The Legend of Ulenspiegel Volume I Part 48

On the morrow, while they were drinking hot milk, Soetkin said to Katheline:

"Thou seest that sorrow is driving me already out of this world, wouldst thou drive me to flee from it through thy d.a.m.ned witchcrafts?"

But Katheline kept saying:

"Nele is bad. Come back, Hanske, my darling."

On the next Wednesday the devils came back together. Since the Sat.u.r.day Nele slept at the house of the widow Van den Houte, saying that she could not stay at Katheline's by reason of the presence of Ulenspiegel, a young bachelor.

Katheline received her black lord and his friend in the keet, which is the wash house and the bakery appurtenant to the main dwelling. And then they held feast and revel with old wines and smoked ox tongues, that were always there awaiting them. The black devil said to Katheline:

"We have need," said he, "for an important task that is to be done, of a heavy sum of money; give us what thou canst."

Katheline, being unwilling to give more than a florin, they threatened to kill her. But they let her off with two gold carolus and seven deniers.

"Come no more on the Sat.u.r.day," she told them. "Ulenspiegel knows that day and will await you with weapons to kill you, and I should die after you."

"We shall come next Tuesday," said they.

On that day Ulenspiegel and Nele slept without fear of the devils, for they believed that they came only on Sat.u.r.day.

Katheline rose and went into the keet, to see if her friends had come.

She was sorely impatient, because since she had seen Hanske again, her madness had greatly lessened, for folk said it was love-madness.

Not seeing them, she was brokenhearted; when she heard the sea eagle cry from the direction of Sluys, in the country, she went towards the cry. Going in the meadow at the foot of a d.y.k.e of f.a.ggots and green sod, she heard from the other side of the d.y.k.e the two devils talking together. One said:

"I shall have the half of it."

The other replied:

"Thou shalt have none of it; what is Katheline's is mine."

Then they cursed and blasphemed like madmen, disputing between them who should have to himself alone the money and the loves of Katheline and Nele together. Transfixed with fear, daring neither to speak nor budge, Katheline presently heard them fighting, then one of them saying:

"This steel is cold." Then a rattling breath and the fall of a heavy body.

Affrighted, she walked back to her cottage. At two o'clock in the night she heard again, but now in her garden, the cry of the sea eagle. She went to open and saw before the door her lover devil alone. She asked him:

"What hast thou done with the other?"

"He will not come again," he answered.

Then embracing her he caressed her. And he seemed to her colder than usual. And Katheline's spirit was well awaked. When he went away, he asked her for twenty florins, all she had: she gave him seventeen.

On the morrow, being curious, she went along by the d.y.k.e; but she saw nothing, save at a spot as big as a man's coffin blood upon the turf that was less solid under foot. But that night rain washed away the blood.

The next Wednesday she heard the cry of the sea eagle once more in her garden.

Lx.x.xII

Each time he needed money to pay their share of expenses at Katheline's Ulenspiegel went by night to lift the stone from the hole dug beside the well, and took out a carolus.

One night the three women were spinning; Ulenspiegel was carving with his knife a box that the bailiff had entrusted to him, and on which he was skilfully graving a goodly chase, with a pack of Hainaut dogs, mastiffs from Crete, the which are most savage beasts; Brabant dogs going in pairs and called ear biters, and other dogs, straight-legged, crook-legged, short-legged, and greyhounds.

Katheline being present, Nele asked Soetkin if she had hidden her treasure well. The widow answered without any misgivings that it could not be better than in the side of the well wall.

Towards the midnight, being Thursday, Soetkin was awakened by Bibulus Schnouffius, barking very sharply, but not for long. Deeming that it was some false alarm, she went to sleep again.

Friday morning, early, Soetkin and Ulenspiegel, having risen, did not see Katheline as usual in the kitchen, nor the fire lit, nor the milk boiling on the fire. They were dumbfounded and looked to see if she was not perchance in the garden. They saw her there, though it was misty rain, dishevelled, in her body linen all soaked and chilled, but not daring to enter.

Ulenspiegel, going to her, said:

"What dost thou there, half naked, when it rains?"

"Ah," she said, "aye, aye, a great portent!"

And she showed the dog with his throat cut and lying stiff.

Ulenspiegel thought at once of the treasure; he ran to it. The hole was empty and the earth strewed far about.

Leaping on Katheline and beating her:

"Where are the carolus?" he said.

"Aye, aye, a great portent!" replied Katheline.

Nele, defending her mother, cried out:

"Mercy and pity, Ulenspiegel!"

He ceased to strike. Soetkin then showed herself and asked what was the matter.

Ulenspiegel showed her the dog killed and the hole empty. Soetkin went white and said:

"Thou dost smite me cruelly, Lord G.o.d. My poor feet!"

And she said that because of the agony she had in them and the torment borne in vain for the gold carolus. Nele, seeing Soetkin so gentle, fell in despair and wept; Katheline, waving a piece of parchment, said:

"Aye, a great portent. Last night he came, kindly and goodly. No longer was there on his face that livid glow that gave me so much affright. He spoke to me with a great tenderness. I was ravished with joy, my heart melted within me. He said to me, 'Now I am rich, and will before long bring thee a thousand florins.' 'Aye,' said I, 'I am more glad for thy sake than for mine, Hanske, my darling.' 'But hast thou not here,' he asked, 'some other person thou lovest and whom I might make rich?' 'Nay,' I replied, 'those that be here have no need of thee.' 'Thou art proud,' said he, 'are then Soetkin and Ulenspiegel rich?' 'They live with no help from their neighbours,' I replied. 'In spite of the confiscation?' said he. To which I answered that you had endured the torture rather than allow your money to be taken. 'I was not without knowledge of that,' said he. And he began, laughing quiet and low, to jeer at the bailiff and the sheriffs, for that they had not been able to make you confess. Then I laughed equally. 'They had not been so silly,' said he, 'as to hide their treasure in their house.' I laughed. 'Nor in the cellar, here.' 'No, no,' said I. 'Nor in the garden?' I made no reply. 'Ah,' said he, 'it would be too much of an imprudence.' 'Not much,' said I, 'for neither the water nor the wall will speak.' And he continued to laugh.

"Last night he went away sooner than usual, after giving me a powder with which, said he, I could go to the finest of sabbaths. I brought him, in my linen, to the garden gate, and I was all overcome with sleep. I went, as he had said, to the sabbath, and came back only at daybreak, when I found myself here, and saw the dog dead and the hole empty. That is a very heavy blow for me, who loved him so tenderly and gave him my soul. But you shall have all I have, and I shall work with my feet and my hands to maintain you."

"I am the corn under the millstone: G.o.d and a robber devil strike me at the same time," said Soetkin.