Claes

“ Ulenspiegel answered:
“The ashes of Claes beat against my breast.”
“Ah,” said Mathyssens, “he leads a sadder life than thou, the wretched fishmonger. No man speaks to him, and everyone flees from him, so that he is driven to go among the poor ragamuffins at the Roode Valck to drink his quart of bruinbier by himself. ’Tis a sore punishment.” ”

“ His fishing over, Claes drew in his net and line, and walking across the lock, came to the lad.
“You are he,” said Claes, “whom they call Lamme by baptism and Goedzak for your gentle nature, and you live in the street of the Heron, behind Notre Dame. How comes it, young and well clothed as you are, that you must needs sleep on a public bed?”
“Alas, master coalman,” replied the lad, “at home I have a sister a year younger than I, who beats me with heavy blows for the smallest wrangle. ”

“ Here are hams, marrow-bones, pasties, ortolans, fatted poulets, castrelins, all just as you might find them in the houses of the rich! Bread indeed! Here are casks of beer and kegs of wine! Mad must be the baker who will refuse to give us bread. Verily we will deal at his shop no more!”
“But, my good man!” said Soetkin amazed.
“Nay, listen,” said Claes, “and make the most of your good fortune. For these are the facts. Katheline, it seems, has lately been to Meyborg in Germany, and Nele with her, on a visit to my eldest brother Josse, who dwells there as a hermit. ”

“ Have mercy!” the voice cried again. “I am no wolf. Order the bell to stop ringing. For thus it is that it tolls for the dead. And my wrists are torn by the trap. I am old and I am bleeding. Have mercy! And what is this—this shrill voice of a child awakening all the village? Oh pray, have mercy!” [253]
“I have heard your voice before,” said Ulenspiegel passionately. “You are the fishmonger. The murderer of Claes, the vampire that preys upon poor maids! Have no fear, good mother and father. This is none other than the Dean of the Fishmongers on whose account poor Soetkin died of grief.” ”

“ Ulenspiegel was pensive and now and then would say:
“I’ll make them pay their masses for the dead.”
“What masses, and who will pay?” asked Nele.
Ulenspiegel replied:
“All the deans, curates, clerks, beadles, and other bigwigs high or low that feed us on windy trash. If I were a stout workman, they would have robbed me of the fruit of three years’ toil by making me go pilgrimaging. But it is poor Claes who pays. They shall repay me my three years an hundredfold, and I will chant them as well the mass for their dead money.”
“Alas, Thyl, be prudent: they will burn you alive,” replied Nele. ”

“ One whole year the couple spent in the city of lace, and a little son was born to them, whom they registered in the name of Dirk. The greater opportunities offered to labour and capital in the city on the Scheldt, however, were so evident, that they once more packed up their goods and chattels and resumed their pilgrimage.
Antwerp was already renowned as an Art city—its painters and engravers were of wide world fame; and Pieter Claes Hals, in full possession of certain artistic proclivities of his family, considered that he might more profitably make use of them there. ”

“ Anne set out from her native city of Dusseldorf in the first week in October, 1539, attended by an escort of 400 horse, and the chief personages of the household of her brother, the Duke of Cleves. She arrived, on the 11th of December, on the English frontiers of Calais, and was received by the Lord Lisle, deputy of Calais, the lieutenant of the castle, the knight porter, and the marshal of Calais, and by the cavalry of the garrison, all freshly and gallantly appointed for the occasion, with the men-at-arms in velvet coats and chains of gold, and all the king's archers. ”

“ George floating over Calais. A prophetic intimation of evil oppressed their hearts.
They had lately been brought into close contact with the gallant soldiers of France; they had fought against Montmorency and Coligni; they could appreciate the desperate valour of a Guise!
How would the worn-out and meagre garrison of Calais, defending its crumbling walls, withstand the onslaught of such men?
"Oh, brother," said Geoffrey, as he laid his hand on William's shoulder, "I fear for Calais!"
"And I also," said William.
"And I," said Ralph, and the hearts of the young men were heavy within them. ”

“ Alive there was left but thousands ten.
Our King himself into the Castle yede, And rest him there as long as his will was: At the last he said, "Lords, so God me speed! Towards Calais I think to pass."
After that Harflete was gotten, that royal city, Through the grace of GOD omnipotent; Our comely King made him ready soon, And towards Calais forth he went. "My brother Gloucester veramente Here will we no longer abide! And Cousin of York, this is our intent: With us forth ye shall, this tide! My Cousin Huntingdon with us shall ride; And the Earl of Oxenford with you three! ”

“ It is no wonder that his uncle is in despair and fear, when he sees the head he is carrying off. So all the host pursue him fast, while Cligés leads them on to provoke a fight, until the Saxons see him drawing near. But they, too, are quite misled by the arms with which he has armed and equipped himself. He succeeds in deceiving and mocking them; for the duke and all the rest, when they saw him approaching lance in rest, cried out: "Here comes our knight! On the point of his lance he carries Cligés' head, and the Greeks are hotly pursuing him!" ”

“ Calas? Calas? Why, Calas was a Huguenot. From among the people came a word—one of those idle words for which men shall give account in the Day of Judgment—“These Huguenots have killed their son to prevent him turning Catholic!” The idea was dramatic and pleased. The crowd caught it up. It was the match to the fagot, and the whole bonfire was ablaze at once. ”

“ The next day Frances and I talked it over, and she suggested that as the king and most of the court were about to visit Bath for a season, and as neither she nor I cared to go, we should take the letters to Dover, cross to Calais, and post them in France.
I sprang at the idea, but immediately sprang back, saying: "But it is not entirely proper for us to travel to Calais together, even though you are my sister-cousin."
"We may take father," she suggested. "Sarah wants to visit Lady St. Albans, and she can go if we take father with us. And, Baron Ned; I have another suggestion to offer. ”

“ The King of France looked on this densely armed position with despair, and after vainly challenging King Edward to come out and fight in the open field, he withdrew. The starving people of Calais, who, on seeing the approach of the vast royal host, had hung out their banners on the walls, lighted great bonfires, and sounded all their instruments of martial music for joy, now changed their joyous acclamations into shrieks and groans of despair. ”

“ Henry Clay, son of the sage of Ashland, and the one who fell so gloriously at Buena Vista. In 1861, his two sons, Thomas and Henry Clay, were living at Louisville. One of them, Thomas, became fascinated with the manner and imbued with the ideas of Buckner, and followed him to the Confederacy, and, as it happened, to ruin and to the grave. Henry, the younger brother, a more thoughtful, quiet young man, less enthusiastic, but more persistent than Thomas, joined the Union army, and served, until his early death, on the staff of Gen. Richard W. Johnson. ”

“ Unlovely and unloved, she is almost an object of pity, as with dungeon, rack and fagot she strives to restore the Religion she loves, and to win the husband she adores. But Philip remained obdurately in Spain, and while she was lighting up all England with a blaze of martyrs, Calais, the last English possession in France, was lost. ”

“ S., Miss Wynn, and her brother, for Calais, and, after a very rough passage, arrived at Calais, and found my dear girls quite well [166] and improved in their persons, and (I am told) in their French. I was very much struck with the difference of objects and customs when I reflected how small a space divides one nation from the other, like true English. We saw all we could, and I thought of my dear Lord Harcourt, though not with him, in their churches. ”

“ Clem cried, "for freedom, did you say? For slavery, you mean."
"Sir," said Old Master, "Henry Clay has spoken for the bondman."
[Pg 115]
"But was he honored for it?" Mr. Clem asked. "Do you honor him for it?"
"Clem, if you have come to sow the seeds of abolition, to disgrace my household with the mud brought from your free soil—your sink hole of iniquity—I must request you to go away."
"It is easier to drop a subject than to ride a long distance," Mr. Clem replied with a broad smile. "Got any good horses?"
"Horses native to this land and therefore the best," said Old Master. ”

“ There is something in the perpetual repetition of form in the country round Calais, the endless sameness of its differences, that is peculiarly oppressive. Pearly skies blotted with paler clouds, endless rows of bare poplars, like the skeletons of dead flames, yellowish roads unwinding for ever, acres of unbroken and sickly green, of new-turned earth of an equally sad brown ... ”

“ The signal flag which the captain ran up to his mast-head was answered by another from the castle, and in a few minutes a boat was seen to start from a little quay which had been built out into the sea at the foot of the cliff. Callias had written a letter to Alcibiades in which he briefly described himself and his errand, and Hippocles, though modestly depreciating the value of any thing that he could say, had also written, at the young man’s request, a letter of introduction. These documents were handed over to the officer in charge of the boat, and conveyed by him to the castle. ”

“ They have given and accepted a truce. The duke's men have returned; and the Greeks without any delay return, each one to his tent. But Cliges remained alone on a hill so that no one noticed him till he saw the twelve coming, and the damsel whom they were taking away at full speed and at a gallop. Cliges, who longs to gain renown, forthwith dashes in their direction, for he thinks to himself, and his heart tells him that it is not for nothing they are fleeing. The very moment that he saw them, he dashes after them; and they see him; but they think and believe a foolish thing. ”

“ Calais recalls the days of Catholic England’s greatest military glory. Every spot of France, Germany, Italy lives again for him in one short space its life of two or three thousand years; for all the events of its history, all the heroes of its glory, are present to his memory and imagination even more than their present phases to his vision to-day. ”

“ But though the citizens of modern Scala no longer possess a bishop in their midst, they are still the proud possessors and jealous guardians of the magnificent mitre presented by Charles of Anjou, who was greatly pleased by the men and money that this ancient town sent to aid his brother, St Louis of France, in his Crusade. ”

“ Efforts have been made by enthusiastic admirers to find for him a noble ancestry in England, but with questionable success. We may content ourselves with saying that the greatness of his name rests entirely upon his own merit. The family from which he sprang emigrated from England not long after the establishment of the colony of Virginia, and settled on the southern side of the James River. His biographers, some of whom wrote under his own supervision, agree in the statement that Henry Clay was born on April 12, 1777, in Hanover County, Virginia, in a neighborhood called the “Slashes.” ”

“ The new inhabitants of the town were substantial citizens of London, and great numbers of agricultural people from the adjoining county of Kent, to whom he gave the surrounding lands. From that day to the reign of Queen Mary, Calais became altogether an English colony. He made it the staple of wool, leather, lead, and tin, the four principal articles which England furnished to the Continent, and where the foreign merchants could come to procure them. Having strengthened the defences of the town, Edward concluded a truce with Philip, which was by degrees extended to six years. ”

“ In good time you shall learn all. But," continued she, "hearken to what I have to say, and, in whatever light you regard me, disregard not the words I now speak. I am an Englishwoman, I have an English heart, and I would fain impart by your agency a warning to England's king, to whom I and mine have been beholden. Let King Edward, I say, beware! or the prize on which he so highly prides himself will escape his grasp. Already treachery is at work. Calais is sold for French gold; and if the king looks not to its security, and that right early, Calais will, ere long, be in the hands of his foes." ”

“ Then, the war went on again, and came by slow degrees to be so badly conducted by the English government, that, within twenty years from the execution of the Maid of Orleans, of all the great French conquests, the town of Calais alone remained in English hands.
While these victories and defeats were taking place in the course of time, many strange things happened at home. The young King, as he grew up, proved to be very unlike his great father, and showed himself a miserable puny creature. ”

“ Clay, though from one of their slave-states (Kentucky) , is, I believe, a liberal-minded man, who understands and who desires the true greatness of his country. Although not properly of the Yankee race—for the Southern states were peopled by that political party, known in England under the name of Cavaliers, and opposed to the Puritans in manners, life, and temper—he has, nevertheless, some of that viking-spirit which distinguishes the sons of the New World. ”