Read Ebook: The Legend of the Glorious Adventures of Tyl Ulenspiegel in the land of Flanders and elsewhere by Coster Charles De Delstanche Albert Illustrator Whitworth Geoffrey Arundel Translator

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Ebook has 2613 lines and 101794 words, and 53 pages

"Wait," said Claes. "First of all let me give you this penny-farthing as your wages, and now let us go and meet them without fear."

When the two women saw Lamme, they ran up and both began to belabour him--the mother because of the fright he had given her, the sister because it was her habit so to do. Lamme took refuge behind Claes, and cried out:

"I have earned a penny-farthing! I have earned a penny-farthing! Do not beat me!"

"The money belongs to me. You shall not have it."

And he kept his fingers tightly closed. But Claes shook the girl roughly by the ears, and said to her:

"If you go on picking quarrels like this with your brother, he that is as good and gentle as a lamb, I shall put you in a black charcoal-pit, and then it won't be I any longer that will be shaking you by the ears, but the red devil himself from hell, and he will pull you into pieces with his great claws and his teeth that are like forks."

At these words the girl averted her eyes from Claes, nor did she go near Lamme, but hid behind her mother's skirts, and when she got back into the town, she went about crying everywhere:

"The Charcoal-man has beaten me, and he keeps the devil in his cave."

Nevertheless she did not attack Lamme any more; but being the bigger of the two, she made him work in her place, and the gentle simpleton obeyed her right willingly.

Now Claes, on his way home, sold his catch to a farmer that often used to buy fish from him. And when he was home again, he said to Soetkin:

"Behold! Here's what I have found in the bellies of four pike, nine carp, and a basketful of eels." And he threw on the table a couple of florins and half a farthing.

"Why don't you go fishing every day, my man?" asked Soetkin.

"For fear of becoming a fish myself, and being caught on the hook of the village constable," he told her.

Claes, the father of Ulenspiegel, was known in Damme by the name of Kooldraeger, that is to say, the Charcoal-burner. Claes had a black head of hair, bright eyes, and a skin the colour of his own merchandise--save only on Sundays and Feast Days, when his cottage ran with soap and water. He was a short, thick-set man, strong, and of a joyful countenance.

Towards the end of the day, when evening was coming on, he would sometimes visit the tavern on the road to Bruges, there to rinse his charcoal-blackened throat with a draught of cuyte; and then the women standing at their doorways to sniff the evening dew would cry out to him in friendly greeting:

"A good night and a good drink to you, Charcoal-burner."

"A good night to you, and a lively husband!" Claes would reply.

And sometimes the girls, trooping home together from their work in the fields, would line up in front of him right across the road, barring his way.

"What will you give us for the right of passage?" they would cry. "A scarlet ribbon, a buckle of gold, a pair of velvet slippers, or a florin piece for alms?"

But Claes, holding one of the girls fast by the waist, would give her a hearty kiss on her fresh cheek or on her neck, just whichever happened to be nearest, and then he would say:

"You must ask the rest, my dears, of your sweethearts."

And off they would go amidst peals of laughter.

As for the children, they always recognized Claes by his loud voice and by the noise his clogs made on the road, and they would run up to him and cry:

"Good evening, Charcoal-burner."

"The same to you, my little angels," he would answer; "but come no nearer, lest perchance I turn you into blackamoors."

But the children were bold, and oftentimes would make the venture. Then Claes would seize one of them by the doublet, and rubbing his blackened hands up and down the little fellow's nose, would send him off all sooty, but laughing just the same, to the huge delight of the others.

Soetkin, wife of Claes, was a good wife and mother. She was up with the dawn, and worked as diligently as any ant. She and Claes laboured together in the field, yoking themselves to the plough as though they had been oxen. It was hard work dragging it along, but even the plough was not so heavy as the harrow, that rustic implement whose task it was to tear up the hardened earth with teeth of wood. But Claes and his wife worked always with a gay heart, and enlivened themselves with singing. And in vain was the earth hard, in vain did the sun hurl down on them his hottest beams, in vain were their knees stiffened with bending and their loins tired with the cruel effort of dragging the harrow along, for they had only to stop a moment while Soetkin turned to Claes her gentle face, and while Claes kissed that mirror of a gentle heart, and straightway they forgot how tired they were.

Now the previous day, the town crier had given notice from before the Town Hall that Madame, the wife of the Emperor Charles, being near the time of her delivery, it behoved the people to say prayers on her behalf.

Katheline came to Claes in a great state of excitement.

"Whatever is the matter, my good woman?" he asked.

"Alas!" she cried, catching her breath, "behold! This night the ghosts are mowing men down like grass. Little girls are being buried alive. The executioner is dancing on the body of the dead. And broken, this night, is that Stone which has been sweating blood these nine months past and more!"

"Mercy on us!" groaned Soetkin. "Mercy on us, O Lord! This is a black omen indeed for the land of Flanders."

"Do you see these things with your own eyes wide awake, or perchance in a dream?" Claes asked her.

"With my own eyes," Katheline told him. And then all pale and tearful, she continued in these words:

"To-night two children are born: the one in Spain--the infant Philip--and the other in this land of Flanders--the son of Claes, he that later on shall be known by the name of Ulenspiegel. Philip will grow up to be a common hangman, being the child of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, the destroyer of our country. But Ulenspiegel will be a master of the merry words and frolics of youth, yet good of heart withal, having for his father Claes, the brave working man that knows how to earn his own living with courage, honesty, and gentleness. Charles the Emperor and Philip the King will go riding their way through life, doing evil by battle, extortion, and other crimes. But Claes, working hard all the week, living according to right and according to law, and laughing at his laborious lot instead of being cast down thereby, will be the model of all the good workpeople of Flanders. Ulenspiegel, young and immortal, will ramble over the world and never settle in one place. And he will be peasant, nobleman, painter, sculptor, all in one. And he will continue his wanderings hither and thither, lauding things beautiful and good, and laughing stupidity to scorn. Claes, then, O noble people of Flanders, is your courage; Soetkin your valiant motherhood; Ulenspiegel your soul. A sweet and gentle maiden, lover of Ulenspiegel and immortal like him, shall be your heart; and Lamme Goedzak, with his pot-belly, shall be your stomach. And up aloft shall stand the devourers of the people; and beneath them their victims. On high the thieving hornets; and below the busy bees. While in heaven bleed for evermore the wounds of Christ."

And when she had thus spoken, Katheline, the kindly sorceress, went to sleep.

One day Claes caught a large salmon, and on the Sunday he and Soetkin and Katheline and the little Ulenspiegel had it for their dinner. But Katheline only ate enough to satisfy a sparrow.

"How now, mother?" said Claes. "What has happened to the air of Flanders? Has it suddenly grown solid, so that to breathe it is as nourishing as a plate of beef? Why, if such were the case, I suppose you will be telling me that the rain is as good as soup, and the hail like beans, and the snow some sort of celestial fricassee, fit cheer for a poor traveller?"

But Katheline shook her head, and said not a word.

"Dear me," said Claes, "our mother is in the dumps it seems! What can it be that grieves her so?"

But Katheline spake as follows, in a voice that was like a breath of wind:

"The wicked night falls blackly. He tells of his coming from afar, screaming like the sea-eagle. I tremble, and pray to Our Lady--all in vain. For the Night knows neither walls nor hedges, neither doors nor windows. Everywhere, like a spirit, he finds a way in. The ladder creaks. The Night has entered into the loft where I am sleeping. The Night seizes me in arms that are cold and hard as marble. His face is frozen, and his kisses like damp snow. The whole cottage seems to be tossed about over the earth, riding like a ship at sea...."

Claes said: "I would counsel you to go every morning to Mass, that our Lord Christ may give you strength to chase away this phantom from hell."

"He is so beautiful!" said Katheline.

Ulenspiegel was weaned, and began to grow like a young poplar. And soon Claes gave up caressing him, but loved him in a roughish manner, fearing to make a milksop of him. And when Ulenspiegel came home complaining that he had got the worst of it in some boyish affray, Claes would give him a beating because, forsooth, he had not beaten the others. And with such an education Ulenspiegel grew up as valiant as a young lion.

When Claes was from home, Ulenspiegel would ask his mother to give him a liard with which he might go out and amuse himself. Soetkin would grow angry, and ask why he wanted to go out for amusement--he would do better to stay at home and tie up faggots. And when he saw that she was not going to give him anything, the boy would start yelling like an eagle, while Soetkin made a great clatter with the pots and pans that she was washing in the wooden tub, pretending that she did not hear his noise. Then Ulenspiegel would fall to weeping, and the gentle mother would stop her pretence at harshness, and would come and kiss him.

"Will a denier be enough for you?" she would say.

Now it should be noted that a denier is equal to six liards.

Thus did his mother dote on Ulenspiegel even to excess; and when Claes was not there, he was king in the house.

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