XXXVII

XXXVIIClaes, Soetkin, and Nele were gossiping together about the ingle, and talked of the pilgrim on his pilgrimage.“Daughter,” said Soetkin, “why cannot you, by the might of the spell of youth, keep him always with us?”“Alas!” said Nele, “I cannot.”“’Tis because,” said Claes, “he hath a counter charm that drives him to run without ever resting save for the work of his teeth.”“The cruel, ugly fellow!” sighed Nele.“Cruel,” said Soetkin, “I admit, but ugly, no. If my son Ulenspiegel has not a Greek or a Roman countenance, he is all the better for that; for they are of Flanders his agile feet, of the Frank of Bruges his keen brown eye, and his nose and his mouth made by two past masters in the science of humour and sculpture.”“Who, then,” asked Claes, “made him his lazy arms and his legs too prone to run to pleasure?”“His heart that is over young,” replied Soetkin.XXXVIIIIn these days Katheline by her simples cured an ox, three sheep, and a pig belonging to Speelman but could not cure a cow that belonged to Jan Beloen. The latter accused her of sorcery. He averred that she had cast a spell on the beast, inasmuch as, while giving his simples, she caressed and talked to it, doubtless in a diabolical speech, for an honest Christian should not talk to a beast.The said Jan Beloen added that he was a neighbour of Speelman’s, whose ox, sheep, and pig she had healed, and if she had killed his cow, it was doubtless at the instigation of Speelman, jealous to see that his, Beloen’s, land was better tilled than his own. Uponthe testimony of Peter Meulemeester, a man of good life and conduct, and also of Jan Beloen, certifying that Katheline was reputed a witch in Damme, and had doubtless killed the cow, Katheline was arrested and condemned to be tormented until she should have confessed her crimes and misdeeds.She was questioned by a sheriff who was always in a rage, for he drank brandy all day long. He had Katheline put upon the first bench of torment in his presence and before theVierschare.The executioner stripped her naked, then shaved her hair and all her body, looking everywhere to see if she concealed a charm.Finding nothing, he fastened her with cords to the bench. Then she spake:“I am all shamed to be naked thus before these men, Madam Mary, grant that I may die!”Then the executioner put wet cloths upon her breast, her belly, and her legs, and raising the bench, he poured hot water into her stomach in such quantities that she was all swelled up. Then he lowered the bench again.The sheriff asked Katheline if she would confess her crime. She made sign that she would not. The executioner poured more hot water into her, but she vomited all of it out again.Then at the chirurgeon’s bidding she was untied. She did not speak, but struck on her breast to say the hot water had burned her. When the sheriff perceived that she had recovered from this first torment he said to her:“Confess thou art a witch, and that thou didst cast a spell upon the cow.”“I will not confess,” said she. “I love all dumb beasts, as much as my poor heart may, and I would harm myself rather than them, who cannot defend themselves. I used the needful simples to cure the cow.”But the sheriff:“Thou didst give her poison,” said he, “for the cow is dead.”“Master sheriff,” answered Katheline, “I am here before you, in your power. I dare say to you, nevertheless, that a beast can die of sickness, like a man, in spite of the assistance of the surgeons and the doctors. And I swear by my Lord Christ who died on the cross for our sins, that I have wished no harm to this cow, but sought to cure her by simple remedies.”Then said the sheriff, enraged:“This devil’s hag will not always deny, let her be put on another bench for the torment!”And therewith he drank a great glass of brandy.The executioner made Katheline sit on the lid of an oaken coffin placed upon trestles. The said lid, shaped like a roof, was sharp as a blade. A great fire was burning in the fireplace, for it was then November.Katheline, seated upon the coffin and a spit of sharpened wood, was shod with tight shoes of new leather and set before the fire. When she felt the sharp wooden edge of the coffin and the pointed spit entering her flesh, and when the fire heated and shrank the leather of her shoes, she cried:“I suffer a thousand pangs! Who will give me black poison?”“Put her nearer the fire,” said the sheriff. Then questioning Katheline:“How often,” said he, “didst thou bestride a broom to go to the Sabbath? How often didst thou blast the corn in the ear, the fruit upon the tree, the babe in the mother’s womb? How often didst thou turn two brothers to sworn foes, and two sisters into rivals filled with hatred?”Katheline would have spoken, but could not, and moved her arms as though to say no. The sheriff then:“She will only speak when she feels all her witch fat melt in the fire. Put her nearer.”Katheline cried out. The sheriff said:“Pray to Satan that he may cool thee.”She made a movement as though she would take off her shoes that were smoking in the fierceness of the fire.“Pray to Satan that he pull off thy shoes,” said the sheriff.The clock was striking ten, the furious creature’s dinner hour; he went away with the executioner and the clerk, leaving Katheline alone before the fire, in the torture chamber.At eleven they came back and found Katheline seated stiff and motionless. The clerk said:“She is dead, I think.”The sheriff ordered the executioner to take Katheline down from the coffin and the shoes from off her feet. Not being able to pull them off, he cut them away, and the feet of Katheline were disclosed red and bleeding.And the sheriff, thinking of his meal, looked at her without a word; but presently she recovered her senses, and falling on the ground and unable to rise for all her efforts, she said to the sheriff:“Once on a time wouldst fain have had me to wife, but now thou shalt not have me. Four times three it is the sacred number, and the thirteenth is the husband.”Then as the sheriff would have spoken, she said to him:“Stay silent, he has hearing finer than the archangel that in heaven counts the heart beats of the just. Why dost thou come so late? Four times three it is the sacred number, he slayeth those that desire me.”The sheriff said:“She receives the devil in her bed.”“She is out of her wits with the anguish of the torment,” said the clerk.Katheline was taken back to prison. Three days after, the sheriff’s court being assembled in theVierschare, Katheline after deliberation was condemned to the fire.The executioner and his assistants brought her to the marketplace of Damme where there was a scaffold on which she mounted. In the marketplace were the provost, the herald, and the judges.The trumpets of the town herald sounded three times, and turning to the people he announced:“The magistrate of Damme, having had compassion on the woman Katheline, has been pleased not to exact punishment according to the extreme rigour of the law of the town, but in order to bear witness that she is a witch, her hair shall be burned, she shall pay twenty gold carolus by way of fine, and shall be banished for three years from the precincts of Damme under pain of losing one limb.”And the people applauded this harsh lenity.The executioner thereupon bound Katheline to the stake, set a wig of tow upon her shaven head and set it on fire. And the tow burned long and Katheline cried out and wept.Then she was unbound and taken without the boundaries of Damme upon a cart, for her feet were burned.XXXIXUlenspiegel being now at Bois-le-Duc in Brabant, the magnates of the town would fain have appointed him their fool, but he would none of this dignity. “Pilgrim on pilgrimage cannot play fool as a permanency, but only at inns and on the highways.”At this same time Philip, who was King of England, came to visit the countries of his future inheritance, Flanders, Brabant, Hainault, Holland, and Zealand. He was then in his twenty-ninth year; in his grayish eyes dwelt sour melancholy, savage dissimulation, and cruel resolution. Cold was his countenance, and stiff his head covered with tawny hair; stiff, too, his meagre torso and spindle limbs. Slow was his speech and thick as though he had wool in his mouth.Amid tourneys, jousts, and feastings, he visited the joyous duchy of Brabant, the rich county Flanders, and his other seignories. Everywhere he swore to observe and confirm the privileges; but when at Brussels he took oath upon the Testament to observe the Golden Bull of Brabant his hand clenched so tight that he must needs take it away from the sacred book.He went to Antwerp, where they put up twenty-three triumphal arches to receive him. The city disbursed two hundred and eighty-seven thousand florins to payfor these arches and for the costumes of eighteen hundred and seventy-nine merchants all clad in crimson velvet and for the rich livery of four hundred and sixteen lackeys and the brilliant silk trappings of four thousand burgesses, all clad alike. Many feasts were given by the rhetoricians of all the cities in the Low Countries, or nearly all.There were seen, with their fools male and female, the Prince of Love, of Tournai, mounted upon a sow that was called Astarte; the King of Fools, of Lille, who led a horse by the tail and walked behind; the Prince of Pleasure, of Valenciennes, who amused himself counting how many times his donkey broke wind; the Abbot of Mirth, of Arras, who drank Brussels wine from a flask shaped like a breviary, and that was gay reading; the Abbot of the Paux-Pourvus, of Ath, who was provided with linen full of holes and boots down at heel, but had a sausage with which he made good provision for his belly; the Provost of Madcaps, a young man mounted on a shy goat, and who trotting in the crowd got many a thwack because of her; the Abbot of the Silver Dish, from Quesnoy, who mounted on his horse pretended to be sitting in a dish, saying “there is no beast so big that fire cannot cook him.”And they played all kinds of harmless foolery, but the King remained sad and severe.That same evening, the Markgrave of Antwerp, the burgomasters, captains and deans, assembled together to find out some game or play that might win Philip the King to laughter.Said the Markgrave:“Have ye not heard tell of a certain Pierkin Jacobsen,the town-fool of Bois-le-Duc, and far renowned for his merry tricks?”“Yes,” said the others.“Well!” said the Markgrave, “let us summon him to come hither, and bid him do us some nimblewitted turn, since our own fool has his boots stuffed with lead.”“Let us summon him hither,” said they.When the messenger from Antwerp came to Bois-le-Duc, they told him that the fool Pierkin had snuffed out his candle with over-much laughing, but that there was in the town another fool, a bird of passage, called Ulenspiegel. The messenger went to look for him in a tavern where he was eating a fricassee of mussels and making a petticoat for a girl with the shells.Ulenspiegel was delighted when he knew that it was for him the courier of the commune had come all the way from Antwerp, mounted upon a fine horse of Vuern-Ambacht and leading another by the bridle.Without setting foot to ground, the courier asked him if he knew where to find a new trick to make King Philip laugh.“I have a mine of them under my hair,” answered Ulenspiegel.They went away together. The two horses galloping loose-reined brought Ulenspiegel and the courier to Antwerp.Ulenspiegel made his appearance before the Markgrave, the two burgomasters, and the officials of the commune.“What do you intend to do?” asked the Markgrave.“Fly in the air,” replied Ulenspiegel.“How will you set about this?” asked the Markgrave.“Do you know,” asked Ulenspiegel, “what is worth less than a burst bladder?”“I do not know,” said the Markgrave.“A secret that has been let out,” replied Ulenspiegel.In the meanwhile, the heralds of the games, mounted upon their handsome steeds caparisoned with crimson velvet, rode through all the main streets, squares, and carfaxes of the city, sounding clarions and with beat of drum. In this fashion they announced to thesignorkesand thesignorkinnesthat Ulenspiegel, the fool of Damme, would fly in the air at the quay, there being present upon a staging King Philip and his high illustrious and distinguished company.Over against the staging there was a house built in the Italian fashion, with a gutter running along the whole length of the roof. A garret window opened upon the gutter.Ulenspiegel on this day went through the city everywhere riding upon an ass. A footman ran alongside him. Ulenspiegel had donned the fine robe of crimson silk the magnates of the commune had given him. His headgear was a hood, crimson as well, on which were seen two asses’ ears with a bell on the tip of each. He wore a necklace of copper medallions embossed with the shield of Antwerp. On the sleeves of the robe there tinkled at each pointed elbow a gilt bell. He had shoes with gilt soles, and a bell at the tip of each.His ass was caparisoned with crimson silk and on each thigh carried the shield of Antwerp broidered in fine gold.The footman brandished a donkey’s head in one hand and in the other a branch at the end of which chimed a cowbell from a forest-bred cow.Ulenspiegel, leaving his ass and his footman in the street, climbed up into the gutter.There, shaking his bells, he opened out his arms as if he was on the point of flying. Then leaning down towards King Philip, he said:“I thought there was no fool in Antwerp save only me, but I perceive the town is full of them. If you had told me you were going to fly, I should not have believed you; but let a fool come and tell you he will do it, and you believe him. How would you have me fly, since I have no wings?”Some laughed, others swore, but all said:“This fool says what is none the less quite true.”But King Philip remained stiff as a king of stone.And the magnates of the commune said softly one to the other:“There was no need to make such great festival for such a sour-face.”And they gave three florins to Ulenspiegel, who departed, first perforce restoring to them the robe of crimson silk.“What are three florins in the pouch of a young man but a snowball before a fire, a full bottle in front of you, wide-throated drinkers? Three florins! The leaves fall from the trees and sprout again upon them, but florins leave pouches and return thither no more: the butterflies flitter away with the summer time, and the florins, too, although they weigh twoestrelinsand nineas.”So saying, Ulenspiegel contemplated his three florins closely.“What a haughty mien,” murmured he, “hath the Emperor Charles upon the obverse, cuirassed and helmeted, holding a sword in one hand and in the otherthe globe of this poor earthly world! He is by the grace of God Emperor of the Romans, King of Spain, and so forth, and he is most gracious towards these our countries, this emperor in the cuirass. And here on the reverse is a shield on which are graven and displayed the arms of a duke, count, etc., pertaining to his divers possessions, with this goodly device:Da mihi virtutem contra hostes tuos: ‘Give me strength against thy enemies.’ He was valiant indeed against those of the reformed that have goods to confiscate, and he inheriteth them. Ah! were I the Emperor Charles, I would have florins minted for everybody, and each man being rich, no one should work more.”But Ulenspiegel looked in vain at the lovely money; it was gone towards the land of ruin to the clinking of quart pots and the chiming of bottles.XLWhile he displayed himself on the gutter all clad in crimson silk, Ulenspiegel had not seen Nele who from the crowd was looking on him smiling. She was living at this time at Borgerhout near Antwerp, and thought that if some fool was to fly before King Philip, it could only be her friend Ulenspiegel.As he marched along the way, plunged in reverie, he did not hear a sound of hastening steps behind him, but felt two hands that were laid flat upon his eyes. Guessing Nele instinctively:“Are you there?” said he.“Aye,” she said, “I have been running behind you ever since you came out of the city. Come with me.”“But where,” said he, “where is Katheline?”“Thou dost not know it,” said she, “that she was tortured unjustly for a witch, then banished out of Damme for three years, and that they burned her feet and burned tow upon her head. I tell thee this that thou mayest have no fear of her, for she is out of her wits because of the cruel torment. Often she spends whole hours looking at her feet and saying: ‘Hanske, my sweet devil, see what they did to thy dear. And her poor feet are like two wounds.’ Then she weeps, saying: ‘Other women have a husband or a lover, but I live at this moment as a widow.’ I tell her then that Hanske will hate her if she speaks of him before other folk than me. And she obeys me like a child save when she sees a cow or an ox, the cause of her torture; then she flees running without stay, and nothing can stop her, fences, streams, or ditches, till she falls for weariness in some corner of the wayside or against the wall of a farm, whither I go and take her up and dress her poor feet that are by then all bleeding. And I deem that in burning the hank of tow they burned also her brain in her head.”And both were grieved thinking upon Katheline.They came to her and saw her sitting upon a bench in the sun against the wall of a house. Ulenspiegel said to her:“Do you know me?”“Four times three,” quoth she, “it is the sacred number, and the thirteenth is Thereb. Who art thou, child of this wicked world?”“I am Ulenspiegel,” he answered, “the son of Soetkin and of Claes.”She shook her head and knew him; then beckoning him close with her finger and bending to his ear:“If thou see him whose kisses are as snow, tell him to come back to me, Ulenspiegel.”Then showing her burned hair:“I am ill,” she said; “they have taken my wits, but when he comes he will fill my head again, which now is all empty. Hearest thou? it sounds like a bell; it is my soul knocking at the door to depart, because it burns. If Hanske comes and has no mind to fill me my head again, I will tell him to make a hole in it with a knife: the soul that is there, ever knocking to come out, grieveth me cruelly, and I shall die, yea. And now I never sleep, and I look for him always, and he must fill me my head again, yea.”And sinking down again, she groaned.And the peasants that were coming back from the fields to go to dinner, while the church bell called them to it, passed before Katheline saying:“There is the madwife.”And they made the sign of the cross.And Nele and Ulenspiegel wept, and Ulenspiegel must needs go on upon his pilgrimage.XLIAt this time as he pilgrimaged he entered into the service of one Josse, surnamed theKwaebakker, the cross baker, because of his vinegar face. TheKwaebakkergave him three stale loaves every week for his food, and for lodging a sloping garret under the roof, where the rain rained and the wind blew marvellously.Seeing himself so evilly entreated, Ulenspiegel played him different tricks and this among them. When they bake in the early morning, the flour must be bolted overnight. One night, then, when the moon was shining, Ulenspiegel asked for a candle to see to work and had this answer from his master:“Bolt the flour in the light of the moon.”Ulenspiegel, obeying him, bolted the flour upon the earth, where the moonlight was shining.In the morning theKwaebakker, coming to see how much work Ulenspiegel had done, found him still bolting and said to him:“Does flour now cost nothing at all that it should be bolted on the ground like this?”“I bolted the flour in the moonlight as you had bidden me,” answered Ulenspiegel.The baker replied:“Pack-donkey, it was in a sieve you should have done it.”“I thought the moon was a new-fangled kind of sieve,” replied Ulenspiegel. “But there will be no great loss, I will scrape up the flour.”“It is too late,” answered theKwaebakker, “to get ready the dough and to bake it.”Ulenspiegel rejoined:“Baes, our neighbour’s dough is ready in the mill; shall I go and take that?”“Go to the gallows,” replied theKwaebakker, “and fetch what is on that.”“I go,baes,” answered Ulenspiegel.He ran to the gallows field, found there the dried hand of a robber, brought it to theKwaebakker, and said:“Here is a hand of glory that maketh invisible all those that carry it. Wilt thou henceforward conceal thy evil disposition?”“I shall inform the commune against you,” repliedtheKwaebakker, “and you will see that you have infringed upon the rights of the overlord.”When they were both before the burgomaster, theKwaebakker, wishing to tell the whole rosary of Ulenspiegel’s misdeeds and delinquencies, saw that he was opening his eyes to their widest. He became so angry at this that interrupting his deposition he said to him:“What do you want?”Ulenspiegel replied:“You told me you would accuse me in such wise that I ‘would see.’ I am trying to see, that is why I look.”“Out of my eyes,” cried the baker.“If I was in your eyes,” answered Ulenspiegel, “I could only come out, seeing that you shut them, through your nostrils.”The burgomaster, seeing that this day was the day for the fair of japes, would listen to them no longer.Ulenspiegel and theKwaebakkerwent away together, theKwaebakkerraised his cudgel on him; Ulenspiegel dodged it, saying:“Baes, since it is with blows my flour is to be sifted, you take the bran of it—it is your anger: I keep the white—it is my gaiety.”Then showing him his nether face:“And here,” he added, “is the door of the oven, if you want to bake.”XLIIUlenspiegel as he pilgrimaged would gladly have turned highway robber, but he found the stones too heavy to carry.He was trudging by chance on the road to Audenaerde where there was then a garrison of Flemishreiterscharged with the defence of the town against the French bands that ravaged the country like locusts.Thereitershad at their head a certain captain, a Frisian born, by name Kornjuin. They also overran the low country and pillaged the peoples, who were thus, as usual, devoured on both sides.Everything was good in their eyes: hens, chickens, ducks, pigeons, calves, and pigs. One day, as they were coming back laden with plunder, Kornjuin and his lieutenants saw at the foot of a tree Ulenspiegel lying asleep and dreaming of fricassees.“What do you do for a living?” asked Kornjuin.“I’m dying of hunger,” replied Ulenspiegel.“What is your trade?”“To go on pilgrimage for my sins, look on at others toiling, dance on the rope, paint pretty faces, carve knife handles, play therommel-pot, and blow the trumpet.”Now if Ulenspiegel spoke so bold of trumpets, it was because he had learned that the post of watchman to the Castle of Audenaerde was vacant after the death of an old man who had held it.Kornjuin said to him:“You shall be trumpeter to the town.”Ulenspiegel went with him and was posted on the tallest tower on the ramparts, in a little box of a cell well ventilated by the four winds, all except the south wind that fanned it only with one wing.He was enjoined to sound the trumpet as soon as he might see an enemy coming and, to that end, to keep his head clear and his eyes keen; and so they did not give him overmuch either to eat or to drink.The captain and his soldiers stayed in the tower and feasted there all day long at the expense of the lowcountry. There was killed and eaten there more than one capon whose one crime was to be plump. Ulenspiegel, always forgotten and forced to be satisfied with his meagre soup, found no pleasure in the smell of the sauces. The French came and carried off a great deal of cattle; Ulenspiegel did not sound his trumpet.Kornjuin climbed up to his cell and said to him:“Why did you not sound the trumpet?”Ulenspiegel said to him:“I give you no thanks for your provender.”The next day, the captain ordered a great feast for himself and his soldiers, but Ulenspiegel was still forgotten. They were on the point of beginning to gorge, when Ulenspiegel blew his trumpet.Kornjuin and his soldiers, thinking it was the French, left their wines and meats, leapt upon their horses, rode hastily out of the town, but found nothing in the country but an ox chewing the cud in the sun, and brought him back with them.Meanwhile, Ulenspiegel had filled himself with wines and meats. The captain as he returned saw him standing, smiling, and his legs tottering at the door of the feast hall. He said to him:“It is traitor’s work to sound the alarm when you do not see the enemy, and not to sound it when you do see them.”“Master captain,” said Ulenspiegel, “I am in my tower so puffed out and swollen up with the four winds that I could float like a bladder if I had not blown in my trumpet to ease me. Have me hanged now, or another time when you need an ass’s skin for your drums.”Kornjuin went away without a word.Meanwhile, news came to Audenaerde that the gracious Emperor Charles was about to come to the town, with a most noble company. On this occasion the sheriffs gave Ulenspiegel a pair of spectacles that he might the better discern His Sacred Majesty’s coming. Ulenspiegel was to blow three blasts on the trumpet as soon as he saw the Emperor marching upon Luppeghem, which is a quarter of a league away from the Borg-poort.Thus the townsfolk would have time to ring their bells, to make ready fireworks, to put the meats in the oven, and to broach the hogsheads.One day, towards noon, the wind was blowing from Brabant and the sky was clear: Ulenspiegel saw on the road leading to Luppeghem a great band of horsemen mounted on caracoling steeds, the long feathers in their caps streaming in the wind. Some carried banners. He who rode proudly at their head wore a bonnet of cloth of gold with great plumes. He was arrayed in brown velvet broidered with brocatel.Ulenspiegel put on his spectacles and saw it was the Emperor Charles the Fifth who was coming to give the folk of Audenaerde permission to serve him their choicest wines and their choicest viands.His whole band was moving leisurely, snuffing up the fresh air that awakens appetite, but Ulenspiegel thought that they made good cheer by custom and might very well fast for one day without perishing. So he looked on at them as they came and did not blow his trumpet.They came on laughing and talking freely, whilst His Sacred Majesty looked into his stomach to see if there was enough room for the dinner of the Audenaerdefolk. He appeared surprised and displeased that no bell rang to announce his coming.At this juncture a peasant entered the town running, to announce that he had seen a French band riding in the neighbourhood and marching upon the town to devour and pillage everything.At this word the porter fastened the gate and sent a servant of the commune to warn the other porters of the town. But thereitersfeasted without knowing anything.His Majesty was still coming on, annoyed not to hear bells and cannon and arquebuses sounding and thundering and volleying. Straining his ears in vain, he heard nothing but the chime marking the half hour. He arrived before the gate, found it shut and beat on it with his fist to have it opened.And the lords in his retinue, angry like him, muttered sour speeches. The porter who was on the summit of the ramparts cried out to them that if they did not put an end to this hubbub he would spray them with grapeshot to cool their impatience.But His Majesty in a fury:“Blind hog,” said he, “dost thou not know thy Emperor?”The porter answered:That the least hoggish are not always the most gilded; that he knew, besides, that the French were good mockers by their nature, since the Emperor Charles, at this moment waging war in Italy, could not be at the gates of Audenaerde.Thereupon Charles and the lords cried out the more, saying:“If thou dost not open, we shall roast thee on thepoint of a spear. And thou shalt eat thy keys first and foremost.”At the noise they were making, an old man-at-arms came out from the artillery room and showing his nose above the wall:“Porter,” said he, “you are all wrong, it is our Emperor yonder; I know him well, though he has aged since he took Mariavander Gheynst from here to the Castle of Lallaing.”The porter fell down stiff as death with terror, and the man-at-arms seized his keys and went to open the gate.The Emperor asked why he had been forced to wait so long: the man-at-arms having told him, His Majesty ordered him to shut the gate again, and to fetch him thereitersof Kornjuin, whom he commanded to march before him beating their tambourines and playing their fifes.Soon one by one the bells awoke to sound full peal. Thus preceded, His Majesty came with an imperial din to the Great Marketplace. The burgomasters and sheriffs were all assembled there; the sheriff Ian Guigelaar came out at the noise. He went back into the council chamber saying:“Keyser Karel is alhier!The Emperor Charles is here!”Sorely affrighted to hear these tidings, the burgomasters, sheriffs, and councillors came out from the Townhall to go in a body to greet the Emperor, while their men ran throughout the whole town to have the fireworks got ready, to put the chickens to the fire, and to broach the casks.Men, women, and children ran everywhere crying:“Keyser Karel is op’t groot marckt!The Emperor is in the Great Market!”Ere long great was the crowd in the square.The Emperor, in deep anger, asked the two burgomasters if they did not deserve to be hanged for thus failing in respect to their sovereign.The burgomasters replied that they deserved hanging indeed, but that Ulenspiegel, the trumpeter of the tower, deserved it much more, seeing that upon the rumour of His Majesty’s coming he had been stationed there, equipped with a good pair of barnacles, with express instructions that he should sound his trumpet three times as soon as he should see the imperial convoy approaching. But he had done nothing of this.The Emperor, still angry, asked them to send for Ulenspiegel.“Why,” said he, “having such clear spectacles, didst thou not blow a point on the trumpet at my coming?”So saying, he passed his hand over his eyes, because of the brightness of the sun, and looked at Ulenspiegel.Ulenspiegel also passed his hand over his eyes, and replied that since he had seen His Sacred Majesty looking between his fingers, he had no longer desired to make use of the spectacles.The Emperor told him he was to be hanged, the town porter said it was well done, and the burgomasters were so terrified at this sentence that they made no word of answer, neither to approve it nor to oppose it.The executioner and his assistants were sent for. They came carrying a ladder and a new rope, seized Ulenspiegel by the collar, as he walked in front of Kornjuin’s hundredreiters, keeping very quiet and saying his prayers. But they mocked him bitterly.The people who were following said:“It is a great cruelty to put to death a poor young man in this way for so small a fault.”And the weavers were there in great numbers and under arms, and they said:“We shall not leave Ulenspiegel to be hanged: it is contrary to the law of Audenaerde.”By now they were come to the gallows field, Ulenspiegel was hoisted up on the ladder, and the executioner put the rope on him. The weavers flocked up around the gallows. The provost was there on horseback, resting the rod of justice on his horse’s shoulder, the wand wherewith at the Emperor’s word he should give the signal for the execution.All the assembled people cried out:“Mercy! mercy for Ulenspiegel!”Ulenspiegel upon his ladder said:“Pity! gracious Emperor!”The Emperor lifted his hand and said:“If this rascal asks me for something I cannot do, he shall have his life!”“Speak, Ulenspiegel,” cried the people.The women wept and said:“He can ask for nothing, poor fellow, for the Emperor can do all things.”And all said:“Speak, Ulenspiegel!”“Sacred Majesty,” said Ulenspiegel, “I shall ask thee neither for money, nor for lands, nor for life, but only one thing, for which thou must not, if I dare to say it, have me whipped nor laid on the rack, before I depart to the land of spirits.”“I promise thee this,” said the Emperor.“Majesty,” said Ulenspiegel, “I ask that before I be hanged, you shall come and kiss the mouth with which I speak no Flemish.”The Emperor, laughing like all the people, replied:“I cannot do what thou dost ask, and thou shalt not hang, Ulenspiegel.”But he condemned the burgomasters and sheriffs to wear spectacles on the back of their heads for six months, in order, said he, that if the Audenaerde folk do not see in front, they may at least see behind.And by imperial decree, these spectacles are still seen in the arms of the town.And Ulenspiegel went away modestly, with a little bag of money the women had given him.XLIIIUlenspiegel being atLiège, in the fish market, he followed after a big young man who with a net bag under one arm filled with every kind of poultry was filling another with haddocks, trout, eels, and pike.Ulenspiegel knew Lamme Goedzak.“What are you doing here, Lamme?” said he.“You know,” said he, “how many Flanders folk have come to this kind country ofLiège; for me, I follow my love here. And you?”“I seek a master to serve for my bread,” replied Ulenspiegel.“That is very dry food,” said Lamme. “It would be better for you to pass from dish to mouth a rosary of ortolans with a thrush forCredo.”“You are rich?” asked Ulenspiegel.Lamme Goedzak answered:“I have lost my father, my mother, and my young sister that used to beat me so soundly; I shall inherit their goods, and I live with a one-eyed servant woman, a great doctor in fricassees.”“Would you like me to carry your fish and your poultry?” asked Ulenspiegel.“Aye,” said Lamme.And together they wandered about the market.Suddenly Lamme said:“Do you know why you are mad?”“No,” replied Ulenspiegel.“Because you are carrying your fish and your poultry in your hand, instead of carrying them in your belly.”“You have said well, Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel; “but since I have no longer even bread, the ortolans won’t look at me now.”“You shall eat them, Ulenspiegel,” said Lamme, “and you shall serve me if my cook will have you.”While they were wending their way, Lamme pointed out to Ulenspiegel a pretty, neat, and lovesome girl, in silk attire, who was hastening about the market here and there and looked at Lamme with her soft eyes.An old man, her father, walked behind her, laden with two net bags, one of fish, the other of game.“That one,” said Lamme, pointing to her, “I am going to make her my wife.”“Aye,” said Ulenspiegel, “I know her, she is Flemish from Zotteghem, she lives in the rue Vinave-d’Isle, and the neighbours say that her mother sweeps the street, in front of the house, instead of her, and that her father irons her shifts.”But Lamme made no answer and said gleefully:“She looked at me.”They came together to Lamme’s house, near the Pont-des-Arches, and knocked at the door. A one-eyed serving woman came and opened to them. Ulenspiegel saw she was old, lean and long, flat and fierce.“La Sanginne,” said Lamme to her, “will you have this one to help you in your work?”“I will take him on trial,” said she.“Take him, then,” said he, “and make him know and test the delights of your cookery.”La Sanginne then put three black puddings on the table, a quart ofcervoiseale, and a big hunch of bread.While Ulenspiegel ate, Lamme also munched a black pudding.“Do you know,” said he, “where our soul hath its habitation?”“No, Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel.“In our stomach it dwelleth,” said Lamme, “to delve therein without ceasing and ever renew in our bodies the force of life. And what are its best companions? They are all good and choice eatables and wine of the Meuse over and above.”“Aye,” said Ulenspiegel, “black puddings are agreeable company for the lonely soul.”“He wants more of them, give him some, la Sanginne,” said Lamme.La Sanginne gave him more, this time white puddings.While he was eating largely, Lamme, grown pensive, said:“When I die, my belly will die with me, and there below in purgatory, I shall be left fasting, carrying my paunch about with me all flabby and empty.”“The black seem to me better,” said Ulenspiegel.“You have eaten six,” replied la Sanginne, “and you shall have no more.”“You know,” said Lamme, “that you will be well treated here and will eat like myself.”“I will remember that word,” said Ulenspiegel.Ulenspiegel, seeing that he ate the same as Lamme, was happy and content. The black puddings had given him so high a spirit that on that day he made all the caldrons, pans, and cooking pots shine and glitter like so many suns.Living well in this house, he delighted to haunt kitchen and cellar, leaving the garret to the cats. One day, la Sanginne had two fowls to roast and bade Ulenspiegel turn the spit while she went to the market to fetch herbs for the seasoning.The two fowls being roasted, Ulenspiegel ate one. La Sanginne, returning, said:“There were two fowls, now I see only one.”“Open your other eye, you will see both of them,” replied Ulenspiegel.She went all in a rage to tell the business to Lamme Goedzak, who came down into the kitchen and said to Ulenspiegel:“Why do you make game of my servant? There were two fowls.”“There were of a truth two, Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel, “but when I came here you told me I should drink and eat as yourself. There were two fowls; I have eaten one, you will eat the other; my pleasure is past, yours is to come; are you not better off than I?”“Yea,” said Lamme, smiling, “but do everything la Sanginne bids you, and you will have but half tasks.”“I shall watch that, Lamme,” replied Ulenspiegel.And so, every time that la Sanginne bade him do anything, he only did the half of it; if she told him to draw two buckets of water from the well, he brought back only one; if she told him to go and fill a jug of cervoise from the cask, he poured half of it down his throat on the way and so on with the rest.At length la Sanginne, grown tired of these ways, told Lamme that if this good-for-naught remained in the house, she would go away on the spot.Lamme went down to Ulenspiegel and said to him:“You must depart, my son, although you have come to look well in this house. Listen to that cock crowing, it is two o’clock of the afternoon, it is a presage of rain. I would fain not turn you out of doors in this ill weather that is about to come upon us; but consider, my son, that la Sanginne by her fricassees is the warden of my life; I cannot, without risking a speedy death, allow her to leave me. Go, then, my boy, with God’s grace, and to enliven your way take these three florins and this string of saveloys.”And Ulenspiegel went away grieving, regretting Lamme and his fleshpots.XLIVNovember came to Damme and elsewhere, but the winter was tardy. No snow, no rain, nor cold weather; the sun shone from morning to evening without dimming: the children rolled about in the dust of the streets and the highways; at the hour of repose, after supper, the merchants, shopkeepers, goldsmiths, wheelwrights, and artisans came out upon their doorsteps to look on the sky that was always blue, the trees whose leaves were still not falling, thestorks standing up on the ridges of the roofs, and the swallows that had not yet gone away. The roses had flowered thrice, and for the fourth time were in bud; the nights were warm, the nightingale had not ceased to sing.The folk of Damme said:“Winter is dead, let us burn winter.”And they built a giant figure with a bear’s face, a long beard of shavings, a thick shock head of flax. They clothed him in white garments and burned him with great ceremony.Claes was steeped in melancholy, he blessed not the sky that was ever blue, nor the swallows that would not depart. For now nobody in Damme was burning charcoal save for cooking, and each having enough did not go to buy from Claes, who had disbursed all his savings to pay for his stock.So, if standing on his doorstep, the coalman felt the tip of his nose grow chilly in some puff of sharpish wind:“Ah!” he would say, “it is my bread coming to me!”But the sharp wind would not continue to blow, and the sky stayed always blue, and the leaves would not fall. And Claes refused to sell his stock at half price to the miser Grypstuiver, the dean of the fishmongers. And soon bread began to lack in the cottage.

XXXVIIClaes, Soetkin, and Nele were gossiping together about the ingle, and talked of the pilgrim on his pilgrimage.“Daughter,” said Soetkin, “why cannot you, by the might of the spell of youth, keep him always with us?”“Alas!” said Nele, “I cannot.”“’Tis because,” said Claes, “he hath a counter charm that drives him to run without ever resting save for the work of his teeth.”“The cruel, ugly fellow!” sighed Nele.“Cruel,” said Soetkin, “I admit, but ugly, no. If my son Ulenspiegel has not a Greek or a Roman countenance, he is all the better for that; for they are of Flanders his agile feet, of the Frank of Bruges his keen brown eye, and his nose and his mouth made by two past masters in the science of humour and sculpture.”“Who, then,” asked Claes, “made him his lazy arms and his legs too prone to run to pleasure?”“His heart that is over young,” replied Soetkin.XXXVIIIIn these days Katheline by her simples cured an ox, three sheep, and a pig belonging to Speelman but could not cure a cow that belonged to Jan Beloen. The latter accused her of sorcery. He averred that she had cast a spell on the beast, inasmuch as, while giving his simples, she caressed and talked to it, doubtless in a diabolical speech, for an honest Christian should not talk to a beast.The said Jan Beloen added that he was a neighbour of Speelman’s, whose ox, sheep, and pig she had healed, and if she had killed his cow, it was doubtless at the instigation of Speelman, jealous to see that his, Beloen’s, land was better tilled than his own. Uponthe testimony of Peter Meulemeester, a man of good life and conduct, and also of Jan Beloen, certifying that Katheline was reputed a witch in Damme, and had doubtless killed the cow, Katheline was arrested and condemned to be tormented until she should have confessed her crimes and misdeeds.She was questioned by a sheriff who was always in a rage, for he drank brandy all day long. He had Katheline put upon the first bench of torment in his presence and before theVierschare.The executioner stripped her naked, then shaved her hair and all her body, looking everywhere to see if she concealed a charm.Finding nothing, he fastened her with cords to the bench. Then she spake:“I am all shamed to be naked thus before these men, Madam Mary, grant that I may die!”Then the executioner put wet cloths upon her breast, her belly, and her legs, and raising the bench, he poured hot water into her stomach in such quantities that she was all swelled up. Then he lowered the bench again.The sheriff asked Katheline if she would confess her crime. She made sign that she would not. The executioner poured more hot water into her, but she vomited all of it out again.Then at the chirurgeon’s bidding she was untied. She did not speak, but struck on her breast to say the hot water had burned her. When the sheriff perceived that she had recovered from this first torment he said to her:“Confess thou art a witch, and that thou didst cast a spell upon the cow.”“I will not confess,” said she. “I love all dumb beasts, as much as my poor heart may, and I would harm myself rather than them, who cannot defend themselves. I used the needful simples to cure the cow.”But the sheriff:“Thou didst give her poison,” said he, “for the cow is dead.”“Master sheriff,” answered Katheline, “I am here before you, in your power. I dare say to you, nevertheless, that a beast can die of sickness, like a man, in spite of the assistance of the surgeons and the doctors. And I swear by my Lord Christ who died on the cross for our sins, that I have wished no harm to this cow, but sought to cure her by simple remedies.”Then said the sheriff, enraged:“This devil’s hag will not always deny, let her be put on another bench for the torment!”And therewith he drank a great glass of brandy.The executioner made Katheline sit on the lid of an oaken coffin placed upon trestles. The said lid, shaped like a roof, was sharp as a blade. A great fire was burning in the fireplace, for it was then November.Katheline, seated upon the coffin and a spit of sharpened wood, was shod with tight shoes of new leather and set before the fire. When she felt the sharp wooden edge of the coffin and the pointed spit entering her flesh, and when the fire heated and shrank the leather of her shoes, she cried:“I suffer a thousand pangs! Who will give me black poison?”“Put her nearer the fire,” said the sheriff. Then questioning Katheline:“How often,” said he, “didst thou bestride a broom to go to the Sabbath? How often didst thou blast the corn in the ear, the fruit upon the tree, the babe in the mother’s womb? How often didst thou turn two brothers to sworn foes, and two sisters into rivals filled with hatred?”Katheline would have spoken, but could not, and moved her arms as though to say no. The sheriff then:“She will only speak when she feels all her witch fat melt in the fire. Put her nearer.”Katheline cried out. The sheriff said:“Pray to Satan that he may cool thee.”She made a movement as though she would take off her shoes that were smoking in the fierceness of the fire.“Pray to Satan that he pull off thy shoes,” said the sheriff.The clock was striking ten, the furious creature’s dinner hour; he went away with the executioner and the clerk, leaving Katheline alone before the fire, in the torture chamber.At eleven they came back and found Katheline seated stiff and motionless. The clerk said:“She is dead, I think.”The sheriff ordered the executioner to take Katheline down from the coffin and the shoes from off her feet. Not being able to pull them off, he cut them away, and the feet of Katheline were disclosed red and bleeding.And the sheriff, thinking of his meal, looked at her without a word; but presently she recovered her senses, and falling on the ground and unable to rise for all her efforts, she said to the sheriff:“Once on a time wouldst fain have had me to wife, but now thou shalt not have me. Four times three it is the sacred number, and the thirteenth is the husband.”Then as the sheriff would have spoken, she said to him:“Stay silent, he has hearing finer than the archangel that in heaven counts the heart beats of the just. Why dost thou come so late? Four times three it is the sacred number, he slayeth those that desire me.”The sheriff said:“She receives the devil in her bed.”“She is out of her wits with the anguish of the torment,” said the clerk.Katheline was taken back to prison. Three days after, the sheriff’s court being assembled in theVierschare, Katheline after deliberation was condemned to the fire.The executioner and his assistants brought her to the marketplace of Damme where there was a scaffold on which she mounted. In the marketplace were the provost, the herald, and the judges.The trumpets of the town herald sounded three times, and turning to the people he announced:“The magistrate of Damme, having had compassion on the woman Katheline, has been pleased not to exact punishment according to the extreme rigour of the law of the town, but in order to bear witness that she is a witch, her hair shall be burned, she shall pay twenty gold carolus by way of fine, and shall be banished for three years from the precincts of Damme under pain of losing one limb.”And the people applauded this harsh lenity.The executioner thereupon bound Katheline to the stake, set a wig of tow upon her shaven head and set it on fire. And the tow burned long and Katheline cried out and wept.Then she was unbound and taken without the boundaries of Damme upon a cart, for her feet were burned.XXXIXUlenspiegel being now at Bois-le-Duc in Brabant, the magnates of the town would fain have appointed him their fool, but he would none of this dignity. “Pilgrim on pilgrimage cannot play fool as a permanency, but only at inns and on the highways.”At this same time Philip, who was King of England, came to visit the countries of his future inheritance, Flanders, Brabant, Hainault, Holland, and Zealand. He was then in his twenty-ninth year; in his grayish eyes dwelt sour melancholy, savage dissimulation, and cruel resolution. Cold was his countenance, and stiff his head covered with tawny hair; stiff, too, his meagre torso and spindle limbs. Slow was his speech and thick as though he had wool in his mouth.Amid tourneys, jousts, and feastings, he visited the joyous duchy of Brabant, the rich county Flanders, and his other seignories. Everywhere he swore to observe and confirm the privileges; but when at Brussels he took oath upon the Testament to observe the Golden Bull of Brabant his hand clenched so tight that he must needs take it away from the sacred book.He went to Antwerp, where they put up twenty-three triumphal arches to receive him. The city disbursed two hundred and eighty-seven thousand florins to payfor these arches and for the costumes of eighteen hundred and seventy-nine merchants all clad in crimson velvet and for the rich livery of four hundred and sixteen lackeys and the brilliant silk trappings of four thousand burgesses, all clad alike. Many feasts were given by the rhetoricians of all the cities in the Low Countries, or nearly all.There were seen, with their fools male and female, the Prince of Love, of Tournai, mounted upon a sow that was called Astarte; the King of Fools, of Lille, who led a horse by the tail and walked behind; the Prince of Pleasure, of Valenciennes, who amused himself counting how many times his donkey broke wind; the Abbot of Mirth, of Arras, who drank Brussels wine from a flask shaped like a breviary, and that was gay reading; the Abbot of the Paux-Pourvus, of Ath, who was provided with linen full of holes and boots down at heel, but had a sausage with which he made good provision for his belly; the Provost of Madcaps, a young man mounted on a shy goat, and who trotting in the crowd got many a thwack because of her; the Abbot of the Silver Dish, from Quesnoy, who mounted on his horse pretended to be sitting in a dish, saying “there is no beast so big that fire cannot cook him.”And they played all kinds of harmless foolery, but the King remained sad and severe.That same evening, the Markgrave of Antwerp, the burgomasters, captains and deans, assembled together to find out some game or play that might win Philip the King to laughter.Said the Markgrave:“Have ye not heard tell of a certain Pierkin Jacobsen,the town-fool of Bois-le-Duc, and far renowned for his merry tricks?”“Yes,” said the others.“Well!” said the Markgrave, “let us summon him to come hither, and bid him do us some nimblewitted turn, since our own fool has his boots stuffed with lead.”“Let us summon him hither,” said they.When the messenger from Antwerp came to Bois-le-Duc, they told him that the fool Pierkin had snuffed out his candle with over-much laughing, but that there was in the town another fool, a bird of passage, called Ulenspiegel. The messenger went to look for him in a tavern where he was eating a fricassee of mussels and making a petticoat for a girl with the shells.Ulenspiegel was delighted when he knew that it was for him the courier of the commune had come all the way from Antwerp, mounted upon a fine horse of Vuern-Ambacht and leading another by the bridle.Without setting foot to ground, the courier asked him if he knew where to find a new trick to make King Philip laugh.“I have a mine of them under my hair,” answered Ulenspiegel.They went away together. The two horses galloping loose-reined brought Ulenspiegel and the courier to Antwerp.Ulenspiegel made his appearance before the Markgrave, the two burgomasters, and the officials of the commune.“What do you intend to do?” asked the Markgrave.“Fly in the air,” replied Ulenspiegel.“How will you set about this?” asked the Markgrave.“Do you know,” asked Ulenspiegel, “what is worth less than a burst bladder?”“I do not know,” said the Markgrave.“A secret that has been let out,” replied Ulenspiegel.In the meanwhile, the heralds of the games, mounted upon their handsome steeds caparisoned with crimson velvet, rode through all the main streets, squares, and carfaxes of the city, sounding clarions and with beat of drum. In this fashion they announced to thesignorkesand thesignorkinnesthat Ulenspiegel, the fool of Damme, would fly in the air at the quay, there being present upon a staging King Philip and his high illustrious and distinguished company.Over against the staging there was a house built in the Italian fashion, with a gutter running along the whole length of the roof. A garret window opened upon the gutter.Ulenspiegel on this day went through the city everywhere riding upon an ass. A footman ran alongside him. Ulenspiegel had donned the fine robe of crimson silk the magnates of the commune had given him. His headgear was a hood, crimson as well, on which were seen two asses’ ears with a bell on the tip of each. He wore a necklace of copper medallions embossed with the shield of Antwerp. On the sleeves of the robe there tinkled at each pointed elbow a gilt bell. He had shoes with gilt soles, and a bell at the tip of each.His ass was caparisoned with crimson silk and on each thigh carried the shield of Antwerp broidered in fine gold.The footman brandished a donkey’s head in one hand and in the other a branch at the end of which chimed a cowbell from a forest-bred cow.Ulenspiegel, leaving his ass and his footman in the street, climbed up into the gutter.There, shaking his bells, he opened out his arms as if he was on the point of flying. Then leaning down towards King Philip, he said:“I thought there was no fool in Antwerp save only me, but I perceive the town is full of them. If you had told me you were going to fly, I should not have believed you; but let a fool come and tell you he will do it, and you believe him. How would you have me fly, since I have no wings?”Some laughed, others swore, but all said:“This fool says what is none the less quite true.”But King Philip remained stiff as a king of stone.And the magnates of the commune said softly one to the other:“There was no need to make such great festival for such a sour-face.”And they gave three florins to Ulenspiegel, who departed, first perforce restoring to them the robe of crimson silk.“What are three florins in the pouch of a young man but a snowball before a fire, a full bottle in front of you, wide-throated drinkers? Three florins! The leaves fall from the trees and sprout again upon them, but florins leave pouches and return thither no more: the butterflies flitter away with the summer time, and the florins, too, although they weigh twoestrelinsand nineas.”So saying, Ulenspiegel contemplated his three florins closely.“What a haughty mien,” murmured he, “hath the Emperor Charles upon the obverse, cuirassed and helmeted, holding a sword in one hand and in the otherthe globe of this poor earthly world! He is by the grace of God Emperor of the Romans, King of Spain, and so forth, and he is most gracious towards these our countries, this emperor in the cuirass. And here on the reverse is a shield on which are graven and displayed the arms of a duke, count, etc., pertaining to his divers possessions, with this goodly device:Da mihi virtutem contra hostes tuos: ‘Give me strength against thy enemies.’ He was valiant indeed against those of the reformed that have goods to confiscate, and he inheriteth them. Ah! were I the Emperor Charles, I would have florins minted for everybody, and each man being rich, no one should work more.”But Ulenspiegel looked in vain at the lovely money; it was gone towards the land of ruin to the clinking of quart pots and the chiming of bottles.XLWhile he displayed himself on the gutter all clad in crimson silk, Ulenspiegel had not seen Nele who from the crowd was looking on him smiling. She was living at this time at Borgerhout near Antwerp, and thought that if some fool was to fly before King Philip, it could only be her friend Ulenspiegel.As he marched along the way, plunged in reverie, he did not hear a sound of hastening steps behind him, but felt two hands that were laid flat upon his eyes. Guessing Nele instinctively:“Are you there?” said he.“Aye,” she said, “I have been running behind you ever since you came out of the city. Come with me.”“But where,” said he, “where is Katheline?”“Thou dost not know it,” said she, “that she was tortured unjustly for a witch, then banished out of Damme for three years, and that they burned her feet and burned tow upon her head. I tell thee this that thou mayest have no fear of her, for she is out of her wits because of the cruel torment. Often she spends whole hours looking at her feet and saying: ‘Hanske, my sweet devil, see what they did to thy dear. And her poor feet are like two wounds.’ Then she weeps, saying: ‘Other women have a husband or a lover, but I live at this moment as a widow.’ I tell her then that Hanske will hate her if she speaks of him before other folk than me. And she obeys me like a child save when she sees a cow or an ox, the cause of her torture; then she flees running without stay, and nothing can stop her, fences, streams, or ditches, till she falls for weariness in some corner of the wayside or against the wall of a farm, whither I go and take her up and dress her poor feet that are by then all bleeding. And I deem that in burning the hank of tow they burned also her brain in her head.”And both were grieved thinking upon Katheline.They came to her and saw her sitting upon a bench in the sun against the wall of a house. Ulenspiegel said to her:“Do you know me?”“Four times three,” quoth she, “it is the sacred number, and the thirteenth is Thereb. Who art thou, child of this wicked world?”“I am Ulenspiegel,” he answered, “the son of Soetkin and of Claes.”She shook her head and knew him; then beckoning him close with her finger and bending to his ear:“If thou see him whose kisses are as snow, tell him to come back to me, Ulenspiegel.”Then showing her burned hair:“I am ill,” she said; “they have taken my wits, but when he comes he will fill my head again, which now is all empty. Hearest thou? it sounds like a bell; it is my soul knocking at the door to depart, because it burns. If Hanske comes and has no mind to fill me my head again, I will tell him to make a hole in it with a knife: the soul that is there, ever knocking to come out, grieveth me cruelly, and I shall die, yea. And now I never sleep, and I look for him always, and he must fill me my head again, yea.”And sinking down again, she groaned.And the peasants that were coming back from the fields to go to dinner, while the church bell called them to it, passed before Katheline saying:“There is the madwife.”And they made the sign of the cross.And Nele and Ulenspiegel wept, and Ulenspiegel must needs go on upon his pilgrimage.XLIAt this time as he pilgrimaged he entered into the service of one Josse, surnamed theKwaebakker, the cross baker, because of his vinegar face. TheKwaebakkergave him three stale loaves every week for his food, and for lodging a sloping garret under the roof, where the rain rained and the wind blew marvellously.Seeing himself so evilly entreated, Ulenspiegel played him different tricks and this among them. When they bake in the early morning, the flour must be bolted overnight. One night, then, when the moon was shining, Ulenspiegel asked for a candle to see to work and had this answer from his master:“Bolt the flour in the light of the moon.”Ulenspiegel, obeying him, bolted the flour upon the earth, where the moonlight was shining.In the morning theKwaebakker, coming to see how much work Ulenspiegel had done, found him still bolting and said to him:“Does flour now cost nothing at all that it should be bolted on the ground like this?”“I bolted the flour in the moonlight as you had bidden me,” answered Ulenspiegel.The baker replied:“Pack-donkey, it was in a sieve you should have done it.”“I thought the moon was a new-fangled kind of sieve,” replied Ulenspiegel. “But there will be no great loss, I will scrape up the flour.”“It is too late,” answered theKwaebakker, “to get ready the dough and to bake it.”Ulenspiegel rejoined:“Baes, our neighbour’s dough is ready in the mill; shall I go and take that?”“Go to the gallows,” replied theKwaebakker, “and fetch what is on that.”“I go,baes,” answered Ulenspiegel.He ran to the gallows field, found there the dried hand of a robber, brought it to theKwaebakker, and said:“Here is a hand of glory that maketh invisible all those that carry it. Wilt thou henceforward conceal thy evil disposition?”“I shall inform the commune against you,” repliedtheKwaebakker, “and you will see that you have infringed upon the rights of the overlord.”When they were both before the burgomaster, theKwaebakker, wishing to tell the whole rosary of Ulenspiegel’s misdeeds and delinquencies, saw that he was opening his eyes to their widest. He became so angry at this that interrupting his deposition he said to him:“What do you want?”Ulenspiegel replied:“You told me you would accuse me in such wise that I ‘would see.’ I am trying to see, that is why I look.”“Out of my eyes,” cried the baker.“If I was in your eyes,” answered Ulenspiegel, “I could only come out, seeing that you shut them, through your nostrils.”The burgomaster, seeing that this day was the day for the fair of japes, would listen to them no longer.Ulenspiegel and theKwaebakkerwent away together, theKwaebakkerraised his cudgel on him; Ulenspiegel dodged it, saying:“Baes, since it is with blows my flour is to be sifted, you take the bran of it—it is your anger: I keep the white—it is my gaiety.”Then showing him his nether face:“And here,” he added, “is the door of the oven, if you want to bake.”XLIIUlenspiegel as he pilgrimaged would gladly have turned highway robber, but he found the stones too heavy to carry.He was trudging by chance on the road to Audenaerde where there was then a garrison of Flemishreiterscharged with the defence of the town against the French bands that ravaged the country like locusts.Thereitershad at their head a certain captain, a Frisian born, by name Kornjuin. They also overran the low country and pillaged the peoples, who were thus, as usual, devoured on both sides.Everything was good in their eyes: hens, chickens, ducks, pigeons, calves, and pigs. One day, as they were coming back laden with plunder, Kornjuin and his lieutenants saw at the foot of a tree Ulenspiegel lying asleep and dreaming of fricassees.“What do you do for a living?” asked Kornjuin.“I’m dying of hunger,” replied Ulenspiegel.“What is your trade?”“To go on pilgrimage for my sins, look on at others toiling, dance on the rope, paint pretty faces, carve knife handles, play therommel-pot, and blow the trumpet.”Now if Ulenspiegel spoke so bold of trumpets, it was because he had learned that the post of watchman to the Castle of Audenaerde was vacant after the death of an old man who had held it.Kornjuin said to him:“You shall be trumpeter to the town.”Ulenspiegel went with him and was posted on the tallest tower on the ramparts, in a little box of a cell well ventilated by the four winds, all except the south wind that fanned it only with one wing.He was enjoined to sound the trumpet as soon as he might see an enemy coming and, to that end, to keep his head clear and his eyes keen; and so they did not give him overmuch either to eat or to drink.The captain and his soldiers stayed in the tower and feasted there all day long at the expense of the lowcountry. There was killed and eaten there more than one capon whose one crime was to be plump. Ulenspiegel, always forgotten and forced to be satisfied with his meagre soup, found no pleasure in the smell of the sauces. The French came and carried off a great deal of cattle; Ulenspiegel did not sound his trumpet.Kornjuin climbed up to his cell and said to him:“Why did you not sound the trumpet?”Ulenspiegel said to him:“I give you no thanks for your provender.”The next day, the captain ordered a great feast for himself and his soldiers, but Ulenspiegel was still forgotten. They were on the point of beginning to gorge, when Ulenspiegel blew his trumpet.Kornjuin and his soldiers, thinking it was the French, left their wines and meats, leapt upon their horses, rode hastily out of the town, but found nothing in the country but an ox chewing the cud in the sun, and brought him back with them.Meanwhile, Ulenspiegel had filled himself with wines and meats. The captain as he returned saw him standing, smiling, and his legs tottering at the door of the feast hall. He said to him:“It is traitor’s work to sound the alarm when you do not see the enemy, and not to sound it when you do see them.”“Master captain,” said Ulenspiegel, “I am in my tower so puffed out and swollen up with the four winds that I could float like a bladder if I had not blown in my trumpet to ease me. Have me hanged now, or another time when you need an ass’s skin for your drums.”Kornjuin went away without a word.Meanwhile, news came to Audenaerde that the gracious Emperor Charles was about to come to the town, with a most noble company. On this occasion the sheriffs gave Ulenspiegel a pair of spectacles that he might the better discern His Sacred Majesty’s coming. Ulenspiegel was to blow three blasts on the trumpet as soon as he saw the Emperor marching upon Luppeghem, which is a quarter of a league away from the Borg-poort.Thus the townsfolk would have time to ring their bells, to make ready fireworks, to put the meats in the oven, and to broach the hogsheads.One day, towards noon, the wind was blowing from Brabant and the sky was clear: Ulenspiegel saw on the road leading to Luppeghem a great band of horsemen mounted on caracoling steeds, the long feathers in their caps streaming in the wind. Some carried banners. He who rode proudly at their head wore a bonnet of cloth of gold with great plumes. He was arrayed in brown velvet broidered with brocatel.Ulenspiegel put on his spectacles and saw it was the Emperor Charles the Fifth who was coming to give the folk of Audenaerde permission to serve him their choicest wines and their choicest viands.His whole band was moving leisurely, snuffing up the fresh air that awakens appetite, but Ulenspiegel thought that they made good cheer by custom and might very well fast for one day without perishing. So he looked on at them as they came and did not blow his trumpet.They came on laughing and talking freely, whilst His Sacred Majesty looked into his stomach to see if there was enough room for the dinner of the Audenaerdefolk. He appeared surprised and displeased that no bell rang to announce his coming.At this juncture a peasant entered the town running, to announce that he had seen a French band riding in the neighbourhood and marching upon the town to devour and pillage everything.At this word the porter fastened the gate and sent a servant of the commune to warn the other porters of the town. But thereitersfeasted without knowing anything.His Majesty was still coming on, annoyed not to hear bells and cannon and arquebuses sounding and thundering and volleying. Straining his ears in vain, he heard nothing but the chime marking the half hour. He arrived before the gate, found it shut and beat on it with his fist to have it opened.And the lords in his retinue, angry like him, muttered sour speeches. The porter who was on the summit of the ramparts cried out to them that if they did not put an end to this hubbub he would spray them with grapeshot to cool their impatience.But His Majesty in a fury:“Blind hog,” said he, “dost thou not know thy Emperor?”The porter answered:That the least hoggish are not always the most gilded; that he knew, besides, that the French were good mockers by their nature, since the Emperor Charles, at this moment waging war in Italy, could not be at the gates of Audenaerde.Thereupon Charles and the lords cried out the more, saying:“If thou dost not open, we shall roast thee on thepoint of a spear. And thou shalt eat thy keys first and foremost.”At the noise they were making, an old man-at-arms came out from the artillery room and showing his nose above the wall:“Porter,” said he, “you are all wrong, it is our Emperor yonder; I know him well, though he has aged since he took Mariavander Gheynst from here to the Castle of Lallaing.”The porter fell down stiff as death with terror, and the man-at-arms seized his keys and went to open the gate.The Emperor asked why he had been forced to wait so long: the man-at-arms having told him, His Majesty ordered him to shut the gate again, and to fetch him thereitersof Kornjuin, whom he commanded to march before him beating their tambourines and playing their fifes.Soon one by one the bells awoke to sound full peal. Thus preceded, His Majesty came with an imperial din to the Great Marketplace. The burgomasters and sheriffs were all assembled there; the sheriff Ian Guigelaar came out at the noise. He went back into the council chamber saying:“Keyser Karel is alhier!The Emperor Charles is here!”Sorely affrighted to hear these tidings, the burgomasters, sheriffs, and councillors came out from the Townhall to go in a body to greet the Emperor, while their men ran throughout the whole town to have the fireworks got ready, to put the chickens to the fire, and to broach the casks.Men, women, and children ran everywhere crying:“Keyser Karel is op’t groot marckt!The Emperor is in the Great Market!”Ere long great was the crowd in the square.The Emperor, in deep anger, asked the two burgomasters if they did not deserve to be hanged for thus failing in respect to their sovereign.The burgomasters replied that they deserved hanging indeed, but that Ulenspiegel, the trumpeter of the tower, deserved it much more, seeing that upon the rumour of His Majesty’s coming he had been stationed there, equipped with a good pair of barnacles, with express instructions that he should sound his trumpet three times as soon as he should see the imperial convoy approaching. But he had done nothing of this.The Emperor, still angry, asked them to send for Ulenspiegel.“Why,” said he, “having such clear spectacles, didst thou not blow a point on the trumpet at my coming?”So saying, he passed his hand over his eyes, because of the brightness of the sun, and looked at Ulenspiegel.Ulenspiegel also passed his hand over his eyes, and replied that since he had seen His Sacred Majesty looking between his fingers, he had no longer desired to make use of the spectacles.The Emperor told him he was to be hanged, the town porter said it was well done, and the burgomasters were so terrified at this sentence that they made no word of answer, neither to approve it nor to oppose it.The executioner and his assistants were sent for. They came carrying a ladder and a new rope, seized Ulenspiegel by the collar, as he walked in front of Kornjuin’s hundredreiters, keeping very quiet and saying his prayers. But they mocked him bitterly.The people who were following said:“It is a great cruelty to put to death a poor young man in this way for so small a fault.”And the weavers were there in great numbers and under arms, and they said:“We shall not leave Ulenspiegel to be hanged: it is contrary to the law of Audenaerde.”By now they were come to the gallows field, Ulenspiegel was hoisted up on the ladder, and the executioner put the rope on him. The weavers flocked up around the gallows. The provost was there on horseback, resting the rod of justice on his horse’s shoulder, the wand wherewith at the Emperor’s word he should give the signal for the execution.All the assembled people cried out:“Mercy! mercy for Ulenspiegel!”Ulenspiegel upon his ladder said:“Pity! gracious Emperor!”The Emperor lifted his hand and said:“If this rascal asks me for something I cannot do, he shall have his life!”“Speak, Ulenspiegel,” cried the people.The women wept and said:“He can ask for nothing, poor fellow, for the Emperor can do all things.”And all said:“Speak, Ulenspiegel!”“Sacred Majesty,” said Ulenspiegel, “I shall ask thee neither for money, nor for lands, nor for life, but only one thing, for which thou must not, if I dare to say it, have me whipped nor laid on the rack, before I depart to the land of spirits.”“I promise thee this,” said the Emperor.“Majesty,” said Ulenspiegel, “I ask that before I be hanged, you shall come and kiss the mouth with which I speak no Flemish.”The Emperor, laughing like all the people, replied:“I cannot do what thou dost ask, and thou shalt not hang, Ulenspiegel.”But he condemned the burgomasters and sheriffs to wear spectacles on the back of their heads for six months, in order, said he, that if the Audenaerde folk do not see in front, they may at least see behind.And by imperial decree, these spectacles are still seen in the arms of the town.And Ulenspiegel went away modestly, with a little bag of money the women had given him.XLIIIUlenspiegel being atLiège, in the fish market, he followed after a big young man who with a net bag under one arm filled with every kind of poultry was filling another with haddocks, trout, eels, and pike.Ulenspiegel knew Lamme Goedzak.“What are you doing here, Lamme?” said he.“You know,” said he, “how many Flanders folk have come to this kind country ofLiège; for me, I follow my love here. And you?”“I seek a master to serve for my bread,” replied Ulenspiegel.“That is very dry food,” said Lamme. “It would be better for you to pass from dish to mouth a rosary of ortolans with a thrush forCredo.”“You are rich?” asked Ulenspiegel.Lamme Goedzak answered:“I have lost my father, my mother, and my young sister that used to beat me so soundly; I shall inherit their goods, and I live with a one-eyed servant woman, a great doctor in fricassees.”“Would you like me to carry your fish and your poultry?” asked Ulenspiegel.“Aye,” said Lamme.And together they wandered about the market.Suddenly Lamme said:“Do you know why you are mad?”“No,” replied Ulenspiegel.“Because you are carrying your fish and your poultry in your hand, instead of carrying them in your belly.”“You have said well, Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel; “but since I have no longer even bread, the ortolans won’t look at me now.”“You shall eat them, Ulenspiegel,” said Lamme, “and you shall serve me if my cook will have you.”While they were wending their way, Lamme pointed out to Ulenspiegel a pretty, neat, and lovesome girl, in silk attire, who was hastening about the market here and there and looked at Lamme with her soft eyes.An old man, her father, walked behind her, laden with two net bags, one of fish, the other of game.“That one,” said Lamme, pointing to her, “I am going to make her my wife.”“Aye,” said Ulenspiegel, “I know her, she is Flemish from Zotteghem, she lives in the rue Vinave-d’Isle, and the neighbours say that her mother sweeps the street, in front of the house, instead of her, and that her father irons her shifts.”But Lamme made no answer and said gleefully:“She looked at me.”They came together to Lamme’s house, near the Pont-des-Arches, and knocked at the door. A one-eyed serving woman came and opened to them. Ulenspiegel saw she was old, lean and long, flat and fierce.“La Sanginne,” said Lamme to her, “will you have this one to help you in your work?”“I will take him on trial,” said she.“Take him, then,” said he, “and make him know and test the delights of your cookery.”La Sanginne then put three black puddings on the table, a quart ofcervoiseale, and a big hunch of bread.While Ulenspiegel ate, Lamme also munched a black pudding.“Do you know,” said he, “where our soul hath its habitation?”“No, Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel.“In our stomach it dwelleth,” said Lamme, “to delve therein without ceasing and ever renew in our bodies the force of life. And what are its best companions? They are all good and choice eatables and wine of the Meuse over and above.”“Aye,” said Ulenspiegel, “black puddings are agreeable company for the lonely soul.”“He wants more of them, give him some, la Sanginne,” said Lamme.La Sanginne gave him more, this time white puddings.While he was eating largely, Lamme, grown pensive, said:“When I die, my belly will die with me, and there below in purgatory, I shall be left fasting, carrying my paunch about with me all flabby and empty.”“The black seem to me better,” said Ulenspiegel.“You have eaten six,” replied la Sanginne, “and you shall have no more.”“You know,” said Lamme, “that you will be well treated here and will eat like myself.”“I will remember that word,” said Ulenspiegel.Ulenspiegel, seeing that he ate the same as Lamme, was happy and content. The black puddings had given him so high a spirit that on that day he made all the caldrons, pans, and cooking pots shine and glitter like so many suns.Living well in this house, he delighted to haunt kitchen and cellar, leaving the garret to the cats. One day, la Sanginne had two fowls to roast and bade Ulenspiegel turn the spit while she went to the market to fetch herbs for the seasoning.The two fowls being roasted, Ulenspiegel ate one. La Sanginne, returning, said:“There were two fowls, now I see only one.”“Open your other eye, you will see both of them,” replied Ulenspiegel.She went all in a rage to tell the business to Lamme Goedzak, who came down into the kitchen and said to Ulenspiegel:“Why do you make game of my servant? There were two fowls.”“There were of a truth two, Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel, “but when I came here you told me I should drink and eat as yourself. There were two fowls; I have eaten one, you will eat the other; my pleasure is past, yours is to come; are you not better off than I?”“Yea,” said Lamme, smiling, “but do everything la Sanginne bids you, and you will have but half tasks.”“I shall watch that, Lamme,” replied Ulenspiegel.And so, every time that la Sanginne bade him do anything, he only did the half of it; if she told him to draw two buckets of water from the well, he brought back only one; if she told him to go and fill a jug of cervoise from the cask, he poured half of it down his throat on the way and so on with the rest.At length la Sanginne, grown tired of these ways, told Lamme that if this good-for-naught remained in the house, she would go away on the spot.Lamme went down to Ulenspiegel and said to him:“You must depart, my son, although you have come to look well in this house. Listen to that cock crowing, it is two o’clock of the afternoon, it is a presage of rain. I would fain not turn you out of doors in this ill weather that is about to come upon us; but consider, my son, that la Sanginne by her fricassees is the warden of my life; I cannot, without risking a speedy death, allow her to leave me. Go, then, my boy, with God’s grace, and to enliven your way take these three florins and this string of saveloys.”And Ulenspiegel went away grieving, regretting Lamme and his fleshpots.XLIVNovember came to Damme and elsewhere, but the winter was tardy. No snow, no rain, nor cold weather; the sun shone from morning to evening without dimming: the children rolled about in the dust of the streets and the highways; at the hour of repose, after supper, the merchants, shopkeepers, goldsmiths, wheelwrights, and artisans came out upon their doorsteps to look on the sky that was always blue, the trees whose leaves were still not falling, thestorks standing up on the ridges of the roofs, and the swallows that had not yet gone away. The roses had flowered thrice, and for the fourth time were in bud; the nights were warm, the nightingale had not ceased to sing.The folk of Damme said:“Winter is dead, let us burn winter.”And they built a giant figure with a bear’s face, a long beard of shavings, a thick shock head of flax. They clothed him in white garments and burned him with great ceremony.Claes was steeped in melancholy, he blessed not the sky that was ever blue, nor the swallows that would not depart. For now nobody in Damme was burning charcoal save for cooking, and each having enough did not go to buy from Claes, who had disbursed all his savings to pay for his stock.So, if standing on his doorstep, the coalman felt the tip of his nose grow chilly in some puff of sharpish wind:“Ah!” he would say, “it is my bread coming to me!”But the sharp wind would not continue to blow, and the sky stayed always blue, and the leaves would not fall. And Claes refused to sell his stock at half price to the miser Grypstuiver, the dean of the fishmongers. And soon bread began to lack in the cottage.

XXXVIIClaes, Soetkin, and Nele were gossiping together about the ingle, and talked of the pilgrim on his pilgrimage.“Daughter,” said Soetkin, “why cannot you, by the might of the spell of youth, keep him always with us?”“Alas!” said Nele, “I cannot.”“’Tis because,” said Claes, “he hath a counter charm that drives him to run without ever resting save for the work of his teeth.”“The cruel, ugly fellow!” sighed Nele.“Cruel,” said Soetkin, “I admit, but ugly, no. If my son Ulenspiegel has not a Greek or a Roman countenance, he is all the better for that; for they are of Flanders his agile feet, of the Frank of Bruges his keen brown eye, and his nose and his mouth made by two past masters in the science of humour and sculpture.”“Who, then,” asked Claes, “made him his lazy arms and his legs too prone to run to pleasure?”“His heart that is over young,” replied Soetkin.

XXXVII

Claes, Soetkin, and Nele were gossiping together about the ingle, and talked of the pilgrim on his pilgrimage.“Daughter,” said Soetkin, “why cannot you, by the might of the spell of youth, keep him always with us?”“Alas!” said Nele, “I cannot.”“’Tis because,” said Claes, “he hath a counter charm that drives him to run without ever resting save for the work of his teeth.”“The cruel, ugly fellow!” sighed Nele.“Cruel,” said Soetkin, “I admit, but ugly, no. If my son Ulenspiegel has not a Greek or a Roman countenance, he is all the better for that; for they are of Flanders his agile feet, of the Frank of Bruges his keen brown eye, and his nose and his mouth made by two past masters in the science of humour and sculpture.”“Who, then,” asked Claes, “made him his lazy arms and his legs too prone to run to pleasure?”“His heart that is over young,” replied Soetkin.

Claes, Soetkin, and Nele were gossiping together about the ingle, and talked of the pilgrim on his pilgrimage.

“Daughter,” said Soetkin, “why cannot you, by the might of the spell of youth, keep him always with us?”

“Alas!” said Nele, “I cannot.”

“’Tis because,” said Claes, “he hath a counter charm that drives him to run without ever resting save for the work of his teeth.”

“The cruel, ugly fellow!” sighed Nele.

“Cruel,” said Soetkin, “I admit, but ugly, no. If my son Ulenspiegel has not a Greek or a Roman countenance, he is all the better for that; for they are of Flanders his agile feet, of the Frank of Bruges his keen brown eye, and his nose and his mouth made by two past masters in the science of humour and sculpture.”

“Who, then,” asked Claes, “made him his lazy arms and his legs too prone to run to pleasure?”

“His heart that is over young,” replied Soetkin.

XXXVIIIIn these days Katheline by her simples cured an ox, three sheep, and a pig belonging to Speelman but could not cure a cow that belonged to Jan Beloen. The latter accused her of sorcery. He averred that she had cast a spell on the beast, inasmuch as, while giving his simples, she caressed and talked to it, doubtless in a diabolical speech, for an honest Christian should not talk to a beast.The said Jan Beloen added that he was a neighbour of Speelman’s, whose ox, sheep, and pig she had healed, and if she had killed his cow, it was doubtless at the instigation of Speelman, jealous to see that his, Beloen’s, land was better tilled than his own. Uponthe testimony of Peter Meulemeester, a man of good life and conduct, and also of Jan Beloen, certifying that Katheline was reputed a witch in Damme, and had doubtless killed the cow, Katheline was arrested and condemned to be tormented until she should have confessed her crimes and misdeeds.She was questioned by a sheriff who was always in a rage, for he drank brandy all day long. He had Katheline put upon the first bench of torment in his presence and before theVierschare.The executioner stripped her naked, then shaved her hair and all her body, looking everywhere to see if she concealed a charm.Finding nothing, he fastened her with cords to the bench. Then she spake:“I am all shamed to be naked thus before these men, Madam Mary, grant that I may die!”Then the executioner put wet cloths upon her breast, her belly, and her legs, and raising the bench, he poured hot water into her stomach in such quantities that she was all swelled up. Then he lowered the bench again.The sheriff asked Katheline if she would confess her crime. She made sign that she would not. The executioner poured more hot water into her, but she vomited all of it out again.Then at the chirurgeon’s bidding she was untied. She did not speak, but struck on her breast to say the hot water had burned her. When the sheriff perceived that she had recovered from this first torment he said to her:“Confess thou art a witch, and that thou didst cast a spell upon the cow.”“I will not confess,” said she. “I love all dumb beasts, as much as my poor heart may, and I would harm myself rather than them, who cannot defend themselves. I used the needful simples to cure the cow.”But the sheriff:“Thou didst give her poison,” said he, “for the cow is dead.”“Master sheriff,” answered Katheline, “I am here before you, in your power. I dare say to you, nevertheless, that a beast can die of sickness, like a man, in spite of the assistance of the surgeons and the doctors. And I swear by my Lord Christ who died on the cross for our sins, that I have wished no harm to this cow, but sought to cure her by simple remedies.”Then said the sheriff, enraged:“This devil’s hag will not always deny, let her be put on another bench for the torment!”And therewith he drank a great glass of brandy.The executioner made Katheline sit on the lid of an oaken coffin placed upon trestles. The said lid, shaped like a roof, was sharp as a blade. A great fire was burning in the fireplace, for it was then November.Katheline, seated upon the coffin and a spit of sharpened wood, was shod with tight shoes of new leather and set before the fire. When she felt the sharp wooden edge of the coffin and the pointed spit entering her flesh, and when the fire heated and shrank the leather of her shoes, she cried:“I suffer a thousand pangs! Who will give me black poison?”“Put her nearer the fire,” said the sheriff. Then questioning Katheline:“How often,” said he, “didst thou bestride a broom to go to the Sabbath? How often didst thou blast the corn in the ear, the fruit upon the tree, the babe in the mother’s womb? How often didst thou turn two brothers to sworn foes, and two sisters into rivals filled with hatred?”Katheline would have spoken, but could not, and moved her arms as though to say no. The sheriff then:“She will only speak when she feels all her witch fat melt in the fire. Put her nearer.”Katheline cried out. The sheriff said:“Pray to Satan that he may cool thee.”She made a movement as though she would take off her shoes that were smoking in the fierceness of the fire.“Pray to Satan that he pull off thy shoes,” said the sheriff.The clock was striking ten, the furious creature’s dinner hour; he went away with the executioner and the clerk, leaving Katheline alone before the fire, in the torture chamber.At eleven they came back and found Katheline seated stiff and motionless. The clerk said:“She is dead, I think.”The sheriff ordered the executioner to take Katheline down from the coffin and the shoes from off her feet. Not being able to pull them off, he cut them away, and the feet of Katheline were disclosed red and bleeding.And the sheriff, thinking of his meal, looked at her without a word; but presently she recovered her senses, and falling on the ground and unable to rise for all her efforts, she said to the sheriff:“Once on a time wouldst fain have had me to wife, but now thou shalt not have me. Four times three it is the sacred number, and the thirteenth is the husband.”Then as the sheriff would have spoken, she said to him:“Stay silent, he has hearing finer than the archangel that in heaven counts the heart beats of the just. Why dost thou come so late? Four times three it is the sacred number, he slayeth those that desire me.”The sheriff said:“She receives the devil in her bed.”“She is out of her wits with the anguish of the torment,” said the clerk.Katheline was taken back to prison. Three days after, the sheriff’s court being assembled in theVierschare, Katheline after deliberation was condemned to the fire.The executioner and his assistants brought her to the marketplace of Damme where there was a scaffold on which she mounted. In the marketplace were the provost, the herald, and the judges.The trumpets of the town herald sounded three times, and turning to the people he announced:“The magistrate of Damme, having had compassion on the woman Katheline, has been pleased not to exact punishment according to the extreme rigour of the law of the town, but in order to bear witness that she is a witch, her hair shall be burned, she shall pay twenty gold carolus by way of fine, and shall be banished for three years from the precincts of Damme under pain of losing one limb.”And the people applauded this harsh lenity.The executioner thereupon bound Katheline to the stake, set a wig of tow upon her shaven head and set it on fire. And the tow burned long and Katheline cried out and wept.Then she was unbound and taken without the boundaries of Damme upon a cart, for her feet were burned.

XXXVIII

In these days Katheline by her simples cured an ox, three sheep, and a pig belonging to Speelman but could not cure a cow that belonged to Jan Beloen. The latter accused her of sorcery. He averred that she had cast a spell on the beast, inasmuch as, while giving his simples, she caressed and talked to it, doubtless in a diabolical speech, for an honest Christian should not talk to a beast.The said Jan Beloen added that he was a neighbour of Speelman’s, whose ox, sheep, and pig she had healed, and if she had killed his cow, it was doubtless at the instigation of Speelman, jealous to see that his, Beloen’s, land was better tilled than his own. Uponthe testimony of Peter Meulemeester, a man of good life and conduct, and also of Jan Beloen, certifying that Katheline was reputed a witch in Damme, and had doubtless killed the cow, Katheline was arrested and condemned to be tormented until she should have confessed her crimes and misdeeds.She was questioned by a sheriff who was always in a rage, for he drank brandy all day long. He had Katheline put upon the first bench of torment in his presence and before theVierschare.The executioner stripped her naked, then shaved her hair and all her body, looking everywhere to see if she concealed a charm.Finding nothing, he fastened her with cords to the bench. Then she spake:“I am all shamed to be naked thus before these men, Madam Mary, grant that I may die!”Then the executioner put wet cloths upon her breast, her belly, and her legs, and raising the bench, he poured hot water into her stomach in such quantities that she was all swelled up. Then he lowered the bench again.The sheriff asked Katheline if she would confess her crime. She made sign that she would not. The executioner poured more hot water into her, but she vomited all of it out again.Then at the chirurgeon’s bidding she was untied. She did not speak, but struck on her breast to say the hot water had burned her. When the sheriff perceived that she had recovered from this first torment he said to her:“Confess thou art a witch, and that thou didst cast a spell upon the cow.”“I will not confess,” said she. “I love all dumb beasts, as much as my poor heart may, and I would harm myself rather than them, who cannot defend themselves. I used the needful simples to cure the cow.”But the sheriff:“Thou didst give her poison,” said he, “for the cow is dead.”“Master sheriff,” answered Katheline, “I am here before you, in your power. I dare say to you, nevertheless, that a beast can die of sickness, like a man, in spite of the assistance of the surgeons and the doctors. And I swear by my Lord Christ who died on the cross for our sins, that I have wished no harm to this cow, but sought to cure her by simple remedies.”Then said the sheriff, enraged:“This devil’s hag will not always deny, let her be put on another bench for the torment!”And therewith he drank a great glass of brandy.The executioner made Katheline sit on the lid of an oaken coffin placed upon trestles. The said lid, shaped like a roof, was sharp as a blade. A great fire was burning in the fireplace, for it was then November.Katheline, seated upon the coffin and a spit of sharpened wood, was shod with tight shoes of new leather and set before the fire. When she felt the sharp wooden edge of the coffin and the pointed spit entering her flesh, and when the fire heated and shrank the leather of her shoes, she cried:“I suffer a thousand pangs! Who will give me black poison?”“Put her nearer the fire,” said the sheriff. Then questioning Katheline:“How often,” said he, “didst thou bestride a broom to go to the Sabbath? How often didst thou blast the corn in the ear, the fruit upon the tree, the babe in the mother’s womb? How often didst thou turn two brothers to sworn foes, and two sisters into rivals filled with hatred?”Katheline would have spoken, but could not, and moved her arms as though to say no. The sheriff then:“She will only speak when she feels all her witch fat melt in the fire. Put her nearer.”Katheline cried out. The sheriff said:“Pray to Satan that he may cool thee.”She made a movement as though she would take off her shoes that were smoking in the fierceness of the fire.“Pray to Satan that he pull off thy shoes,” said the sheriff.The clock was striking ten, the furious creature’s dinner hour; he went away with the executioner and the clerk, leaving Katheline alone before the fire, in the torture chamber.At eleven they came back and found Katheline seated stiff and motionless. The clerk said:“She is dead, I think.”The sheriff ordered the executioner to take Katheline down from the coffin and the shoes from off her feet. Not being able to pull them off, he cut them away, and the feet of Katheline were disclosed red and bleeding.And the sheriff, thinking of his meal, looked at her without a word; but presently she recovered her senses, and falling on the ground and unable to rise for all her efforts, she said to the sheriff:“Once on a time wouldst fain have had me to wife, but now thou shalt not have me. Four times three it is the sacred number, and the thirteenth is the husband.”Then as the sheriff would have spoken, she said to him:“Stay silent, he has hearing finer than the archangel that in heaven counts the heart beats of the just. Why dost thou come so late? Four times three it is the sacred number, he slayeth those that desire me.”The sheriff said:“She receives the devil in her bed.”“She is out of her wits with the anguish of the torment,” said the clerk.Katheline was taken back to prison. Three days after, the sheriff’s court being assembled in theVierschare, Katheline after deliberation was condemned to the fire.The executioner and his assistants brought her to the marketplace of Damme where there was a scaffold on which she mounted. In the marketplace were the provost, the herald, and the judges.The trumpets of the town herald sounded three times, and turning to the people he announced:“The magistrate of Damme, having had compassion on the woman Katheline, has been pleased not to exact punishment according to the extreme rigour of the law of the town, but in order to bear witness that she is a witch, her hair shall be burned, she shall pay twenty gold carolus by way of fine, and shall be banished for three years from the precincts of Damme under pain of losing one limb.”And the people applauded this harsh lenity.The executioner thereupon bound Katheline to the stake, set a wig of tow upon her shaven head and set it on fire. And the tow burned long and Katheline cried out and wept.Then she was unbound and taken without the boundaries of Damme upon a cart, for her feet were burned.

In these days Katheline by her simples cured an ox, three sheep, and a pig belonging to Speelman but could not cure a cow that belonged to Jan Beloen. The latter accused her of sorcery. He averred that she had cast a spell on the beast, inasmuch as, while giving his simples, she caressed and talked to it, doubtless in a diabolical speech, for an honest Christian should not talk to a beast.

The said Jan Beloen added that he was a neighbour of Speelman’s, whose ox, sheep, and pig she had healed, and if she had killed his cow, it was doubtless at the instigation of Speelman, jealous to see that his, Beloen’s, land was better tilled than his own. Uponthe testimony of Peter Meulemeester, a man of good life and conduct, and also of Jan Beloen, certifying that Katheline was reputed a witch in Damme, and had doubtless killed the cow, Katheline was arrested and condemned to be tormented until she should have confessed her crimes and misdeeds.

She was questioned by a sheriff who was always in a rage, for he drank brandy all day long. He had Katheline put upon the first bench of torment in his presence and before theVierschare.

The executioner stripped her naked, then shaved her hair and all her body, looking everywhere to see if she concealed a charm.

Finding nothing, he fastened her with cords to the bench. Then she spake:

“I am all shamed to be naked thus before these men, Madam Mary, grant that I may die!”

Then the executioner put wet cloths upon her breast, her belly, and her legs, and raising the bench, he poured hot water into her stomach in such quantities that she was all swelled up. Then he lowered the bench again.

The sheriff asked Katheline if she would confess her crime. She made sign that she would not. The executioner poured more hot water into her, but she vomited all of it out again.

Then at the chirurgeon’s bidding she was untied. She did not speak, but struck on her breast to say the hot water had burned her. When the sheriff perceived that she had recovered from this first torment he said to her:

“Confess thou art a witch, and that thou didst cast a spell upon the cow.”

“I will not confess,” said she. “I love all dumb beasts, as much as my poor heart may, and I would harm myself rather than them, who cannot defend themselves. I used the needful simples to cure the cow.”

But the sheriff:

“Thou didst give her poison,” said he, “for the cow is dead.”

“Master sheriff,” answered Katheline, “I am here before you, in your power. I dare say to you, nevertheless, that a beast can die of sickness, like a man, in spite of the assistance of the surgeons and the doctors. And I swear by my Lord Christ who died on the cross for our sins, that I have wished no harm to this cow, but sought to cure her by simple remedies.”

Then said the sheriff, enraged:

“This devil’s hag will not always deny, let her be put on another bench for the torment!”

And therewith he drank a great glass of brandy.

The executioner made Katheline sit on the lid of an oaken coffin placed upon trestles. The said lid, shaped like a roof, was sharp as a blade. A great fire was burning in the fireplace, for it was then November.

Katheline, seated upon the coffin and a spit of sharpened wood, was shod with tight shoes of new leather and set before the fire. When she felt the sharp wooden edge of the coffin and the pointed spit entering her flesh, and when the fire heated and shrank the leather of her shoes, she cried:

“I suffer a thousand pangs! Who will give me black poison?”

“Put her nearer the fire,” said the sheriff. Then questioning Katheline:

“How often,” said he, “didst thou bestride a broom to go to the Sabbath? How often didst thou blast the corn in the ear, the fruit upon the tree, the babe in the mother’s womb? How often didst thou turn two brothers to sworn foes, and two sisters into rivals filled with hatred?”

Katheline would have spoken, but could not, and moved her arms as though to say no. The sheriff then:

“She will only speak when she feels all her witch fat melt in the fire. Put her nearer.”

Katheline cried out. The sheriff said:

“Pray to Satan that he may cool thee.”

She made a movement as though she would take off her shoes that were smoking in the fierceness of the fire.

“Pray to Satan that he pull off thy shoes,” said the sheriff.

The clock was striking ten, the furious creature’s dinner hour; he went away with the executioner and the clerk, leaving Katheline alone before the fire, in the torture chamber.

At eleven they came back and found Katheline seated stiff and motionless. The clerk said:

“She is dead, I think.”

The sheriff ordered the executioner to take Katheline down from the coffin and the shoes from off her feet. Not being able to pull them off, he cut them away, and the feet of Katheline were disclosed red and bleeding.

And the sheriff, thinking of his meal, looked at her without a word; but presently she recovered her senses, and falling on the ground and unable to rise for all her efforts, she said to the sheriff:

“Once on a time wouldst fain have had me to wife, but now thou shalt not have me. Four times three it is the sacred number, and the thirteenth is the husband.”

Then as the sheriff would have spoken, she said to him:

“Stay silent, he has hearing finer than the archangel that in heaven counts the heart beats of the just. Why dost thou come so late? Four times three it is the sacred number, he slayeth those that desire me.”

The sheriff said:

“She receives the devil in her bed.”

“She is out of her wits with the anguish of the torment,” said the clerk.

Katheline was taken back to prison. Three days after, the sheriff’s court being assembled in theVierschare, Katheline after deliberation was condemned to the fire.

The executioner and his assistants brought her to the marketplace of Damme where there was a scaffold on which she mounted. In the marketplace were the provost, the herald, and the judges.

The trumpets of the town herald sounded three times, and turning to the people he announced:

“The magistrate of Damme, having had compassion on the woman Katheline, has been pleased not to exact punishment according to the extreme rigour of the law of the town, but in order to bear witness that she is a witch, her hair shall be burned, she shall pay twenty gold carolus by way of fine, and shall be banished for three years from the precincts of Damme under pain of losing one limb.”

And the people applauded this harsh lenity.

The executioner thereupon bound Katheline to the stake, set a wig of tow upon her shaven head and set it on fire. And the tow burned long and Katheline cried out and wept.

Then she was unbound and taken without the boundaries of Damme upon a cart, for her feet were burned.

XXXIXUlenspiegel being now at Bois-le-Duc in Brabant, the magnates of the town would fain have appointed him their fool, but he would none of this dignity. “Pilgrim on pilgrimage cannot play fool as a permanency, but only at inns and on the highways.”At this same time Philip, who was King of England, came to visit the countries of his future inheritance, Flanders, Brabant, Hainault, Holland, and Zealand. He was then in his twenty-ninth year; in his grayish eyes dwelt sour melancholy, savage dissimulation, and cruel resolution. Cold was his countenance, and stiff his head covered with tawny hair; stiff, too, his meagre torso and spindle limbs. Slow was his speech and thick as though he had wool in his mouth.Amid tourneys, jousts, and feastings, he visited the joyous duchy of Brabant, the rich county Flanders, and his other seignories. Everywhere he swore to observe and confirm the privileges; but when at Brussels he took oath upon the Testament to observe the Golden Bull of Brabant his hand clenched so tight that he must needs take it away from the sacred book.He went to Antwerp, where they put up twenty-three triumphal arches to receive him. The city disbursed two hundred and eighty-seven thousand florins to payfor these arches and for the costumes of eighteen hundred and seventy-nine merchants all clad in crimson velvet and for the rich livery of four hundred and sixteen lackeys and the brilliant silk trappings of four thousand burgesses, all clad alike. Many feasts were given by the rhetoricians of all the cities in the Low Countries, or nearly all.There were seen, with their fools male and female, the Prince of Love, of Tournai, mounted upon a sow that was called Astarte; the King of Fools, of Lille, who led a horse by the tail and walked behind; the Prince of Pleasure, of Valenciennes, who amused himself counting how many times his donkey broke wind; the Abbot of Mirth, of Arras, who drank Brussels wine from a flask shaped like a breviary, and that was gay reading; the Abbot of the Paux-Pourvus, of Ath, who was provided with linen full of holes and boots down at heel, but had a sausage with which he made good provision for his belly; the Provost of Madcaps, a young man mounted on a shy goat, and who trotting in the crowd got many a thwack because of her; the Abbot of the Silver Dish, from Quesnoy, who mounted on his horse pretended to be sitting in a dish, saying “there is no beast so big that fire cannot cook him.”And they played all kinds of harmless foolery, but the King remained sad and severe.That same evening, the Markgrave of Antwerp, the burgomasters, captains and deans, assembled together to find out some game or play that might win Philip the King to laughter.Said the Markgrave:“Have ye not heard tell of a certain Pierkin Jacobsen,the town-fool of Bois-le-Duc, and far renowned for his merry tricks?”“Yes,” said the others.“Well!” said the Markgrave, “let us summon him to come hither, and bid him do us some nimblewitted turn, since our own fool has his boots stuffed with lead.”“Let us summon him hither,” said they.When the messenger from Antwerp came to Bois-le-Duc, they told him that the fool Pierkin had snuffed out his candle with over-much laughing, but that there was in the town another fool, a bird of passage, called Ulenspiegel. The messenger went to look for him in a tavern where he was eating a fricassee of mussels and making a petticoat for a girl with the shells.Ulenspiegel was delighted when he knew that it was for him the courier of the commune had come all the way from Antwerp, mounted upon a fine horse of Vuern-Ambacht and leading another by the bridle.Without setting foot to ground, the courier asked him if he knew where to find a new trick to make King Philip laugh.“I have a mine of them under my hair,” answered Ulenspiegel.They went away together. The two horses galloping loose-reined brought Ulenspiegel and the courier to Antwerp.Ulenspiegel made his appearance before the Markgrave, the two burgomasters, and the officials of the commune.“What do you intend to do?” asked the Markgrave.“Fly in the air,” replied Ulenspiegel.“How will you set about this?” asked the Markgrave.“Do you know,” asked Ulenspiegel, “what is worth less than a burst bladder?”“I do not know,” said the Markgrave.“A secret that has been let out,” replied Ulenspiegel.In the meanwhile, the heralds of the games, mounted upon their handsome steeds caparisoned with crimson velvet, rode through all the main streets, squares, and carfaxes of the city, sounding clarions and with beat of drum. In this fashion they announced to thesignorkesand thesignorkinnesthat Ulenspiegel, the fool of Damme, would fly in the air at the quay, there being present upon a staging King Philip and his high illustrious and distinguished company.Over against the staging there was a house built in the Italian fashion, with a gutter running along the whole length of the roof. A garret window opened upon the gutter.Ulenspiegel on this day went through the city everywhere riding upon an ass. A footman ran alongside him. Ulenspiegel had donned the fine robe of crimson silk the magnates of the commune had given him. His headgear was a hood, crimson as well, on which were seen two asses’ ears with a bell on the tip of each. He wore a necklace of copper medallions embossed with the shield of Antwerp. On the sleeves of the robe there tinkled at each pointed elbow a gilt bell. He had shoes with gilt soles, and a bell at the tip of each.His ass was caparisoned with crimson silk and on each thigh carried the shield of Antwerp broidered in fine gold.The footman brandished a donkey’s head in one hand and in the other a branch at the end of which chimed a cowbell from a forest-bred cow.Ulenspiegel, leaving his ass and his footman in the street, climbed up into the gutter.There, shaking his bells, he opened out his arms as if he was on the point of flying. Then leaning down towards King Philip, he said:“I thought there was no fool in Antwerp save only me, but I perceive the town is full of them. If you had told me you were going to fly, I should not have believed you; but let a fool come and tell you he will do it, and you believe him. How would you have me fly, since I have no wings?”Some laughed, others swore, but all said:“This fool says what is none the less quite true.”But King Philip remained stiff as a king of stone.And the magnates of the commune said softly one to the other:“There was no need to make such great festival for such a sour-face.”And they gave three florins to Ulenspiegel, who departed, first perforce restoring to them the robe of crimson silk.“What are three florins in the pouch of a young man but a snowball before a fire, a full bottle in front of you, wide-throated drinkers? Three florins! The leaves fall from the trees and sprout again upon them, but florins leave pouches and return thither no more: the butterflies flitter away with the summer time, and the florins, too, although they weigh twoestrelinsand nineas.”So saying, Ulenspiegel contemplated his three florins closely.“What a haughty mien,” murmured he, “hath the Emperor Charles upon the obverse, cuirassed and helmeted, holding a sword in one hand and in the otherthe globe of this poor earthly world! He is by the grace of God Emperor of the Romans, King of Spain, and so forth, and he is most gracious towards these our countries, this emperor in the cuirass. And here on the reverse is a shield on which are graven and displayed the arms of a duke, count, etc., pertaining to his divers possessions, with this goodly device:Da mihi virtutem contra hostes tuos: ‘Give me strength against thy enemies.’ He was valiant indeed against those of the reformed that have goods to confiscate, and he inheriteth them. Ah! were I the Emperor Charles, I would have florins minted for everybody, and each man being rich, no one should work more.”But Ulenspiegel looked in vain at the lovely money; it was gone towards the land of ruin to the clinking of quart pots and the chiming of bottles.

XXXIX

Ulenspiegel being now at Bois-le-Duc in Brabant, the magnates of the town would fain have appointed him their fool, but he would none of this dignity. “Pilgrim on pilgrimage cannot play fool as a permanency, but only at inns and on the highways.”At this same time Philip, who was King of England, came to visit the countries of his future inheritance, Flanders, Brabant, Hainault, Holland, and Zealand. He was then in his twenty-ninth year; in his grayish eyes dwelt sour melancholy, savage dissimulation, and cruel resolution. Cold was his countenance, and stiff his head covered with tawny hair; stiff, too, his meagre torso and spindle limbs. Slow was his speech and thick as though he had wool in his mouth.Amid tourneys, jousts, and feastings, he visited the joyous duchy of Brabant, the rich county Flanders, and his other seignories. Everywhere he swore to observe and confirm the privileges; but when at Brussels he took oath upon the Testament to observe the Golden Bull of Brabant his hand clenched so tight that he must needs take it away from the sacred book.He went to Antwerp, where they put up twenty-three triumphal arches to receive him. The city disbursed two hundred and eighty-seven thousand florins to payfor these arches and for the costumes of eighteen hundred and seventy-nine merchants all clad in crimson velvet and for the rich livery of four hundred and sixteen lackeys and the brilliant silk trappings of four thousand burgesses, all clad alike. Many feasts were given by the rhetoricians of all the cities in the Low Countries, or nearly all.There were seen, with their fools male and female, the Prince of Love, of Tournai, mounted upon a sow that was called Astarte; the King of Fools, of Lille, who led a horse by the tail and walked behind; the Prince of Pleasure, of Valenciennes, who amused himself counting how many times his donkey broke wind; the Abbot of Mirth, of Arras, who drank Brussels wine from a flask shaped like a breviary, and that was gay reading; the Abbot of the Paux-Pourvus, of Ath, who was provided with linen full of holes and boots down at heel, but had a sausage with which he made good provision for his belly; the Provost of Madcaps, a young man mounted on a shy goat, and who trotting in the crowd got many a thwack because of her; the Abbot of the Silver Dish, from Quesnoy, who mounted on his horse pretended to be sitting in a dish, saying “there is no beast so big that fire cannot cook him.”And they played all kinds of harmless foolery, but the King remained sad and severe.That same evening, the Markgrave of Antwerp, the burgomasters, captains and deans, assembled together to find out some game or play that might win Philip the King to laughter.Said the Markgrave:“Have ye not heard tell of a certain Pierkin Jacobsen,the town-fool of Bois-le-Duc, and far renowned for his merry tricks?”“Yes,” said the others.“Well!” said the Markgrave, “let us summon him to come hither, and bid him do us some nimblewitted turn, since our own fool has his boots stuffed with lead.”“Let us summon him hither,” said they.When the messenger from Antwerp came to Bois-le-Duc, they told him that the fool Pierkin had snuffed out his candle with over-much laughing, but that there was in the town another fool, a bird of passage, called Ulenspiegel. The messenger went to look for him in a tavern where he was eating a fricassee of mussels and making a petticoat for a girl with the shells.Ulenspiegel was delighted when he knew that it was for him the courier of the commune had come all the way from Antwerp, mounted upon a fine horse of Vuern-Ambacht and leading another by the bridle.Without setting foot to ground, the courier asked him if he knew where to find a new trick to make King Philip laugh.“I have a mine of them under my hair,” answered Ulenspiegel.They went away together. The two horses galloping loose-reined brought Ulenspiegel and the courier to Antwerp.Ulenspiegel made his appearance before the Markgrave, the two burgomasters, and the officials of the commune.“What do you intend to do?” asked the Markgrave.“Fly in the air,” replied Ulenspiegel.“How will you set about this?” asked the Markgrave.“Do you know,” asked Ulenspiegel, “what is worth less than a burst bladder?”“I do not know,” said the Markgrave.“A secret that has been let out,” replied Ulenspiegel.In the meanwhile, the heralds of the games, mounted upon their handsome steeds caparisoned with crimson velvet, rode through all the main streets, squares, and carfaxes of the city, sounding clarions and with beat of drum. In this fashion they announced to thesignorkesand thesignorkinnesthat Ulenspiegel, the fool of Damme, would fly in the air at the quay, there being present upon a staging King Philip and his high illustrious and distinguished company.Over against the staging there was a house built in the Italian fashion, with a gutter running along the whole length of the roof. A garret window opened upon the gutter.Ulenspiegel on this day went through the city everywhere riding upon an ass. A footman ran alongside him. Ulenspiegel had donned the fine robe of crimson silk the magnates of the commune had given him. His headgear was a hood, crimson as well, on which were seen two asses’ ears with a bell on the tip of each. He wore a necklace of copper medallions embossed with the shield of Antwerp. On the sleeves of the robe there tinkled at each pointed elbow a gilt bell. He had shoes with gilt soles, and a bell at the tip of each.His ass was caparisoned with crimson silk and on each thigh carried the shield of Antwerp broidered in fine gold.The footman brandished a donkey’s head in one hand and in the other a branch at the end of which chimed a cowbell from a forest-bred cow.Ulenspiegel, leaving his ass and his footman in the street, climbed up into the gutter.There, shaking his bells, he opened out his arms as if he was on the point of flying. Then leaning down towards King Philip, he said:“I thought there was no fool in Antwerp save only me, but I perceive the town is full of them. If you had told me you were going to fly, I should not have believed you; but let a fool come and tell you he will do it, and you believe him. How would you have me fly, since I have no wings?”Some laughed, others swore, but all said:“This fool says what is none the less quite true.”But King Philip remained stiff as a king of stone.And the magnates of the commune said softly one to the other:“There was no need to make such great festival for such a sour-face.”And they gave three florins to Ulenspiegel, who departed, first perforce restoring to them the robe of crimson silk.“What are three florins in the pouch of a young man but a snowball before a fire, a full bottle in front of you, wide-throated drinkers? Three florins! The leaves fall from the trees and sprout again upon them, but florins leave pouches and return thither no more: the butterflies flitter away with the summer time, and the florins, too, although they weigh twoestrelinsand nineas.”So saying, Ulenspiegel contemplated his three florins closely.“What a haughty mien,” murmured he, “hath the Emperor Charles upon the obverse, cuirassed and helmeted, holding a sword in one hand and in the otherthe globe of this poor earthly world! He is by the grace of God Emperor of the Romans, King of Spain, and so forth, and he is most gracious towards these our countries, this emperor in the cuirass. And here on the reverse is a shield on which are graven and displayed the arms of a duke, count, etc., pertaining to his divers possessions, with this goodly device:Da mihi virtutem contra hostes tuos: ‘Give me strength against thy enemies.’ He was valiant indeed against those of the reformed that have goods to confiscate, and he inheriteth them. Ah! were I the Emperor Charles, I would have florins minted for everybody, and each man being rich, no one should work more.”But Ulenspiegel looked in vain at the lovely money; it was gone towards the land of ruin to the clinking of quart pots and the chiming of bottles.

Ulenspiegel being now at Bois-le-Duc in Brabant, the magnates of the town would fain have appointed him their fool, but he would none of this dignity. “Pilgrim on pilgrimage cannot play fool as a permanency, but only at inns and on the highways.”

At this same time Philip, who was King of England, came to visit the countries of his future inheritance, Flanders, Brabant, Hainault, Holland, and Zealand. He was then in his twenty-ninth year; in his grayish eyes dwelt sour melancholy, savage dissimulation, and cruel resolution. Cold was his countenance, and stiff his head covered with tawny hair; stiff, too, his meagre torso and spindle limbs. Slow was his speech and thick as though he had wool in his mouth.

Amid tourneys, jousts, and feastings, he visited the joyous duchy of Brabant, the rich county Flanders, and his other seignories. Everywhere he swore to observe and confirm the privileges; but when at Brussels he took oath upon the Testament to observe the Golden Bull of Brabant his hand clenched so tight that he must needs take it away from the sacred book.

He went to Antwerp, where they put up twenty-three triumphal arches to receive him. The city disbursed two hundred and eighty-seven thousand florins to payfor these arches and for the costumes of eighteen hundred and seventy-nine merchants all clad in crimson velvet and for the rich livery of four hundred and sixteen lackeys and the brilliant silk trappings of four thousand burgesses, all clad alike. Many feasts were given by the rhetoricians of all the cities in the Low Countries, or nearly all.

There were seen, with their fools male and female, the Prince of Love, of Tournai, mounted upon a sow that was called Astarte; the King of Fools, of Lille, who led a horse by the tail and walked behind; the Prince of Pleasure, of Valenciennes, who amused himself counting how many times his donkey broke wind; the Abbot of Mirth, of Arras, who drank Brussels wine from a flask shaped like a breviary, and that was gay reading; the Abbot of the Paux-Pourvus, of Ath, who was provided with linen full of holes and boots down at heel, but had a sausage with which he made good provision for his belly; the Provost of Madcaps, a young man mounted on a shy goat, and who trotting in the crowd got many a thwack because of her; the Abbot of the Silver Dish, from Quesnoy, who mounted on his horse pretended to be sitting in a dish, saying “there is no beast so big that fire cannot cook him.”

And they played all kinds of harmless foolery, but the King remained sad and severe.

That same evening, the Markgrave of Antwerp, the burgomasters, captains and deans, assembled together to find out some game or play that might win Philip the King to laughter.

Said the Markgrave:

“Have ye not heard tell of a certain Pierkin Jacobsen,the town-fool of Bois-le-Duc, and far renowned for his merry tricks?”

“Yes,” said the others.

“Well!” said the Markgrave, “let us summon him to come hither, and bid him do us some nimblewitted turn, since our own fool has his boots stuffed with lead.”

“Let us summon him hither,” said they.

When the messenger from Antwerp came to Bois-le-Duc, they told him that the fool Pierkin had snuffed out his candle with over-much laughing, but that there was in the town another fool, a bird of passage, called Ulenspiegel. The messenger went to look for him in a tavern where he was eating a fricassee of mussels and making a petticoat for a girl with the shells.

Ulenspiegel was delighted when he knew that it was for him the courier of the commune had come all the way from Antwerp, mounted upon a fine horse of Vuern-Ambacht and leading another by the bridle.

Without setting foot to ground, the courier asked him if he knew where to find a new trick to make King Philip laugh.

“I have a mine of them under my hair,” answered Ulenspiegel.

They went away together. The two horses galloping loose-reined brought Ulenspiegel and the courier to Antwerp.

Ulenspiegel made his appearance before the Markgrave, the two burgomasters, and the officials of the commune.

“What do you intend to do?” asked the Markgrave.

“Fly in the air,” replied Ulenspiegel.

“How will you set about this?” asked the Markgrave.

“Do you know,” asked Ulenspiegel, “what is worth less than a burst bladder?”

“I do not know,” said the Markgrave.

“A secret that has been let out,” replied Ulenspiegel.

In the meanwhile, the heralds of the games, mounted upon their handsome steeds caparisoned with crimson velvet, rode through all the main streets, squares, and carfaxes of the city, sounding clarions and with beat of drum. In this fashion they announced to thesignorkesand thesignorkinnesthat Ulenspiegel, the fool of Damme, would fly in the air at the quay, there being present upon a staging King Philip and his high illustrious and distinguished company.

Over against the staging there was a house built in the Italian fashion, with a gutter running along the whole length of the roof. A garret window opened upon the gutter.

Ulenspiegel on this day went through the city everywhere riding upon an ass. A footman ran alongside him. Ulenspiegel had donned the fine robe of crimson silk the magnates of the commune had given him. His headgear was a hood, crimson as well, on which were seen two asses’ ears with a bell on the tip of each. He wore a necklace of copper medallions embossed with the shield of Antwerp. On the sleeves of the robe there tinkled at each pointed elbow a gilt bell. He had shoes with gilt soles, and a bell at the tip of each.

His ass was caparisoned with crimson silk and on each thigh carried the shield of Antwerp broidered in fine gold.

The footman brandished a donkey’s head in one hand and in the other a branch at the end of which chimed a cowbell from a forest-bred cow.

Ulenspiegel, leaving his ass and his footman in the street, climbed up into the gutter.

There, shaking his bells, he opened out his arms as if he was on the point of flying. Then leaning down towards King Philip, he said:

“I thought there was no fool in Antwerp save only me, but I perceive the town is full of them. If you had told me you were going to fly, I should not have believed you; but let a fool come and tell you he will do it, and you believe him. How would you have me fly, since I have no wings?”

Some laughed, others swore, but all said:

“This fool says what is none the less quite true.”

But King Philip remained stiff as a king of stone.

And the magnates of the commune said softly one to the other:

“There was no need to make such great festival for such a sour-face.”

And they gave three florins to Ulenspiegel, who departed, first perforce restoring to them the robe of crimson silk.

“What are three florins in the pouch of a young man but a snowball before a fire, a full bottle in front of you, wide-throated drinkers? Three florins! The leaves fall from the trees and sprout again upon them, but florins leave pouches and return thither no more: the butterflies flitter away with the summer time, and the florins, too, although they weigh twoestrelinsand nineas.”

So saying, Ulenspiegel contemplated his three florins closely.

“What a haughty mien,” murmured he, “hath the Emperor Charles upon the obverse, cuirassed and helmeted, holding a sword in one hand and in the otherthe globe of this poor earthly world! He is by the grace of God Emperor of the Romans, King of Spain, and so forth, and he is most gracious towards these our countries, this emperor in the cuirass. And here on the reverse is a shield on which are graven and displayed the arms of a duke, count, etc., pertaining to his divers possessions, with this goodly device:Da mihi virtutem contra hostes tuos: ‘Give me strength against thy enemies.’ He was valiant indeed against those of the reformed that have goods to confiscate, and he inheriteth them. Ah! were I the Emperor Charles, I would have florins minted for everybody, and each man being rich, no one should work more.”

But Ulenspiegel looked in vain at the lovely money; it was gone towards the land of ruin to the clinking of quart pots and the chiming of bottles.

XLWhile he displayed himself on the gutter all clad in crimson silk, Ulenspiegel had not seen Nele who from the crowd was looking on him smiling. She was living at this time at Borgerhout near Antwerp, and thought that if some fool was to fly before King Philip, it could only be her friend Ulenspiegel.As he marched along the way, plunged in reverie, he did not hear a sound of hastening steps behind him, but felt two hands that were laid flat upon his eyes. Guessing Nele instinctively:“Are you there?” said he.“Aye,” she said, “I have been running behind you ever since you came out of the city. Come with me.”“But where,” said he, “where is Katheline?”“Thou dost not know it,” said she, “that she was tortured unjustly for a witch, then banished out of Damme for three years, and that they burned her feet and burned tow upon her head. I tell thee this that thou mayest have no fear of her, for she is out of her wits because of the cruel torment. Often she spends whole hours looking at her feet and saying: ‘Hanske, my sweet devil, see what they did to thy dear. And her poor feet are like two wounds.’ Then she weeps, saying: ‘Other women have a husband or a lover, but I live at this moment as a widow.’ I tell her then that Hanske will hate her if she speaks of him before other folk than me. And she obeys me like a child save when she sees a cow or an ox, the cause of her torture; then she flees running without stay, and nothing can stop her, fences, streams, or ditches, till she falls for weariness in some corner of the wayside or against the wall of a farm, whither I go and take her up and dress her poor feet that are by then all bleeding. And I deem that in burning the hank of tow they burned also her brain in her head.”And both were grieved thinking upon Katheline.They came to her and saw her sitting upon a bench in the sun against the wall of a house. Ulenspiegel said to her:“Do you know me?”“Four times three,” quoth she, “it is the sacred number, and the thirteenth is Thereb. Who art thou, child of this wicked world?”“I am Ulenspiegel,” he answered, “the son of Soetkin and of Claes.”She shook her head and knew him; then beckoning him close with her finger and bending to his ear:“If thou see him whose kisses are as snow, tell him to come back to me, Ulenspiegel.”Then showing her burned hair:“I am ill,” she said; “they have taken my wits, but when he comes he will fill my head again, which now is all empty. Hearest thou? it sounds like a bell; it is my soul knocking at the door to depart, because it burns. If Hanske comes and has no mind to fill me my head again, I will tell him to make a hole in it with a knife: the soul that is there, ever knocking to come out, grieveth me cruelly, and I shall die, yea. And now I never sleep, and I look for him always, and he must fill me my head again, yea.”And sinking down again, she groaned.And the peasants that were coming back from the fields to go to dinner, while the church bell called them to it, passed before Katheline saying:“There is the madwife.”And they made the sign of the cross.And Nele and Ulenspiegel wept, and Ulenspiegel must needs go on upon his pilgrimage.

XL

While he displayed himself on the gutter all clad in crimson silk, Ulenspiegel had not seen Nele who from the crowd was looking on him smiling. She was living at this time at Borgerhout near Antwerp, and thought that if some fool was to fly before King Philip, it could only be her friend Ulenspiegel.As he marched along the way, plunged in reverie, he did not hear a sound of hastening steps behind him, but felt two hands that were laid flat upon his eyes. Guessing Nele instinctively:“Are you there?” said he.“Aye,” she said, “I have been running behind you ever since you came out of the city. Come with me.”“But where,” said he, “where is Katheline?”“Thou dost not know it,” said she, “that she was tortured unjustly for a witch, then banished out of Damme for three years, and that they burned her feet and burned tow upon her head. I tell thee this that thou mayest have no fear of her, for she is out of her wits because of the cruel torment. Often she spends whole hours looking at her feet and saying: ‘Hanske, my sweet devil, see what they did to thy dear. And her poor feet are like two wounds.’ Then she weeps, saying: ‘Other women have a husband or a lover, but I live at this moment as a widow.’ I tell her then that Hanske will hate her if she speaks of him before other folk than me. And she obeys me like a child save when she sees a cow or an ox, the cause of her torture; then she flees running without stay, and nothing can stop her, fences, streams, or ditches, till she falls for weariness in some corner of the wayside or against the wall of a farm, whither I go and take her up and dress her poor feet that are by then all bleeding. And I deem that in burning the hank of tow they burned also her brain in her head.”And both were grieved thinking upon Katheline.They came to her and saw her sitting upon a bench in the sun against the wall of a house. Ulenspiegel said to her:“Do you know me?”“Four times three,” quoth she, “it is the sacred number, and the thirteenth is Thereb. Who art thou, child of this wicked world?”“I am Ulenspiegel,” he answered, “the son of Soetkin and of Claes.”She shook her head and knew him; then beckoning him close with her finger and bending to his ear:“If thou see him whose kisses are as snow, tell him to come back to me, Ulenspiegel.”Then showing her burned hair:“I am ill,” she said; “they have taken my wits, but when he comes he will fill my head again, which now is all empty. Hearest thou? it sounds like a bell; it is my soul knocking at the door to depart, because it burns. If Hanske comes and has no mind to fill me my head again, I will tell him to make a hole in it with a knife: the soul that is there, ever knocking to come out, grieveth me cruelly, and I shall die, yea. And now I never sleep, and I look for him always, and he must fill me my head again, yea.”And sinking down again, she groaned.And the peasants that were coming back from the fields to go to dinner, while the church bell called them to it, passed before Katheline saying:“There is the madwife.”And they made the sign of the cross.And Nele and Ulenspiegel wept, and Ulenspiegel must needs go on upon his pilgrimage.

While he displayed himself on the gutter all clad in crimson silk, Ulenspiegel had not seen Nele who from the crowd was looking on him smiling. She was living at this time at Borgerhout near Antwerp, and thought that if some fool was to fly before King Philip, it could only be her friend Ulenspiegel.

As he marched along the way, plunged in reverie, he did not hear a sound of hastening steps behind him, but felt two hands that were laid flat upon his eyes. Guessing Nele instinctively:

“Are you there?” said he.

“Aye,” she said, “I have been running behind you ever since you came out of the city. Come with me.”

“But where,” said he, “where is Katheline?”

“Thou dost not know it,” said she, “that she was tortured unjustly for a witch, then banished out of Damme for three years, and that they burned her feet and burned tow upon her head. I tell thee this that thou mayest have no fear of her, for she is out of her wits because of the cruel torment. Often she spends whole hours looking at her feet and saying: ‘Hanske, my sweet devil, see what they did to thy dear. And her poor feet are like two wounds.’ Then she weeps, saying: ‘Other women have a husband or a lover, but I live at this moment as a widow.’ I tell her then that Hanske will hate her if she speaks of him before other folk than me. And she obeys me like a child save when she sees a cow or an ox, the cause of her torture; then she flees running without stay, and nothing can stop her, fences, streams, or ditches, till she falls for weariness in some corner of the wayside or against the wall of a farm, whither I go and take her up and dress her poor feet that are by then all bleeding. And I deem that in burning the hank of tow they burned also her brain in her head.”

And both were grieved thinking upon Katheline.

They came to her and saw her sitting upon a bench in the sun against the wall of a house. Ulenspiegel said to her:

“Do you know me?”

“Four times three,” quoth she, “it is the sacred number, and the thirteenth is Thereb. Who art thou, child of this wicked world?”

“I am Ulenspiegel,” he answered, “the son of Soetkin and of Claes.”

She shook her head and knew him; then beckoning him close with her finger and bending to his ear:

“If thou see him whose kisses are as snow, tell him to come back to me, Ulenspiegel.”

Then showing her burned hair:

“I am ill,” she said; “they have taken my wits, but when he comes he will fill my head again, which now is all empty. Hearest thou? it sounds like a bell; it is my soul knocking at the door to depart, because it burns. If Hanske comes and has no mind to fill me my head again, I will tell him to make a hole in it with a knife: the soul that is there, ever knocking to come out, grieveth me cruelly, and I shall die, yea. And now I never sleep, and I look for him always, and he must fill me my head again, yea.”

And sinking down again, she groaned.

And the peasants that were coming back from the fields to go to dinner, while the church bell called them to it, passed before Katheline saying:

“There is the madwife.”

And they made the sign of the cross.

And Nele and Ulenspiegel wept, and Ulenspiegel must needs go on upon his pilgrimage.

XLIAt this time as he pilgrimaged he entered into the service of one Josse, surnamed theKwaebakker, the cross baker, because of his vinegar face. TheKwaebakkergave him three stale loaves every week for his food, and for lodging a sloping garret under the roof, where the rain rained and the wind blew marvellously.Seeing himself so evilly entreated, Ulenspiegel played him different tricks and this among them. When they bake in the early morning, the flour must be bolted overnight. One night, then, when the moon was shining, Ulenspiegel asked for a candle to see to work and had this answer from his master:“Bolt the flour in the light of the moon.”Ulenspiegel, obeying him, bolted the flour upon the earth, where the moonlight was shining.In the morning theKwaebakker, coming to see how much work Ulenspiegel had done, found him still bolting and said to him:“Does flour now cost nothing at all that it should be bolted on the ground like this?”“I bolted the flour in the moonlight as you had bidden me,” answered Ulenspiegel.The baker replied:“Pack-donkey, it was in a sieve you should have done it.”“I thought the moon was a new-fangled kind of sieve,” replied Ulenspiegel. “But there will be no great loss, I will scrape up the flour.”“It is too late,” answered theKwaebakker, “to get ready the dough and to bake it.”Ulenspiegel rejoined:“Baes, our neighbour’s dough is ready in the mill; shall I go and take that?”“Go to the gallows,” replied theKwaebakker, “and fetch what is on that.”“I go,baes,” answered Ulenspiegel.He ran to the gallows field, found there the dried hand of a robber, brought it to theKwaebakker, and said:“Here is a hand of glory that maketh invisible all those that carry it. Wilt thou henceforward conceal thy evil disposition?”“I shall inform the commune against you,” repliedtheKwaebakker, “and you will see that you have infringed upon the rights of the overlord.”When they were both before the burgomaster, theKwaebakker, wishing to tell the whole rosary of Ulenspiegel’s misdeeds and delinquencies, saw that he was opening his eyes to their widest. He became so angry at this that interrupting his deposition he said to him:“What do you want?”Ulenspiegel replied:“You told me you would accuse me in such wise that I ‘would see.’ I am trying to see, that is why I look.”“Out of my eyes,” cried the baker.“If I was in your eyes,” answered Ulenspiegel, “I could only come out, seeing that you shut them, through your nostrils.”The burgomaster, seeing that this day was the day for the fair of japes, would listen to them no longer.Ulenspiegel and theKwaebakkerwent away together, theKwaebakkerraised his cudgel on him; Ulenspiegel dodged it, saying:“Baes, since it is with blows my flour is to be sifted, you take the bran of it—it is your anger: I keep the white—it is my gaiety.”Then showing him his nether face:“And here,” he added, “is the door of the oven, if you want to bake.”

XLI

At this time as he pilgrimaged he entered into the service of one Josse, surnamed theKwaebakker, the cross baker, because of his vinegar face. TheKwaebakkergave him three stale loaves every week for his food, and for lodging a sloping garret under the roof, where the rain rained and the wind blew marvellously.Seeing himself so evilly entreated, Ulenspiegel played him different tricks and this among them. When they bake in the early morning, the flour must be bolted overnight. One night, then, when the moon was shining, Ulenspiegel asked for a candle to see to work and had this answer from his master:“Bolt the flour in the light of the moon.”Ulenspiegel, obeying him, bolted the flour upon the earth, where the moonlight was shining.In the morning theKwaebakker, coming to see how much work Ulenspiegel had done, found him still bolting and said to him:“Does flour now cost nothing at all that it should be bolted on the ground like this?”“I bolted the flour in the moonlight as you had bidden me,” answered Ulenspiegel.The baker replied:“Pack-donkey, it was in a sieve you should have done it.”“I thought the moon was a new-fangled kind of sieve,” replied Ulenspiegel. “But there will be no great loss, I will scrape up the flour.”“It is too late,” answered theKwaebakker, “to get ready the dough and to bake it.”Ulenspiegel rejoined:“Baes, our neighbour’s dough is ready in the mill; shall I go and take that?”“Go to the gallows,” replied theKwaebakker, “and fetch what is on that.”“I go,baes,” answered Ulenspiegel.He ran to the gallows field, found there the dried hand of a robber, brought it to theKwaebakker, and said:“Here is a hand of glory that maketh invisible all those that carry it. Wilt thou henceforward conceal thy evil disposition?”“I shall inform the commune against you,” repliedtheKwaebakker, “and you will see that you have infringed upon the rights of the overlord.”When they were both before the burgomaster, theKwaebakker, wishing to tell the whole rosary of Ulenspiegel’s misdeeds and delinquencies, saw that he was opening his eyes to their widest. He became so angry at this that interrupting his deposition he said to him:“What do you want?”Ulenspiegel replied:“You told me you would accuse me in such wise that I ‘would see.’ I am trying to see, that is why I look.”“Out of my eyes,” cried the baker.“If I was in your eyes,” answered Ulenspiegel, “I could only come out, seeing that you shut them, through your nostrils.”The burgomaster, seeing that this day was the day for the fair of japes, would listen to them no longer.Ulenspiegel and theKwaebakkerwent away together, theKwaebakkerraised his cudgel on him; Ulenspiegel dodged it, saying:“Baes, since it is with blows my flour is to be sifted, you take the bran of it—it is your anger: I keep the white—it is my gaiety.”Then showing him his nether face:“And here,” he added, “is the door of the oven, if you want to bake.”

At this time as he pilgrimaged he entered into the service of one Josse, surnamed theKwaebakker, the cross baker, because of his vinegar face. TheKwaebakkergave him three stale loaves every week for his food, and for lodging a sloping garret under the roof, where the rain rained and the wind blew marvellously.

Seeing himself so evilly entreated, Ulenspiegel played him different tricks and this among them. When they bake in the early morning, the flour must be bolted overnight. One night, then, when the moon was shining, Ulenspiegel asked for a candle to see to work and had this answer from his master:

“Bolt the flour in the light of the moon.”

Ulenspiegel, obeying him, bolted the flour upon the earth, where the moonlight was shining.

In the morning theKwaebakker, coming to see how much work Ulenspiegel had done, found him still bolting and said to him:

“Does flour now cost nothing at all that it should be bolted on the ground like this?”

“I bolted the flour in the moonlight as you had bidden me,” answered Ulenspiegel.

The baker replied:

“Pack-donkey, it was in a sieve you should have done it.”

“I thought the moon was a new-fangled kind of sieve,” replied Ulenspiegel. “But there will be no great loss, I will scrape up the flour.”

“It is too late,” answered theKwaebakker, “to get ready the dough and to bake it.”

Ulenspiegel rejoined:

“Baes, our neighbour’s dough is ready in the mill; shall I go and take that?”

“Go to the gallows,” replied theKwaebakker, “and fetch what is on that.”

“I go,baes,” answered Ulenspiegel.

He ran to the gallows field, found there the dried hand of a robber, brought it to theKwaebakker, and said:

“Here is a hand of glory that maketh invisible all those that carry it. Wilt thou henceforward conceal thy evil disposition?”

“I shall inform the commune against you,” repliedtheKwaebakker, “and you will see that you have infringed upon the rights of the overlord.”

When they were both before the burgomaster, theKwaebakker, wishing to tell the whole rosary of Ulenspiegel’s misdeeds and delinquencies, saw that he was opening his eyes to their widest. He became so angry at this that interrupting his deposition he said to him:

“What do you want?”

Ulenspiegel replied:

“You told me you would accuse me in such wise that I ‘would see.’ I am trying to see, that is why I look.”

“Out of my eyes,” cried the baker.

“If I was in your eyes,” answered Ulenspiegel, “I could only come out, seeing that you shut them, through your nostrils.”

The burgomaster, seeing that this day was the day for the fair of japes, would listen to them no longer.

Ulenspiegel and theKwaebakkerwent away together, theKwaebakkerraised his cudgel on him; Ulenspiegel dodged it, saying:

“Baes, since it is with blows my flour is to be sifted, you take the bran of it—it is your anger: I keep the white—it is my gaiety.”

Then showing him his nether face:

“And here,” he added, “is the door of the oven, if you want to bake.”

XLIIUlenspiegel as he pilgrimaged would gladly have turned highway robber, but he found the stones too heavy to carry.He was trudging by chance on the road to Audenaerde where there was then a garrison of Flemishreiterscharged with the defence of the town against the French bands that ravaged the country like locusts.Thereitershad at their head a certain captain, a Frisian born, by name Kornjuin. They also overran the low country and pillaged the peoples, who were thus, as usual, devoured on both sides.Everything was good in their eyes: hens, chickens, ducks, pigeons, calves, and pigs. One day, as they were coming back laden with plunder, Kornjuin and his lieutenants saw at the foot of a tree Ulenspiegel lying asleep and dreaming of fricassees.“What do you do for a living?” asked Kornjuin.“I’m dying of hunger,” replied Ulenspiegel.“What is your trade?”“To go on pilgrimage for my sins, look on at others toiling, dance on the rope, paint pretty faces, carve knife handles, play therommel-pot, and blow the trumpet.”Now if Ulenspiegel spoke so bold of trumpets, it was because he had learned that the post of watchman to the Castle of Audenaerde was vacant after the death of an old man who had held it.Kornjuin said to him:“You shall be trumpeter to the town.”Ulenspiegel went with him and was posted on the tallest tower on the ramparts, in a little box of a cell well ventilated by the four winds, all except the south wind that fanned it only with one wing.He was enjoined to sound the trumpet as soon as he might see an enemy coming and, to that end, to keep his head clear and his eyes keen; and so they did not give him overmuch either to eat or to drink.The captain and his soldiers stayed in the tower and feasted there all day long at the expense of the lowcountry. There was killed and eaten there more than one capon whose one crime was to be plump. Ulenspiegel, always forgotten and forced to be satisfied with his meagre soup, found no pleasure in the smell of the sauces. The French came and carried off a great deal of cattle; Ulenspiegel did not sound his trumpet.Kornjuin climbed up to his cell and said to him:“Why did you not sound the trumpet?”Ulenspiegel said to him:“I give you no thanks for your provender.”The next day, the captain ordered a great feast for himself and his soldiers, but Ulenspiegel was still forgotten. They were on the point of beginning to gorge, when Ulenspiegel blew his trumpet.Kornjuin and his soldiers, thinking it was the French, left their wines and meats, leapt upon their horses, rode hastily out of the town, but found nothing in the country but an ox chewing the cud in the sun, and brought him back with them.Meanwhile, Ulenspiegel had filled himself with wines and meats. The captain as he returned saw him standing, smiling, and his legs tottering at the door of the feast hall. He said to him:“It is traitor’s work to sound the alarm when you do not see the enemy, and not to sound it when you do see them.”“Master captain,” said Ulenspiegel, “I am in my tower so puffed out and swollen up with the four winds that I could float like a bladder if I had not blown in my trumpet to ease me. Have me hanged now, or another time when you need an ass’s skin for your drums.”Kornjuin went away without a word.Meanwhile, news came to Audenaerde that the gracious Emperor Charles was about to come to the town, with a most noble company. On this occasion the sheriffs gave Ulenspiegel a pair of spectacles that he might the better discern His Sacred Majesty’s coming. Ulenspiegel was to blow three blasts on the trumpet as soon as he saw the Emperor marching upon Luppeghem, which is a quarter of a league away from the Borg-poort.Thus the townsfolk would have time to ring their bells, to make ready fireworks, to put the meats in the oven, and to broach the hogsheads.One day, towards noon, the wind was blowing from Brabant and the sky was clear: Ulenspiegel saw on the road leading to Luppeghem a great band of horsemen mounted on caracoling steeds, the long feathers in their caps streaming in the wind. Some carried banners. He who rode proudly at their head wore a bonnet of cloth of gold with great plumes. He was arrayed in brown velvet broidered with brocatel.Ulenspiegel put on his spectacles and saw it was the Emperor Charles the Fifth who was coming to give the folk of Audenaerde permission to serve him their choicest wines and their choicest viands.His whole band was moving leisurely, snuffing up the fresh air that awakens appetite, but Ulenspiegel thought that they made good cheer by custom and might very well fast for one day without perishing. So he looked on at them as they came and did not blow his trumpet.They came on laughing and talking freely, whilst His Sacred Majesty looked into his stomach to see if there was enough room for the dinner of the Audenaerdefolk. He appeared surprised and displeased that no bell rang to announce his coming.At this juncture a peasant entered the town running, to announce that he had seen a French band riding in the neighbourhood and marching upon the town to devour and pillage everything.At this word the porter fastened the gate and sent a servant of the commune to warn the other porters of the town. But thereitersfeasted without knowing anything.His Majesty was still coming on, annoyed not to hear bells and cannon and arquebuses sounding and thundering and volleying. Straining his ears in vain, he heard nothing but the chime marking the half hour. He arrived before the gate, found it shut and beat on it with his fist to have it opened.And the lords in his retinue, angry like him, muttered sour speeches. The porter who was on the summit of the ramparts cried out to them that if they did not put an end to this hubbub he would spray them with grapeshot to cool their impatience.But His Majesty in a fury:“Blind hog,” said he, “dost thou not know thy Emperor?”The porter answered:That the least hoggish are not always the most gilded; that he knew, besides, that the French were good mockers by their nature, since the Emperor Charles, at this moment waging war in Italy, could not be at the gates of Audenaerde.Thereupon Charles and the lords cried out the more, saying:“If thou dost not open, we shall roast thee on thepoint of a spear. And thou shalt eat thy keys first and foremost.”At the noise they were making, an old man-at-arms came out from the artillery room and showing his nose above the wall:“Porter,” said he, “you are all wrong, it is our Emperor yonder; I know him well, though he has aged since he took Mariavander Gheynst from here to the Castle of Lallaing.”The porter fell down stiff as death with terror, and the man-at-arms seized his keys and went to open the gate.The Emperor asked why he had been forced to wait so long: the man-at-arms having told him, His Majesty ordered him to shut the gate again, and to fetch him thereitersof Kornjuin, whom he commanded to march before him beating their tambourines and playing their fifes.Soon one by one the bells awoke to sound full peal. Thus preceded, His Majesty came with an imperial din to the Great Marketplace. The burgomasters and sheriffs were all assembled there; the sheriff Ian Guigelaar came out at the noise. He went back into the council chamber saying:“Keyser Karel is alhier!The Emperor Charles is here!”Sorely affrighted to hear these tidings, the burgomasters, sheriffs, and councillors came out from the Townhall to go in a body to greet the Emperor, while their men ran throughout the whole town to have the fireworks got ready, to put the chickens to the fire, and to broach the casks.Men, women, and children ran everywhere crying:“Keyser Karel is op’t groot marckt!The Emperor is in the Great Market!”Ere long great was the crowd in the square.The Emperor, in deep anger, asked the two burgomasters if they did not deserve to be hanged for thus failing in respect to their sovereign.The burgomasters replied that they deserved hanging indeed, but that Ulenspiegel, the trumpeter of the tower, deserved it much more, seeing that upon the rumour of His Majesty’s coming he had been stationed there, equipped with a good pair of barnacles, with express instructions that he should sound his trumpet three times as soon as he should see the imperial convoy approaching. But he had done nothing of this.The Emperor, still angry, asked them to send for Ulenspiegel.“Why,” said he, “having such clear spectacles, didst thou not blow a point on the trumpet at my coming?”So saying, he passed his hand over his eyes, because of the brightness of the sun, and looked at Ulenspiegel.Ulenspiegel also passed his hand over his eyes, and replied that since he had seen His Sacred Majesty looking between his fingers, he had no longer desired to make use of the spectacles.The Emperor told him he was to be hanged, the town porter said it was well done, and the burgomasters were so terrified at this sentence that they made no word of answer, neither to approve it nor to oppose it.The executioner and his assistants were sent for. They came carrying a ladder and a new rope, seized Ulenspiegel by the collar, as he walked in front of Kornjuin’s hundredreiters, keeping very quiet and saying his prayers. But they mocked him bitterly.The people who were following said:“It is a great cruelty to put to death a poor young man in this way for so small a fault.”And the weavers were there in great numbers and under arms, and they said:“We shall not leave Ulenspiegel to be hanged: it is contrary to the law of Audenaerde.”By now they were come to the gallows field, Ulenspiegel was hoisted up on the ladder, and the executioner put the rope on him. The weavers flocked up around the gallows. The provost was there on horseback, resting the rod of justice on his horse’s shoulder, the wand wherewith at the Emperor’s word he should give the signal for the execution.All the assembled people cried out:“Mercy! mercy for Ulenspiegel!”Ulenspiegel upon his ladder said:“Pity! gracious Emperor!”The Emperor lifted his hand and said:“If this rascal asks me for something I cannot do, he shall have his life!”“Speak, Ulenspiegel,” cried the people.The women wept and said:“He can ask for nothing, poor fellow, for the Emperor can do all things.”And all said:“Speak, Ulenspiegel!”“Sacred Majesty,” said Ulenspiegel, “I shall ask thee neither for money, nor for lands, nor for life, but only one thing, for which thou must not, if I dare to say it, have me whipped nor laid on the rack, before I depart to the land of spirits.”“I promise thee this,” said the Emperor.“Majesty,” said Ulenspiegel, “I ask that before I be hanged, you shall come and kiss the mouth with which I speak no Flemish.”The Emperor, laughing like all the people, replied:“I cannot do what thou dost ask, and thou shalt not hang, Ulenspiegel.”But he condemned the burgomasters and sheriffs to wear spectacles on the back of their heads for six months, in order, said he, that if the Audenaerde folk do not see in front, they may at least see behind.And by imperial decree, these spectacles are still seen in the arms of the town.And Ulenspiegel went away modestly, with a little bag of money the women had given him.

XLII

Ulenspiegel as he pilgrimaged would gladly have turned highway robber, but he found the stones too heavy to carry.He was trudging by chance on the road to Audenaerde where there was then a garrison of Flemishreiterscharged with the defence of the town against the French bands that ravaged the country like locusts.Thereitershad at their head a certain captain, a Frisian born, by name Kornjuin. They also overran the low country and pillaged the peoples, who were thus, as usual, devoured on both sides.Everything was good in their eyes: hens, chickens, ducks, pigeons, calves, and pigs. One day, as they were coming back laden with plunder, Kornjuin and his lieutenants saw at the foot of a tree Ulenspiegel lying asleep and dreaming of fricassees.“What do you do for a living?” asked Kornjuin.“I’m dying of hunger,” replied Ulenspiegel.“What is your trade?”“To go on pilgrimage for my sins, look on at others toiling, dance on the rope, paint pretty faces, carve knife handles, play therommel-pot, and blow the trumpet.”Now if Ulenspiegel spoke so bold of trumpets, it was because he had learned that the post of watchman to the Castle of Audenaerde was vacant after the death of an old man who had held it.Kornjuin said to him:“You shall be trumpeter to the town.”Ulenspiegel went with him and was posted on the tallest tower on the ramparts, in a little box of a cell well ventilated by the four winds, all except the south wind that fanned it only with one wing.He was enjoined to sound the trumpet as soon as he might see an enemy coming and, to that end, to keep his head clear and his eyes keen; and so they did not give him overmuch either to eat or to drink.The captain and his soldiers stayed in the tower and feasted there all day long at the expense of the lowcountry. There was killed and eaten there more than one capon whose one crime was to be plump. Ulenspiegel, always forgotten and forced to be satisfied with his meagre soup, found no pleasure in the smell of the sauces. The French came and carried off a great deal of cattle; Ulenspiegel did not sound his trumpet.Kornjuin climbed up to his cell and said to him:“Why did you not sound the trumpet?”Ulenspiegel said to him:“I give you no thanks for your provender.”The next day, the captain ordered a great feast for himself and his soldiers, but Ulenspiegel was still forgotten. They were on the point of beginning to gorge, when Ulenspiegel blew his trumpet.Kornjuin and his soldiers, thinking it was the French, left their wines and meats, leapt upon their horses, rode hastily out of the town, but found nothing in the country but an ox chewing the cud in the sun, and brought him back with them.Meanwhile, Ulenspiegel had filled himself with wines and meats. The captain as he returned saw him standing, smiling, and his legs tottering at the door of the feast hall. He said to him:“It is traitor’s work to sound the alarm when you do not see the enemy, and not to sound it when you do see them.”“Master captain,” said Ulenspiegel, “I am in my tower so puffed out and swollen up with the four winds that I could float like a bladder if I had not blown in my trumpet to ease me. Have me hanged now, or another time when you need an ass’s skin for your drums.”Kornjuin went away without a word.Meanwhile, news came to Audenaerde that the gracious Emperor Charles was about to come to the town, with a most noble company. On this occasion the sheriffs gave Ulenspiegel a pair of spectacles that he might the better discern His Sacred Majesty’s coming. Ulenspiegel was to blow three blasts on the trumpet as soon as he saw the Emperor marching upon Luppeghem, which is a quarter of a league away from the Borg-poort.Thus the townsfolk would have time to ring their bells, to make ready fireworks, to put the meats in the oven, and to broach the hogsheads.One day, towards noon, the wind was blowing from Brabant and the sky was clear: Ulenspiegel saw on the road leading to Luppeghem a great band of horsemen mounted on caracoling steeds, the long feathers in their caps streaming in the wind. Some carried banners. He who rode proudly at their head wore a bonnet of cloth of gold with great plumes. He was arrayed in brown velvet broidered with brocatel.Ulenspiegel put on his spectacles and saw it was the Emperor Charles the Fifth who was coming to give the folk of Audenaerde permission to serve him their choicest wines and their choicest viands.His whole band was moving leisurely, snuffing up the fresh air that awakens appetite, but Ulenspiegel thought that they made good cheer by custom and might very well fast for one day without perishing. So he looked on at them as they came and did not blow his trumpet.They came on laughing and talking freely, whilst His Sacred Majesty looked into his stomach to see if there was enough room for the dinner of the Audenaerdefolk. He appeared surprised and displeased that no bell rang to announce his coming.At this juncture a peasant entered the town running, to announce that he had seen a French band riding in the neighbourhood and marching upon the town to devour and pillage everything.At this word the porter fastened the gate and sent a servant of the commune to warn the other porters of the town. But thereitersfeasted without knowing anything.His Majesty was still coming on, annoyed not to hear bells and cannon and arquebuses sounding and thundering and volleying. Straining his ears in vain, he heard nothing but the chime marking the half hour. He arrived before the gate, found it shut and beat on it with his fist to have it opened.And the lords in his retinue, angry like him, muttered sour speeches. The porter who was on the summit of the ramparts cried out to them that if they did not put an end to this hubbub he would spray them with grapeshot to cool their impatience.But His Majesty in a fury:“Blind hog,” said he, “dost thou not know thy Emperor?”The porter answered:That the least hoggish are not always the most gilded; that he knew, besides, that the French were good mockers by their nature, since the Emperor Charles, at this moment waging war in Italy, could not be at the gates of Audenaerde.Thereupon Charles and the lords cried out the more, saying:“If thou dost not open, we shall roast thee on thepoint of a spear. And thou shalt eat thy keys first and foremost.”At the noise they were making, an old man-at-arms came out from the artillery room and showing his nose above the wall:“Porter,” said he, “you are all wrong, it is our Emperor yonder; I know him well, though he has aged since he took Mariavander Gheynst from here to the Castle of Lallaing.”The porter fell down stiff as death with terror, and the man-at-arms seized his keys and went to open the gate.The Emperor asked why he had been forced to wait so long: the man-at-arms having told him, His Majesty ordered him to shut the gate again, and to fetch him thereitersof Kornjuin, whom he commanded to march before him beating their tambourines and playing their fifes.Soon one by one the bells awoke to sound full peal. Thus preceded, His Majesty came with an imperial din to the Great Marketplace. The burgomasters and sheriffs were all assembled there; the sheriff Ian Guigelaar came out at the noise. He went back into the council chamber saying:“Keyser Karel is alhier!The Emperor Charles is here!”Sorely affrighted to hear these tidings, the burgomasters, sheriffs, and councillors came out from the Townhall to go in a body to greet the Emperor, while their men ran throughout the whole town to have the fireworks got ready, to put the chickens to the fire, and to broach the casks.Men, women, and children ran everywhere crying:“Keyser Karel is op’t groot marckt!The Emperor is in the Great Market!”Ere long great was the crowd in the square.The Emperor, in deep anger, asked the two burgomasters if they did not deserve to be hanged for thus failing in respect to their sovereign.The burgomasters replied that they deserved hanging indeed, but that Ulenspiegel, the trumpeter of the tower, deserved it much more, seeing that upon the rumour of His Majesty’s coming he had been stationed there, equipped with a good pair of barnacles, with express instructions that he should sound his trumpet three times as soon as he should see the imperial convoy approaching. But he had done nothing of this.The Emperor, still angry, asked them to send for Ulenspiegel.“Why,” said he, “having such clear spectacles, didst thou not blow a point on the trumpet at my coming?”So saying, he passed his hand over his eyes, because of the brightness of the sun, and looked at Ulenspiegel.Ulenspiegel also passed his hand over his eyes, and replied that since he had seen His Sacred Majesty looking between his fingers, he had no longer desired to make use of the spectacles.The Emperor told him he was to be hanged, the town porter said it was well done, and the burgomasters were so terrified at this sentence that they made no word of answer, neither to approve it nor to oppose it.The executioner and his assistants were sent for. They came carrying a ladder and a new rope, seized Ulenspiegel by the collar, as he walked in front of Kornjuin’s hundredreiters, keeping very quiet and saying his prayers. But they mocked him bitterly.The people who were following said:“It is a great cruelty to put to death a poor young man in this way for so small a fault.”And the weavers were there in great numbers and under arms, and they said:“We shall not leave Ulenspiegel to be hanged: it is contrary to the law of Audenaerde.”By now they were come to the gallows field, Ulenspiegel was hoisted up on the ladder, and the executioner put the rope on him. The weavers flocked up around the gallows. The provost was there on horseback, resting the rod of justice on his horse’s shoulder, the wand wherewith at the Emperor’s word he should give the signal for the execution.All the assembled people cried out:“Mercy! mercy for Ulenspiegel!”Ulenspiegel upon his ladder said:“Pity! gracious Emperor!”The Emperor lifted his hand and said:“If this rascal asks me for something I cannot do, he shall have his life!”“Speak, Ulenspiegel,” cried the people.The women wept and said:“He can ask for nothing, poor fellow, for the Emperor can do all things.”And all said:“Speak, Ulenspiegel!”“Sacred Majesty,” said Ulenspiegel, “I shall ask thee neither for money, nor for lands, nor for life, but only one thing, for which thou must not, if I dare to say it, have me whipped nor laid on the rack, before I depart to the land of spirits.”“I promise thee this,” said the Emperor.“Majesty,” said Ulenspiegel, “I ask that before I be hanged, you shall come and kiss the mouth with which I speak no Flemish.”The Emperor, laughing like all the people, replied:“I cannot do what thou dost ask, and thou shalt not hang, Ulenspiegel.”But he condemned the burgomasters and sheriffs to wear spectacles on the back of their heads for six months, in order, said he, that if the Audenaerde folk do not see in front, they may at least see behind.And by imperial decree, these spectacles are still seen in the arms of the town.And Ulenspiegel went away modestly, with a little bag of money the women had given him.

Ulenspiegel as he pilgrimaged would gladly have turned highway robber, but he found the stones too heavy to carry.

He was trudging by chance on the road to Audenaerde where there was then a garrison of Flemishreiterscharged with the defence of the town against the French bands that ravaged the country like locusts.

Thereitershad at their head a certain captain, a Frisian born, by name Kornjuin. They also overran the low country and pillaged the peoples, who were thus, as usual, devoured on both sides.

Everything was good in their eyes: hens, chickens, ducks, pigeons, calves, and pigs. One day, as they were coming back laden with plunder, Kornjuin and his lieutenants saw at the foot of a tree Ulenspiegel lying asleep and dreaming of fricassees.

“What do you do for a living?” asked Kornjuin.

“I’m dying of hunger,” replied Ulenspiegel.

“What is your trade?”

“To go on pilgrimage for my sins, look on at others toiling, dance on the rope, paint pretty faces, carve knife handles, play therommel-pot, and blow the trumpet.”

Now if Ulenspiegel spoke so bold of trumpets, it was because he had learned that the post of watchman to the Castle of Audenaerde was vacant after the death of an old man who had held it.

Kornjuin said to him:

“You shall be trumpeter to the town.”

Ulenspiegel went with him and was posted on the tallest tower on the ramparts, in a little box of a cell well ventilated by the four winds, all except the south wind that fanned it only with one wing.

He was enjoined to sound the trumpet as soon as he might see an enemy coming and, to that end, to keep his head clear and his eyes keen; and so they did not give him overmuch either to eat or to drink.

The captain and his soldiers stayed in the tower and feasted there all day long at the expense of the lowcountry. There was killed and eaten there more than one capon whose one crime was to be plump. Ulenspiegel, always forgotten and forced to be satisfied with his meagre soup, found no pleasure in the smell of the sauces. The French came and carried off a great deal of cattle; Ulenspiegel did not sound his trumpet.

Kornjuin climbed up to his cell and said to him:

“Why did you not sound the trumpet?”

Ulenspiegel said to him:

“I give you no thanks for your provender.”

The next day, the captain ordered a great feast for himself and his soldiers, but Ulenspiegel was still forgotten. They were on the point of beginning to gorge, when Ulenspiegel blew his trumpet.

Kornjuin and his soldiers, thinking it was the French, left their wines and meats, leapt upon their horses, rode hastily out of the town, but found nothing in the country but an ox chewing the cud in the sun, and brought him back with them.

Meanwhile, Ulenspiegel had filled himself with wines and meats. The captain as he returned saw him standing, smiling, and his legs tottering at the door of the feast hall. He said to him:

“It is traitor’s work to sound the alarm when you do not see the enemy, and not to sound it when you do see them.”

“Master captain,” said Ulenspiegel, “I am in my tower so puffed out and swollen up with the four winds that I could float like a bladder if I had not blown in my trumpet to ease me. Have me hanged now, or another time when you need an ass’s skin for your drums.”

Kornjuin went away without a word.

Meanwhile, news came to Audenaerde that the gracious Emperor Charles was about to come to the town, with a most noble company. On this occasion the sheriffs gave Ulenspiegel a pair of spectacles that he might the better discern His Sacred Majesty’s coming. Ulenspiegel was to blow three blasts on the trumpet as soon as he saw the Emperor marching upon Luppeghem, which is a quarter of a league away from the Borg-poort.

Thus the townsfolk would have time to ring their bells, to make ready fireworks, to put the meats in the oven, and to broach the hogsheads.

One day, towards noon, the wind was blowing from Brabant and the sky was clear: Ulenspiegel saw on the road leading to Luppeghem a great band of horsemen mounted on caracoling steeds, the long feathers in their caps streaming in the wind. Some carried banners. He who rode proudly at their head wore a bonnet of cloth of gold with great plumes. He was arrayed in brown velvet broidered with brocatel.

Ulenspiegel put on his spectacles and saw it was the Emperor Charles the Fifth who was coming to give the folk of Audenaerde permission to serve him their choicest wines and their choicest viands.

His whole band was moving leisurely, snuffing up the fresh air that awakens appetite, but Ulenspiegel thought that they made good cheer by custom and might very well fast for one day without perishing. So he looked on at them as they came and did not blow his trumpet.

They came on laughing and talking freely, whilst His Sacred Majesty looked into his stomach to see if there was enough room for the dinner of the Audenaerdefolk. He appeared surprised and displeased that no bell rang to announce his coming.

At this juncture a peasant entered the town running, to announce that he had seen a French band riding in the neighbourhood and marching upon the town to devour and pillage everything.

At this word the porter fastened the gate and sent a servant of the commune to warn the other porters of the town. But thereitersfeasted without knowing anything.

His Majesty was still coming on, annoyed not to hear bells and cannon and arquebuses sounding and thundering and volleying. Straining his ears in vain, he heard nothing but the chime marking the half hour. He arrived before the gate, found it shut and beat on it with his fist to have it opened.

And the lords in his retinue, angry like him, muttered sour speeches. The porter who was on the summit of the ramparts cried out to them that if they did not put an end to this hubbub he would spray them with grapeshot to cool their impatience.

But His Majesty in a fury:

“Blind hog,” said he, “dost thou not know thy Emperor?”

The porter answered:

That the least hoggish are not always the most gilded; that he knew, besides, that the French were good mockers by their nature, since the Emperor Charles, at this moment waging war in Italy, could not be at the gates of Audenaerde.

Thereupon Charles and the lords cried out the more, saying:

“If thou dost not open, we shall roast thee on thepoint of a spear. And thou shalt eat thy keys first and foremost.”

At the noise they were making, an old man-at-arms came out from the artillery room and showing his nose above the wall:

“Porter,” said he, “you are all wrong, it is our Emperor yonder; I know him well, though he has aged since he took Mariavander Gheynst from here to the Castle of Lallaing.”

The porter fell down stiff as death with terror, and the man-at-arms seized his keys and went to open the gate.

The Emperor asked why he had been forced to wait so long: the man-at-arms having told him, His Majesty ordered him to shut the gate again, and to fetch him thereitersof Kornjuin, whom he commanded to march before him beating their tambourines and playing their fifes.

Soon one by one the bells awoke to sound full peal. Thus preceded, His Majesty came with an imperial din to the Great Marketplace. The burgomasters and sheriffs were all assembled there; the sheriff Ian Guigelaar came out at the noise. He went back into the council chamber saying:

“Keyser Karel is alhier!The Emperor Charles is here!”

Sorely affrighted to hear these tidings, the burgomasters, sheriffs, and councillors came out from the Townhall to go in a body to greet the Emperor, while their men ran throughout the whole town to have the fireworks got ready, to put the chickens to the fire, and to broach the casks.

Men, women, and children ran everywhere crying:

“Keyser Karel is op’t groot marckt!The Emperor is in the Great Market!”

Ere long great was the crowd in the square.

The Emperor, in deep anger, asked the two burgomasters if they did not deserve to be hanged for thus failing in respect to their sovereign.

The burgomasters replied that they deserved hanging indeed, but that Ulenspiegel, the trumpeter of the tower, deserved it much more, seeing that upon the rumour of His Majesty’s coming he had been stationed there, equipped with a good pair of barnacles, with express instructions that he should sound his trumpet three times as soon as he should see the imperial convoy approaching. But he had done nothing of this.

The Emperor, still angry, asked them to send for Ulenspiegel.

“Why,” said he, “having such clear spectacles, didst thou not blow a point on the trumpet at my coming?”

So saying, he passed his hand over his eyes, because of the brightness of the sun, and looked at Ulenspiegel.

Ulenspiegel also passed his hand over his eyes, and replied that since he had seen His Sacred Majesty looking between his fingers, he had no longer desired to make use of the spectacles.

The Emperor told him he was to be hanged, the town porter said it was well done, and the burgomasters were so terrified at this sentence that they made no word of answer, neither to approve it nor to oppose it.

The executioner and his assistants were sent for. They came carrying a ladder and a new rope, seized Ulenspiegel by the collar, as he walked in front of Kornjuin’s hundredreiters, keeping very quiet and saying his prayers. But they mocked him bitterly.

The people who were following said:

“It is a great cruelty to put to death a poor young man in this way for so small a fault.”

And the weavers were there in great numbers and under arms, and they said:

“We shall not leave Ulenspiegel to be hanged: it is contrary to the law of Audenaerde.”

By now they were come to the gallows field, Ulenspiegel was hoisted up on the ladder, and the executioner put the rope on him. The weavers flocked up around the gallows. The provost was there on horseback, resting the rod of justice on his horse’s shoulder, the wand wherewith at the Emperor’s word he should give the signal for the execution.

All the assembled people cried out:

“Mercy! mercy for Ulenspiegel!”

Ulenspiegel upon his ladder said:

“Pity! gracious Emperor!”

The Emperor lifted his hand and said:

“If this rascal asks me for something I cannot do, he shall have his life!”

“Speak, Ulenspiegel,” cried the people.

The women wept and said:

“He can ask for nothing, poor fellow, for the Emperor can do all things.”

And all said:

“Speak, Ulenspiegel!”

“Sacred Majesty,” said Ulenspiegel, “I shall ask thee neither for money, nor for lands, nor for life, but only one thing, for which thou must not, if I dare to say it, have me whipped nor laid on the rack, before I depart to the land of spirits.”

“I promise thee this,” said the Emperor.

“Majesty,” said Ulenspiegel, “I ask that before I be hanged, you shall come and kiss the mouth with which I speak no Flemish.”

The Emperor, laughing like all the people, replied:

“I cannot do what thou dost ask, and thou shalt not hang, Ulenspiegel.”

But he condemned the burgomasters and sheriffs to wear spectacles on the back of their heads for six months, in order, said he, that if the Audenaerde folk do not see in front, they may at least see behind.

And by imperial decree, these spectacles are still seen in the arms of the town.

And Ulenspiegel went away modestly, with a little bag of money the women had given him.

XLIIIUlenspiegel being atLiège, in the fish market, he followed after a big young man who with a net bag under one arm filled with every kind of poultry was filling another with haddocks, trout, eels, and pike.Ulenspiegel knew Lamme Goedzak.“What are you doing here, Lamme?” said he.“You know,” said he, “how many Flanders folk have come to this kind country ofLiège; for me, I follow my love here. And you?”“I seek a master to serve for my bread,” replied Ulenspiegel.“That is very dry food,” said Lamme. “It would be better for you to pass from dish to mouth a rosary of ortolans with a thrush forCredo.”“You are rich?” asked Ulenspiegel.Lamme Goedzak answered:“I have lost my father, my mother, and my young sister that used to beat me so soundly; I shall inherit their goods, and I live with a one-eyed servant woman, a great doctor in fricassees.”“Would you like me to carry your fish and your poultry?” asked Ulenspiegel.“Aye,” said Lamme.And together they wandered about the market.Suddenly Lamme said:“Do you know why you are mad?”“No,” replied Ulenspiegel.“Because you are carrying your fish and your poultry in your hand, instead of carrying them in your belly.”“You have said well, Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel; “but since I have no longer even bread, the ortolans won’t look at me now.”“You shall eat them, Ulenspiegel,” said Lamme, “and you shall serve me if my cook will have you.”While they were wending their way, Lamme pointed out to Ulenspiegel a pretty, neat, and lovesome girl, in silk attire, who was hastening about the market here and there and looked at Lamme with her soft eyes.An old man, her father, walked behind her, laden with two net bags, one of fish, the other of game.“That one,” said Lamme, pointing to her, “I am going to make her my wife.”“Aye,” said Ulenspiegel, “I know her, she is Flemish from Zotteghem, she lives in the rue Vinave-d’Isle, and the neighbours say that her mother sweeps the street, in front of the house, instead of her, and that her father irons her shifts.”But Lamme made no answer and said gleefully:“She looked at me.”They came together to Lamme’s house, near the Pont-des-Arches, and knocked at the door. A one-eyed serving woman came and opened to them. Ulenspiegel saw she was old, lean and long, flat and fierce.“La Sanginne,” said Lamme to her, “will you have this one to help you in your work?”“I will take him on trial,” said she.“Take him, then,” said he, “and make him know and test the delights of your cookery.”La Sanginne then put three black puddings on the table, a quart ofcervoiseale, and a big hunch of bread.While Ulenspiegel ate, Lamme also munched a black pudding.“Do you know,” said he, “where our soul hath its habitation?”“No, Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel.“In our stomach it dwelleth,” said Lamme, “to delve therein without ceasing and ever renew in our bodies the force of life. And what are its best companions? They are all good and choice eatables and wine of the Meuse over and above.”“Aye,” said Ulenspiegel, “black puddings are agreeable company for the lonely soul.”“He wants more of them, give him some, la Sanginne,” said Lamme.La Sanginne gave him more, this time white puddings.While he was eating largely, Lamme, grown pensive, said:“When I die, my belly will die with me, and there below in purgatory, I shall be left fasting, carrying my paunch about with me all flabby and empty.”“The black seem to me better,” said Ulenspiegel.“You have eaten six,” replied la Sanginne, “and you shall have no more.”“You know,” said Lamme, “that you will be well treated here and will eat like myself.”“I will remember that word,” said Ulenspiegel.Ulenspiegel, seeing that he ate the same as Lamme, was happy and content. The black puddings had given him so high a spirit that on that day he made all the caldrons, pans, and cooking pots shine and glitter like so many suns.Living well in this house, he delighted to haunt kitchen and cellar, leaving the garret to the cats. One day, la Sanginne had two fowls to roast and bade Ulenspiegel turn the spit while she went to the market to fetch herbs for the seasoning.The two fowls being roasted, Ulenspiegel ate one. La Sanginne, returning, said:“There were two fowls, now I see only one.”“Open your other eye, you will see both of them,” replied Ulenspiegel.She went all in a rage to tell the business to Lamme Goedzak, who came down into the kitchen and said to Ulenspiegel:“Why do you make game of my servant? There were two fowls.”“There were of a truth two, Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel, “but when I came here you told me I should drink and eat as yourself. There were two fowls; I have eaten one, you will eat the other; my pleasure is past, yours is to come; are you not better off than I?”“Yea,” said Lamme, smiling, “but do everything la Sanginne bids you, and you will have but half tasks.”“I shall watch that, Lamme,” replied Ulenspiegel.And so, every time that la Sanginne bade him do anything, he only did the half of it; if she told him to draw two buckets of water from the well, he brought back only one; if she told him to go and fill a jug of cervoise from the cask, he poured half of it down his throat on the way and so on with the rest.At length la Sanginne, grown tired of these ways, told Lamme that if this good-for-naught remained in the house, she would go away on the spot.Lamme went down to Ulenspiegel and said to him:“You must depart, my son, although you have come to look well in this house. Listen to that cock crowing, it is two o’clock of the afternoon, it is a presage of rain. I would fain not turn you out of doors in this ill weather that is about to come upon us; but consider, my son, that la Sanginne by her fricassees is the warden of my life; I cannot, without risking a speedy death, allow her to leave me. Go, then, my boy, with God’s grace, and to enliven your way take these three florins and this string of saveloys.”And Ulenspiegel went away grieving, regretting Lamme and his fleshpots.

XLIII

Ulenspiegel being atLiège, in the fish market, he followed after a big young man who with a net bag under one arm filled with every kind of poultry was filling another with haddocks, trout, eels, and pike.Ulenspiegel knew Lamme Goedzak.“What are you doing here, Lamme?” said he.“You know,” said he, “how many Flanders folk have come to this kind country ofLiège; for me, I follow my love here. And you?”“I seek a master to serve for my bread,” replied Ulenspiegel.“That is very dry food,” said Lamme. “It would be better for you to pass from dish to mouth a rosary of ortolans with a thrush forCredo.”“You are rich?” asked Ulenspiegel.Lamme Goedzak answered:“I have lost my father, my mother, and my young sister that used to beat me so soundly; I shall inherit their goods, and I live with a one-eyed servant woman, a great doctor in fricassees.”“Would you like me to carry your fish and your poultry?” asked Ulenspiegel.“Aye,” said Lamme.And together they wandered about the market.Suddenly Lamme said:“Do you know why you are mad?”“No,” replied Ulenspiegel.“Because you are carrying your fish and your poultry in your hand, instead of carrying them in your belly.”“You have said well, Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel; “but since I have no longer even bread, the ortolans won’t look at me now.”“You shall eat them, Ulenspiegel,” said Lamme, “and you shall serve me if my cook will have you.”While they were wending their way, Lamme pointed out to Ulenspiegel a pretty, neat, and lovesome girl, in silk attire, who was hastening about the market here and there and looked at Lamme with her soft eyes.An old man, her father, walked behind her, laden with two net bags, one of fish, the other of game.“That one,” said Lamme, pointing to her, “I am going to make her my wife.”“Aye,” said Ulenspiegel, “I know her, she is Flemish from Zotteghem, she lives in the rue Vinave-d’Isle, and the neighbours say that her mother sweeps the street, in front of the house, instead of her, and that her father irons her shifts.”But Lamme made no answer and said gleefully:“She looked at me.”They came together to Lamme’s house, near the Pont-des-Arches, and knocked at the door. A one-eyed serving woman came and opened to them. Ulenspiegel saw she was old, lean and long, flat and fierce.“La Sanginne,” said Lamme to her, “will you have this one to help you in your work?”“I will take him on trial,” said she.“Take him, then,” said he, “and make him know and test the delights of your cookery.”La Sanginne then put three black puddings on the table, a quart ofcervoiseale, and a big hunch of bread.While Ulenspiegel ate, Lamme also munched a black pudding.“Do you know,” said he, “where our soul hath its habitation?”“No, Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel.“In our stomach it dwelleth,” said Lamme, “to delve therein without ceasing and ever renew in our bodies the force of life. And what are its best companions? They are all good and choice eatables and wine of the Meuse over and above.”“Aye,” said Ulenspiegel, “black puddings are agreeable company for the lonely soul.”“He wants more of them, give him some, la Sanginne,” said Lamme.La Sanginne gave him more, this time white puddings.While he was eating largely, Lamme, grown pensive, said:“When I die, my belly will die with me, and there below in purgatory, I shall be left fasting, carrying my paunch about with me all flabby and empty.”“The black seem to me better,” said Ulenspiegel.“You have eaten six,” replied la Sanginne, “and you shall have no more.”“You know,” said Lamme, “that you will be well treated here and will eat like myself.”“I will remember that word,” said Ulenspiegel.Ulenspiegel, seeing that he ate the same as Lamme, was happy and content. The black puddings had given him so high a spirit that on that day he made all the caldrons, pans, and cooking pots shine and glitter like so many suns.Living well in this house, he delighted to haunt kitchen and cellar, leaving the garret to the cats. One day, la Sanginne had two fowls to roast and bade Ulenspiegel turn the spit while she went to the market to fetch herbs for the seasoning.The two fowls being roasted, Ulenspiegel ate one. La Sanginne, returning, said:“There were two fowls, now I see only one.”“Open your other eye, you will see both of them,” replied Ulenspiegel.She went all in a rage to tell the business to Lamme Goedzak, who came down into the kitchen and said to Ulenspiegel:“Why do you make game of my servant? There were two fowls.”“There were of a truth two, Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel, “but when I came here you told me I should drink and eat as yourself. There were two fowls; I have eaten one, you will eat the other; my pleasure is past, yours is to come; are you not better off than I?”“Yea,” said Lamme, smiling, “but do everything la Sanginne bids you, and you will have but half tasks.”“I shall watch that, Lamme,” replied Ulenspiegel.And so, every time that la Sanginne bade him do anything, he only did the half of it; if she told him to draw two buckets of water from the well, he brought back only one; if she told him to go and fill a jug of cervoise from the cask, he poured half of it down his throat on the way and so on with the rest.At length la Sanginne, grown tired of these ways, told Lamme that if this good-for-naught remained in the house, she would go away on the spot.Lamme went down to Ulenspiegel and said to him:“You must depart, my son, although you have come to look well in this house. Listen to that cock crowing, it is two o’clock of the afternoon, it is a presage of rain. I would fain not turn you out of doors in this ill weather that is about to come upon us; but consider, my son, that la Sanginne by her fricassees is the warden of my life; I cannot, without risking a speedy death, allow her to leave me. Go, then, my boy, with God’s grace, and to enliven your way take these three florins and this string of saveloys.”And Ulenspiegel went away grieving, regretting Lamme and his fleshpots.

Ulenspiegel being atLiège, in the fish market, he followed after a big young man who with a net bag under one arm filled with every kind of poultry was filling another with haddocks, trout, eels, and pike.

Ulenspiegel knew Lamme Goedzak.

“What are you doing here, Lamme?” said he.

“You know,” said he, “how many Flanders folk have come to this kind country ofLiège; for me, I follow my love here. And you?”

“I seek a master to serve for my bread,” replied Ulenspiegel.

“That is very dry food,” said Lamme. “It would be better for you to pass from dish to mouth a rosary of ortolans with a thrush forCredo.”

“You are rich?” asked Ulenspiegel.

Lamme Goedzak answered:

“I have lost my father, my mother, and my young sister that used to beat me so soundly; I shall inherit their goods, and I live with a one-eyed servant woman, a great doctor in fricassees.”

“Would you like me to carry your fish and your poultry?” asked Ulenspiegel.

“Aye,” said Lamme.

And together they wandered about the market.

Suddenly Lamme said:

“Do you know why you are mad?”

“No,” replied Ulenspiegel.

“Because you are carrying your fish and your poultry in your hand, instead of carrying them in your belly.”

“You have said well, Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel; “but since I have no longer even bread, the ortolans won’t look at me now.”

“You shall eat them, Ulenspiegel,” said Lamme, “and you shall serve me if my cook will have you.”

While they were wending their way, Lamme pointed out to Ulenspiegel a pretty, neat, and lovesome girl, in silk attire, who was hastening about the market here and there and looked at Lamme with her soft eyes.

An old man, her father, walked behind her, laden with two net bags, one of fish, the other of game.

“That one,” said Lamme, pointing to her, “I am going to make her my wife.”

“Aye,” said Ulenspiegel, “I know her, she is Flemish from Zotteghem, she lives in the rue Vinave-d’Isle, and the neighbours say that her mother sweeps the street, in front of the house, instead of her, and that her father irons her shifts.”

But Lamme made no answer and said gleefully:

“She looked at me.”

They came together to Lamme’s house, near the Pont-des-Arches, and knocked at the door. A one-eyed serving woman came and opened to them. Ulenspiegel saw she was old, lean and long, flat and fierce.

“La Sanginne,” said Lamme to her, “will you have this one to help you in your work?”

“I will take him on trial,” said she.

“Take him, then,” said he, “and make him know and test the delights of your cookery.”

La Sanginne then put three black puddings on the table, a quart ofcervoiseale, and a big hunch of bread.

While Ulenspiegel ate, Lamme also munched a black pudding.

“Do you know,” said he, “where our soul hath its habitation?”

“No, Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel.

“In our stomach it dwelleth,” said Lamme, “to delve therein without ceasing and ever renew in our bodies the force of life. And what are its best companions? They are all good and choice eatables and wine of the Meuse over and above.”

“Aye,” said Ulenspiegel, “black puddings are agreeable company for the lonely soul.”

“He wants more of them, give him some, la Sanginne,” said Lamme.

La Sanginne gave him more, this time white puddings.

While he was eating largely, Lamme, grown pensive, said:

“When I die, my belly will die with me, and there below in purgatory, I shall be left fasting, carrying my paunch about with me all flabby and empty.”

“The black seem to me better,” said Ulenspiegel.

“You have eaten six,” replied la Sanginne, “and you shall have no more.”

“You know,” said Lamme, “that you will be well treated here and will eat like myself.”

“I will remember that word,” said Ulenspiegel.

Ulenspiegel, seeing that he ate the same as Lamme, was happy and content. The black puddings had given him so high a spirit that on that day he made all the caldrons, pans, and cooking pots shine and glitter like so many suns.

Living well in this house, he delighted to haunt kitchen and cellar, leaving the garret to the cats. One day, la Sanginne had two fowls to roast and bade Ulenspiegel turn the spit while she went to the market to fetch herbs for the seasoning.

The two fowls being roasted, Ulenspiegel ate one. La Sanginne, returning, said:

“There were two fowls, now I see only one.”

“Open your other eye, you will see both of them,” replied Ulenspiegel.

She went all in a rage to tell the business to Lamme Goedzak, who came down into the kitchen and said to Ulenspiegel:

“Why do you make game of my servant? There were two fowls.”

“There were of a truth two, Lamme,” said Ulenspiegel, “but when I came here you told me I should drink and eat as yourself. There were two fowls; I have eaten one, you will eat the other; my pleasure is past, yours is to come; are you not better off than I?”

“Yea,” said Lamme, smiling, “but do everything la Sanginne bids you, and you will have but half tasks.”

“I shall watch that, Lamme,” replied Ulenspiegel.

And so, every time that la Sanginne bade him do anything, he only did the half of it; if she told him to draw two buckets of water from the well, he brought back only one; if she told him to go and fill a jug of cervoise from the cask, he poured half of it down his throat on the way and so on with the rest.

At length la Sanginne, grown tired of these ways, told Lamme that if this good-for-naught remained in the house, she would go away on the spot.

Lamme went down to Ulenspiegel and said to him:

“You must depart, my son, although you have come to look well in this house. Listen to that cock crowing, it is two o’clock of the afternoon, it is a presage of rain. I would fain not turn you out of doors in this ill weather that is about to come upon us; but consider, my son, that la Sanginne by her fricassees is the warden of my life; I cannot, without risking a speedy death, allow her to leave me. Go, then, my boy, with God’s grace, and to enliven your way take these three florins and this string of saveloys.”

And Ulenspiegel went away grieving, regretting Lamme and his fleshpots.

XLIVNovember came to Damme and elsewhere, but the winter was tardy. No snow, no rain, nor cold weather; the sun shone from morning to evening without dimming: the children rolled about in the dust of the streets and the highways; at the hour of repose, after supper, the merchants, shopkeepers, goldsmiths, wheelwrights, and artisans came out upon their doorsteps to look on the sky that was always blue, the trees whose leaves were still not falling, thestorks standing up on the ridges of the roofs, and the swallows that had not yet gone away. The roses had flowered thrice, and for the fourth time were in bud; the nights were warm, the nightingale had not ceased to sing.The folk of Damme said:“Winter is dead, let us burn winter.”And they built a giant figure with a bear’s face, a long beard of shavings, a thick shock head of flax. They clothed him in white garments and burned him with great ceremony.Claes was steeped in melancholy, he blessed not the sky that was ever blue, nor the swallows that would not depart. For now nobody in Damme was burning charcoal save for cooking, and each having enough did not go to buy from Claes, who had disbursed all his savings to pay for his stock.So, if standing on his doorstep, the coalman felt the tip of his nose grow chilly in some puff of sharpish wind:“Ah!” he would say, “it is my bread coming to me!”But the sharp wind would not continue to blow, and the sky stayed always blue, and the leaves would not fall. And Claes refused to sell his stock at half price to the miser Grypstuiver, the dean of the fishmongers. And soon bread began to lack in the cottage.

XLIV

November came to Damme and elsewhere, but the winter was tardy. No snow, no rain, nor cold weather; the sun shone from morning to evening without dimming: the children rolled about in the dust of the streets and the highways; at the hour of repose, after supper, the merchants, shopkeepers, goldsmiths, wheelwrights, and artisans came out upon their doorsteps to look on the sky that was always blue, the trees whose leaves were still not falling, thestorks standing up on the ridges of the roofs, and the swallows that had not yet gone away. The roses had flowered thrice, and for the fourth time were in bud; the nights were warm, the nightingale had not ceased to sing.The folk of Damme said:“Winter is dead, let us burn winter.”And they built a giant figure with a bear’s face, a long beard of shavings, a thick shock head of flax. They clothed him in white garments and burned him with great ceremony.Claes was steeped in melancholy, he blessed not the sky that was ever blue, nor the swallows that would not depart. For now nobody in Damme was burning charcoal save for cooking, and each having enough did not go to buy from Claes, who had disbursed all his savings to pay for his stock.So, if standing on his doorstep, the coalman felt the tip of his nose grow chilly in some puff of sharpish wind:“Ah!” he would say, “it is my bread coming to me!”But the sharp wind would not continue to blow, and the sky stayed always blue, and the leaves would not fall. And Claes refused to sell his stock at half price to the miser Grypstuiver, the dean of the fishmongers. And soon bread began to lack in the cottage.

November came to Damme and elsewhere, but the winter was tardy. No snow, no rain, nor cold weather; the sun shone from morning to evening without dimming: the children rolled about in the dust of the streets and the highways; at the hour of repose, after supper, the merchants, shopkeepers, goldsmiths, wheelwrights, and artisans came out upon their doorsteps to look on the sky that was always blue, the trees whose leaves were still not falling, thestorks standing up on the ridges of the roofs, and the swallows that had not yet gone away. The roses had flowered thrice, and for the fourth time were in bud; the nights were warm, the nightingale had not ceased to sing.

The folk of Damme said:

“Winter is dead, let us burn winter.”

And they built a giant figure with a bear’s face, a long beard of shavings, a thick shock head of flax. They clothed him in white garments and burned him with great ceremony.

Claes was steeped in melancholy, he blessed not the sky that was ever blue, nor the swallows that would not depart. For now nobody in Damme was burning charcoal save for cooking, and each having enough did not go to buy from Claes, who had disbursed all his savings to pay for his stock.

So, if standing on his doorstep, the coalman felt the tip of his nose grow chilly in some puff of sharpish wind:

“Ah!” he would say, “it is my bread coming to me!”

But the sharp wind would not continue to blow, and the sky stayed always blue, and the leaves would not fall. And Claes refused to sell his stock at half price to the miser Grypstuiver, the dean of the fishmongers. And soon bread began to lack in the cottage.

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