Then they all began to talk at once at the top of their voices:

"Bacon and peas, hotchpotch of beef and veal, chicken and lamb! And where are the sausages--were they made for the dogs, pray? And who is he that has smelt out the black and white puddings in the pa.s.sage without collaring them for us? I used to be able to see them, alas, in the days when my poor eyes were bright as candles! And where is the b.u.t.tered koekebakken of Anderlecht? Sizzling in the frying-pan, juicy and crackling, enough to make a fish thirsty for drink! Ho there! But who will bring me eggs and ham, or ham and eggs, twin friends of my palate? And where are you, you choesels, that float in a heavenly mess of meats and kidneys, c.o.xcombs, sweetbreads, ox-tails, lamb's feet, with many onions, pepper, cloves, nutmegs, all in a stew, and three pints at least of best white wine for sauce? And who will bring you to me divine, chitterlings, you that are so good that one does not utter a word while you are being swallowed! And they come straight from Luyleckerland, a land bursting with fatness and filled with happy lazy folk, whose pa.s.sion for good things to eat is never a.s.suaged! And where are you, dried leaves of autumns past? Now quick there! Bring me a leg of mutton with broad beans. And for me, some pig's ears grilled with bread-crumbs. And for me, a chaplet of ortolans. Verily the snipe shall figure the Paters, and a fat capon the Credo."

Mine host answered quietly:

"I will bring you an omelette made with sixty eggs. And as sign-posts to guide your spoons, I will plant fifty black puddings in the midst, all smoking on a veritable mountain of good cheer; and from the top of all some dobbel peterman shall flow down like a river on every side."

At this the mouths of the poor blind men began to water indeed, and they said:

"Then serve us, pray, and that right quickly with the mountain, the sign-posts, and the river!"

And the Brethren of the Jolly Face, who were now all seated at table with their wives, remarked to Ulenspiegel that this should be called the Day of the Invisible Feast; for that the blind men could not see what they were eating, and thus, poor things, were deprived of half their pleasure.

At last it came--the omelette all garnished with cress and parsley, carried by mine host himself and four of his cooks--and the blind men desired to fall to incontinently, and at once began to set their paws upon it. But mine host was determined to serve each of them fairly, and, however difficult it might be, to make sure that each trencher had its just portion.

The women archers were filled with pity to see the blind men gobbling and sighing with joy at what was set before them. For in truth they were half starved, and they swallowed down the puddings as though they had been oysters. And the dobbel peterman flowed into their stomachs as if it had been a cataract falling down from some lofty mountain.

When at length they had cleared their trenchers, they demanded yet further supplies of koekebakken, ortolans, and frica.s.sees. Mine host, however, only provided a great platter of beef and veal and mutton bones, all swimming in a most goodly sauce. But he did not divide it properly. So that when they had well dipped their bread in the sauce, and eke their hands right up to the elbows, yet drew not out anything but bones of cutlet of veal or mutton, each man fell straightway to imagining that his neighbour had got hold of all the meat, and they began to fight among themselves, hitting out most furiously one against another with the bones.

The Brethren of the Jolly Face laughed heartily at this, but being charitably disposed, each put a portion of his own dinner into the blind men's platter. So now if one of the blind went searching for a new bone with which to carry on the fight, he would put his hand belike upon a thrush or chicken or a lark or two; and all the time the women, holding their heads well backwards, kept pouring into the mouths of the blind long draughts of Brussels wine, and when they reached out with their hands to feel, as blind men will, whence came these rivulets of ambrosia, they would catch oftentimes at a woman's skirt, and try to hold it fast. But quickly the skirt would make its escape.

Thus they laughed and drank, ate and sang, enjoying themselves hugely. Some of them, when they found that women were present, ran through the hall all maddened with amorous desire. But the malicious girls kept out of their way, hiding behind the Brethren of the Jolly Face. And one of them would say: "Come, kiss me!" And when the blind victim tried to do so he would find himself kissing not a girl at all but the bearded face of a man, who would reward him with a cuff on the cheek as like as not.

And the Brethren of the Jolly Face began to sing, and the blind men sang also, and the merry women smiled with fond delight to see their pleasure. But when the juicy hours were past, it was the turn of the innkeeper, who came forward, saying:

"Now you have eaten your fill, my friends, and drunk your fill. You owe me seven florins."

But each of the blind men swore that he had no purse, and a.s.serted that it was one of the others who carried it. Thereat arose a further dispute, and they began to hit out at one another with feet and hands and heads; but they mostly missed their mark, striking out at random, while the Brethren of the Jolly Face, entering into the fun, took care to keep them apart, so that their blows rained down upon the empty air--all save one, which happened unfortunately to strike the face of the innkeeper, who straightway fell into a rage and ransacked all their pockets. But he found there nothing but an old scapular, seven liards, three breeches-b.u.t.tons, and a few rosaries.

At last he threatened to throw the whole lot of them into the pig-trough, and leave them there with nothing but bread and water to eat till they paid what they owed.

"Let me go surety for them," said Ulenspiegel.

"Certainly," answered the innkeeper, "if some one will also go surety for you."

This the Brethren of the Jolly Face at once offered to do, but Ulenspiegel refused them.

"No," he said, "the Dean of Uccle shall be my surety. I will go and find him."

To be sure it was those Ma.s.ses for the dead that he was thinking of. And when he had found the Dean he told him a story of how the innkeeper of the Trumpet Inn was possessed by the Devil, and how he could talk of nothing but "pigs" and "blind men"--something or other about pigs eating the blind, and the blind eating the pigs under various infamous forms of roast meats and frica.s.sees. While these attacks were on, the innkeeper, so Ulenspiegel affirmed, would break up all the furniture in the inn; and he begged the Dean to come and deliver the poor man from the wicked devil that possessed him.

The Dean promised to do so, but he said he could not come at the moment (for he was busy with the accounts of the Chapter, trying to make something out of them for himself). Seeing that the Dean was growing impatient, Ulenspiegel said that he would return and bring with him the innkeeper's wife in order that the Dean might speak to her himself.

"Very well," said the Dean.

So Ulenspiegel came again to the innkeeper and said to him:

"I have just seen the Dean, and he is willing to go surety for the blind men. Do you keep watch over them, and let your wife come with me, and the Dean will repeat to her what I have just told you."

"Go, wife," said the innkeeper.

So the innkeeper's wife went with Ulenspiegel to the Dean, who was still at his accounts and busy with the same problem. When, therefore, he saw Ulenspiegel and the woman, he made an impatient gesture that they should withdraw, saying at the same time:

"It is all right. I will come to the help of your husband in a day or two."

And Ulenspiegel went back to the inn and said to himself:

"Seven florins shall he pay; seven florins. And that shall be the first of my Ma.s.ses for the dead!"

And Ulenspiegel departed from that place, and the blind men likewise.

XXV

Now in those days Katheline had effected a cure, by means of herbs, on three sheep, an ox, and a pig, all belonging to a certain man named Speelman. She also attempted to cure a cow, the property of one Jan Beloen, but in this she was not successful. Jan Beloen promptly accused her of being a witch, a.s.serting that she had laid a charm on the animal, inasmuch as all the time she was giving the herbs she had caressed it and talked to it, in the Devil's own language, as was evident--for what business has an honest Christian woman to go talking with an animal...?

Jan Beloen added that he was a neighbour of Speelman's, the man whose ox had been cured, together with three sheep and a pig as aforesaid, and if Katheline had now killed his cow, it was doubtless at the instigation of Speelman, who was jealous at seeing his, Beloen's, land better and more profitably cultivated than his own. Pieter Meulmeester, a man of good life and reputation, and Jan Beloen himself both testified that Katheline was commonly reputed to be a witch by the people of Damme, and that she had certainly killed the cow; and on this testimony Katheline was arrested and condemned to be tortured until she had confessed her crimes and malpractices.

She was cross-examined by a certain alderman who was notorious for his ill-temper, for he was accustomed to drink brandy all the day long. And he ordered her to be placed on the seat of torture in the presence of himself and the members of the Town Council.

The torturer put her on the seat stark naked, and then shaved off her hair, looking carefully to see that no charm was concealed anywhere about her person. Finding none, he bound her with cords to the seat of torture. And she said:

"It shames me to be naked before these men. O Mother Mary, let me die!"

The torturer then wrapped some damp cloths round her breast and body and legs, and raising the bench upright he proceeded to pour great quant.i.ties of hot water down her throat so that her stomach became all swollen. Then he let the bench down again.

The alderman asked Katheline if she would now acknowledge her crime. She made a sign in the negative. And the torturer poured more hot water into her; but this Katheline brought all up again.

Then by the advice of the doctor she was released. But she did not speak a word, only beat her breast as much as to say that the hot water had burned her. When the torturer saw that she was recovered from this first ordeal, he said to her:

"Confess that you are a witch, and that you laid a charm on the cow."

"I will confess no such thing," replied Katheline. "I am here in your power. Nevertheless, I tell you that an animal can die of an illness, just as a man can, and in spite of all the help of surgeons and of doctors. And I swear by Our Lord Christ who was pleased to die upon the Cross for our sins, that I wished to do no harm to this cow, but simply to cure her by well-known remedies."

Thereat the alderman was angry and cried out:

"This devil's drab, she cannot go on lying for ever! Put her to the second torture."

Then he drank a large gla.s.s of brandy.

The torturer meanwhile sat Katheline down on the lid of an oak coffin which was placed on trestles. Now the coffin-lid was pointed like a roof, and the edge of it was as sharp as a sword. A great fire was burning in the fireplace, for it was the month of November. Katheline, seated on the edge of the coffin-lid, had her feet shod in shoes of new leather several sizes too small for her, and then she was placed in front of the fire. When she began to feel the sharp wood of the coffin-lid cutting into her flesh, and when her shoes began to shrink under the heat of the fire, Katheline cried aloud:

"Oh, agony! Will no one give me a draught of black poison?"