The Legend of Ulenspiegel Volume Ii Part 17

"Your might is well known," replied Ulenspiegel, "you could never hide it."

"Hee haw!" went the boatman; "hee haw!" went the lad.

Suddenly Ulenspiegel sang again, most melodiously like a lark. And the men, the women, and the artisans, ravished with delight, asked him where he had learned that divine whistle.

"In paradise, whence I have come direct," answered Ulenspiegel.

Then, speaking to the man who never stopped braying and pointing with his finger for mockery:

"Why do you stay there on your boat, rascal? Do you not dare to come to land and mock at us and our steeds?"

"Do you not dare?" said Lamme.

"Hee haw! hee haw!" went the boatman. "Masters, donkeys, playing the donkey, come up on my boat."

"Do as I do," said Ulenspiegel in a low voice to Lamme.

And speaking to the boatman:

"If you are the Stercke Pier, I, I am Thyl Ulenspiegel. And these twain are our a.s.ses, Jef and Jan, who can bray better than you, for it is their native tongue. As for going up on your rickety planks, we have no mind to it. Your boat is like a tub; every time a wave strikes it it goes back, and it can only move like the crabs, sideways."

"Aye, like the crabs!" said Lamme.

Then the boatman, speaking to Lamme:

"What are you muttering between your teeth, lump of bacon?"

Lamme, becoming furious, said:

"Evil Christian, who reproached me with my infirmity, know that my bacon is my own and comes from my good food; while thou, old rusty nail, thou livest but on old red herrings, candle wicks, skins of stockfish, to judge from thy scrawny beef that can be seen sticking through the holes in thy breeches."

"They'll be giving each other a stiff drubbing," said the men, women, and artisans, delighted and full of curiosity.

"Hee haw! hee haw!" went the boatman.

"Do not throw stones," said Ulenspiegel.

The boatman said a word in the ear of the lad hee-hawing beside him on the boat, and with the help of a boat hook, which he handled dexterously, came to the bank. When he was quite close, he said, standing proudly upright:

"My baes asks if you dare to come on board his boat and wage battle with him with fist and foot. These goodmen and goodwives will be witnesses."

"We will," said Ulenspiegel with much dignity.

"We accept the combat," said Lamme with great stateliness.

It was noon; the workmen, navvies, paviours, s.h.i.+p-makers, their wives armed with their husbands' luncheons, the children that came to see their fathers refresh themselves with beans or boiled meat, all laughed and clapped their hands at the idea of a battle at hand, gaily hoping that one or the other of the combatants would have a broken head or would fall into the river all in pieces for their delectation.

"My son," said Lamme in a low voice, "he will throw us into the water."

"Let yourself be thrown," said Ulenspiegel.

"The big man is afraid," said the crowd of workmen.

Lamme, still sitting on his a.s.s, turned on them and looked wrathfully at them, but they hooted him.

"Let us go on the boat," said Lamme, "they will see if I am afraid."

At these words he was hooted again, and Ulenspiegel said:

"Let us go on the boat."

Alighting from their a.s.ses, they threw the bridles to the boy who patted the donkeys in friendly fas.h.i.+on, and led them where he saw thistles growing.

Then Ulenspiegel took the boat hook, made Lamme get into the dinghy, sculled along towards the boat, where by the help of a rope he climbed up, preceded by Lamme, sweating and blowing hard.

When he was upon the bridge of the vessel, Ulenspiegel stooped down as though he meant to lace up his boots, and said a few words to the boatman, who smiled and looked at Lamme. Then he roared a thousand insults at him, calling him rascal, stuffed with guilty fat, gaol seed, pap-eter, eater of pap, and saying: "Big whale, how many hogsheads of oil do you give when you are bled?"

All at once, without answering him, Lamme hurled himself on him like a wild bull, flung him down, struck him with all his might, but did him little harm because of the fat pithlessness of his arms. The boatman, while pretending to struggle, let him do as he would, and Ulenspiegel said: "This rascal will pay for liquor."

The men, women, and workmen, who from the bank looked on at the battle, said: "Who would have imagined that this big man was so impetuous?"

And they clapped their hands while Lamme struck like a deaf man. But the boatman took care for nothing except to save his face. Suddenly Lamme was seen with his knee on Stercke Pier's breast, holding him by the throat with one hand and raising the other to strike.

"Cry for mercy," he said in fury, "or I will drive you through the ribs of your tub!"

The boatman, coughing to show that he could not cry out, asked for mercy with his hand.

Then Lamme was seen generously lifting up his enemy, who was soon on his feet, and turning his back on the spectators, put out his tongue at Ulenspiegel, who was bursting with laughter to see Lamme, proudly shaking the feather in his cap, walking up and down the boat in mighty triumph.

And the men, women, lads, and la.s.ses, who were on the bank, applauded with all their might, saying: "Hurrah for the conqueror of Stercke Pier! He is a man of iron. Did ye see how he thumped him with his fist and how he stretched him on his back with a blow from his head? There they are, going to drink now to make peace. Stercke Pier is coming up from the hold with wine and sausages."

In very deed, Stercke Pier had come up with two tankards and a great quart of white Meuse wine. And Lamme and he had made peace. And Lamme, all gay and jolly because of his triumph, because of the wine and the sausages, asked him, pointing to an iron chimney that was disgorging a black thick smoke, what were the frica.s.sees he was making in his hold.

"War cookery," replied Stercke Pier, smiling.

The crowd of artisans, women, and children being dispersed to go back to their work or to their homes, the rumour ran speedily from mouth to mouth that a great fat man, mounted on an a.s.s and accompanied by a little pilgrim, also mounted on an a.s.s, was stronger than Samson and that care must be taken not to offend him.

Lamme drank and looked at the boatman with a conquering air.

The other said suddenly:

"Your donkeys are tired of being over yonder."

Then, bringing the boat up against the quay, he got out on the earth, took one of the a.s.ses by the hind legs and the forelegs, and carrying him as Jesus carried the lamb, set it down on the bridge of the boat. Then having done the same with the other one without so much as drawing a quicker breath, he said:

"Let us drink."

The lad leaped on the bridge.