The Legend of Ulenspiegel Volume Ii Part 68

"Philip," the clerk went on, "placed in the most powerful cities of these countries new bishops, endowing and presenting them with the goods of the greatest abbeys; and by the help of these men he introduced the Spanish Inquisition."

"Let him be deposed as a murderer, the squanderer of others' wealth,"

replied the States.

"The n.o.bles of these countries, seeing this tyranny, presented in the year 1566 a request wherein they entreated the sovereign to moderate the rigour of his edicts and in especial those which concerned the Inquisition: he consistently refused this."

"Let him be deposed as a tiger abandoned and obstinate in his cruelty,"

replied the States.

The clerk continued:

"Philip is strongly suspected of having, through the intermediary of his Council of Spain, secretly inspired the image-breakings and the sacking of churches, in order to be able, under the pretext of suppressing crime and disorder, to send foreign armies to march against us."

"Let him be deposed as an instrument of death," replied the States.

"At Antwerp Philip caused the inhabitants to be ma.s.sacred, ruined the Flemish merchants and the foreign merchants. He and his Council of Spain gave a certain Rhoda, a notorious scoundrel, the right by secret instructions to declare himself the head of the pillagers, to harvest the booty, to employ his name, the name of Philip the king, to counterfeit his seals and counterseals, and to comport himself at his governor and his lieutenant. The royal letters, which were intercepted and are in our hands, prove this to be the fact. All took place with his consent and after deliberation in the Council of Spain. Read his letters; therein he praises the feat of Antwerp, acknowledges that he hath received a signal service, promises to reward it, enjoins Rhoda and the other Spaniards to continue to walk in this path of glory."

"Let him be deposed as a robber, pillager, and murderer," replied the States.

"We ask for nothing more than the maintenance of our privileges, a sincere and a.s.sured peace, a moderate freedom, especially with regard to religion which princ.i.p.ally concerns G.o.d and man's own conscience: we had nothing from Philip but deceitful treaties serving to sow discord between the provinces, to subdue them one after another and to treat them in the same way as the Indies, by pillage, confiscation, executions, and the Inquisition."

"Let him be deposed as an a.s.sa.s.sin premeditating the murder of a country," replied the States.

"He made the country bleed through the Duke of Alba and his catchpolls, through Medina-Coeli, Requesens, the traitors of the Councils of State and of the provinces; he enjoined a vigorous and b.l.o.o.d.y severity upon Don Juan and Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma (as may be seen by his intercepted letters); he set the ban of the empire upon Monseigneur d'Orange, paid the hire of three a.s.sa.s.sins before paying a fourth; erected castles and fortresses among us; had men burned alive, women and girls buried alive; inherited their goods, strangled Montigny, de Berghes, and other lords, despite his kingly word; killed his son Carlos; poisoned the Prince of Ascoly, whom he made espouse Dona Eufrasia, with child by himself, in order to enrich with his estates the b.a.s.t.a.r.d that was to come; launched an edict against us that declared us all traitors, that had forfeited our bodies and our wealth, and committed the crime unheard of in a Christian land, of confounding innocent and guilty."

"By all laws, rights, and privileges, let him be deposed," replied the States.

And the king's seals were broken.

And the sun shown on land and sea, gilding the ripened ears, mellowing the grape, casting pearls on every wave, the adornment of the bride of the Netherlands, Liberty.

Then the Prince of Orange, being at Delft, was stricken down by a fourth a.s.sa.s.sin, with three bullets in his breast. And he died, following his motto: "Calm amid the wild waves."

His enemies said of him that to thwart King Philip, and not hoping to rule over the Southern Low Countries, which were Catholic, he had offered them by a secret treaty to Monseigneur Monsieur Sa Grande Altesse of Anjou. But Anjou was not born to beget the babe Belgium upon Liberty, who loveth not perverse amours.

And Ulenspiegel left the fleet with Nele.

And the fatherland Belgium groaned beneath the yoke, fast bound by traitors.

IX

They were then in the month of the ripened grain; the air was heavy, the wind was warm: the reapers, both men and women, could gather in at their ease in the fields, under the free sky, upon a free soil, the corn they had sown.

Frisia, Drenthe, Overyssel, Guelderland, North Brabant, North and South Holland, Walcheren, North and South Beveland; Duiveland and Schouwen that make up Zealand; all the sh.o.r.es of the North Sea from Knokke to Helder; the islands of Texel, Vieland, Ameland, Schiermonk-Oog, were, from the western Scheldt to the eastern Ems, about to be freed from the Spanish yoke; Maurice, the son of the Silent, was continuing the war.

Ulenspiegel and Nele, having their youth, their strength, and their beauty, for the love and the spirit of Flanders grow never old, were living snugly in the tower of Neere, waiting till, after many hard trials, they could come and breathe the air of freedom upon Belgium the fatherland.

Ulenspiegel had asked to be appointed commandant and warden of the tower, saying that having an eagle's eyes and a hare's ears, he could see if the Spaniard would not attempt to show himself once more in the delivered countries, and that in that case he would sound wacharm, which is the alarm in the speech of Flanders.

The magistrate did as Ulenspiegel wished: because of his good service he was given a florin a day, two quarts of beer, beans, cheese, biscuit, and three pounds of beef every week.

Thus Ulenspiegel and Nele lived very well by themselves two: seeing from afar, with rejoicing, the free isles of Zealand: near at hand, woods, castles, fortresses, and the armed s.h.i.+ps of the Beggars guarding the coasts.

At night they often climbed up on the tower, and there, sitting on the platform, they talked of hard battles and goodly loves past and to come. Thence they beheld the sea, which in this time of heat surged and broke upon the sh.o.r.e in luminous waves, casting them upon the islands like phantoms of fire. And Nele was affrighted to see the jack o'lanterns in the polders, for, said she, they are the souls of the poor dead. And all these places had been battle-fields. The will o' the wisps swept out from the polders, ran along the d.y.k.es, then came back into the polders as though they had no mind to abandon the bodies whence they had issued.

One night Nele said to Ulenspiegel:

"See how thick they are in Duiveland and how high they fly: 'tis by the isle of birds I see the most. Wilt thou come thither, Thyl? We shall take the balsam that discloseth things hid from the eyes of mortals."

Ulenspiegel answered her:

"If it is the same balsam that wafted me to that great sabbath, I trow in it no more than a hollow dream."

"Thou must not," said Nele, "deny the potency of charms. Come, Ulenspiegel."

"I shall come."

The next day he asked the magistrate that a clear-sighted and trusty soldier should take his place, to guard the tower and keep watch over the country.

And with Nele he went his way to the isle of birds.

Going across fields and d.y.k.es, they beheld little green lush islets, between which ran the sea water; and upon the slopes of green sward that came down to the very dunes an immense concourse of plovers, of sea mews and sea swallows, that stayed motionless and made the islets all white with their bodies; overhead circled and flew thousands of the same. The ground was full of nests: Ulenspiegel, stooping to pick up an egg upon the way, saw a sea mew come flitting to him, uttering a cry. At his appeal there came more than a hundred others, crying with grief and fear, hovering above Ulenspiegel and over the neighbour nests, but they did not venture to come close to him.

"Ulenspiegel," said Nele, "these birds beg grace for their eggs."

Then falling a-tremble, she said:

"I am afeared; there is the sun setting; the sky is white, the stars awaken; 'tis the spirits' hour. See these red exhalations, gliding along the earth; Thyl, my beloved, what monster of h.e.l.l is thus opening his fiery mouth in the mist? See from the side of Philip's land, where the butcher king twice for his cruel ambition slaughtered so many poor men, see the dancing will-o'-the-wisps: 'tis the night when the souls of poor folk slain in battle quit the cold limbo of purgatory to come and be warmed again in the soft air of the earth: 'tis the hour when thou mayst ask aught of Christ, who is the G.o.d of good magicians."

"The ashes beat upon my heart," said Ulenspiegel. "If Christ could show me these Seven whose ashes cast to the wind were to make Flanders and the whole world happy!"

"Man of little faith," said Nele, "thou wilt see them by virtue of the balsam."

"Perchance," said Ulenspiegel, pointing to Sirius with a finger, "if some spirit descends from the cold star."

At his movement a will-o'-the-wisp flitting about him perched on his finger, and the more he sought to be rid of it, the tighter it clung.

Nele trying to set Ulenspiegel free, she, too, had her will-o'-the-wisp on the tip of her hand.

Ulenspiegel, striking at his, said:

"Answer! art thou the spirit of a Beggar or of a Spaniard? If thou be the soul of a Beggar, depart into paradise; if the soul of a Spaniard, return into h.e.l.l whence thou comest."

Nele said to him: