XXVII
Ulenspiegel and Lamme had come to Heyst-on-the-Dunes, and behold a fleet of fishing-boats that were come hither from Ostend and from Blankenberghe and Knokke. Filled they were with men-at-arms, the followers of the Beggarmen of Zeeland, who carried on their hats a silver crescent with this inscription: “Serve rather the Turk than the Pope.”
Ulenspiegel is glad; he whistles like the lark and from every side there comes to answer him the warlike cockcrow. And Lamme and Ulenspiegel go aboard one of the ships and are carried to Emden and thence to Wieringen, where their ship is hemmed in by the ice. For by now it is the month of February.
Now all around the ship there was to be seen the most joyous sight imaginable: men all clad in velvet, sledging and skating on the ice; and women skating too, with skirts and jackets broidered with pearl and gold, blue and scarlet. And the boys and girls came and went hither and thither, laughing and following one another in line, or two by two in couples, singing the song of love upon the ice, and running to eat and drink at the stalls decorated with flags, where one could buy all kinds of brandy-wine and oranges and figs and eggs and hot vegetables with heete-koeken—pancakes, that is, with vegetables flavoured with vinegar. And all around them the sailing sledges made the ice to resound under the press of their sharp runners.
Lamme, who was still searching everywhere for his wife, wandered about on his skates like the rest of that happy crowd, but he kept falling down time and again.
Ulenspiegel, meanwhile, to satisfy his hunger and thirst, was wont to resort to a little tavern on the quay where the prices were not high, and where he used to have many a talk with the old lady who kept it.
One Sunday about nine o’clock he went to the inn and asked them to give him some dinner. A charming-looking young woman came forward to serve him.
“Dear me,” he cried, “you rejuvenated hostess! Where-ever are those old wrinkles of yours gone to? And your mouth has found all its teeth again, and they are white with the whiteness of youth itself! And your lips are red like cherries! Is it for me this smile of yours so sweet and roguish?”
“Nay, nay,” she said. “But what can I get you?”
“Yourself,” he said.
The woman answered:
“That would be too big a meal for a lean little man like you. Will not some other kind of meat do for you?”
When Ulenspiegel made no answer:
“What have you done,” she said, “with that handsome, well-set-up, but rather corpulent gentleman I have so often seen in your company?”
“Do you mean Lamme?” queried Ulenspiegel.
“Yes. What have you done with him?” she repeated.
“He is busy eating,” answered Ulenspiegel, “eating anything he can set his teeth upon—hard-boiled eggs from the street stalls, smoked eels and salted fish: and all this, forsooth, to help him find his wife. But why are you not she, my sweet? Would you like fifty florins? Would you like a collar of gold?”
But she crossed herself, saying:
“I am not to be bought, nor yet taken.”
“Do you love no one?” said Ulenspiegel.
“I love you as my neighbour; but above all I love Our Lord and Our Lady, they that command me to live an honest life. Hard indeed and oftentimes burdensome are the duties that are laid on us poor women. Nevertheless God gives us his aid. Yet some there are who succumb to temptation. But this fat friend of yours, come, tell me, is he well and happy?”
Ulenspiegel answered:
“He is gay when he is eating, but sad and pensive when he is empty. I will get him to come and see you.”
“Do not do that,” she said; “he would weep and so should I.”
“Have you ever seen his wife?” asked Ulenspiegel.
“She sinned with him once,” the woman answered, “and was condemned therefor to a cruel punishment. She knows that he goes a-seafaring in the cause of the heretics, and this is a cruel thought for a Christian heart. But protect him, I pray you, if he is attacked, and nurse him if he is wounded: his wife ordered me thus to entreat you.”
“Lamme is my brother and my friend,” answered Ulenspiegel.
“Ah!” she said. “But why will you not return to the bosom of our Holy Mother Church?”
“She eats up her children,” answered Ulenspiegel. And he departed.
But one morning in March, while still the cold winds of winter kept the ice frozen, so that the ship of the Beggarmen could not make away, Ulenspiegel came again to the tavern. And the pretty baesine said to him (and there was great emotion and sorrow in her voice):
“Poor Lamme! Poor Ulenspiegel!”
“Why do you pity us so?” he asked her.
“Alas! alas!” she cried. “Why will you not believe in the Mass? And you did, you would go straight to Paradise without a doubt, and I might be able to save you in this life also.”
Seeing her go to the door and listen there attentively, Ulenspiegel said to her:
“Is it the snow that you hear falling?”
“No,” she said.
“What then?”
“It is death that comes like a thief in the night.”
“Death,” exclaimed Ulenspiegel. “I do not understand you. Come back and tell me.”
“They are there,” she said.
“Who are?”
“Who?” she said. “Why, the soldiers of Simonen Bol, who are about to come in the name of the Duke and throw themselves upon you all. And if they treat you well while you are here, it is only as men treat the oxen they mean to kill. Oh why,” she cried all in tears, “why did I not know all this before, so that I could have warned you!”
“You must not cry,” said Ulenspiegel, “and you must stay where you are!”
“Do not betray me,” she said.
Ulenspiegel went out of the house, ran as fast as he could, and went round to all the booths and taverns in the place, whispering to the sailors and soldiers these words: “The Spaniards are coming.”
At that they ran every one to the ship, and prepared with all the haste they knew whatever things were necessary for battle. Then they waited for the evening. While they were waiting thus, Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:
“Do you see that pretty-looking woman on the quay there, in a black dress embroidered with scarlet?”
“It’s all one to me,” answered Lamme. “I am cold and I want to go to sleep.”
And he threw his great cloak around his head, and became like a man who was deaf.
But presently Ulenspiegel recognized the woman and cried out to her from the vessel:
“Would you like to come with us?”
“Even to the death,” she answered, “but I cannot....”
Then she came nearer to the ship.
“Take this ointment,” she said. “It is for you and that fat friend of yours who goes to sleep when he ought to be awake.”
And she withdrew herself, crying:
“Lamme! Lamme! May God keep you from harm and bring you back safe.”
And she uncovered her face.
“My wife! My wife!” cried Lamme.
And he would have jumped down to her.
“Your faithful wife!” she said, running the while as fast as ever she could.
Lamme would have leaped down from the deck on to the ice, but he was restrained by a soldier who caught him by his cloak, and the provost addressed him, saying:
“You will be hanged if you leave the ship.”
Yet again did Lamme try to throw himself down, but an old Beggarman held him back, telling him that the ice was damp and that he would get his feet wet. And Lamme sat down on the deck weeping and crying ever:
“My wife! My wife! Let me go and find my wife!”
“You will see her again,” said Ulenspiegel. “She loves you, but she loves God more.”
“Mad devil-woman that she is!” cried Lamme. “If she loves God more than her husband, why does she show herself to me so sweet and so desirable? And if she loves me, why does she leave me?”
“Can you see clearly to the bottom of a deep well?” demanded Ulenspiegel.
In the meanwhile the followers of Simonen Bol had appeared on the scene with a large force of artillery. They shot at the ship, which promptly repaid them in similar coin. And the bullets broke up the ice all around. And towards evening a warm rain began to fall, and the west wind blew from the Atlantic, and the sea grew angry beneath its covering of ice, and the ice was broken into huge blocks which could be seen rising and falling to hurl themselves one against the other, not without danger to the ship, which, nevertheless, as dawn began to dissipate the clouds of night, opened its sails like a bird of freedom and sailed out towards the open sea.
“The ashes of Claes beat upon my heart”
There they were joined by the fleet of Messire de Lumey de la Marche, Admiral of Holland and Zeeland; and on that day the ship of Messire Très-Long captured a vessel from Biscay that carried a cargo of mercury, gunpowder, wine, and spices. And the vessel was cleaned to its marrow, emptied of its men and its booty, even as the bone of an ox is cleaned by the teeth of a lion. And the Beggarmen took La Brièle, a strong naval base, well called the Garden of Liberty.