Kitabı oku: «The Legend of Ulenspiegel. Volume 2 of 2», sayfa 9
“Alas!” said the Stevenyne, “they are going to smash everything here.”
And in her fear her two tusks stuck farther still out of her mouth.
And the blood lit up with wrath and fury in the minds of the seven and Lamme and Ulenspiegel.
Then without stopping their monotonous threatening chant all the men at Ulenspiegel’s table took their glasses, and breaking them on the table, keeping time together, they got astride their chairs and drew their cutlasses. And they made such a din with their song that all the window-panes in the house were quaking. Then like a ring of devils they went round about the chamber and all the tables, saying continually: “’Tis van te beven de klinkaert.”
And the catchpolls then rose up quaking with terror, and took out their ropes and chains. But the butchers, Ulenspiegel, and Lamme, thrusting their cutlasses back into their sheaths, got up, seized their chairs, and brandishing them like cudgels, they ran nimbly through the room hither and thither, striking right and left, sparing only the girls, smashing all the rest, furniture, windows, chests, dishes, quart pots, bowls, glasses, and flasks, beating the catchpolls without pity and always singing to the time of the sound of the upholsterer beating mattresses: “’Tis van te beven de klinkaert; “’tis van te beven de klinkaert,” while Ulenspiegel had given a blow on the face with his fist to the Stevenyne, had taken her keys from her bag, and by force made her eat her candles.
The beauteous Gilline, tearing at the doors, the shutters, the windows, and the glass panes with her nails, seemed to want to scratch her way through everything, like a terrified cat. Then, all livid, she crouched down in a corner, with haggard eyes, showing her teeth, and holding her viol as if she must needs protect it at all costs.
The seven and Lamme said to the girls: “We will do you no hurt”; with their help tied up with their own chains and cords the catchpolls shivering in their shoes and not daring to resist, for they perceived that the butchers, picked out among the strongest by the baes of the Bee, would have chopped them to pieces with their cutlasses.
At every candle he made the Stevenyne eat Ulenspiegel said:
“This is for the hanging; that for the cudgelling; this other for the branding; this fourth for my pierced tongue; these two excellent and extra fat ones for the king’s ships and the quartering by four galleys; this for your den of spies; that one for your damsel in the brocade dress, and all these others just to please me.”
And the girls laughed to see the Stevenyne sneezing with anger and trying to spit out her candles. But in vain, for she had her mouth too full of them.
Ulenspiegel, Lamme, and the seven never ceased singing in time with one another: “’Tis van te beven de klinkaert.”
Then Ulenspiegel stopped, making sign to them to murmur the refrain softly. They did so while he held this conversation with the girls and the catchpolls:
“If any one of you cries for help, he will be cut down immediately.”
“Cut down!” said the butchers.
“We will hold our tongues,” said the girls, “do not hurt us, Ulenspiegel.”
But Gilline, huddled in her corner, her eyes starting out of her head, her teeth out of her mouth, could not speak, and clasped her viol tightly to her.
And the seven still were murmuring: “’Tis van te beven de klinkaert!” in measure.
The Stevenyne, pointing to the candles she had in her mouth, made signs that she would hold her tongue likewise. The catchpolls promised the same.
Ulenspiegel continued his discourse:
“Ye are here,” said he, “in our power; the night has fallen, we are near the Lys where you drown easily if you are thrust in. The gates of Courtrai are closed. If the night watch have heard the uproar, they will never budge, being too lazy and thinking it is simply good Flemish folk who as they drink are singing merrily to the sound of pots and flasks. Wherefore stay ye still, both men and girls, before your masters.”
Then, speaking to the seven:
“Are you going to Peteghem to find the Beggars?”
“We made ready for this at the news of thy coming.”
“From thence ye will go to the sea?”
“Aye,” said they.
“Do you know among these catchpolls one or two that might be let go to serve us?”
“Two,” said they, “Niklaes and Joos, who never hunted down the poor Reformed folk.”
“We are faithful!” said Niklaes and Joos.
Then Ulenspiegel said:
“Here are twenty florins carolus for you, twice more than you would have had if ye had taken the vile reward of the informer.”
Suddenly the five others exclaimed:
“Twenty florins! We will serve the prince for twenty florins. The king pays ill. Give each of us the half; we will tell the judge whatever you wish.”
The butchers and Lamme murmured low:
“’Tis van te beven de klinkaert; ’tis van te beven de klinkaert.”
“So that ye may not talk too much,” said Ulenspiegel, “the seven will bring you bound as far as Peteghem, to the Beggars. Ye shall have ten florins when ye are on the sea; we shall be certain till then that the camp victual will keep you faithful to bread and soup. If ye are valiant men, ye shall have your share in the booty taken. If ye try to desert, ye shall be hanged. If ye escape, thus avoiding the rope, ye shall find the knife.”
“We serve who pays us,” said they.
“’Tis van te beven de klinkaert! ’Tis van te beven de klinkaert!” said Lamme and the seven striking upon the table with shards of broken pots and glasses.
“Ye shall take with you also,” said Ulenspiegel, “Gilline, the Stevenyne, and the three damsels. If one of them tries to escape, ye shall sew her up in a sack and throw her into the river.”
“He has not killed me,” said Gilline, leaping out from her corner, and brandishing her viol in the air. And she sang:
“Of blood was all my dream
The dream so near my heart,
Of Eve the child I seem,
Of Satan, too, a part.”
The Stevenyne and the others were like to weep.
“Fear nothing, darlings,” said Ulenspiegel, “you are so soft and sweet, that everywhere they will love you, feast you, and caress you. At every war capture ye shall have your share in the booty.”
“They will give nothing to me, for I am an old woman,” wept the Stevenyne.
“A sou a day, crocodile,” said Ulenspiegel, “for thou shalt be serving woman to these four beauteous damsels; thou shalt wash their petticoats, blankets, and chemises.”
“I, Lord God!” said she.
Ulenspiegel replied:
“Thou hast ruled them long, living on the earnings of their bodies and leaving them poor and hungry. Thou mayst whine and bellow, it shall be as I have said.”
Thereupon the four girls began to laugh and mock at the Stevenyne, and say to her, putting out their tongues:
“To each her turn in this world. Who would have said it of Stevenyne the miser? She shall work for us as a servant. Blessed be the lord Ulenspiegel!”
Then the three turned to Gilline:
“Thou wast her daughter, her support; thou didst share with her the fruits of thy foul spydom. Wilt thou ever dare again to strike and insult us with thy brocade dress? Thou didst scorn us because we were but fustian. Thou art clothed so richly only with the blood of victims. Let us take her dress so that she may be even like ourselves.”
“I will not have it,” said Ulenspiegel.
And Gilline, leaping on his neck, said:
“Blessed be thou that hast not killed me, and wouldst not have me ugly!”
And the girls, jealous, looked at Ulenspiegel, and said:
“He has lost his wits for her like all the men.”
Gilline sang to her viol.
The seven set out towards Peteghem, taking with them the catchpolls and the girls along by the Lys. As they went on their way they murmured:
“’T is van te beven de klinkaert; ’t is van te beven de klinkaert!”
As the sun was rising they came to the camp, sang like the lark, and the clarion of the cock made them answer. The girls and the catchpolls were closely guarded. For all that, on the third day Gilline was found dead, her heart pierced through with a great needle. The Stevenyne was accused by the three girls and brought before the captain of the band, his dizeniers and sergeants formed into a tribunal. There, without their having to put her to the torture, she confessed that she had killed Gilline through jealousy of her beauty and rage because the damsel treated her as her servant pitilessly. And the Stevenyne was hanged, and afterwards buried in the wood.
Gilline, too, was buried, and the prayers for the dead were said above her sweet body.
Meanwhile, the two catchpolls instructed by Ulenspiegel had gone before the castellan of Courtray, for the tumult, uproar, and pillage made in the Stevenyne’s house must needs be punished by the said castellan, as the Stevenyne’s house was in the castle ward, outside the jurisdiction of the town of Courtray. After having narrated to the lord castellan what had taken place, they told him with great conviction and humble sincerity of language:
“The murderers of the preachers are in no wise Ulenspiegel and his trusty and well-beloved Lamme Goedzak, who went to the Rainbow purely for their repose and refreshment. They even have passes from the duke, and we have seen these ourselves. The real culprits are two Ghent merchants, one a lean man and the other very fat, who went away towards France, after breaking everything at Stevenyne’s, taking her away with her four girls along with them for their pleasure. We had them well and duly taken prisoners, but there were in the house seven butchers, the strongest in the town, who took their side. They tied us all up and only let us go when they were far away on the French soil. And here are the marks of the ropes. The four other catchpolls are on their tracks, waiting for a reinforcement to lay hands on them.”
The castellan gave each of them two carolus and a new coat for their loyal services.
He then wrote to the Council of Flanders, to the Sheriff’s Court at Courtray, and to other courts of justice to announce to them that the real murderers had been discovered.
And he recounted to them the whole adventure in detail and at length.
Whereat the people of the Council of Flanders and the other courts of justice shuddered.
And the castellan was greatly praised for his perspicacity.
And Ulenspiegel and Lamme journeyed in peace upon the road from Peteghem to Ghent, along the Lys, wishing to arrive at Bruges, where Lamme hoped to find his wife, and at Damme, where Ulenspiegel, all a-dream, would have wished to be already, to see Nele, who lived in sadness with Katheline the madwife.
XXXVI
During a long while, in the country of Damme and round about, there had been committed several abominable crimes. Lasses, young men, old men, who had been known to go forth carrying money in the direction of Bruges, Ghent, or some other town or village of Flanders, were found dead, naked as worms and bitten in the back of the neck by teeth so long and so sharp that they all had the bones of their necks broken.
Physicians and barber-surgeons declared that these were the teeth of a huge wolf. “Robbers,” said they, “had doubtless come up, after the wolf, and had stripped the victims.”
Despite all search, no man could ever discover who were the robbers. Soon the wolf was forgotten.
Several townsmen of note, who had proudly set forth on their way without an escort, disappeared without any one knowing what had become of them, save that at times some country fellow, going out in the morning to plough the earth, found wolf tracks in his field, while his dog, digging in the furrows with his paws, brought to light a poor dead corpse carrying the marks of the wolf’s teeth on the nape or under the ear, and oftentimes on the leg, too, and always behind. And always the neckbone and legbone were broken.
The peasant, affrighted, would go off at once to give information to the bailiff, who would come with the clerk of the court, two aldermen, and two surgeons to the place where lay the body of the murdered man. Having visited it diligently and carefully, having sometimes when the face was not eaten by worms recognized its quality, even its name and lineage, they were nevertheless always astonied that the wolf, a beast that kills for hunger, should not have carried off some part of the dead man.
And the folk of Damme were sore terrified, and no woman dared to go out by night without an escort.
Now it came that several valiant soldiers were sent out to look for the wolf, with orders to hunt for it day and night in the dunes, along by the sea.
They were then near Heyst, among the great dunes. Night had come. One of them, confident in his strength, wanted to leave them to go alone on the hunt, armed with a musket. The others allowed him, certain that, valiant and armed as he was, he would kill the wolf if he dared to show himself.
Their comrade having gone, they lit a fire and played at dice while drinking brandy out of their flasks.
And from time to time they called out:
“Now, then, comrade, come back; the wolf is afraid; come and drink!”
And he made no answer.
Suddenly, hearing a great cry as of a man that is at the point of death, they ran in the direction whence the cry came, saying:
“Hold on, we are coming to the rescue!”
But they were long before they found their comrade, for some said the cry came from the valley, others that it came from the highest dune.
At length, when they had well searched dune and valley with their lanterns, they found their comrade bitten in the leg and in the arm, from behind, and his neck broken like the other victims.
Lying on his back, he was holding his sword in his clenched fist; his musket was on the sand. By his side were three severed fingers, which they carried off, and which were not his fingers. His pouch had been taken.
They took up on their shoulders their comrade’s body, his good sword, and his gallant musket, and grieved and angry, they carried the corpse to the bailiff’s where the bailiff received them in the company of the clerk of the court, two aldermen, and two surgeons.
The severed fingers were examined and recognized as the fingers of an old man, who was no worker at any trade, for the fingers were long and tapering, and the nails were long as the nails of lawyers and churchmen.
Next day the bailiff, the aldermen, the clerk, the surgeons, and the soldiers went to the place where the poor slain man had been bitten, and saw that there were drops of blood upon the grass and footmarks that went as far as the sea, where they ceased.
XXXVII
It was at the time of the ripened grapes, in the wine month and the fourth day of it, when in the city of Brussels they throw, from the top of the tower of Saint Nicholas after high mass, bags of walnuts down to the people.
At night Nele was awakened by cries coming from the street. She looked for Katheline in the room and found her not. She ran down and opened the door, and Katheline came in saying:
“Save me! Save me! the wolf! the wolf!”
And Nele heard in the country far-off howlings. Trembling, she lighted all the lamps, wax tapers, and candles.
“What has happened, Katheline?” said she, clasping her in her arms.
Katheline sat down, with haggard eyes, and said, looking at the candles:
“’Tis the sun, he driveth away evil spirits. The wolf, the wolf is howling in the countryside.”
“But,” said Nele, “why did you leave your bed where you were warm, to go and take a fever in the damp nights of September?”
And Katheline said:
“Hanske cried last night like an osprey; and I opened the door. And he said to me: ‘Take the drink of vision,’ and I drank. Hanske is goodly to look upon. Take away the fire. Then he brought me down to the canal and said to me: ‘Katheline, I will give thee back the seven hundred carolus; thou shalt restore them to Ulenspiegel the son of Claes. Here be two to buy thee a robe; thou shalt have a thousand soon.’ ‘A thousand,’ said I, ‘my beloved, I shall then be rich.’ ‘Thou shalt have them,’ said he. ‘But is there none in Damme who, woman or damsel, is now as rich as thou wilt be?’ ‘I know not,’ I answered. But I had no mind to tell their names for fear he might love them. Then he said to me: ‘Find this out and tell me their names when I come back.’
“The air was chill, the mist rolled over the meadows, the dry twigs were falling from the trees upon the roadway. And the moon was shining, and there were fires on the water of the canal. Hanske said to me: ‘It is the night of the were-wolves; all guilty souls come forth out of hell. Thou must make the sign of the cross thrice with the left hand and cry: Salt! Salt! Salt! which is the emblem of immortality, and they will do thee no hurt.’ And I said: ‘I shall do what thou desirest, Hanske, my darling.’ He kissed me, saying: ‘Thou art my wife.’ ‘Aye,’ said I. And at his gentle word a heavenly happiness glided over my body like an ointment. He crowned me with roses and said to me: ‘Thou art fair.’ And I said to him: ‘Thou art fair, too, Hanske, my darling, and goodly in thy fine raiment of green velvet with gold trimmings, with thy long ostrich feather that floats from thy bonnet, and thy face pale as the fire upon the waves of the sea. And if the girls of Damme saw thee, they would all run after thee, beseeching thee for thy heart; but thou must give it only to me alone, Hanske.’ He said: ‘Endeavour to know which are the richest; their fortune will be for thee.’ Then he went away, leaving me after straitly forbidding me to follow him.
“I stayed there, chinking the three carolus in my hand, all shivering and frozen by reason of the mist, when I saw coming up from a steep bank and climbing the slope a wolf that had a green face and long reeds among his white hair. I cried out: Salt! Salt! Salt! making the sign of the cross, but he seemed to be in no dread of it. And I ran with all my might, I crying, he howling, and I heard the dry clashing of his teeth close upon me, and once so near to my shoulder that I thought that he was about to catch me. But I ran faster than he did. By great good luck, I met at the corner of the street of the Heron the night watch with his lantern. ‘The wolf! the wolf!’ I cried. ‘Be not afraid,’ said the watchman to me, ‘I will take you home, Katheline the madwife.’ And I felt that his hand, holding me, was shaking. And he was afraid like me.”
“But he hath got back his courage,” said Nele. “Do you hear him now chanting in a drawling voice: ‘De clock is tien tien aen de clock’: It is ten o’ the clock, o’ the clock ten! And he springs his rattle.”
“Take away the fire,” said Katheline, “my head burns. Come back, Hanske, my darling.”
And Nele looked on Katheline, and she prayed Our Lady the Virgin to take away from her head the fire of madness; and she wept over her mother.
XXXVIII
At Belleau, on the banks of the Bruges canal, Ulenspiegel and Lamme met a horseman wearing three cock’s feathers in his felt hat and riding at full speed towards Ghent. Ulenspiegel sang like a lark and the horseman, pulling up, answered with the clarion of Chanticleer.
“Dost thou bring tidings, headlong horseman?” said Ulenspiegel.
“Great tidings,” said the horseman. “On the advice of M. de Châtillon who is in the land of France the admiral of the sea, the prince of freedom hath given commissions to equip ships of war, beyond those that are already armed at Emden and in East Frisia. The valiant men who have received these commissions are Adrien de Berghes, Sieur de Dolhain; his brother Louis of Hainaut; the Baron of Montfaucon; the Sieur Louis de Brederode; Albert d’Egmont the son of the beheaded count and no traitor like his brother; Berthel Enthens of Mentheda, the Frisian; Adrien Menningh; Hembuyse the hot and proud man of Ghent; and Jan Brock.
“The prince hath given all his having, more than fifty thousand florins.”
“I have five hundred for him,” said Ulenspiegel.
“Take them to the sea,” said the horseman.
And he went off at a gallop.
“He gives all his having,” said Ulenspiegel. “We others, we give nothing but our skins.”
“Is that nothing then,” said Lamme, “and shall we never have aught talked of but sack and massacre? The orange is on the ground.”
“Aye,” said Ulenspiegel, “on the ground, like the oak; but with the oak they build the ships of freedom!”
“For his profit,” said Lamme. “But since there is no danger now, let us buy asses again. I like to march sitting, for my part, and without having a chime of blister-bells on the soles of my feet.”
“Let us buy asses,” said Ulenspiegel; “these are beasts it is easy to sell again.”
They went to market and found there, by paying for them, two fine asses with their equipment.
