The Legend of Ulenspiegel Volume Ii Part 10

XVIII

A sharp wind was blowing. The sun, bright as youth in the morning, was veiled and gray as an old man. A rain mixed with hail was falling.

The rain having ceased, Ulenspiegel shook himself, saying:

"The sky that drinks up so much mist must relieve itself sometimes."

Another rain, still more mingled with hail than the former, beat down on the two companions. Lamme groaned:

"We were well washed, now we must needs be rinsed!"

The sun reappeared, and they rode on gaily.

A third rain fell, so full of hail and so deadly that like knives it chopped the dry twigs on the trees to mincemeat.

Lamme said:

"Ho! a roof! My poor wife! Where are ye, good fire, soft kisses, and fat soups?"

And he wept, the great fellow.

But Ulenspiegel:

"We bemoan ourselves," said he, "is it not from ourselves none the less that our woes come on us? It is raining on our backs, but this December rain will make the clover of May. And the kine will low for pleasure. We are without a shelter, but why did we never marry? I mean myself, with little Nele, so pretty and so kind, who would now give me a good stew of beef and beans to eat. We are thirsty in spite of the water that is falling; why did we not make ourselves workmen steady in one condition? Those who are received as masters in their trade have in their cellars full casks of bruinbier."

The ashes of Claes beat upon his heart, the sky became clear, the sun shone out in it, and Ulenspiegel said:

"Master Sun, thanks be unto you, you warm our loins again; ashes of Claes, ye warm our heart once more, and tell us that blessed are they that are wanderers for the sake of the deliverance of the land of our fathers."

"I am hungry," said Lamme.

XIX

They came into an inn, where they were served with supper in an upper chamber. Ulenspiegel, opening the windows, saw from thence a garden in which a comely girl was walking, plump, round bosomed, with golden hair, and clad only in a petticoat, a jacket of white linen, and an ap.r.o.n of black stuff, full of holes.

Chemises and other woman's linen was bleaching on cords: the girl, still turned towards Ulenspiegel, was taking chemises down from the lines, and putting them back and smiling and still looking at him, and sat down on linen bands, swinging on the two ends knotted together.

Near by Ulenspiegel heard a c.o.c.k crowing and saw a nurse playing with a child whose face she turned towards a man that was standing, saying:

"Boelkin, look nicely at papa!"

The child wept.

And the pretty girl continued to walk about in the garden, displacing and replacing the linen.

"She is a spy," said Lamme.

The girl put her hands before her eyes, and smiling between her fingers, looked at Ulenspiegel.

Then pressing up her two b.r.e.a.s.t.s with her hands, she let them fall back, and swung again without her feet touching the ground. And the linen, unwinding itself, made her turn like a top, while Ulenspiegel saw her arms, bare to the shoulders, white and round in the pallid suns.h.i.+ne. Turning and smiling, she kept always looking at him. He went out to find her. Lamme followed him. At the hedge of the garden he searched for an opening to pa.s.s through, but found none.

The girl, seeing what he was doing, looked again, smiling between her fingers.

Ulenspiegel tried to break through the hedge, while Lamme, holding him back, said to him:

"Do not go there; she is a spy, we shall be burned."

Then the girl walked about the garden, covering up her face with her ap.r.o.n, and looking through the holes to see if her chance friend would not be coming soon.

Ulenspiegel was going to leap over the hedge with a running jump, but he was prevented by Lamme, who caught hold of him by the leg and made him fall, saying:

"Rope, sword, and gallows, 'tis a spy, do not go there."

Sitting on the ground, Ulenspiegel struggled against him. The girl cried out, pus.h.i.+ng up her head above the hedge:

"Adieu, Messire, may Love keep your Longanimousness hanging!"

And he heard a burst of mocking laughter.

"Ah!" said he, "it is in my ears like a packet of pins!"

Then a door shut noisily.

And he was melancholy.

Lamme said to him, still holding him:

"You are counting over the sweet treasures of beauty thus lost to your shame. 'Tis a spy. You fall in luck when you fall. I am going to burst with laughing."

Ulenspiegel said not a word, and both got up on their a.s.ses once more.

XX

They went on their way each well astride his a.s.s.

Lamme, chewing the cud of his last meat, sniffed up the cool air rejoicing. Suddenly Ulenspiegel fetched him a great stinging slash of his whip on his behind, which was like a cus.h.i.+on in the saddle.