The Legend of Ulenspiegel Volume I Part 45

"Take away that fire!" she cried. "Ah! master judges, spare his poor youth. Take away the fire!"

"The fishmonger!" cried Ulenspiegel, seeing her weakening.

"Raise Ulenspiegel a foot above the ground," said the bailiff; "set the brazier underneath his feet and a candle under either armpit."

The executioner obeyed. What hair was left in his armpits crackled and smoked in the flame.

Ulenspiegel cried out, and Soetkin, weeping, said:

"Take the fire away!"

The bailiff said:

"Confess the concealment and thou shalt be set at liberty. Confess for him, woman."

And Ulenspiegel said: "Who will throw the fishmonger into the fire that burneth for ever?"

Soetkin made sign with her head that she had nothing to say. Ulenspiegel ground and gnashed his teeth, and Soetkin looked at him with haggard eyes and all in tears.

Nevertheless, when the executioner, having blown out the candles, set the burning brazier under Ulenspiegel's feet, she cried:

"Master judges, have pity upon him: he knows not what he saith."

"Why doth he not know what he saith?" asked the bailiff, craftily.

"Do not question her, master judges; ye see full well that she is out of her wits with torment. The fishmonger lied," said Ulenspiegel.

"Wilt thou say the same as he, woman?" asked the bailiff.

Soetkin made sign with her head to say yes.

"Burn the fishmonger!" cried Ulenspiegel.

Soetkin held her peace, raising her clenched fist into the air as though to curse.

Yet seeing the brazier burn up more fiercely under her son's feet, she cried:

"O Lord G.o.d! Madame Mary that art in heaven, put an end to this torment! Have pity! Take the brazier away!"

"The fishmonger!" groaned Ulenspiegel again.

And he vomited blood in great gushes through nose and mouth, and letting his head fall, hung suspended above the coals.

Then Soetkin cried:

"He is dead, my poor orphan! They have killed him! Ah! him, too. Take away this brazier, master judges! Let me take him into my arms to die also, I, too, to die with him. Ye know I cannot flee on my broken feet."

"Give the widow her son," said the bailiff.

Then the judges deliberated together.

The executioner unbound Ulenspiegel, and laid him all naked and covered with blood upon Soetkin's knees, while the barber surgeon put back his bones in their sockets.

All the while Soetkin embraced Ulenspiegel, and said, weeping:

"Son, poor martyr! If the judges will, I shall heal thee, I; but awaken, Thyl, my son! Master judges, if ye have killed him on me, I shall go to His Majesty; for ye have done contrary to all laws and justice, and ye shall see what one poor woman can do against wicked men. But, sirs, leave us free together. We have nothing but our two selves in the world, poor wretches on whom the hand of G.o.d has been heavy."

Having deliberated, the judges gave out the following sentence:

"Inasmuch as you, Soetkin, lawful widow of Claes, and you, Thyl, son of Claes, and called Ulenspiegel, having been accused of fraudulently withholding the goods that by confiscation were the property of His Majesty the King, maugre all privileges contrary to this, despite severe torture and adequate ordeal, have confessed to nothing:

"The court, considering the absence of sufficient proofs, and in you, woman, the piteous condition of your members, and in you, man, the harsh torment you have undergone, declares you both at liberty, and accords you permission to take up your abode in the house of him or her who may please to give you lodging, in spite of your poverty.

"Thus decreed at Damme, the three and twentieth day of October in the year of Our Lord 1558."

"Thanks be to you, master judges," said Soetkin.

"The fishmonger!" groaned Ulenspiegel.

And mother and son were taken to the house of Katheline in a cart.

LXXIX

In this year, which was the fifty-eighth of the century, Katheline went into Soetkin's house, and said:

"Last night, having anointed myself with a balsam, I was carried to the tower of Notre Dame, and I beheld the spirits of the element pa.s.sing on to the angels the prayers of men who flying towards the farthest heavens, bore them to the throne. And the sky was all over sprinkled with radiant stars. Suddenly there rose up from a fire pile a shape that seemed all black and climbed up to set himself beside me on the tower. I recognized Claes as he was in life, clad in his coalman's attire. 'What dost thou,' said he, 'on the tower of Notre Dame?' 'But thyself,' I replied, 'whither goest thou, flying through the air like a bird?' 'I go,' he said, 'to the judgment, dost thou not hear the angel's trump?' I was quite close to him, and felt that his spiritual body was not solid like the bodies of living men; but so tenuous that moving forward against him, I entered into it as into a hot vapour. At my feet, in all the land of Flanders, there shone a few lights, and I said to myself: 'Those who rise early and work late are the blessed of G.o.d.'

"And all the while I heard the angel's trumpet sounding through the night. And I saw then another shade that mounted, coming out of Spain; this one was old and decrepit, had a chin like a slipper and preserve of quince on its lips. It wore on its back a cloak of crimson velvet lined with ermine, on its head a crown imperial, in one hand an anchovy which it was munching, in the other a tankard full of beer.

"It came, doubtless for weariness, and sate down on the tower of Notre Dame. Kneeling down, I said to it: 'Crowned Majesty, I revere you, but I know you not. Whence come you and what do you in the world?' 'I come,' it said, 'from Saint Just in Estramadura, and I was the Emperor Charles the Fifth.' 'But,' said I, 'whither go you as now on this cold night, through these clouds laden with hail?' 'I go,' it said, 'to the judgment.' Just as the Emperor was fain to finish his anchovy and to drink his beer from his tankard, the angel's trumpet sounded, and he flew up into the air growling and grumbling at being thus interrupted in his meal. I followed His Sacred Majesty. He went through s.p.a.ce, hiccoughing with fatigue, wheezing with asthma, and sometimes vomiting, for death had come on him during a spell of indigestion. We mounted continually, like arrows sped from a bow of cornelwood. The stars glided beside us, tracing lines of fire in the sky; we saw them break loose and fall. And still the trumpet of the angel kept a-sounding. What a mighty and sonorous blare! At every flourish, as it beat against the mists of the air, they opened up as though some hurricane blast had blown upon them from near at hand. And so was our path marked out for us. Having been borne away for a thousand leagues and more, we beheld Christ in his glory, seated on a throne of stars, and on his right hand was the angel that inscribes the deeds of men upon a brazen register, and on his left hand Mary his mother, entreating him without ceasing for sinners.

"Claes and the Emperor Charles knelt down before the throne.

"The angel cast the crown from off Charles's head: 'There is but one emperor here,' said he, 'that is Christ.'

"His Sacred Majesty seemed angry; nevertheless, speaking humbly: 'Might I not,' said he, 'keep this anchovy and this tankard of beer, for this long journey made me hungry.'

"'As thou wast all thy life long,' rejoined the angel; 'but eat and drink none the less.'

"The Emperor drained the tankard of beer and munched at the anchovy.

"Then Christ spake and said:

"'Dost thou offer a cleansed soul for judgment?'