The Legend of Ulenspiegel. Volume 2 of 2. de Coster Charles

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      Lamme, coming out of his niche, saw Ulenspiegel all covered with blood. Then running like a stag, in spite of his belly, he came to Ulenspiegel, seated on the earth beside the slain men.

      “He is wounded,” said he, “my friend, wounded by that murdering rascal.” And with a kick from his heel he broke in the teeth of the nearest preacher.

      “You do not answer, Ulenspiegel! Are you going to die, my son? Where is that balsam? Ha! in the bottom of his satchel, under the sausages. Ulenspiegel, do you not hear me? Alas! I have no warm water to wash your wound, nor any way to have it. But the water of the Sambre will serve. Speak to me, my friend. You are not so terribly wounded, in any case. A little water, there, very cold water, is it not? He awakes. ’Tis I, thy friend: they are all dead! Linen! linen to tie up his hurts. There is none. My shirt then.” He took off his doublet. And Lamme continuing his discourse: “In pieces, shirt! The blood is stopping. My friend will not die.”

      “Ha!” he said, “how cold it is, bareback in this keen air. Let us reclothe ourselves. He will not die. ’Tis I, Ulenspiegel, I thy friend Lamme. He smiles. I shall despoil the assassins. They have bellies of florins. Gilded entrails, carolus, florins, daelders, patards, and letters! We are rich. More than three hundred carolus to share. Let us take the arms and the money. Steel-wind will not blow as yet for Monseigneur.”

      Ulenspiegel, his teeth chattering from the cold, rose up.

      “There you are on your feet,” said Lamme.

      “That is the might of the balsam,” replied Ulenspiegel.

      “The balsam of valiancy,” answered Lamme.

      Then taking the bodies of the three preachers one by one, he cast them into a hole among the rocks, leaving them their weapons and their clothes, all save their cloaks.

      And all about them in the sky croaked the ravens, awaiting their food.

      And the Sambre rolled along like a river of steel under the gray sky.

      And the snow fell, washing the blood away.

      And they were nevertheless troubled. And Lamme said:

      “I would rather kill a chicken than a man.”

      And they mounted their asses again.

      At the gates of Huy the blood was still flowing; they pretended to fall into quarrel together, got down from their asses, and fenced and foined with their daggers most cruelly to behold; then having brought the combat to an end, they mounted again and entered into Huy, showing their passes at the gates of the city.

      The women seeing Ulenspiegel wounded and bleeding, and Lamme playing the victor upon his ass, they looked on Ulenspiegel with pity and showed their fists at Lamme saying: “That one is the rascal that wounded his friend.”

      Lamme, uneasy, only sought among them whether he did not see his wife.

      It was in vain, and he was plunged in melancholy.

      XXIII

      “Whither are we going?” said Lamme.

      “To Maestricht,” replied Ulenspiegel.

      “But, my son, they say the duke’s army is there all about and around, and that he himself is within the city. Our passes will not be enough for us. If the Spanish troopers accept them, none the less we shall be held in the town and interrogated. Meanwhile, they will have discovered the death of the preachers, and we shall have finished with living.”

      Ulenspiegel replied:

      “The ravens, the owls, and the vultures will soon have made an end of their meat; already, beyond a doubt, they have faces that could not be recognized. As for our passes they may be good; but if they learned of the slaughter, we should, as you say, be taken prisoners. Nevertheless, we must needs go to Maestricht and take Landen on our way.”

      “They will hang us,” said Lamme.

      “We shall pass,” replied Ulenspiegel.

      Thus talking, they arrived at the Magpie inn, where they found good meals, good beds, and hay for their asses.

      The next day they set out on their way to Landen.

      Having arrived at a great farm near the city, Ulenspiegel whistled like the lark, and immediately there answered from within the warlike clarion of a cock. A farmer with a goodly face appeared on the threshold of the farmhouse. He said to them:

      “Friends, as freemen, long live the Beggar! Come within.”

      “Who is this one?” asked Lamme.

      Ulenspiegel replied:

      “Thomas Utenhove, the brave reformer; his serving men and women on the farm work like him for freedom of conscience.”

      Then Utenhove said:

      “Ye are the prince’s envoys. Eat and drink.”

      And the ham began to crackle in the pan and the black puddings also, and the wine went about and glasses were filled. And Lamme fell to drinking like the dry sand and to eating lustily.

      Lads and lasses of the farm came in turns and thrust in their noses at the half-open door to look at him labouring with his jaws. And the men, jealous of him, said they could do as well as he.

      At the end of the meal Thomas Utenhove said:

      “A hundred peasants will go from here this week under pretence of going to work on the dykes at Bruges and round about. They will travel by bands of five or six and by different ways. There will be boats at Bruges to fetch them by sea to Emden.”

      “Will they be furnished with weapons and money?” asked Ulenspiegel.

      “They will have each ten florins and big cutlasses.”

      “God and the prince will reward you,” said Ulenspiegel.

      “I am not working for reward,” replied Thomas Utenhove.

      “What do you do,” said Lamme, eating big black puddings, “what do you do, master host, to have a dish so savoury, so succulent, and with such fine grease?”

      “’Tis because we put in it,” the host said, “cinnamon and catnip.”

      Then speaking to Ulenspiegel:

      “Is Edzard, Count of Frisia, is he still the prince’s friend?”

      Ulenspiegel replied:

      “He hides it, while at the same time giving refuge at Emden to his ships.”

      And he added:

      “We must go to Maestricht.”

      “You will not be able to do so,” said the host; “the duke’s army is before the town and in the environs.”

      Then taking him into the loft, he showed him far away the ensigns and guidons of horse soldiers and footmen riding and marching in the country.

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