He sold the horses of the two reiters for forty-eight florins, ofwhich he gave thirty to the Frenchmen.
Going on his way alone, he said to himself: "I go through ruins,blood, and tears, without finding aught. The devils lied to me,past a doubt. Where is Lamme? Where is Nele? Where are the Seven?"
And he heard a voice like a low breath, saying:
"In death, ruin, and tears, seek."
And he went his way.
XVII
Ulenspiegel came to Namur in March. There he saw Lamme, who havingbeen seized with a great love for the fish of the River Meuse, andespecially for the trout, had hired a boat and was fishing in theriver by leave of the commune. But he had paid fifty florins to theguild of the fishmongers.
He sold and ate his fish, and in this trade he gained a better paunchand a little bag of carolus.
Seeing his friend and comrade going along the banks of the Meuseto come into the town, he was filled with joy, thrust his boat upagainst the bank, and climbing up the steep, not without puffing,he came to Ulenspiegel. Stammering with pleasure:
"There you are then, my son," said he, "my son in God, for my belly-arkcould carry two like you. Whither go you? What would you? You arenot dead, without a doubt? Have you seen my wife? You shall eat Meusefish, the best that is in this world below; they make sauces in thiscountry fit to make you eat your fingers up to the shoulder. You areproud and splendid, with the bronze of battle on your cheeks. Thereyou are then, my son, my friend Ulenspiegel, the jolly vagabond."
Then in a low voice:
"How many Spaniards have you killed? You never saw my wife intheir wagons full of wenches? And the Meuse wine, so delicious forconstipated folk, you shall drink of it. Are you wounded, my son? Youwill stay here then, fresh, lively, keen as an eagle. And the eels,you shall taste lad. No marshy flavour whatever. Kiss me, my fatlad. My blessing upon God, how glad I am!"
And Lamme danced, leapt, puffed, and forced Ulenspiegel to danceas well.
Then they wended their way towards Namur. At the gate of the cityUlenspiegel showed his pass signed by the duke. And Lamme broughthim to his house.
While he was making their meal ready, he made Ulenspiegel tell hisadventures and recounted his own, having, he said, abandoned the armyto follow after a girl that he thought was his wife. In this pursuithe had come as far as Namur. And he kept repeating:
"Have you not seen her at all?"
"I saw others that were very beautiful," replied Ulenspiegel, "andespecially in this town, where all are amorous."
"In truth," said Lamme, "a hundred times they would fain have had me,but I remained faithful, for my sad heart is big with a single memory."
"As your belly is big with innumerable dishes," answered Ulenspiegel.
Lamme replied:
"When I am in distress I must eat."
"Is your grief without respite?" asked Ulenspiegel.
"Alas, yes!" said Lamme.
And pulling a trout from out a saucepan:
"See," said he, "how lovely and firm it is. This flesh is pink asmy wife's. To-morrow we shall leave Namur; I have a pouch full offlorins; we shall buy an ass apiece, and we shall depart riding thustowards the land of Flanders."
"You will lose heavily by it," said Ulenspiegel.
"My heart draws me to Damme, which was the place where she loved mewell: perchance she has returned thither."
"We shall start to-morrow," said Ulenspiegel, "since you wish it so."
And as a matter of fact, they set out, each mounted on an ass andstraddling along side by side.
XVIII
A sharp wind was blowing. The sun, bright as youth in the morning,was veiled and gray as an old man. A rain mixed with hail was falling.
The rain having ceased, Ulenspiegel shook himself, saying:
"The sky that drinks up so much mist must relieve itself sometimes."
Another rain, still more mingled with hail than the former, beat downon the two companions. Lamme groaned:
"We were well washed, now we must needs be rinsed!"
The sun reappeared, and they rode on gaily.
A third rain fell, so full of hail and so deadly that like knives itchopped the dry twigs on the trees to mincemeat.
Lamme said:
"Ho! a roof! My poor wife! Where are ye, good fire, soft kisses,and fat soups?"
And he wept, the great fellow.
But Ulenspiegel:
"We bemoan ourselves," said he, "is it not from ourselves none theless that our woes come on us? It is raining on our backs, but thisDecember rain will make the clover of May. And the kine will low forpleasure. We are without a shelter, but why did we never marry? Imean myself, with little Nele, so pretty and so kind, who would nowgive me a good stew of beef and beans to eat. We are thirsty in spiteof the water that is falling; why did we not make ourselves workmensteady in one condition? Those who are received as masters in theirtrade have in their cellars full casks of bruinbier."
The ashes of Claes beat upon his heart, the sky became clear, thesun shone out in it, and Ulenspiegel said:
"Master Sun, thanks be unto you, you warm our loins again; ashesof Claes, ye warm our heart once more, and tell us that blessed arethey that are wanderers for the sake of the deliverance of the landof our fathers."
"I am hungry," said Lamme.
XIX
They came into an inn, where they were served with supper in an upperchamber. Ulenspiegel, opening the windows, saw from thence a gardenin which a comely girl was walking, plump, round bosomed, with goldenhair, and clad only in a petticoat, a jacket of white linen, and anapron of black stuff, full of holes.
Chemises and other woman's linen was bleaching on cords: the girl,still turned towards Ulenspiegel, was taking chemises down from thelines, and putting them back and smiling and still looking at him,and sat down on linen bands, swinging on the two ends knotted together.
Near by Ulenspiegel heard a cock crowing and saw a nurse playing witha child whose face she turned towards a man that was standing, saying:
"Boelkin, look nicely at papa!"
The child wept.
And the pretty girl continued to walk about in the garden, displacingand replacing the linen.
"She is a spy," said Lamme.
The girl put her hands before her eyes, and smiling between herfingers, looked at Ulenspiegel.
Then pressing up her two breasts with her hands, she let them fallback, and swung again without her feet touching the ground. And thelinen, unwinding itself, made her turn like a top, while Ulenspiegelsaw her arms, bare to the shoulders, white and round in the pallidsunshine. Turning and smiling, she kept always looking at him. Hewent out to find her. Lamme followed him. At the hedge of the gardenhe searched for an opening to pass through, but found none.
The girl, seeing what he was doing, looked again, smiling betweenher fingers.
Ulenspiegel tried to break through the hedge, while Lamme, holdinghim back, said to him:
"Do not go there; she is a spy, we shall be burned."
Then the girl walked about the garden, covering up her face withher apron, and looking through the holes to see if her chance friendwould not be coming soon.
Ulenspiegel was going to leap over the hedge with a running jump,but he was prevented by Lamme, who caught hold of him by the leg andmade him fall, saying:
"Rope, sword, and gallows, 'tis a spy, do not go there."
Sitting on the ground, Ulenspiegel struggled against him. The girlcried out, pushing up her head above the hedge:
"Adieu, Messire, may Love keep your Longanimousness hanging!"
And he heard a burst of mocking laughter.
"Ah!" said he, "it is in my ears like a packet of pins!"
Then a door shut noisily.
And he was melancholy.
Lamme said to him, still holding him:
"You are counting over the sweet treasures of beauty thus lost toyour shame. 'Tis a spy. You fall in luck when you fall. I am goingto burst with laughing.
"
Ulenspiegel said not a word, and both got up on their asses once more.
XX
They went on their way each well astride his ass.
Lamme, chewing the cud of his last meat, sniffed up the cool airrejoicing. Suddenly Ulenspiegel fetched him a great stinging slashof his whip on his behind, which was like a cushion in the saddle.
"What are you doing?" cried Lamme, piteously.
"What!" answered Ulenspiegel.
"This lash with the whip?" said Lamme.
"What lash with the whip?"
"The one I got from you," returned Lamme.
"On the left?" asked Ulenspiegel.
"Aye, on the left and on my behind. Why did you do that, scandalousvagabond?"
"In ignorance," replied Ulenspiegel. "I know well enough what awhip is, and very well, too, what a behind of small compass is upona saddle. But seeing this one wide, swollen, tight, and overflowingthe saddle, I said to myself: 'Since it could never be pinched witha finger, a stroke of the whip could not sting it either with thelash.' I was wrong."
Lamme smiling at this speech, Ulenspiegel went on in these terms:
"But I am not the only one in this world to sin through ignorance,and there is more than one past-master idiot displaying his fat ona donkey saddle who could give me points. If my whip sinned on yourbehind, you sinned much more weightily on my legs in preventing themfrom running after the girl who was coquetting in her garden."
"Crow's meat!" said Lamme, "so it was revenge then?"
"Just a little one," replied Ulenspiegel.
XXI
At Damme Nele the unhappy lived alone with Katheline who still forlove called the cold devil who never came.
"Ah!" she would say, "thou art rich, Hanske my darling, and mightestbring me back the seven hundred carolus. Then would Soetkin come backalive from limbo to this earth, and Claes would laugh in the sky: wellcanst thou do this. Take away the fire, the soul would fain come out;make a hole, the soul would fain come out."
And without ceasing she pointed her finger to the place where thetow had been.
Katheline was very poor, but the neighbours helped her with beans,with bread and meat according to their means. The commune gave her somemoney. And Nele sewed dresses for rich women in the town; went to theirhouses to iron their linen, and in this way earned a florin a week.
And Katheline still repeated:
"Make a hole; take away my soul. It knocks to get out. He will giveback the seven hundred carolus."
And Nele, listening to her, wept.
XXII
Meanwhile, Ulenspiegel and Lamme, armed with their passes, came to alittle inn backed up against the rocks of the Sambre, which in certainplaces are covered with trees. And on the sign there was written:Chez Marlaire.
Having drunk many a flask of Meuse wine of the fashion of Burgundy andeaten much fish, they gossiped with the host, a Papist of the deepestdye, but as talkative as a magpie through the wine he had drunk and allthe time winking an eye cunningly. Ulenspiegel, divining some mysteryunder this winking, made him drink more, so much that the host beganto dance and burst out into laughter, then returning to the table:
"Good Catholics," he said, "I drink to you."
"To you we drink," replied Lamme and Ulenspiegel.
"To the extinction of all plague, of rebellion and heresy."
"We drink," replied Lamme and Ulenspiegel, who kept replenishing thegoblet the host could never allow to stay full.
"You are good fellows," said he. "I drink to your Generosities;I make a profit on wine drunk. Where are your passes?"
"Here they are," answered Ulenspiegel.
"Signed by the duke," said the host. "I drink to the duke."
"To the duke we drink," replied Lamme and Ulenspiegel. The host,continuing:
"How do we catch rats, mice, and field mice? In rat-traps, snares,and mouse-traps. Who is the field mouse? 'Tis the great heretic Orangeas hellfire. God is with us. They are coming. He! he! Something todrink! Pour out, I am roasting, burning. To drink! Most goodly littlereforming preachers.... I say little ... goodly little gallants, stouttroopers, oak trees.... Drink! Will you not go with them to the greatheretic's camp? I have passes signed by him. Ye shall see their work."
"We shall go to the camp," answered Ulenspiegel.
"They will get there all right, and by night if an opportunityoffers" (and the host, whistling, made the gesture of a man cutting athroat). "Steel-wind will stop the blackbird Nassau from ever whistlingagain. Come on, something to drink, hey!"
"You are a gay fellow, even though you are married," repliedUlenspiegel.
Said the host:
"I neither was nor am. I hold the secrets of princes. Drink up! My wifewould steal them from my pillow to have me hanged and to be a widowsooner than Nature means it. Vive Dieu! they are coming ... where arethe new passes? On my Christian heart. Let us drink! They are there,three hundred paces along the road, at Marche-les-Dames. Do ye seethem? Let us drink!"
"Drink," said Ulenspiegel. "I drink to the king, to the duke, tothe preachers, to Steel-wind; I drink to you, to me; I drink to thewine and to the bottle. You are not drinking." And at every healthUlenspiegel filled up his glass and the host emptied it.
Ulenspiegel studied him for some time; then rising up:
"He is asleep," said he; "let us go, Lamme."
When they were outside:
"He has no wife to betray us.... The night is about to comedown.... You heard clearly what this rogue said, and you know whothe three preachers are?"
"Aye," said Lamme.
"You know they are coming from Marche-les-Dames, along by the Meuse,and it will be well to wait for them on the way before Steel-windblows."
"Aye," said Lamme.
"We must save the prince's life," said Ulenspiegel.
"Aye," said Lamme.
"Here," said Ulenspiegel, "take my musket; go there into the underwoodsbetween the rocks; load it with two bullets and fire when I croaklike a crow."
"I will," said Lamme.
And he disappeared into the undergrowth. And Ulenspiegel soon heardthe creak of the lock of the musket.
"Do you see them coming?" said he.
"I see them," replied Lamme. "They are three, marching like soldiers,and one of them overtops the others by the head."
Ulenspiegel sat down on the road, his legs out in front of him,murmuring prayers on a rosary, as beggars do. And he had his bonnetbetween his knees.
When the three preachers passed by, he held out his bonnet to them,but they put nothing in.
Then rising, Ulenspiegel said piteously:
"Good sirs, refuse not a patard to a poor workman, a porter wholately cracked his loins falling into a mine. They are hard folk inthis country, and they would give me nothing to relieve my wretchedplight. Alas! give me a patard, and I will pray for you. And God willkeep Your Magnanimities in joy throughout all their lives."
"My son," said one of the preachers, a fine robust fellow, "therewill be no joy more for us in this world so long as the Pope and theInquisition reign therein."
Ulenspiegel sighed also, saying:
"Alas! what are you saying, my masters! Speak low, if it please YourGraces. But give me a patard."
"My son," replied a preacher who had a warrior-like face, "we others,poor martyrs, we have no patards beyond what we need to sustain lifeon our journey."
Ulenspiegel threw himself on his knees.
"Bless me," said he.
The three preachers stretched out their hands over Ulenspiegel's headwith no devoutness.
Remarking that they were lean men, and yet had fine paunches, he gotup again, pretended to fall, and striking his forehead against the tallpreacher's belly, he heard therein a gay clink and tinkle of money.
Then drawing himself up and drawing his bragmart:
"My goodly fathers," said he, "it is chilly weather and I am lightlyclad; you are clad overly much. Give me your wool that I may cutmyself a cloak out of it. I am
a Beggar. Long live the Beggars!"
The tall preacher replied:
"My Beggar-cock, you carry your comb too high; we shall cut itfor you."
"Cut it!" said Ulenspiegel, drawing back, "but Steel-wind shall blowfor you before ever it blows for the prince. Beggar I am; long livethe Beggars!"
The three preachers, dumbfounded, said one to another:
"Whence does he know this news? We are betrayed! Slay! Long livethe Mass!"
And they drew from under their hose fine bragmarts, well sharpened.
But Ulenspiegel, without waiting for them, gave ground towardsthat side of the brushwood where Lamme was hidden. Judging that thepreachers were within musket range, he said:
"Crows, black crows, Lead-wind is about to blow. I sing for yourfinish."
And he croaked.
A musket shot, from out of the brushwood, knocked over the tallestof the preachers with his face to the ground, and was followed by asecond shot which stretched the second on the road.
And Ulenspiegel saw amid the brush Lamme's good visage, and his armup hastily recharging his arquebus.