“Surely you are too young a man to go preaching to soldiers? Climb up into our wagon and we will teach thee more gentle subjects of conversation!”
And right willingly would Ulenspiegel have done as they bade him, but he dared not, by reason of the letters which he carried. And already two of the girls were leaning out of the wagon trying to hoist him up with their white, round arms. But the sergeant was jealous.
“Be off with you, or else I’ll off with your head!” he threatened.
So Ulenspiegel removed himself away, but not without a sly look behind him at the fresh young beauty of those joysome girls, all golden in the sun which now shone brightly.
They came at last to Berchem, where Philip de Lannoy, Lord of Beauvoir, ordered a halt. For he it was that was in command of the Flemings.
Now in that place was an oak-tree, of medium height, but despoiled of all its branches save one only, a big branch that was broken off short in the middle; for only a month before an Anabaptist had been hanged there by the neck.
Here then the soldiers came to a halt, and the keepers of the canteen came up and began to sell to them bread, wine, beer, with meats of every kind. And to the gay girls they sold all manner of sugared sweets, and castrelins, and almonds, and tartlets, the which when Ulenspiegel saw, he felt hungrier than ever.
All at once Ulenspiegel climbed up like a monkey into the tree, and seated himself astride on the big branch, seven feet above the ground at the least. And then, when he had given himself a few strokes from his pilgrim’s scourge, he began his sermon, while the soldiers and their gay girls sat round him in a circle.
“It is written,” he began, “that whosoever giveth to the poor, the same lendeth to God. Very well then, O soldiers present here to-day, and you, fair ladies, sweet comrades in love of all these valiant warriors, do you lend now to God. That is to say, give me, I beg you, some of your bread, meat, wine, beer, if you please, and eke your tartlets, and I promise you that God, who is very rich, shall give you back in exchange many pieces of ortolan, rivers of malmsey wine, mountains of sugar-candy, and great pieces of that lovely rystpap which they eat in Paradise from silver spoons.”
Then, changing to a more sorrowful tone, he continued: