IV
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.
Claes and Soetkin
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.