Charles de Coster

“ Ulenspiegel replied:
“The ashes beat upon my heart. Thou makest the hour of God to strike.”
“And,” said Lamme, “the hour of food in like wise. Give me twenty lads, valiant soldiers and sailors; I will go and seek out the traitor.”
“I will be their leader,” said Ulenspiegel. “Who loves justice let him follow me. Not all of you, dear friends and trusty; there must be twenty only, else who would keep the ship? Draw lots by the dice. Ye are twenty, come. The dice speak well. Put your skates on your feet and glide towards the star of Venus burning bright above the treachour’s farm. ”

“ One day in the month of August, a hot and heavy day, Lamme was plunged in melancholy. His jolly drum was dumb and sleeping, and he had thrust the drumsticks into the mouth of his satchel. Ulenspiegel and Nele, smiling with amorous delight, were warming themselves in the sun: the look-out men stationed in the tops were whistling or singing, searching over the wide ocean if they could not see some prey on the horizon. ”

“ Haarlem is the town of hardy hearts, of brave women. Undaunted she sees, from her topmost towers, the black masses of the butchers undulating like troops of ants: Ulenspiegel, Lamme, and a hundred sea Beggars are within her walls. Their fleet is cruising in the lake.”
“Let them come!” say the inhabitants; “we are but citizens, fishermen, sailors, and women.
“The son of the Duke of Alba wanteth, he declares, no other keys to come into our house than his cannon. Let him open, if he can, these weak gates; he will find men behind them. ”

“ Those who were tired of killing violated some girl or some woman; drank, played dice, and tossing over piles of gold, the fruit of pillage, dabbled their red fingers in it. [262]
The Seven, crowned with stars, cried: “Pity for the poor world!”
And the phantoms grinned with laughter. And their voices were as the voices of a thousand sea-eagles crying together. And Death brandished his scythe.
“Dost thou hear them?” said Ulenspiegel; “they are the birds of prey of poor mankind. They live on small birds, which are the simple and the good.” ”

“ Ulenspiegel bent up his back, and scratching at it, whined:
“Glorious saint, take pity. It is chastisement. I feel between my shoulder bones a bitter agony. Alas! O! O! Pardon, Master Saint Remacle. Go, pilgrim, go, leave me here alone, like a parricide, to weep and to repent.” [24]
But the pilgrim had fled away as far as the Great Square of Bouillon, where all the hunchbacks were gathered.
There, shivering with fear, he told them, speaking brokenly:
“Met a pilgrim as straight as a poplar ... a blaspheming pilgrim ... hump on his back ... a burning hump!” ”

“ Ulenspiegel went up and saw nothing but the monk. And he, catching sight of Ulenspiegel, fell upon his knees, with his hands outstretched to him.
“Messire Captain,” said he, “captain of the valiant Beggars, redoubtable on land and on sea, your soldiers are fain to hang me because I have transgressed with my tongue: ’tis an unjust punishment, Messire Captain, for so must all advocates, procurators, preachers, and women, be given a hempen collar, and the world would be unpeopled; Messire, save me from the rope. I shall pray for you; you will never be damned: grant me pardon. ”

“ If now thy heart bleeds, murderer, there are fifteen years through which ours have been bleeding; fifteen years that Katheline suffers; fifteen years she had her brain in her head burned by thee; fifteen years that Soetkin is dead by consequence of the torture; fifteen years that we are needy, ragged, and live in abject want, but proudly. Read the paper, read the paper! The judges are God upon earth, for they are Justice; read the paper!”
“Read the paper!” cried the men and women, weeping. “Nele is a brave lass! read the paper! Katheline is no witch!” ”

“ And Ulenspiegel said to him:
“Thou art growing thin, my son.”
“Aye,” said Lamme, “I am woebegone and thin. My heart loses its gaiety and my jolly face its freshness. Aye, laugh at me, ye that have found one another again through a thousand perils. Mock you at poor Lamme, who lives a widower, being married, while she,” said he, pointing to Nele, “must needs tear her man away from the kisses of the rope, his last lover. She did well, God be praised; but let her not laugh at me. Aye, thou must not laugh at poor Lamme, Nele, my dear. My wife laughs enough for ten. ”

“ Ulenspiegel being at Meulestee with Lamme, under a tree, found himself full of weary lassitude. It was cold although the month was June. From the skies, laden with gray clouds, there fell a fine hail.
“My son,” said Lamme, “you are for the past four nights shamelessly running wild, gadding after the bona robas, you go to sleep in de Zoeten Inval, at the Sweet Fall; you will do like the man on the sign, falling head foremost into a hive of bees. Vainly do I wait for you in de Zwaen, and I draw evil forebodings from this liquorish living. Why do you not take a wife virtuously?” ”

“ And clad in velvet, in brocade, in silk, in cloth of gold and of silver, such as abbots wear at solemn masses, bearing mitre and crozier, drinking the monks’ wine, the Beggars kept guard on their ships.
And it was a strange sight to behold appearing from out of these rich vestments those coarse hands that held arquebus or arbalest, halberd or pike, and all men of hard physiognomy, girt about with pistols and cutlasses gleaming in the sun, and drinking from golden chalices the abbots’ wine that had become the wine of liberty. ”

“ Roaring sea, sky that dost make thee black as the mouth of hell, waves with the fire foam running along the sombre water, shaking impatient, wrathful, ye animals innumerable of fire, oxen, sheep, horses, serpents that wallow upon the sea or rise up into the air, belching out a flaming rain, O sea all black, sky black with mourning, come with me to fight against the weer-wolf, the foul murderer of little girls. And thou, wind that wailest plaintively in the bents on the dunes and in the cordage of the ships, thou art the voice of the victims crying out for vengeance to God ”

“ And the will-o’-the-wisps said:
“The fire, ’tis we, vengeance for the bygone tears, the woes of the people; vengeance for the lords that hunted human game upon their lands; vengeance for the fruitless battles, the blood spilt in prisons, men burned and women and girls buried alive; vengeance for the fettered and bleeding past. The fire, ’tis we: we are the souls of the dead.”
At these words the Seven were changed to wooden statues, while keeping every point of their former shape.
And a voice said:
“Ulenspiegel, burn the wood.” ”

“ Having emptied the farm, the Beggars departed skating towards the ships, those light dwelling places of freedom.
“Master cook am I,” said Lamme, guiding them; “Master cook am I. Push along the gallant sledges laden with wines and beer; drive on before you, by their horns, or by anything, horses, oxen, swine, sheep, and flocks singing their native songs. The pigeons coo in the baskets; the capons, stuffed with crumb, are astonied in their wooden cages wherein they cannot budge. I am master cook. The ice cries out beneath the steel of the skates. ”

“ They were set facing each other, Riesencraft on his horse barded with iron, Ulenspiegel on his donkey barded with bacon.
Ulenspiegel came forward into the middle of the field of combat. There, holding his besom like a lance:
“I deem,” said he, “fouler and more stinking than plague, leprosy, and death, this vermin brood of ill fellows who, in a camp of old soldiers and boon companions, have no other thought than to carry round everywhere their scowling faces and their mouths foaming with anger. Wherever they may be, laughter dares not show itself, and songs are silent. ”

“ And Lamme went back to Ulenspiegel, to whom he said, towards noon:
“I am a prophet already; the sky grows black, the wind breathes stormily: a warm rain is falling; already there is a foot of water upon the ice.”
At night he cried, rejoicing:
“The North Sea is swollen: ’tis the hour of the flood tide; the high waves rolling into the Zuyderzee break up the ice, which splinters in great fragments and leaps up on the ships; it flashes sparkles of light; here comes the hail. The admiral bids us to withdraw from before Amsterdam, and that with as much water as our greatest ship can draw. ”

“ Suddenly the weer-wolf spake and said:
“Have pity upon me, pity, Ulenspiegel.”
“The wolf talks,” said they, crossing themselves. “He is a devil and he knows Ulenspiegel’s name already.”
“Have pity, pity,” said the voice, “bid the bell be quiet; it is ringing for the dead; pity, I am no wolf. My wrists are pierced by the engine; I am old and I bleed; pity! What is this shrill boy’s voice awaking the village? Pity!”
“I heard thy voice of old,” said Ulenspiegel, vehemently. “Thou art the fishmonger, the murderer of Claes, the vampire of the poor little young girls. Men and women, have no fear. ”

“ To-morrow to the rich in florins! To-day to the rich in love!” the meesevangers replied: “Florins we have and love as well; to us then the light ladies. He that draws back is a capon. These are tits, and we are sportsmen. Rescue! Brabant for the good duke!”
But the women said, laughing loudly: “Fie! the ugly muzzles that think to eat us! ’Tis not to swine that men give sherbets. We take whom we please and do not want you. Barrels of oil, bags of lard, thin nails, rusty blades, you stink of sweat and mud. Get out of here; you will be well and duly damned without our help.” ”

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

“ The servants would have picked up the pieces; he did not allow them, and drinking out of the flasks immoderately, he became more and more angry, striding about and crushing the bits and trampling on them furiously.
Ulenspiegel was brought before him.
“Well!” said he, “dost thou bring tidings of thy friends the monks?”
“They are hanged,” said Ulenspiegel; “and a cowardly executioner, killing them for hire, opened the belly and sides of one of them after death, like a disembowelled pig, to sell the fat to an apothecary. Word of a soldier is no longer word of gold.” ”

“ Messire de Lumey came thither also on horseback, wishing himself to give the signal for the execution.
He looked with no mildness upon Ulenspiegel on the ladder, arrayed for death, in his shirt, his arms tied to his body, his hands folded, the rope about his neck, and the executioner ready to do his work.
Tres-Long said to him:
“Monseigneur, pardon him; he is no traitor, and no one ever saw a man hanged because he was sincere and merciful.”
And the men and women of the people, hearing Tres-Long speak, cried: “Pity, Monseigneur, grace and pity for Ulenspiegel.” ”

“ Might she not, if her black husband had so bidden her, have put animals to death; turned the butter in the churn by throwing sugar in it; been present in the body at all the worship and homage to the devil, dance, abominations, and copulations of sorcerers? Might she not have eaten human flesh, killed children to make pasties of them and sell them, as did a pastry cook in Paris; cut off the thighs of hanged men and carry them away to bite into them raw and thus commit infamous robbery and sacrilege? ”