The Legend of the Glorious Adventures of Tyl Ulenspiegel in the land of Flanders Part 58

But now Lamme jumped down from the ship into a little skiff, which was straightway brought alongside of the boat wherein was his wife.

"What have you been doing?" he asked her. "What has been happening to you? Why did you leave me? And why now do you make as though you would have none of me?"

Then Calleken told him, in a voice that oftentimes trembled with tears, how that she had entrusted the care of her soul to a monk, one Brother Cornelis Adriaensen, and how he had warned her against her husband for that he was a heretic and a consorter with heretics. How also by his eloquence he had persuaded her that a life of celibacy was most pleasing unto G.o.d and his saints, albeit he oftentimes profaned the holy confessional with many a penance that was most distressful to her modesty. "Nevertheless," she ended, "I swear before G.o.d that I remained ever faithful to you, my husband, for I loved you."

But Lamme gazed upon her sadly and reproachfully, so that Nele said to him:

"If Calleken has been faithful as she says, it behoves her now to leave you in very deed, as a punishment for your unkindness."

"He knows not how I love him," said Calleken.

"Is this the truth?" cried Lamme. And then seeing that it was so: "Then come, wife," he cried, "the winter is over!"

Thereafter, having given and received from all the kiss of peace: "Come now," cried Lamme, "come, wife, with me. For now is the hour of lawful loves!"

And together they sailed away in their little boat.

Meanwhile the soldiers, the sailors, and the ship's boys that stood around, all waved their caps in the air and shouted: "Adieu, brother! Adieu, Lamme! Adieu, brother--brother and friend!"

And Nele removed with the tip of her sweet finger a tear that had settled in the corner of the eye of Ulenspiegel.

"You are sad, my love?" she asked him.

"He was good," Tyl said.

Nele sighed.

"Ah! This war--will it never end? Must we live for ever thus, in the midst of blood and tears?"

"Let us seek the Seven," said Ulenspiegel. "The hour of deliverance is at hand."

x.x.xIV

It was the season of harvest. The air was heavy, the wind warm. They that gathered the harvest were able now to reap at their ease, under a free sky and from a free soil, the corn they had sown.

Frise, Drenthe, Overyssel, Gueldre, Utrecht, Noord Brabant, Noord and Zuid Holland; Walcheren, Noord and Zuid Beveland; Duiveland and Schouwen which together make up Zeeland; the sea-bordering lands to the north from Knokke to Helder; the isles of Texel, Vlieland, Ameland, and Schiermonik Oog--all were being delivered from the Spanish yoke, from the Eastern Scheldt to the Oost Ems. And Maurice, the son of William the Silent, was continuing the war.

Ulenspiegel and Nele kept still their youthfulness, their strength and their beauty, for the Love and the Spirit of Flanders never grow old. And they lived happily at the Tower of Neere, waiting for that day when, after so many cruel trials, they would be able to breathe the breath of liberty upon their native land of Belgium.

Ulenspiegel had asked to be made governor and guardian of the Tower. For he had, so he said, the eyes of an eagle and the ears of a hare, and so he would be able to see at once if the Spaniard ever dared to show himself again in the lands that had been delivered from his yoke. Then quickly would he sound the wacharm, the alarm-bell as we call it in our tongue.

To this request the magistrate consented, and in virtue of the good service he had rendered, Ulenspiegel was allowed a florin every day, two pints of beer, a ration of beans, cheese, biscuits, and three pounds of beef weekly.

And so did Ulenspiegel and Nele live on the Tower together very happily, having joy to see in the distance the free isles of Zeeland, and near at hand the woods and castles and fortresses, and the armed ships of the Beggarmen that guarded the coast.

At night they would often mount to the top of the Tower, and there they would sit together on the flat roof, talking of many a stern battle and telling many a tale of love, past and to come. And from their Tower they could see the ocean, which, when the weather was hot, furled and unfurled along the sh.o.r.e its shining waves, and threw them upon the island-coasts like wraiths of fire. And among the polders the will-o'-the-wisps would come a-dancing. And Nele was afraid of them, for she said they were the souls of the poor dead. And true it was that all those places where they danced had once been fields of battle. And the will-o'-the-wisps would oftentimes spring forth from the polders, and run along the dikes, and then return again to the polders, as though unwilling to leave the bodies whence they had come.

One night Nele said to Ulenspiegel:

"Behold how many spirits there are in Dreiveland, and how high they fly! Over there by the Isle of Birds they seem to crowd the thickest. Will you come with me there one night, Tyl? We would take with us the balm that can show us things invisible to mortal eyes."

But Ulenspiegel answered:

"If you mean the balm we took when we went to the great Sabbath of Spring, I have no more faith or confidence in what we saw there than in any idle dream."

"It is wrong to deny the power of charms," said Nele. "Come, Ulenspiegel!"

"Very well," he said.

The next day Ulenspiegel arranged with the magistrate that one of the soldiers who had clear sight and a faithful heart should take his place at the Tower for that one evening. And away he went with Nele towards the Isle of Birds.

They pa.s.sed along by many a field and dike, till at last they saw the sea in front of them, and in it were set many little green islands with the waves coursing in between. And all about the gra.s.sy hills, which soon began to lose themselves in the sand-dunes, a great quant.i.ty of peewits were flying high and low, and sea-gulls and sea-swallows. Some of these birds would crowd together on the surface of the sea, and stay there quite still, so that they looked like little white islets; and above them and about flew thousands of their fellows. The very soil itself was full of their nests, and Ulenspiegel stooped down to pick up one of their eggs which was lying on the road. No sooner had he done so than a sea-gull came flapping towards him, crying out the while most dolefully. And in answer to this summons there flew up a hundred other sea-gulls, crying out as if in anguish, hovering about the head of Ulenspiegel and over the neighbouring nests. But they did not dare to approach him.

"Ulenspiegel," said Nele, "these birds are asking you to have mercy on their eggs."

Then she began to tremble, and said:

"I am afraid. Behold, the sun is setting, the sky is pale, the stars are awakening, it is the hour of the spirits. And look at these ruddy exhalations which rise all about us and seem as it were to trail along the ground. Tyl, my beloved, what monster from h.e.l.l may he be who thus in the mist begins to open his fiery mouth? And look over there towards Philipsland. It was there that the murderer king had all those poor men done to death, not once but twice, and all for the sake of his cruel ambition! And there this night the will-o'-the-wisps are dancing. For this is the night when the souls of poor men killed in battle leave their bodies all cold in purgatory, and come to warm themselves once again in the tepid air of earth. This is the hour when you may ask anything you will of Christ, He who is Lord of all good wizards."

"The ashes beat upon my heart," said Ulenspiegel. "Would that He would show me those Seven whose ashes, they say, when thrown to the winds, would make Flanders happy again, and all the world!"

"O man without faith," said Nele. "By the power of the balm it may be you will see them."

"Maybe," said Ulenspiegel, "if some spirit, forsooth, would come down to visit us from that cold star." And he pointed with his finger to the star Sirius.

No sooner had he made this gesture than a will-o'-the-wisp that had been flying round them came and attached itself to his finger, and the more Ulenspiegel tried to shake it off the firmer the little wisp held on. Nele tried to free Ulenspiegel, but now she also had a little wisp firm on the tip of her finger, and neither would it let her go. Ulenspiegel began to flick at the wisp with his free hand, saying:

"Answer me now, are you the soul of a Beggarman or of a Spaniard? If you are a Beggarman's you may go to Paradise, but if a Spaniard's, return to the h.e.l.l whence you came."

Nele said to him:

"Do not abuse the souls of the dead, even though they be the souls of murderers!"

Then, making the little will-o'-the-wisp to dance at the end of her finger:

"Wisp," she said, "gentle wisp, come tell me what news do you bring from the land of souls? What rule do they live by down there? Do they eat and drink, having no mouths? For you have none, my sweet! Or wait they, perhaps, till they come to blessed Paradise ere taking upon themselves a human form?"

"Why waste time in talking to a peevish little flame that has no ears to hear with, no mouth wherewith to answer?" said Ulenspiegel.

But paying no attention to him, Nele went on:

"Wisp of mine, answer me now by dancing. For I am going to question you thrice. Once in the name of G.o.d, once in the name of Our Lady, and once in the name of the Elemental Spirits who are the messengers between G.o.d and men."