The Legend of Ulenspiegel Volume Ii Part 26

"Aye, Messire, I desire to confess myself, to tell all and do penance. But deign to send away these demons that are there, ready to devour me. I will tell all. Take away those fiery eyes! I did the same thing at Tournay, with respect to five townsmen; the same at Bruges, with four. I no longer know their names, but I will tell them you if you insist; elsewhere, too, I have sinned, lord, and of my doing there are nine and sixty innocents in the grave. Michielkin, the king needed money. I had been informed of that, but I needed money even likewise; it is at Ghent, in the cellar, under the pavement, in the house of old Grovels my real mother. I have told all, all: grace and mercy! Take away the devils. Lord G.o.d, Virgin Mary, Jesus, intercede for me: save me from the fires of h.e.l.l, I will sell all I have, I will give everything to the poor, and I will do penance."

Ulenspiegel, seeing that the crowd of the townsmen was ready to uphold him, leapt from the cart at Spelle's throat and would have strangled him.

But the cure came up.

"Let him live," said he; "it is better that he should die by the executioner's rope than by the fingers of a ghost."

"What are you going to do with him?" asked Ulenspiegel.

"Accuse him before the duke and have him hanged," replied the cure. "But who art thou?" asked he.

"I," replied Ulenspiegel, "am the mask of Michielkin and the person of a poor Flemish fox who is going back into his earth for fear of the Spanish hunters."

In the meantime, Pieter de Roose was running away at full speed.

And Spelle having been hanged, his goods were confiscated.

And the king inherited.

x.x.xIII

The next day Ulenspiegel went towards Courtray, going alongside the Lys, the clear river.

Lamme went pitifully along.

Ulenspiegel said to him:

"You whine, cowardly heart, regretting the wife that made you wear the horned crown of cuckoldom."

"My son," said Lamme, "she was always faithful, loving me enough as I loved her over well, sweet Jesus. One day, being gone to Bruges, she came back thence changed. From then, when I prayed her of love, she would say to me:

"'I must live with you as a friend, and not otherwise.'

"Then, sad in my heart:

"'Beloved darling,' I would say, 'we were married before G.o.d. Did I not for you everything you ever wished? Did not I many a time clothe myself with a doublet of black linen and a fustian cloak that I might see you clad in silk and brocade despite the royal ordinances? Darling, will you never love me again?'

"'I love thee,' she would say, 'according to G.o.d and His laws, according to holy discipline and penance. Yet I shall be a virtuous companion to thee.'

"'I care naught for thy virtue,' I replied, ''tis thou I want, thou, my wife.'

"Nodding her head:

"'I know thou art good,' she said; 'until to-day thou wast cook in the house to spare me the labour of frica.s.sees; thou didst iron our blankets, ruffs, and shirts, the irons being too heavy for me; thou didst wash our linen, thou didst sweep the house and the street before the door, so as to spare me all fatigue. Now I desire to work instead of you, but nothing more, husband.'

"'That is all one to me,' I replied; 'I will be, as in the past, thy tiring maid, thy laundress, thy cook, thy washwoman, thy slave, thy very own, submissive; but wife, sever not these two hearts and bodies that make but one; break not that soft bond of love that clasped us so tenderly together.'

"'I must,' she replied.

"'Alas!' I would say, 'was it at Bruges that thou didst come to this harsh resolve?'

"She replied:

"'I have sworn before G.o.d and His saints.'

"'Who, then,' I cried, 'forced thee to take an oath not to fulfil your duties as a wife?'

"'He that hath the spirit of G.o.d, and ranks me among the number of his penitents,' said she.

"From that moment she ceased to be mine as much as if she had been the faithful wife of another man. I implored her, tormented her, threatened her, wept, begged, but in vain. One night, coming back from Blanckenberghe, where I had been to receive the rent of one of my farms, I found the house empty. Without doubt fatigued with my entreaties, grieved and sad at my distress, my wife had taken flight. Where is she now?"

And Lamme sat down on the bank of the Lys, hanging his head and looking at the water.

"Ah!" said he, "my dear, how plump, tender, and delicious thou wast! Shall I ever find a la.s.s like thee? Daily bread of love, shall I never eat of thee again? Where are thy kisses, as full of fragrance as thyme; thy delicious mouth whence I gathered pleasure as the bee gathers the honey from the rose; thy white arms that wrapped me round caressing? Where is thy beating heart, thy round bosom, and the sweet shudder of thy fairy body all panting with love? But where are thy old waves, cool river that rollest so joyously thy new waves in the sunshine?"

x.x.xIV

Pa.s.sing before the wood of Peteghem, Lamme said to Ulenspiegel:

"I am roasting hot; let us seek the shade."

"Let us," replied Ulenspiegel.

They sat down in the wood, upon the gra.s.s, and saw a herd of stags pa.s.s in front of them.

"Look well, Lamme," said Ulenspiegel, priming his German musket. "There are the tall old stags that still have their dowcets, and carry proud and stately their nine-point antlers; lovely brockets, that are their squires, trot by their side, ready to do them service with their pointed horns. They are going to their lair. Turn the musket lock as I do. Fire! The old stag is wounded. A brocket is. .h.i.t in the thigh; he is in flight. Let us follow him till he falls. Do as I do: run, jump, and fly."

"There is my mad friend," said Lamme, "following stags on foot. Fly not without wings; it is labour lost. You will never catch them. Oh! the cruel comrade! Do you imagine I am as agile as you? I sweat, my son; I sweat and I am going to fall. If the ranger catches you, you will be hanged. Stag is kings' game; let them run, my son, you will never catch them."

"Come," said Ulenspiegel, "do you hear the noise of his antlers in the foliage? It is a water spout pa.s.sing. Do you see the young branches broken, the leaves strewing the ground? He has another bullet in his thigh this time; we will eat him."

"He is not cooked yet," said Lamme. "Let these poor beasts run. Ah! how hot it is! I am going to fall down there without doubt and I shall never rise again."

Suddenly, on all sides, men clad in rags and armed filled the forest. Dogs bayed and dashed in pursuit of the stags. Four fierce fellows surrounded Lamme and Ulenspiegel and brought them into a clearing, in the middle of a brake, where they saw encamped there, among women and children, men in great numbers, armed diversely with swords, arbalests, arquebuses, lances, pikestaff, and reiter's pistols.

Ulenspiegel, seeing them, said to them:

"Are ye the leafmen or Brothers of the Woods, that ye seem to live here in common to flee the persecution?"

"We are Brothers of the Woods," replied an old man sitting beside the fire and frying some birds in a saucepan. "But who art thou?"