The Legend of Ulenspiegel Volume Ii Part 52

"Wilt thou repent and say that he did right?" said Tres-Long to Ulenspiegel.

"Word of a soldier is no more word of gold," replied Ulenspiegel.

"Put on the rope," said de Lumey.

The executioner was about to obey; a young girl, all clad in white and garlanded with flowers, ran up the stairs of the scaffold, leaped on Ulenspiegel's neck, and said:

"This man is mine; I take him for my husband."

And the people applauded and the women cried out:

"Long live, long live the girl who is Ulenspiegel's saviour!"

"What is this?" asked Messire de Lumey.

Tres-Long answered:

"After the use and custom of the town, it is by right and law that a young maiden and unmarried woman can save a man from the rope by taking him for husband at the foot of the gallows."

"G.o.d is with him," said de Lumey; "untie him."

Then riding up to the scaffold, he saw the girl prevented from cutting Ulenspiegel's ropes and the executioner seeking to oppose her efforts and saying:

"If you cut them, who will pay for them?"

But the girl paid no heed to him.

Seeing her so light, so loving, and so subtle, he was touched.

"Who art thou?" said he.

"I am Nele, his betrothed," said she, "and I come from Flanders to seek him."

"Thou didst well," said de Lumey in a naughty voice.

And he went away.

Tres-Long then coming up:

"Little Fleming," said he, "once thou art married wilt thou be a soldier still in our ships?"

"Aye, Messire," answered Ulenspiegel.

"And thou, girl, what wilt thou do without thy man?" Nele answered:

"If you are willing, Messire, I will be fifer in his ship."

"I am willing," said Tres-Long.

And he gave her two florins for the wedding feast.

And Lamme, weeping and laughing with pleasure, said:

"Here are three florins more: we shall eat it all; I am paying. Let us go to the Golden Comb. He is not dead, my friend. Long live the Beggar!"

And the people applauded, and they went off to the Golden Comb, where a great feast was ordered: and Lamme threw deniers to the people out of the windows.

And Ulenspiegel said to Nele:

"Darling beloved, there thou art then beside me! Hurrah! She is here, flesh, heart, and soul, my sweet friend. Oh! the sweet eyes and lovely red lips whence there came never aught but kind words! She saved my life, the dear beloved! Thou shalt play the fife of deliverance on our ships. Dost thou remember ... but no.... Ours is the present hour full of gladness, and mine thy face sweet as June flowers. I am in paradise. But," said he, "thou art weeping...."

"They have killed her," said she.

And she told him the tale of mourning.

And, looking on one another, they wept with love and grief.

And at the feast they drank and ate, and Lamme looked on them woefully, saying:

"Alas! my wife, where art thou?"

And the priest came and married Nele and Ulenspiegel.

And the morning sun found them one beside the other in their bridal bed.

And Nele lay with her head on Ulenspiegel's shoulder. And when she awoke in the sunshine, he said:

"Fresh face and sweet heart, we shall be the avengers of Flanders."

She, kissing him on the mouth:

"Wild head and stout arms," said she, "G.o.d will bless the fife and the sword."

"I will make thee a soldier's garb."

"At once?" said she.

"At once," replied Ulenspiegel; "but who said that strawberries are good in the morning? Thy mouth is far better."

IX

Ulenspiegel, Lamme, and Nele had, like their friends and comrades, taken from the convents the wealth gotten from the people by the help of processions, feigned miracles, and other Roman mummeries. This was against the orders of the Silent, the prince of liberty, but the money helped with the charges of the war. Lamme Goedzak, not content with providing himself with money, looted from out the convents hams, sausages, flasks of beer and wine, and came back from them joyously carrying across his breast a baldric of fowls, geese, turkeys, capons, hens and pullets, and leading behind him on a rope certain monastical calves and pigs. And this by right of war, said he.

Rejoicing in each prize, he fetched it to the ship that there might be revel and feast, but lamented all the same that the master cook was so ignorant in the science of sauces and frica.s.sees.