The Legend of the Glorious Adventures of Tyl Ulenspiegel in the land of Flanders Part 3

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 G.o.d--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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed 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 Sat.u.r.day 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-t.i.ts 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 h.e.l.l, 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 p.r.i.c.k 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 a.s.sembly 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 a.s.sisted 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 pa.s.sages 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."