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, the storks 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.

XLV

But King Philip was not hungry, and ate pastries by the side of his wife, ugly Mary, of the royal house of the Tudors. He did not love her for love, but hoped by begetting a child on this miserable creature to give the English nation a Spanish monarch.

He loathed this union which was a union of a paving stone and of a burning coal. Still, they were sufficiently united to have poor Protestants burned and drowned by hundreds.

When Philip was not away from London, or slipped out in disguise to wallow in some evil haunt, the bedtime hour brought the wedded pair together.

Then Queen Mary, attired in fine linen of Tournai and Irish lace, would lie down supine upon the nuptial couch, while Philip would stand before her rigid as a post, and look if he could not see in his wife some sign or symptom of motherhood; but seeing none he was wroth, said no word, and stared at his nails.

Then the barren ghoul spoke tenderly and with her eyes, which she sought to make soft, begged the frosty Philip for love. Tears, cries, entreaties, she spared nothing to win a lukewarm caress from him who loved her not at all.

Vainly, joining her hands, she dragged herself at his feet; in vain, like a woman out of her wits, she wept and laughed together to soften him; nor the laugh nor the tears melted the stone of that hard heart.

In vain, like an amorous snake, she coiled her thin arms about him and clasped against her flat breast the narrow cage in which dwelt the stunted soul of the bloody king; he budged no more than if he had been stock or stone.

She tried, poor ugly thing, to make herself alluring; she called him by all the sweet names that women wild with love give the lover of their choice; Philip still stared at his nails.

Sometimes he answered:

“Will you not have any children?”

At that word, Mary’s head fell forward on her breast.

“Is it my fault,” said she, “if I am barren? Take pity upon me, I live a widow’s life.”

“Why have you no children?” said Philip.

Then the Queen fell on the carpet like one smitten with death. And in her eyes were only tears, and she would have wept blood, if she had been able, the poor ghoul.

And in this wise God avenged upon their murderers the victims with which they had strewn the soil of England.

XLVI

The rumour ran among the people that the Emperor Charles was minded to take away from the monks the free heirship of all who died in their convents, which mightily displeased the Pope.

Ulenspiegel being then upon the banks of the Meuse thought that the Emperor thus reaped his profit on all sides, since he was the heir when the family did not inherit. He sate him down on the bank of the river and cast into it a well-baited line. Then munching an ancient piece of brown bread, he regretted that he had no wine of Romagna to wash it down withal, but he bethought him that a man cannot always have his comforts.

However, he tossed some of his bread into the water, saying that he who eats without sharing his meal with his neighbour is not worthy to have victual to eat.

Up came a gudgeon, that first came to nose at a crumb, licked it all about and opened up his innocent mouth, believing, doubtless, that the bread would fall into it of its own accord. While he was thus gazing into the air, he was all at once gulped down by a treacherous pike that darted out on him like an arrow.

The pike did the same to a carp that was catching flies in their flight, heedless of any danger. Being thus nobly replete, he remained motionless and still, dilly-dallying, scorning the small fry that in any case made haste to flee from his presence with all their fins. While he was basking in this fashion, upon him came swift, voracious jaws agape, a fasting pike that with one bound hurled himself upon him. A fierce battle was joined between them: undying jaw strokes were given and taken; the water ran red with their blood. The pike that had dined could ill defend himself against the pike that was fasting; and the latter having hauled off, returned with a rush and flung himself like a bullet on his adversary, who, awaiting him with wide-open jaws, swallowed his head half way, and would fain have got rid of it again, but could not because of his backward slanting teeth. And both thrashed about miserably.

Thus interlocked together, they saw not a stout hook that, fastened to a silk twine, rose up from the bottom of the water, sank deep in under the fin of the pike that had dined, drew him out of the water with his adversary, and cast them both rudely on the grass together.

Ulenspiegel, as he killed them, said:

“Pikes, my dears, would you two be the Pope and the Emperor devouring each the other, and would not I be the people who in God’s hour seize you on the hook, both of you amid your battles?”

XLVII

Meanwhile Katheline, who had not left Borgerhout, never ceased from wandering through the outskirts of the place, still saying: “Hanske, my man, they have made a fire upon my head: make a hole in it that my soul may win out. Alas! it beats ever against it and with every blow it is a cruel pang.”

And Nele tended her in her madness, and by her side thought sadly of her friend Ulenspiegel.

And at Damme Claes tied his faggots, sold his charcoal, and many times fell into melancholy, thinking that the banished Ulenspiegel could not for long and long come back to their cottage.

Soetkin stayed all day long at the window, looking if she would not see her son Ulenspiegel coming.

The latter, being arrived in the neighbourhood of Cologne, thought that for the moment he had a fancy for gardening.

He went and offered himself as servant to Jan of Zuursmoel, who being a captain of landsknechts, had narrowly escaped hanging in default of ransom and had an utter horror of hemp, which in the Fleming tongue was then called kennip.

One day, Jan of Zuursmoel, wishing to show Ulenspiegel his tasks, brought him to the end of his garden and there they saw a cantle of land, next to the garden, all planted over with green kennip.

Jan of Zuursmoel said to Ulenspiegel:

“Every time you see this ugly plant, you must entreat it shamefully, for this it is that serveth for rack and gallows.”

“I will shamefully entreat it,” replied Ulenspiegel.

Jan of Zuursmoel being one day at table with certain gourmand friends of his, the cook said to Ulenspiegel:

“Go to the cellar and get some zennip,” which is mustard.

Ulenspiegel, cunningly taking it kennip instead of zennip, foully and shamefully entreated the pot of zennip in the cellar and came back to put it on the table, not without laughing.

“Why are you laughing?” asked Jan of Zuursmoel. “Do you think that our nostrils are made of brass? Eat of this zennip, since it is you that dressed it yourself.”

“I like better things grilled with cinnamon,” answered Ulenspiegel.

Jan of Zuursmoel got up to beat him.

“There is,” said he, “foulness in this pot of mustard.”

“Baes,” said Ulenspiegel, “have you no mind of the day when I went at your heels to the far end of your garden? There, you bade me, showing the zennip: ‘Everywhere you see that plant, entreat it foully, for this it is that serveth for rack and gallows.’ I did entreat it so, baes, I did entreat it shamefully with great affronting; do not now go to murder me for my obedience.”

“I said kennip and not zennip,” shouted Jan of Zuursmoel in a fury.

“Baes, you said zennip and not kennip,” retorted Ulenspiegel.

Thus they argued loud and long, Ulenspiegel speaking humbly, Jan of Zuursmoel screaming like an eagle and mixing up zennip, kennip, kemp, zemp, zemp, kemp, zemp, like a skein of ravelled silk.

And the guests laughed like devils eating cutlets of Dominican friars and inquisitors’ kidneys.

But Ulenspiegel must needs leave Jan of Zuursmoel.

XLVIII

Nele was still always miserable for the sake of herself and her witless mother.

Ulenspiegel hired himself to a tailor who said to him:

“When you sew, sew close, so that I can see nothing.”

Ulenspiegel went and sat under a cask and there began to sew.

“That is not what I mean,” cried the tailor.

“I am close in a cask; how do you think any one can see in it?” answered Ulenspiegel.

“Come,” said the tailor, “take your seat there on the table and make your stitches close one to the other and make the coat like this wolf– ” wolf was the name of a peasant’s jerkin.

Ulenspiegel took the jerkin, cut it in pieces and sewed it so as to give it the semblance and shape of a wolf.

The tailor, seeing this, cried out:

“What have you made, in the devil’s name?”

“A wolf,” replied Ulenspiegel.

“Evil mocker,” said the tailor, “I had told you a wolf, it is true, but you know that wolf is said of a peasant’s jerkin.”

Sometime after he said:

“Boy, cast these sleeves on to this doublet before you go to your bed.”

Ulenspiegel hung up the doublet on a nail and spent the whole night throwing the sleeves at it.

The tailor came down to the noise.

“Good-for-naught,” said he, “what new ill trick are you playing me now?”

“Is that an ill trick?” answered Ulenspiegel. “See those sleeves, I have thrown them all night long against the doublet, and they don’t stick to it yet.”

“That is natural,” said the tailor. “And that is why I am throwing you out into the street: see if you will stick there better than the sleeves did.”

XLIX

Meanwhile Nele, when Katheline was in the house of some kindly neighbour, and well looked after, Nele used to go far far afield, all alone, as far as Antwerp, all along by the Scheldt or elsewhere, ever seeking, both on the river banks and on the dusty highways, if she could not see her friend Ulenspiegel.

One fair-day, being at Hamburg, he saw merchants everywhere, and among them certain old Jews living on usury and old clothes.

Ulenspiegel, desiring to be a merchant, too, saw lying on the ground some lumps of horse dung and brought them to his lodging, which was a bastion of the rampart wall. There he dried them, and then bought red silk and green silk and made little bags with them, and put the horse dung in the bags and tied them with ribbon, as if they had been full of musk.

Then with some pieces of board he made himself a pedlar’s tray, hung it about his neck by means of old cords and came into the market, carrying in front of him his tray filled with these sachets. In the evening to light them up he had a little candle burning in their midst.

When any came and asked him what he had for sale, he would reply mysteriously:

“I will tell you, but let us not speak too loud.”

“What is it then?” the customers would say.

“These,” Ulenspiegel replied, “are prophetical seeds, fetched straight from Araby into Flanders, and prepared with mighty art by the master Abdul-Médil of the kin of the great Mahomet.”

Certain customers would say one to another:

“He is a Turk.”

But the others:

“This is a pilgrim coming out of Flanders,” they would say; “do you not hear it by his speech?”

And the ragged, lousy, wretched poor folk came to Ulenspiegel and said to him:

“Give us of these prophetical seeds?”

“When you have florins to buy them,” answered Ulenspiegel. And the poor, ragged, lousy, wretched went away sorrowful, saying:

“There is no content in this world but for the rich.”

The tale of these seeds for sale was soon spread abroad in the market. The citizens said one to another:

“There is a Flanders man there that hath prophetical seeds blessed at Jerusalem upon the tomb of Our Lord Jesus, but they say he has no mind to sell them.”

And all the good citizens came to Ulenspiegel and asked him for his seeds.

But Ulenspiegel, who meant to have great profits, answered that they were not as yet ripened sufficiently, and he had an eye upon two rich Jews that went wandering about the market.

“I would fain know,” said one of the citizens, “what will come of my ship that is on the sea.”

“It will go as far as heaven, if the waves are high enough,” said Ulenspiegel.

Another said, showing him his pretty daughter, all full of blushes:

“This one will doubtless turn out well?”

“Everything turns to what nature will have,” replied Ulenspiegel, for he had just seen the girl give a key to a young man who, puffed up with content, said to Ulenspiegel:

“Master merchant, give me one of your prophesying bags, that I may see whether I shall sleep alone to-night.”

“It is written,” replied Ulenspiegel, “that he who soweth the rye of seduction reaps the ergot of cuckoldom.”

The young man became wrathful.

“What are you talking about?” said he.

“The seeds say,” replied Ulenspiegel, “that they wish thee a happy marriage and a wife that will not bring thee Vulcan’s hat. Dost thou know that headgear?”

Then declaiming like a preacher:

“For she,” said he, “that giveth earnest upon the marriage bargain leaves afterwards the whole merchandise to others for nothing.”

Hereupon the girl, wishing to pretend assurance:

“Is all that to be seen in the prophesying sachets?”

“There is a key to be seen there also,” said Ulenspiegel low in her ear.

But the young man had gone already with the key.

Suddenly Ulenspiegel perceived a thief sneaking from a pork butcher’s stall a sausage an ell long and putting it under his cloak. But the merchant saw him not. The thief, full of glee, came to Ulenspiegel and said to him:

“What are you selling there, prophet of ill?”

“Sachets wherein you shall see that you will be hanged for loving sausage overly much,” replied Ulenspiegel.

At that word the thief fled swiftly, while the robbed merchant cried out:

“Stop thief! stop thief!”

But he was too late.

While Ulenspiegel was speaking, the two rich Jews, who had listened with the sharpest attention, came up to him and said:

“What sellest thou there, Fleming?”

“Sachets,” replied Ulenspiegel.

“What can one see,” they asked, “by means of thy prophetical seeds?”

“Future events, when one sucks them,” replied Ulenspiegel.

The two Jews consulted one another, and the elder said to the other:

“We could see thus when our Messiah will come; that would be a mighty consolement to us. Let us buy one of these sachets. How much is your price?” said they.

“Fifty florins,” replied Ulenspiegel. “If ye are not willing to pay this for it, ye may as well be off. He that will not buy the field must leave the dung where it is.”

Seeing Ulenspiegel so determined, they counted out his money, took away one of the sachets and hied them to their place of assembly, whither came all the Jews hastily flocking, having learned that one of the two old men had bought a secret device by which he could discover and announce the coming of the Messiah.

Apprised of the matter, they would all fain have sucked at the prophesying sachet without paying; but the elder of the two Jews, who had bought it and whose name was Jehu, claimed to do this himself.

“Son of Israel,” said he, holding the sachet in his hand, “the Christians mock at us, we are driven out from among our fellowmen, and folk cry out after us as they cry out after thieves. The Philistines would fain abase us lower than the earth; they spit in our faces, for God hath cut our bowstrings and shaken the bridle before us. Must it still be long, Lord, God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, that evil cometh to us when we look for good, and the shadows fall when we hope for the light? Wilt thou soon appear upon the earth, divine Messiah? When shall the Christians hide themselves in the caves and the holes of the earth because of the terror they will have of thee and of thy glory magnifical when thou dost rise up to chastise them?”

And the Jews began to clamour.

“Come, Messias! Suck, Jehu!”

Jehu sucked, and spewing out, cried lamentably:

“I tell you verily this is nothing else but dung, and that pilgrim out of Flanders is a robber.”

Then all the Jews, rushing up, tore open the sachet and saw what it contained, and went off in high fury to the fair to find Ulenspiegel there, who forsooth had not awaited their coming.

L

A man of Damme, not being able to pay Claes for his coal, gave him his most valuable possession, which was an arbalest with twelve quarrels well pointed to serve as missiles.

In hours when work was slack Claes went shooting with the cross bow; more than one hare was killed by his prowess and turned into a fricassee all through harbouring an inordinate love of cabbages.

Then would Claes eat greedily, and Soetkin would say, looking out upon the empty high road:

“Thyl, my son, dost thou not smell the fragrance of the sauces? He is an-hungered without doubt at this hour.” And all pensive, she would fain have kept him his share of the feast.

“If he is hungry,” said Claes, “it is his own fault; let him come back, he shall fare as we do.”

Claes kept pigeons; he liked, besides, to hear singing and chirruping about him, warblers, goldfinches, sparrows, and other birds that sing and chatter. And so he was swift and ready to shoot the buzzards and the royal sparhawks that were devourers of this poor folk.

Now once when he was measuring coal in the yard, Soetkin pointed out to him a great bird hovering high in air above the dove cote.

Claes seized his cross bow and said:

“May the Devil save his Hawkship!”

Having made ready his cross bow, he took his stand in the yard, following every movement of the bird, so as not to miss it. The light in the sky was between day and night, Claes could only discern a black speck. He loosed the quarrel and saw a stork come tumbling down into the yard.

Claes was sorely grieved thereat; but Soetkin was grieved worse, and cried out:

“Cruel, thou hast slain God’s own bird!”

Then she took up the stork, and saw that she was but wounded in a wing, went to fetch a balsam, and said while she was dressing the wound:

“Stork, my dear, ’tis not clever of you that we all love, to hover in the sky like the sparhawk we all hate. And so poor folks’ arrows fly to the wrong address. Art thou hurt in thy poor wing, stork, that dost submit so patiently, knowing that our hands are the loving hands of friends?”

When the stork was healed, she had everything to eat that she wanted; but she liked best the fish Claes went and caught in the canal for her. And every time the bird of God saw him coming, she opened her huge beak.

She followed Claes about like a dog, but stayed in the kitchen for preference, warming her belly by the fire, and knocking with her beak on Soetkin’s front as she got the dinner ready, as much as to ask her:

“Is there nothing for me?”

And it was merry to behold this solemn messenger of good luck wandering about the cottage on her long stilts.