Volume Ii Part 26 (1/2)
”Aye, Messire, I desire to confess myself, to tell all and do penance. But deign to send away these demons that are there, ready to devour me. I will tell all. Take away those fiery eyes! I did the same thing at Tournay, with respect to five townsmen; the same at Bruges, with four. I no longer know their names, but I will tell them you if you insist; elsewhere, too, I have sinned, lord, and of my doing there are nine and sixty innocents in the grave. Michielkin, the king needed money. I had been informed of that, but I needed money even likewise; it is at Ghent, in the cellar, under the pavement, in the house of old Grovels my real mother. I have told all, all: grace and mercy! Take away the devils. Lord G.o.d, Virgin Mary, Jesus, intercede for me: save me from the fires of h.e.l.l, I will sell all I have, I will give everything to the poor, and I will do penance.”
Ulenspiegel, seeing that the crowd of the townsmen was ready to uphold him, leapt from the cart at Spelle's throat and would have strangled him.
But the cure came up.
”Let him live,” said he; ”it is better that he should die by the executioner's rope than by the fingers of a ghost.”
”What are you going to do with him?” asked Ulenspiegel.
”Accuse him before the duke and have him hanged,” replied the cure. ”But who art thou?” asked he.
”I,” replied Ulenspiegel, ”am the mask of Michielkin and the person of a poor Flemish fox who is going back into his earth for fear of the Spanish hunters.”
In the meantime, Pieter de Roose was running away at full speed.
And Spelle having been hanged, his goods were confiscated.
And the king inherited.
x.x.xIII
The next day Ulenspiegel went towards Courtray, going alongside the Lys, the clear river.
Lamme went pitifully along.
Ulenspiegel said to him:
”You whine, cowardly heart, regretting the wife that made you wear the horned crown of cuckoldom.”
”My son,” said Lamme, ”she was always faithful, loving me enough as I loved her over well, sweet Jesus. One day, being gone to Bruges, she came back thence changed. From then, when I prayed her of love, she would say to me:
”'I must live with you as a friend, and not otherwise.'
”Then, sad in my heart:
”'Beloved darling,' I would say, 'we were married before G.o.d. Did I not for you everything you ever wished? Did not I many a time clothe myself with a doublet of black linen and a fustian cloak that I might see you clad in silk and brocade despite the royal ordinances? Darling, will you never love me again?'
”'I love thee,' she would say, 'according to G.o.d and His laws, according to holy discipline and penance. Yet I shall be a virtuous companion to thee.'
”'I care naught for thy virtue,' I replied, ''tis thou I want, thou, my wife.'
”Nodding her head:
”'I know thou art good,' she said; 'until to-day thou wast cook in the house to spare me the labour of frica.s.sees; thou didst iron our blankets, ruffs, and s.h.i.+rts, the irons being too heavy for me; thou didst wash our linen, thou didst sweep the house and the street before the door, so as to spare me all fatigue. Now I desire to work instead of you, but nothing more, husband.'
”'That is all one to me,' I replied; 'I will be, as in the past, thy tiring maid, thy laundress, thy cook, thy washwoman, thy slave, thy very own, submissive; but wife, sever not these two hearts and bodies that make but one; break not that soft bond of love that clasped us so tenderly together.'