“Messire Provost, you did all in vain, they have eaten all the same.”
“Aye,” replied the provost, “they have come up to my sleeping chamber, like robbers, and taken what I had saved. Ah, master saints, I will complain to the Pope about this.”
“Aye,” replied Ulenspiegel, “but the procession is the day after to-morrow, the workmen will presently be coming into the church: if they see there all these poor mutilated saints, are you not afraid of being accused of iconoclasm?”
“Ah! Master Saint Martin,” said the provost, “spare me the fire, I knew not what I did!”
Then turning to Ulenspiegel, while the timid bellringer was swinging to his bells:
“They could never,” said he, “between now and Sunday, mend Saint Martin. What am I to do, and what will the people say?”
“Messire,” answered Ulenspiegel, “we must employ an innocent subterfuge. We shall glue on a beard on the face of Pompilius; it is always respectable, being always melancholic; we shall dight him up with the Saint’s mitre, alb, amice, and great cloak; we shall enjoin upon him to stand well and fast on his pedestal, and the people will take him for the wooden Saint Martin.”
The provost went to Pompilius who was swaying on the ropes.
“Cease to ring,” said he, “and listen to me: would you earn fifteen ducats? On Sunday, the day of the procession, you shall be Saint Martin. Ulenspiegel will get you up properly, and if when you are borne by your four men you make one movement or utter one word, I will have you boiled alive in oil in the great caldron the executioner has just had built on the market square.”
“Monseigneur, I give you thanks,” said Pompilius; “but you know that I find it hard to contain my water.”