Part 2

"Whatever is the matter with you, my man?" she asked him. "You are pale, and you look angry and distracted."

Claes answered her in a low voice, like a dog growling.

"The Emperor is about to reissue those cursed placards. Death once again is hovering over the land of Flanders. The Informers are to have one half of the property of their victims, if so be that such property does not exceed the value of one hundred florins."

"We are poor," Soetkin said.

"Not poor enough," Claes answered. "Evil folk there are--crows and corpse-devouring vultures--who would as readily denounce us to the Emperor for half a sackful of coal as for half a sackful of florins. What had she, poor old Widow Tanneken that was wife to Sis the tailor, she that was buried alive at Heyst? Nothing but a Latin Bible, three gold florins, and a few household utensils of English pewter. But they were coveted by a neighbour. Then there was Joanna Martens whom they burnt as a witch after she had been thrown into the water, for her body did not sink and they held it for a sign of sorcery. She had a few miserable pieces of furniture and seven gold pieces in a bag, and the Informer wanted his half of them. Alas! I could go on till to-morrow morning giving you instances of the same kind. But to cut a long story short, Mother, life's no longer worth living in Flanders, and all on account of these placards. Soon every night-time the death-cart will be passing through the town, and we shall hear the arid click of bones as the skeletons shake in the wind."

Soetkin said: "You ought not to try and frighten me, my man. The Emperor is the father of Flanders and Brabant, and as such he is endowed with long-suffering, gentleness, patience, and pity."

"He would be obliged to renounce too much if he were all that," Claes answered, "for he has inherited a great amount of confiscated property."

At that very moment the sound of a trumpet was heard, and the clash of the Heralds' cymbals. Claes and Soetkin, carrying Ulenspiegel in their arms by turns, rushed out towards where the sound came from, and with them went a great concourse of people. They came to the Town Hall, in front of which stood the Heralds on horseback, blowing their trumpets and sounding their cymbals, and the Provost with his staff of justice, and the Town Proctor, also on horseback and holding in his hands the Imperial Edict which he was preparing to read out to the assembled multitude.

Claes heard every word, how "that it was once again forbidden to all and sundry to print, read, to possess or to defend, the writings, books or doctrines of Martin Luther, of John Wycliffe, John Hus, Marcilius de Padua, Æcolampadius, Ulricus Zwynglius, Philip Melancthon, Franciscus Lambertus, Joannes Pomeranus, Otto Brunselsius, Justus Jonas, Joannes Puperis, and Gorciamus; as well as any copies of the New Testament printed by Adrien de Berghes, Christophe de Remonda, and Joannes Xel, which books were full of Lutheran and other kinds of heresy, and had been condemned and rejected by the Doctors of Theology at the University of Louvain.

"Likewise and in the same manner it was forbidden to paint, portray or cause to be painted or portrayed any opprobrious paintings or figures of God, or of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or of the saints; or to break, destroy or deface the images or pictures made to the honour, remembrance or recollection of God, the Virgin Mary, or of the saints recognized by the Church.

"Furthermore," said the placard, "no one, whatever his position in life, should presume to discuss or dispute concerning Holy Writ, even in regard to matters admittedly doubtful, unless he were a theologian, well known and approved by some established university.

"His Sacred Majesty decreed, among other penalties, that suspected persons should not be allowed to carry on any honourable occupation. And as for men who had fallen again into error, or who were obstinate in the same, they should be condemned to be burnt by fire, slow or fast, either in a covering of straw, or else bound to a stake, according to the discretion of the judge. Others, if they were men of noble or of gentle birth, were to be executed at the point of the sword, while working people were to be hung, and the women buried alive. Afterwards their heads were to be fixed on the top of poles for an example. The property of all the aforesaid, in so far as it was situate in places subject to confiscation, was to be made over to the benefit of the Emperor.

"To the Informers His Sacred Majesty gave one half of all the property of the dead, provided that such property did not exceed, on any one occasion, a hundred pounds gross in Flemish money. As for the half that went to the Emperor, he would reserve it for works of piety and mercy, as was done in the case of the confiscations at Rome."

And Claes went away sadly, with Soetkin and Ulenspiegel.

IX

Once again did Soetkin bear under her girdle the sign of approaching motherhood; and Katheline also was in a like condition. But she was afraid, and never ventured out of her house.

When Soetkin went to see her, "Alas!" said Katheline, "what shall I do? Must I smother the ill-starred fruit of my womb? I would rather die myself. And yet if the Sergeant summons me for having a child without being married, they will make me pay twenty florins like a girl of no reputation, and I shall be flogged in the Market Square."

Soetkin consoled and comforted her as sweetly as she could, then left her, and returned thoughtfully home.

One day she said to Claes:

"If I brought two children into the world instead of one, would you be angry? Would you beat me, my man?"

"That I cannot say," Claes answered.

"But if the second were not really mine, but turned out to be like this child of Katheline's, the offspring of some one unknown--the devil maybe?"

"Devils beget fire, death, smoke," Claes replied, "but children--no. Yet will I take for my own the child of Katheline."

"You will?" cried Soetkin. "You really will?"

"I have said it," Claes replied.

Soetkin hurried off to tell Katheline the news, who when she heard it could not contain her delight, but cried aloud with joy.

"He has spoken, the good man, and his words are the salvation of my body. He will be blessed by God--and blessed by the devil as well, if really"--and she trembled as she spoke the words--"if really it is the devil who is father to the little one that begins to stir beneath my breast!"

And in due time Soetkin and Katheline brought into the world, the one a baby boy and the other a baby girl. Both were brought to baptism as the children of Claes. Soetkin's son was christened Hans, and did not live. But Katheline's daughter, who was christened Nele, grew up finely.

She drank of the liquor of life from a fourfold flagon. Two of the flagons belonged to Katheline, and two were Soetkin's. And there was many a sweet dispute as to whose turn it was to give the child to drink. But much against her will, Katheline was obliged to let her milk dry up, lest questions should be asked as to where it came from, and she no mother....

But when the little Nele, that was her daughter, was weaned, then Katheline took her home to live with her, nor did she let her go back to Soetkin except when Nele called for her "mother."

The neighbours said that it was a right and natural thing to do for Katheline to look after the child of Claes and Soetkin. For they were needy and poverty-stricken, whereas Katheline was comparatively well off.

X

One day Soetkin said to Claes:

"Husband, I am heart-broken. This is now the third day that Tyl has been away. Know you not where he is?"

Claes answered her sadly:

"He is with all the others, roving vagabonds like himself, on the high road. Verily, it was cruel of God to give us such a son. When he was born I thought of him as the joy of our old age, and as another help in our house, for I hoped to make a good workman of him. But now some evil chance hath turned him into a thief and a good-for-nothing."

"You are too hard on him, my man," said Soetkin. "He is our son, and he is but nine years old, and filled with childish folly. It is needful that he also, like the trees of the field, should let fall his husks by the wayside ere he decks himself with the full foliage of virtue and honesty. He is mischievous; I do not deny it. But later on this spirit of his will be turned to good account, if instead of driving him to tricks and frolics it is put to some useful purpose. He makes fun of the neighbours; true. But one day you will find him take his rightful place in the midst of a circle of gay and happy friends. He is always laughing and frivolous; yes, but a young face that is too serious bodes ill for the future. And if he is always running about, it is because his growing body needs to be exercised; and if he is idle and does no work, it is because he is not yet old enough to feel the duty of labour. And if, now and then, he does stay away from us for half a week at a time, it is only because he fails to realize the grief he causes us; for he has a good heart, husband, and at bottom he loves us."

Claes shook his head and said nothing, and went to sleep, leaving Soetkin to her lonely tears. And she, in the morning, afraid lest her son had fallen sick upon the road, went out and stood at the cottage doorstep to see if he were coming back. But there was no sign of him, and she came back into the cottage, and sat by the window, gazing out all the time into the street. And many a time did her heart dance within her bosom at the light footfall of some urchin that she thought might be her own; but when the sound passed by, and she knew that it was not Ulenspiegel, then she wept, poor mother that she was.

Ulenspiegel, meanwhile, with the fellow-scamps that bore him company, was away at Bruges, at the Saturday market.

There were to be seen the shoemakers and the cobblers, each in his separate stall, the tailors selling suits of clothes, the miesevangers from Antwerp (they that snare tom-tits by night with the aid of an owl); and the poulterers too, and the rascally dog-fanciers, and sellers of catskins that are made into gloves, and of breast-pads and doublets: buyers too of every kind, townsmen and townswomen, valets, servants, pantlers and butlers, and cooks, male and female, all together, buying and selling, each according to his quality shouting his wares, crying up or crying down, with every trick of the trade.

Now in one corner of the market-place stood a wonderful tent made of cloth, raised aloft on four piles. At the door of the tent was a peasant from the level land of Alost, and by his side two monks begged for alms. For the sum of one patard the peasant offered to show to the curious or devout a genuine piece of the shoulder-bone of St. Mary of Egypt. There he was, yelling out in his broken voice the merits of the saint, and not omitting from his song that tale which tells how she, being without money, paid the young ferryman in the beautiful coinage of Nature herself, lest by refusing a workman his due she might be guilty of sin. And all the while the two monks kept nodding their heads, as much as to say that it was Gospel truth that the peasant was speaking. And at their side was a fat, red-faced woman, as lewd-looking as Astarte, blowing a raucous bagpipe, while at her side a young girl sang in a voice sweet as a bird's, though no one heeded her. Now above the door of the tent, and swung between two poles by a cord fastened to either handle, was a tub of Holy Water which the fat woman affirmed had been brought from Rome; and the two monks lolled their heads backwards and forwards in confirmation or what she said. Ulenspiegel, looking at the tub, grew suddenly thoughtful.

For to one of the posts of the tent was tied a donkey--a donkey that to all appearance was wont to feed on hay rather than on oats. For its head was down, and it scanned the earth in futile hopes of seeing but a thistle growing there.

"Comrades," said Ulenspiegel, pointing to the fat old woman, the two monks, and the melancholy donkey, "since the masters play so well, let us also make the donkey dance."

And so saying he went to a stall close by and purchased six liards' worth of pepper. Then he lifted up the tail of the donkey, and placed the pepper underneath it.

When the donkey began to feel the sting of the pepper, he cast his eye backwards under his tail, endeavouring to discover the cause of the unaccustomed heat. Thinking that it must be at the least some fiery devil from hell, the donkey conceived the not unnatural desire to run away and escape him; so he began to bray as loud as he could, and to kick up his heels, and to shake the post with all his strength. At the first shock, the tub hanging between the two poles tipped over, and the holy water ran about over the tent and over those that were inside. And soon the tent itself collapsed, covering with a dripping mantle all those who were listening to the wondrous tale of St. Mary of Egypt. And Ulenspiegel and his comrades could hear a mighty noise issuing from beneath the tent, a noise of moaning and lamentation. For the devout folk that were within began to accuse one another of having overturned the tub, and presently grew red with rage, and fell upon each other with many furious blows. The tent began to bulge here and there above the frantic efforts of the combatants. And each time that Ulenspiegel descried some rounded form outlined through the cloth of the tent, he went and gave it a prick with a pin. This was the signal for new and louder cries, and for fiercer and more general fisticuffs.

Ulenspiegel was delighted, and soon he was to become even more so, when he saw the donkey begin to run away, dragging behind him tent, tub, tent-posts and all, while the master of the tent, with his wife and daughter, hung on behind the baggage. At last the donkey, being able to go no farther, raised his nose in the air, and gave vent to bray after bray, a music that only ceased at those moments when he was looking back under his tail to see if the fire that still raged there would not soon go out.

All this time, the devout assembly in the tent were still a-fighting. But the two monks, without troubling at all about what was going on inside, began to gather up the money that had fallen from the collection-plate, and Ulenspiegel assisted them devotedly, but not without some profit to himself....

XI

Now all this time that the vagabond son of the charcoal-burner was growing up in merriment and mischief, the moody scion of His Sacred Majesty the Emperor was vegetating like a weed in moody melancholy. The Lords and Ladies of the Court used to watch him as he mouched along the rooms and passages of the palace at Valladolid, a frail, pitiful specimen of humanity, with legs that shook and scarce seemed able to support the weight of the big head that was covered with stiff blond hair.

He loved to haunt dark corridors, and he would stay sitting there whole hours together, with his legs stretched out in front of him, hoping that some valet or other might trip over them by mistake; then he would have the fellow flogged; for he took pleasure in listening to his cries under the lash. But he never laughed.

Another day he would select some other corridor in which to lay a similar trap, and once again he would sit himself down with his legs stretched out in front of him. Then one of the Ladies of the Court, mayhap, or one of the Lords or pages, would stumble across him; and if they fell down and hurt themselves, he took delight in their discomfiture. But he never laughed. And if by chance any one knocked against him but did not fall down, he would cry out as if he had been struck. He liked to see the other's fright. But he never laughed.

His Sacred Majesty was informed of these goings-on, and he commanded that no notice should be taken of the child, saying that if his son did not want people to walk over his legs he should not place his legs in a position where they were liable to be walked over. Philip was angry at this, but he said nothing and was no more seen, till one fine summer day when he went out into the courtyard to warm his shivering body in the sun.

Charles, riding back from the war, saw his son thus brewing his melancholy.

"How now?" cried the Emperor. "What a difference there is between us two, my son! At your age I loved nothing better than to go climbing trees after squirrels. Or, with the aid of a rope, to clamber down some steep cliff to take young eagles out of their nests. I might easily have broken my bones at the game; but they only grew the harder. And when I went out hunting, the deer fled into the thickets at sight of me, armed with my trusty arquebus."

"Ah, my Lord Father," sighed the child, "but you see, I have the stomach-ache."

"For that," said Charles, "good wine from Paxarete is a most certain remedy."

"I don't like wine. I have a headache, my Lord Father."

"Then you should run and jump and play about like other children of your age."

"I have stiff legs, my Lord Father."

"And how should it be otherwise," said Charles, "seeing that you make no more use of them than if they were of wood? But you shall go riding on a high-mettled horse."

The child began to cry.

"Oh no, for mercy's sake! I have a pain in my back!"

"Come, come," said Charles, "are you ill everywhere then?"

"I should not be ill at all," answered the child, "if only they would let me alone."

"Do you think to pass your royal life away in dreams like a scholar?" the Emperor asked impatiently. "Such people as that, if indeed it be necessary for the inking of their parchments, may rightly seek out silence, solitude, retirement from the world. But for thee, son of the sword, I would desire warm blood, a lynx's eye, a fox's craft, and the strength of Hercules. Why do you cross yourself? Blood of God! What should a lion's cub be doing with this mimicry of women at their prayers!"

"Hark! It is the Angelus, my Lord Father," answered the child.

XII

May and June that year were in very truth the months of flowers. Never had Flanders known the hawthorn so fragrant, never the gardens so gay with roses, jasmine, and honeysuckle. And when the wind blew eastwards from England it carried with it the breath of all this flowery land, and the people, at Antwerp and elsewhere, sniffed the air joyfully and cried aloud:

"How good the scent of the wind that blows from Flanders!"

Then it was that the bees were busy sucking honey from the flowers, making wax, and laying their eggs within the hives that were all too small to house the swarms. What workman's music they made, under that canopy of azure sky that was spread so dazzlingly over the rich earth!

The hives were made of rushes, straw, osiers or of wattled hay. And there the bees, like clever basket-makers, lined and tunnelled the hives with their beautifully fitting tools. And as for the bread-makers, this long time past their numbers were scarce sufficient for the work they had to do. In a single swarm there would be as many as three thousand bees and two thousand seven hundred drones! The quality of the comb was so exquisite that the Dean of Damme dispatched eleven combs to the Emperor Charles out of gratitude for the new edicts that had revived in Flanders the earlier vigour of the Holy Inquisition. It was Philip, forsooth, that ate them all; but little good did they do him!

But in Flanders, the rascals of the roads, the beggars and vagabonds and all that lazy good-for-nothing crowd who would risk hanging rather than do a day's work, were soon enticed by the taste of the honey to come along and steal their share. And by night they prowled around the hives in gangs. Now Claes had made some hives for the purpose of attracting the wandering swarms of bees, and some of these hives were full already, but there were others that stood empty waiting for the bees. Claes kept watch all night to guard this sugary wealth of his; and when he was tired he asked Ulenspiegel to take his place, the which Ulenspiegel did right willingly.

It was a cold night, and Ulenspiegel to avoid the chill took refuge in one of the hives, curling himself up inside, and looking out from two openings that had been made in the roof of the hive.

Just as he was going off to sleep, he heard a rustle in the bushy hedge near by, and then the voices of two men. They were thieves, no doubt, and peering forth from the openings aforesaid, Ulenspiegel saw that they both had long hair and long beards, which was strange, for a long beard is usually the sign of a nobleman. However, the two men went peering from hive to hive, and coming at last to the one in which Ulenspiegel was hiding, they tried its weight, and then----

"Let us take this one," they said. "It is the heaviest."

Whereupon they slung it up between them, on a couple of poles, and carried it off. Ulenspiegel did not at all fancy being thus carted away in a hive. But the night was clear, and the two thieves marched along with never a word. When they had gone about fifty paces they would stop to take breath, and then set off again. The man in front grumbled angrily all the time at the weight of his burden. And the man behind whined in a querulous fashion. Even so are there always to be found two sorts of idle fellows in this world, those who are angry at having to work, and those who merely whine at having to.

Ulenspiegel, since there seemed nothing else to do, took hold of the hair of the man in front and gave it a pull. And he did the same to the beard of the man at the rear; and to such purpose that the two men soon grew annoyed at what was happening, and Mr. Angry said to Mr. Whining:

"Hi there, stop pulling my hair, you, or else I'll give you such a whack on the head that it'll squash down into your chest, and then you'll be looking out of your two sides like a thief through the prison grille!"

"I should never think of doing such a thing as to pull your hair," said the whiner. "But what are you doing there, pulling at my beard?"

To which Mr. Angry made answer:

"It isn't I that would go hunting for fleas in the wool of a leper!"

"O sir," said the whiner, "for goodness' sake don't go shaking the hive about like this. My poor arms cannot support it any longer."

"I shall shake it out of your arms altogether," said the other. Then unloading himself, he placed the hive upon the ground and fell upon his companion. And so they fought together, the one cursing, and the other crying out for mercy.

Ulenspiegel, hearing the sound of blows, came out from the hive, dragged it behind him into the wood close by, and having placed it where he could find it again, returned to Claes.

And thus you may see what sort of a profit it is that thieves derive from their quarrels.

XIII

As he grew up, Ulenspiegel acquired the habit of wandering about among the fairs and markets of the country-side, and whenever he hit upon a man who played the oboe, the rebec, or the bagpipes, he would offer him a patard for a lesson in the art of making those instruments to sing.