The Legend of Ulenspiegel Volume Ii Part 24

x.x.xII

The girl came one day, all weeping, to say to Lamme and to Ulenspiegel:

"Spelle is allowing murderers and robbers in Meulestee to escape for money. He is putting the innocent to death. My brother Michielkin is among them. Alas! Let me tell you, ye will avenge him, being men. A vile and infamous debauchee, Pieter de Roose, an habitual seducer of children and girls, does all the harm. Alas! my poor brother Michielkin and Pieter de Roose were one evening, but not at the same table, in the tavern of the Valck, where Pieter de Roose was avoided by every one like the plague.

"My brother, not willing to see him in the same room as himself, called him a lecherous blackguard, and ordered him to purge the chamber of his presence.

"Pieter de Roose replied:

"'The brother of a public baggage has no need to show such a lofty nose.'

"He lied. I am not public, and give myself only to whomsoever I please.'

"Michielkin, then, flinging his quart of cervoise ale in his face, told him he had lied like the filthy debauchee that he was, threatening, if he did not decamp, to make him eat his fist up to the elbow.

"The other would have talked more, but Michielkin did what he had said: he gave him two great blows on the jaw and dragged him by the teeth, with which he was biting, out on to the road, where he left him battered and bruised, without pity.

"Pieter de Roose, being healed, and unable to live a solitary life, went in 't Vagevuur, a veritable purgatory and a gloomy tavern, where there were none but poor people. There also he was left to himself, even by all those ragam.u.f.fins. And no man spoke to him, save a few country folk to whom he was unknown, and a few wandering rogues, or deserters from some troop or other. He was even beaten there several times, for he was quarrelsome.

"The provost Spelle had come to Meulestee with two catchpolls, and Pieter de Roose followed them everywhere about like a dog, filling them up at his expense with wine, with meat, and many other pleasures that are bought with money. And so he became their companion and their comrade, and he began to do his wicked best to torment all he hated; which was all the inhabitants of Meulestee, but especially my poor brother.

"First of all he attacked Michielkin. False witnesses, gallows birds, greedy for florins, declared that Michielkin was a heretic, had uttered foulness about Notre Dame, and oftentimes blasphemed the name of G.o.d and the saints in the tavern of the Falcon, and that, besides all, he had full three hundred florins in a coffer.

"Notwithstanding that the witnesses were not of good life and conduct, Michielkin was arrested, and the proofs being declared by Spelle and the catchpolls good and sufficient to warrant putting the accused to the torture, Michielkin was hung up by the arms to a pulley fastened to the ceiling, and they put a weight of fifty pounds on each of his feet.

"He denied the charge, saying that if in Meulestee there was a rogue, a blackguard, a blasphemer and a lecherous brute, it was no other than Pieter de Roose, and not he.

"But Spelle would listen to nothing, and bade his catchpolls hoist Michielkin right up to the ceiling, and to let him drop heavily with his weights on his feet. And this they did, and so cruelly that the skin and the muscles of the victim were torn, and that the foot scarcely held to the leg.

"As Michielkin persisted in saying he was innocent, Spelle had him tortured afresh, while giving him to understand that if he would give him a hundred florins he would leave him free and acquitted.

"Michielkin said that he would die first.

"The folk of Meulestee, having learned the fact of the arrest and the torture, desired to be witness par turbes, which is the testimony of all the reputable inhabitants of a commune. 'Michielkin,' said they, unanimously, 'is in no way or guise heretical; he goes every Sunday to ma.s.s and to the holy table; he has never said anything else of Our Lady than to call on her to succour him in difficult circ.u.mstances; having never spoken ill, even of an earthly woman, he would much less ever have dared to speak ill of the heavenly Mother of G.o.d. As for the blasphemies that the false witnesses declared they had heard him utter in the tavern of the Falcon, that was in all points false and lies.'

"Michielkin having been released, the false witnesses were punished, and Spelle cited Pieter de Roose before his court, but set him free without examination or torture, in consideration of one hundred florins paid down in one sum.

"Pieter de Roose, fearing that the money he still had left might attract Spelle's attention to him once again, fled from Meulestee, while Michielkin, my poor brother, died of the gangrene that had caught hold of his feet.

"He who no longer wished to see me, yet had me sent for to bid me beware well of the fire in my body that would bring me into the fire of h.e.l.l. And I could but weep, for the fire is within me. And he gave up his soul in my arms."

"Ha!" said she, "he who would avenge upon Spelle the death of my beloved kind Michielkin would be my master forever, and I would obey him like a dog."

While she spake, the ashes of Claes beat upon the breast of Ulenspiegel. And he determined to bring Spelle the murderer to the gallows.

Boelkin (that was the girl's name) returned to Meulestee, well a.s.sured in her home against the vengeance of Pieter de Roose, for a cattle dealer, pa.s.sing by Destelberg, informed her that the cure and the townsfolk had declared that if Spelle touched Michielkin's sister, they would cite him before the duke.

Ulenspiegel, having followed her to Meulestee, came into a low chamber in Michielkin's house, and saw there a portrait of a master pastry cook which he supposed to be that of the poor victim....

And Boelkin said to him:

"It is my brother's portrait."

Ulenspiegel took the picture and said, going away:

"Spelle shall be hanged!"

"What will you do?" said she.

"If you knew that," said he, "you would have no pleasure in seeing it done."

Boelkin nodded her head and said in a grieving voice:

"You show no confidence in me."

"Is it not," said he, "showing you extreme confidence to say to you 'Spelle shall be hanged!' For with this mere word alone you can have me hanged before him."

"That is true," said she.

"Then," said Ulenspiegel, "go fetch me good potter's clay, a double quart of bruinbier, clear water, and a few slices of beef. All separate."

"The beef will be for me, the bruinbier for the beef, the water for the clay, and the clay for the portrait."

Eating and drinking Ulenspiegel kneaded the clay, and now and then swallowed a morsel of it, but heeded it little, and looked most attentively at Michielkin's portrait. When the clay was kneaded, he made a mask out of it, with a nose, a mouth, eyes, ears so much like the portrait of the dead man, that Boelkin was astonied at it.

After that he put the mask in the oven, and when it was dry, he painted it the colour corpses are, showing the haggard eyes, the solemn face, and the various contractions of a man in the act of dying. Then the girl, ceasing to be astonied, looked at the mask, without being able to take her eyes off it, grew pale and livid, covered up her face, and said shuddering:

"It is he, my poor Michielkin!"

He made also two b.l.o.o.d.y feet.

Then having conquered her first fright:

"Blessed will he be," said she, "that will slay the murderer." Ulenspiegel, taking the mask and the feet, said:

"I must have an a.s.sistant."

Boelkin replied:

"Go in den Blauwe Gans, to the Blue Goose, to Joos Lansaem of Ypres, who keeps this tavern. He was my brother's best friend and comrade. Tell him it is Boelkin that sends you."

Ulenspiegel did as she bade him.

After having laboured for death, the provost Spelle went to drink in't Valck, at the Falcon, a hot mixture of dobbel-clauwert, with cinnamon and Madeira sugar. They dared refuse him nothing at his inn, for fear of the rope.

Pieter de Roose, having plucked up courage again, had come back to Meulestee. Everywhere he followed Spelle and his catchpolls to have their protection. Sometimes Spelle paid the wherewithal for him to drink. And they drank up merrily the money of the victims.

The inn of the Falcon was not filled now as in the good days when the village lived joyously, serving G.o.d after the Catholic fashion; and not tormented because of religion. Now it was as though in mourning, as could be seen from its numerous houses that were empty or shut up, from its deserted streets in which there wandered a few starved dogs searching among the rubbish heaps for their rotten food.