress to fondle Beelzebub.”

“Evil mocker,” said the cook, “if your hairs were horsehair I would not have them even to walk on them.”

“For my part,” said Ulenspiegel, “I would like to eat all your hair.”

“Golden tongue,” said the dame, “must you have them all?”

“No,” replied Ulenspiegel, “a thousand would suffice me melted down into one like you.”

The dame said to him:

“Drink first a quart ofbruinbier, eat a piece of ham, cut deep into this leg of mutton, disembowel me this pie, swallow me this salad.”

Ulenspiegel joined his hands.

“Ham,” said he, “is a good meat;bruinbier, heavenly beer; leg of mutton, divine flesh; a pie that one disembowels makes one’s tongue tremble with pleasure in the mouth; a fat salad is princely swallowing. But blessed will he be to whom you will give to sup on your beauty.”

“See how he rattles on,” said she. “Eat first of all, vagabond!”

Ulenspiegel replied:

“Shall we not say thebenedicitebefore the graces?”

“No,” said she.

Then Lamme, whining, said:

“I am hungry.”

“You shall eat,” said the fair dame, “since you have no other care than for cooked meat.”

“And fresh, too, as my wife was,” said Lamme. The cookmaid became sullen at this word. All the same they ate copiously and drank in floods. And the dame that night gave Ulenspiegel his supper, and next day and the days that followed.

The asses had double measure of corn and Lamme a double portion. For a whole week he never left the kitchen, and he played with the dishes, but not with the cook, for he thought of his wife.

That angered the girl, who said it was hardly worth while to cumber the world only to think of one’s belly.

Meanwhile, Ulenspiegel and the dame lived in good amity. And one day she said to him:

“Thyl, thou hast no manners: who art thou?”

“I am,” said he, “a son that Happy Chance had one day on Good Adventure.”

“Thou dost not missay thyself,” said she.

“’Tis for fear others may not praise me,” replied Ulenspiegel.

“Wouldst thou undertake the defence of thy brothers that are persecuted?”

“The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast,” replied Ulenspiegel.

“How goodly thou art there!” said she. “Who is this Claes?”

Ulenspiegel replied:

“My father, burned for his belief.”

“The Count of Meghem is not like thee,” she said. “He would bleed the country I love, for I was born at Antwerp the glorious city. Know then that he has accorded with the Councillor Scheyf of Brabant to admit him into Antwerp with his ten companies of infantry.”

“I will denounce him to the citizens,” said Ulenspiegel, “and I go immediately, light as a ghost.”

He went, and on the morrow the townsfolk were in arms.

However, Ulenspiegel and Lamme, having left their asses with a farmer of Simon Simonsen’s, were forced to hide for fear of the Count de Meghem who had them searched for everywhere to have them hanged; for he had been told that two heretics had drunk of his wine and eaten of his meat.

He was jealous, and said so to the fair dame, who gnashed her teeth with anger, wept, and fainted seventeen times. The cookmaid did the same, but not so often, and declared upon her share of Paradise and eternal salvation that she nor her lady had done nothing, except to give the remains of a dinner to two poor pilgrims who, mounted on wretched donkeys, had stopped at the kitchen window.

And that day there were shed so many tears that the floor was all damp with them. Seeing which, Messire de Meghem was assured that they were not lying.

Lamme dared not show himself again at M. de Meghem’s house, for the cook always called him “My wife!”

And he was exceedingly grieved, thinking of the food; but Ulenspiegel always brought him some good dish, for he used to go into the house by the rue Sainte Catherine and hide in the garret.

The next day, at vespers, the Count de Meghem confessed to the handsome goodwife how that he had determined to fetch the gendarmerie he commanded into Bois-le-Duc before daybreak. Thegoodwife went to the garret to recount this to Ulenspiegel.

Back to IndexNext