Part 4

The chief merchants of the city with cords round their necks were to appear before him as he sat on his throne, and to make a formal apology. Ghent itself was declared guilty of the most costly crimes--of disloyalty, disregard of treaties, disobedience, sedition, conspiracy, and high treason. The Emperor declared that all and every privilege--rights, customs, freedoms, and usages--all were to be abolished and annulled; and he stipulated for the future too, as though he were God himself, that none of his successors on coming to the throne should ever observe any one of these usages again, except only that which was called the Caroline Concession, as granted by him to the city.

The Abbey of St. Bavon he razed to the ground, and in place he erected a fortress whence he could pierce with bullets and at his ease his mother's very heart. Like a good son that is in a hurry for his inheritance, he confiscated all the riches of Ghent, its revenues, its houses, its artillery and munitions of war. Finding it still too well guarded, he destroyed also the Red Tower, the Tower of the Trou de Crapaud, the Braampoort, the Steenpoort, the Waalpoort, the Ketelpoort, and many another of its gates, all carved as they were and sculptured like jewels in stone.

And afterwards, when strangers came to Ghent, they would ask of one another:

"Can this indeed be Ghent whose marvels were on the lips of all--this city so desolated and brought low?"

And the people of Ghent would make answer:

"Charles the Emperor has been to the city. He has ravished her sacred zone."

And so saying they would be filled with anger and with shame. And from the ruins of the city gates did the Emperor take away the bricks wherewith to build his castle.

For it was his will that Ghent should be utterly impoverished, that thereby he might make it impossible for her ever to oppose his proud designs, either by her labour or her industry or wealth; therefore he condemned her to pay that share of the tax of 400,000 caroluses which she had previously refused him, and in addition 150,000 caroluses down, and 6000 more every year in perpetuity. Moreover, in earlier days the city had lent him money upon which he should have paid interest at the rate of 150 pounds gross annually. But he made himself remit by force the notes of credit, and by paying off his debt in this way he actually enriched himself.

Many and many a time had Ghent cherished him and succoured him, but now he struck her on the breast as it were with a dagger, looking for blood, since it seemed he had not there found milk enough.

Last shame of all, he cast his eye upon the bell that is called Roelandt; and the man who had sounded the alarm thereon, bidding all the citizens to defend the rights of their city, him he had bound and hung to the clapper of the bell. And he had no pity upon Roelandt, the very tongue of his mother, the tongue whereby she spake to all the land of Flanders, Roelandt the proud bell that sings of herself this song:

When I ring there is a fire When I peal there is a storm In the land of Flanders.

And thinking that his mother had too loud a voice he carried away her bell. And the people of the country round would say that Ghent was dead, now that her son had wrenched away her tongue with his pincers of iron.

XX

In those days, which were days of spring, fresh and clear, when all the earth is in love, Soetkin was chatting by the open window, and Claes humming a tune, while Ulenspiegel was dressing up the dog Bibulus Schnouffius in a judge's bonnet. The dog plied his paws as though desirous of passing judgment upon some one, though in reality it was simply his way of trying to get rid of his ungainly head-gear.

All at once, Ulenspiegel shut the window and ran back into the room. Then he jumped upon the chairs and the table, reaching up towards the ceiling with his hands. Soetkin and Claes soon discovered the cause of this mad behaviour, for there was a tiny little bird, chirruping with fear, and cowering against a beam in the recess of the ceiling, and Ulenspiegel was trying to catch it. He had almost succeeded when Claes spoke out briskly and asked him:

"Why are you jumping about like this?"

"To catch the bird," answered Ulenspiegel, "and put him in a cage, and feed him with seeds, and make him sing for me."

Meantime the bird, crying in an agony of terror, flew back into the room, striking its head against the window-pane. Still Ulenspiegel went on trying to catch it, but suddenly the hand of Claes came down heavily upon his shoulder.

"Catch the bird if you can," said he, "put it in a cage, make it sing for your pleasure; but I also will put you in a cage that is fastened with strong bars of iron, and I will make you sing too. Then you, who like nothing better than to run about, will be able to do so no more; and you will be kept standing in the shade when you are chilly, and in the sun when you are hot. And, one Sunday, we shall all go out and forget to give you your food, and we shall not return again till Thursday, and then maybe we shall find our Tyl all stiff and starved to death."

Soetkin was crying at this picture, but Ulenspiegel started forward.

"What are you going to do?" asked Claes.

"Open the window for the bird to fly out," he answered.

And in fact the bird, which was a goldfinch, flew straight out through the window, and with a cry of joy mounted up into the air like an arrow, and then alighted upon a neighbouring apple-tree, smoothing its wings with its beak, ruffling its plumage. And all kinds of abuse did it sing in its bird language, all directed against Ulenspiegel.

Then Claes said:

"O son of mine, take care that you never take away its liberty from either man or beast, for liberty is the greatest good in the world. Let every one be free, free to go out into the sun when it is cold, and into the shade when it is hot. And let God give judgment on His Sacred Majesty, he who, not content with denying freedom of belief to the people of Flanders, has now put all the noble city of Ghent into a cage of slavery."

XXI

Now Philip was married to Marie of Portugal, and with her he acquired her lands for the crown of Spain; and together they had a son, Don Carlos, he who was afterwards called "the mad" and "the cruel." And Philip had no love for his wife.

The Queen was lying-in. She kept her bed, and by her side were the maids of honour, the Duchess of Alba among them.

Oftentimes did Philip leave his wife to go and see the burning of heretics. And all the gentlemen and ladies of the Court did likewise. And thus also did the Duchess of Alba and the other noble ladies whose duty it was to watch by the Queen in her childbed.

Now at that time the ecclesiastical judges had seized a certain sculptor of Flanders, a good Roman Catholic, on the following charge: He had been commissioned, it seems, by a certain monk to carve a wooden statue of Our Lady for a certain sum, and on the monk refusing to pay the price which had been agreed between them, the sculptor had slashed at the face of the image with his chisel, saying that he would rather destroy his work than let it go at the price of a piece of dirt.

He was straightway denounced by the monk as an iconoclast, tortured most piteously and condemned to be burnt alive. During the torture they had scalded the soles of his feet, so that he cried out as he passed along from the prison to the stake: "Cut my feet off! For God's sake cut my feet off!"

And Philip, hearing these cries from afar, was glad, though smiled he never a smile.

Queen Marie's dames of honour all left her, wishing to be present at the burning, and the last of all to desert her was the said Duchess of Alba, who, hearing the cries of the sculptor, could not forbear to witness the spectacle.

So, in the presence of King Philip and of his lords, princes, counts, equerries, and ladies, the sculptor was bound to the stake by a long chain. And all round the stake was a circle of flaming bundles of straw and fiery torches, the idea being that if he wished, the sculptor could be roasted very gently by keeping close to the stake in the centre of the circle, thus avoiding the full rigour of the fire.

And right curiously did they watch him, naked or almost naked as he was, and trying to stiffen his resolution against the heat of the fire.

Meanwhile Queen Marie was stricken with a great thirst, lying there alone on her bed of childbirth. And seeing the half of a melon on a plate, she dragged herself out of bed, and took hold of the melon and ate it all. But thereafter the cold substance of the melon made her to sweat and to shiver, and she lay upon the floor unable to move.

"Alas!" she cried, "would that there were some one to carry me back into bed that I might get warm again!"

Then it was that she heard the cry of the poor sculptor:

"Cut off my feet! Cut off my feet!"

"Ah!" said the Queen, "is that some dog or other baying at my death?"

It was at this very moment that the sculptor, seeing around him none but the faces of Spaniards, his enemies, bethought him of Flanders, the land of valorous men, and he crossed his arms on his breast, and dragging the long chain behind him, walked straight towards the outer circle of the straw and the flaming torches. And standing upright there, still with his arms crossed:

"This," cried he, "this is how the men of Flanders can die in the face of the tyrants of Spain. Cut off their feet--not mine--that they may be able no more to run into the way of crime. Flanders for ever! Flanders for ever!"

And the ladies clapped their hands, crying him mercy for the sake of his proud look.

And he died.

And Queen Marie shook all over her body, and she cried out, her teeth chattering together with the chill of approaching death. And her arms and legs grew stiff, and she said:

"Put me back into my bed that I may be warmed."

So she died.

And thus it was, according to the prophecy of Katheline the good sorceress, that Philip the King sowed everywhere he went the seeds of death, and blood, and tears.

XXII

But Ulenspiegel and Nele loved each other, and their love was true.

It was now the end of April. All the trees were in bloom, and every plant was swollen with sap, for May was near, the month of the peacock, flowered like a bouquet, the month that sends the nightingales singing aloud in the trees of all the earth.

Oftentimes would Nele and Ulenspiegel wander together along the roads. Nele would lean on the arm of Ulenspiegel, and hang round him with her two hands. Ulenspiegel loved this little game, and often did he pass his arm about Nele's waist, to hold her the better, as he said. And she was happy, but spake not a word.

Softly along the roads blew the wind, wafting the scent from the fields; the sea boomed in the distance, rocking lazily in the sun; Ulenspiegel seemed like some youthful devil, all pride; and Nele like a little saint from Paradise, half shy of her happiness.

She leant her head against Ulenspiegel's shoulder, and her hand was in his, and as they passed along he kissed her forehead, and her cheek, and her sweet lips. But still she spake no word.

After some hours they grew hot and thirsty, and they drank milk at the house of a peasant; and yet they were not refreshed. Then they sat them down on the grass by the side of the ditch, and Nele seemed pale and pensive, and Ulenspiegel looked at her, afraid that something was amiss.

"You are unhappy?" said she.

"Yes," he admitted.

"But why?" she asked him.

"I know not," said he. "But these apple-trees and cherry-trees all in flower, this air so warm that one would say it was charged with lightning, these daisies that open their blushing petals to the fields, and oh, the hawthorn, there, close by us in the hedge, all white.... Will no one tell me why it is that I feel troubled, and always ready to die or to go to sleep? And my heart beats so strangely when I hear the birds awaken in the trees, and when I see the swallows coming home! Then I am fain to go away beyond the sun and beyond the moon. And sometimes I am cold, and then again I am hot. Ah, Nele! would that I were no longer a creature of this low world! Verily I would give my life a thousand times to her that would love me!"

Yet Nele spake not at all, but smiling at her ease sat looking at Ulenspiegel.

XXIII

One Day of All Souls, Ulenspiegel went forth from Notre Dame with certain other vagabonds of his own age. Among them was Lamme Goedzak, who seemed strayed among them like a lamb in the midst of a herd of wolves. Lamme treated them with drinks all round, for his mother, as her custom was on Sundays and feast days, had given him three patards.

So he went with his companions to the tavern In dem Rooden Schildt--at the sign of the Red Shield. Jan van Liebeke kept the house, and he served them with dobbel knollaert from Courtrai.

They began to be warmed with the drink, and the talk turned on the subject of prayer, and Ulenspiegel declared quite openly that, for his part, he thought that Masses for the dead did nobody any good, except the priests who said them.

Now in that company there was a Judas, who went and denounced Ulenspiegel for a heretic. And in spite of the tears of Soetkin, and the entreaties of Claes, Ulenspiegel was seized and taken prisoner. He remained shut up in a cellar for the space of a month and three days without seeing a soul. The jailor himself consumed three-quarters of the ration that was given him for food.

During all this time the authorities were informing themselves as to Ulenspiegel's reputation--whether it was good or whether it was bad. They found that there was not much to be said against him except that he was a lively sort of customer, always railing against his neighbours. But they could not find that he had ever spoken evil of Our Lord God, or of Madame the Virgin, nor yet of the Saints. On this account the sentence passed on him was a light one, for he might easily have been condemned to have his face branded with a hot iron and to be flogged till the blood flowed. But in consideration of his youth, the judges merely sentenced him to walk in his shirt behind the priests barefoot and hatless, and holding a candle in his hand. And this he was to do on the Feast of the Ascension, in the first procession that left the church.

So it was done, and when the procession was on the point of turning back, Ulenspiegel was made to stop beneath the porch of Notre Dame, and there cry out aloud:

"Thanks be to our Lord Jesus! Thanks be to the reverend priests! Sweet are their prayers unto the souls in purgatory; nay, they are filled with every virtue of refreshment! For each Ave is even as a bucket of water poured upon the backs of those who are being punished, and every Pater is a tubful!"

And the people heard him with great devotion, and not without a smile.

On Whit-Sunday the same proceeding had to be gone through, and Ulenspiegel followed again in the procession with nothing on but his shirt, and with his head bare, and no shoes on his feet, and holding a candle in his hand. On returning to the church he stood up in the porch, holding the candle most reverently in his hand, and then in a high, clear voice (yet not without sundry waggish grimaces) spake as follows:

"If the prayers of all good Christians are very comforting to the souls in purgatory, how much more so must be those of the Dean of Notre Dame, a holy man and perfect in the performance of every virtue. Verily, his prayers assuage the flames of fire in such wise that they are transformed all of a sudden into ice. But yet be sure that not an atom of it goes to refresh the devils that are in hell."

And again the people hearkened to what he said with great devotion. But some of them smiled, and the Dean smiled too, in his grim ecclesiastical way.

After that, Ulenspiegel was condemned to banishment from the land of Flanders for the space of three years, on condition that he went to Rome on pilgrimage and brought back with him the papal absolution. For this sentence Claes had to pay three florins: but he gave an extra florin to his son, and bought him a pilgrim's habit.

Ulenspiegel was heart-broken when he came to say good-bye to Claes and Soetkin on the day of his departure. He embraced them both, and his mother was all in tears; but she accompanied him far on his way, and Claes went too, and many of the townsmen and townswomen.

When they were home again Claes said to his wife:

"Good wife, it is very hard that such a boy should be condemned to this cruel punishment and all for a few silly words."

"Why, you are crying, my man!" said Soetkin. "Truly, you love him more than you like to show. Yes, you are sobbing now with a man's sobs, sobs that are like unto the tears of a lion."

But he answered her not.

As for Nele, she had gone to hide herself in the barn, so that none might see that she also wept for Ulenspiegel. But she followed afar after Soetkin and Claes and the other townsfolk: and when she saw her lover disappearing in the distance, she ran after him and threw herself on his neck.

"In Italy you will meet many beautiful ladies," she said.

"I do not know about their being beautiful," he replied, "but fresh like thee--no. For they are all parched with the sun."

They walked a long way side by side, and Ulenspiegel seemed thoughtful, muttering from time to time:

"I'll make 'em pay--I'll make 'em pay for their Masses for the dead!"

"What Masses are those you speak of?" Nele inquired. "And who is to pay for them?"

Ulenspiegel answered:

"All the deans, curés, clerks, beadles and the rest, both superior and inferior, who feed us with their trash. See now, if I had happened to be a strong working man they would have robbed me of the value of three years' labour by making me thus to go on this pilgrimage. But as things are, it is the poor Claes who pays. Ah, but they shall give me back my three years a hundredfold, and with their own money I myself will sing for them their Masses for the dead!"

"Alas, Tyl!" said Nele, "be prudent, or they will have you burnt alive."

"I am fireproof," answered Ulenspiegel.

And they parted from one another, she all in tears, he heart-broken and angry.

XXIV

Once in the open country, Ulenspiegel shook himself like a dog, or like a bird that has regained its liberty, and his heart was cheered by the trees and fields and the bright sunshine.

When he had walked on thus for three days he came to the outskirts of Brussels, and to the wealthy township of Uccle. And there, passing in front of the inn with the sign of the Trumpet, his attention was drawn to a most heavenly odour of fricassee. A little urchin who stood by was also sniffing the delightful perfume of the sauce, and Ulenspiegel asked him in whose honour it was that there rose to heaven such odour of festal incense. The boy made answer that the Guild of the Jolly Face was to meet at the inn that evening after vespers, to celebrate the deliverance of the town by the women and girls of olden time.

Now in the distance Ulenspiegel saw a high pole with a popinjay on the top of it, and the pole was set in the ground, and round it were a company of women armed with bows and arrows. He asked the boy if women were become archers nowadays?

The boy, still sniffing greedily the savour of the sauces, replied that in the days of the Good Duke the very bows that were now being used by those women had been the means of killing over a hundred brigands.

Ulenspiegel desired to know further concerning this matter, but the boy said that he could tell no more, so hungry was he, unless forsooth Ulenspiegel would give him a patard with which he might buy food and drink. This Ulenspiegel did, for he felt sorry for him.

No sooner had the boy received the patard than he rushed into the tavern like a fox to the hen-house, and presently reappeared in triumph with half a sausage and a large loaf of bread.

And now Ulenspiegel was suddenly aware of a sweet sound of viols and tabors, and soon he saw a number of women dancing together, and among them a woman of great beauty with a chain of gold hanging round her neck.

The boy, who had by this time assuaged his hunger and was grinning with delight, informed Ulenspiegel that the beautiful woman was the Queen of Archery, that her name was Mietje, and that she was wife to Messire Renonckel, alderman of the parish. Then he asked Ulenspiegel to give him six liards for a drink. Ulenspiegel gave him the money, and when he had thus eaten and drunk his fill the urchin sat himself down in the sun and fell to picking his teeth with his nails.

When the women archers noticed Ulenspiegel standing there in his pilgrim's habit, they came and began to dance round him in a ring, crying:

"Hail pilgrim, hail! Do you come from far away, you handsome pilgrim boy?"

Ulenspiegel, thinking sadly of Nele, thus made answer:

"I come from Flanders, a lovely land and filled with lovesome girls."

"What crime have you committed?" asked the women, stopping in their dance.

"I dare not confess it, so great it was," said he.

They asked him the reason why it was needful for him to journey thus with a pilgrim's staff and wallet, and those scalloped oysters that are the sign of the pilgrim.

"The reason is," he replied, not quite truthfully, "that I said that Masses for the dead are advantageous to the priests."

"True, they bring many a sounding denier to the priests," they answered; "but are they not also of advantage to the souls in purgatory!"

"I have never been there," answered Ulenspiegel.

"Will you come dine with us?" said the prettiest of the archers.

"Willingly would I dine with you," said he, "and dine off you into the bargain! You and all your companions in turn, for you are morsels fit for a king, more delicate to swallow than any ortolan or thrush or snipe!"

"Nay," they answered, "but we are not for sale."

"Then perhaps you will give?" he asked them.

"Yea, verily," they laughed, "a good box on the ear to such as are too bold. And if needs were we would beat you now like a bundle of corn!"

"Thank you," he said, "I will go without the beating."

"Well then," they said, "come in to dinner."

So he followed them into the inn yard, glad for their fresh young faces. And thereafter he saw the Brethren of the Jolly Face themselves, who were now entering the yard with great ceremony, and by their own jolly appearance living up most conspicuously to the name of their Guild.

They scrutinized Ulenspiegel with some curiosity, till one of the women informed them who he was--a pilgrim they had picked up on the road, and whom, being a good red-face like unto their husbands and their sweethearts, they had invited to share in the entertainment. The men were agreeable to this proposal, and one of them addressed himself to Ulenspiegel:

"Pilgrim on pilgrimage, what say you now to continuing your pilgrimage across some sauce and fricassee?"

"I shall have need of my seven-league boots," answered Ulenspiegel.

Now as he was following them into the festal hall, he noticed twelve blind men coming along the Paris road. And as they passed they were lamenting most piteously their hunger and thirst. But Ulenspiegel said to himself that they should dine that night like kings, and all at the expense of the Dean of Uccle himself, and in memory of the Masses for the dead.

He accosted them, saying:

"Here are nine florins for you. Come in to dinner. Do you not smell the good smell of fricassee?"

"Ah!" they cried, "for the last half-league, and without hope!"

"Now you can eat your fill," said Ulenspiegel, "for you have nine florins."

But he had not really given them anything.