"There, my son, is the home both of your loves and of your sorrows." But Ulenspiegel made no answer.

"In a little while," continued Lamme, "I shall be seeing my old home, and perhaps my wife!" But Ulenspiegel did not answer.

"You man of wood," said Lamme, "you heart of stone, will nothing move you--neither the near approach to the place where you pa.s.sed your childhood, nor yet the dear memory of poor Claes and Soetkin, the two martyrs? What! You are not sad, neither are you merry; who can it be that has thus hardened your heart? Look at me, how anxious and uneasy I am, and how my belly heaves with nervousness; look at me I say!"

But Lamme looked at Ulenspiegel and saw that his face was drawn and pale, and his lips were trembling with tears, and he said not a word. And now Lamme also held his peace.

They walked along in this way without speaking till they came to Damme, which they entered by the rue Heron; and they saw no one about because of the heat. Only the dogs lay on their sides on the doorsteps of many a house, gasping, with their tongues out, while Lamme and Ulenspiegel pa.s.sed right in front of the Town Hall where Claes had been burnt to death; and here the lips of Ulenspiegel trembled the more, and his tears dried up. And at last they were come to the house of Claes himself, which was now occupied by a master charcoal-burner. Ulenspiegel entered in and said:

"Do you recognize me? I would wish to rest here a while."

The master charcoal-burner answered:

"I recognize you. You are the son of the victim. You are free in this house to go wheresoever you will."

Ulenspiegel went into the kitchen, and then upstairs into the room of Claes and Soetkin, and there he shed many tears.

When he had come down again, the master charcoal-burner said to him: "Here is bread, cheese, and beer. If you are hungry, eat. If you are thirsty, drink."

But Ulenspiegel made a gesture to the effect that he was neither hungry nor thirsty, and he left the house and came with Lamme to Katheline's cottage, and there they tethered their donkeys and straightway entered in. It was the hour of the midday meal. On the table was a dish of broad beans in their pods together with some white beans. Katheline was busy eating, while Nele was standing by her ready to pour into Katheline's plate some vinegar sauce which she had just taken off the fire. When Ulenspiegel came into the room Nele was so startled that she put the sauce, and the pot and all, into Katheline's platter. And Katheline kept on wagging her head, and picking out the broad beans with her spoon from the trencher, striking her forehead the while and crying ever like one mad:

"Put out the fire! My head is burning!"

And the smell of the vinegar made Lamme feel hungry. But Ulenspiegel stood still where he was, gazing at Nele and smiling for love of her despite his great sorrow.

And Nele, without a word of greeting, flung her arms round his neck. And she also seemed like one bereft of sense. For she cried and laughed, and blus.h.i.+ng as she was with her great and sweet happiness, she could only say: "Tyl! Tyl!"

Ulenspiegel, happy now in his turn, gazed into her eyes. Then she let go of him and stepped back a pace or two, gazed at him joyfully in her turn, and then threw herself on him again, clasping her arms round his neck, and so many times and again. And he suffered her gladly, powerless to tear himself away from her, till at last she fell into a chair, tired out and like one bereft of her senses, and she said without shame:

"Tyl! Tyl, my beloved! Here you are come back to me again!"

Lamme meanwhile was standing at the door; but when Nele had recovered herself a little, she pointed to him, saying:

"Where have I seen this fat man?"

"He is my friend," Ulenspiegel told her. "He goes seeking his wife in my company."

"I know you," said Nele to Lamme. "You used to live in the rue Heron. You are seeking for your wife? Well, I have seen her. She is living at Bruges in all piety and devotion, and when I asked her why she had left her husband so unkindly, she answered that it was by the Holy Will of G.o.d and at the command of Holy Penance, and that she could never live with her husband again."

At these words Lamme was sad, but his eyes wandered to the beans and vinegar. And outside the larks sang as they flew upwards into the sky, and all Nature swooned away under the caress of her Lord the Sun. And Katheline kept stirring with her spoon that pot of beans and sauce.

XXV

Now, in those days a damsel some fifteen years of age was going from Heyst to Knokke, alone in the middle of the day, by the sand-dunes. No one had any fear for her for they knew that the wolves and wicked spirits of the d.a.m.ned go biting their victims only in the night. The damsel carried a satchel wherein were forty-eight gold coins of the value of four florins carolus, being the sum owed by the girl's mother, Toria Pieterson, who lived at Heyst, to her uncle, Jan Rapen of Knokke, on account of a sale. The girl's name was Betkin, and she was wearing her best clothes, and she went on her way most happily.

The same evening, seeing that she did not return, her mother became anxious, but rea.s.sured herself with the thought that the girl must have stayed the night with her uncle.

On the morrow, certain fishermen on their way back from the sea with a boat-load of fish, drew their boat on to the beach and unloaded their catch, which they would sell at auction by the cart-load at the Minque of Heyst. They went up the road along the dunes, all strewn with sh.e.l.ls, and presently came upon a young girl, stripped naked even to her chemise, with traces of blood all about her. Coming nearer they found upon her neck the horrid marks of long sharp teeth. She was lying on her back with her eyes wide open gazing up into the sky, and her mouth was open also as if with the cry of death itself!

Covering the girl's body with an opperst-kleed they brought it to Heyst, to the Town Hall, and there quickly a.s.sembled the aldermen and the leech, who declared that the long teeth that had made those marks were no teeth of a wolf as known in nature, but rather of some wicked and devilish werwolf, and that it behoved them now to pray G.o.d one and all that he would deliver the land of Flanders.

And in all that country, and notably at Damme, at Heyst, and at Knokke, prayers and orisons were ordered to be made.

But Ulenspiegel went to the town bailiff and said to him: "I will go and kill the werwolf."

"What gives you this confidence?" asked the bailiff.

"The ashes beat upon my heart," Ulenspiegel replied. "Only give me leave to labour a while at the forge of the commune."

"Very well," said the bailiff.

Ulenspiegel, without telling a word concerning his project to any man or woman in Damme, betook him to the forge, and there, in secret, he fas.h.i.+oned a fine and a strong trap such as those traps which are made to catch wild beasts.

On the following day, which was a Sat.u.r.day, day beloved of werwolves, Ulenspiegel armed himself with a letter from the bailiff to the cure of Heyst, together with the trap which he carried under his cloak, as well as a good crossbow and a well-sharpened cutla.s.s. Thus provided, he departed on his way, saying to those in Damme:

"I am going out to hunt the seagulls, and of their down will I make a soft pillow for madame the wife of the bailiff."

Now before he reached Heyst, he came out on to the seash.o.r.e. The sea was rough and boisterous, and he heard the great waves growling like thunder, and the wind that blew from England whistling in the rigging of the boats that were stranded on the beach. A fisherman said to him:

"This bad wind will be our ruin. Last night the sea was calm, but at sunrise she suddenly swelled with anger. And to-day we shall not be able to go out fis.h.i.+ng." Ulenspiegel was pleased at this, for he knew that now he would be sure of some a.s.sistance if need arose. At Heyst he went straight to the cure and presented the letter that the bailiff had given him. The cure said:

"You are a brave man, but let me tell you that no one goes along the dunes on Sat.u.r.day nights without being bitten by the werwolf and left dead on the sands. Even the men who are at work on the dikes never go there except in a party. The evening is coming on. Do you not hear the werwolf howling in his valley? Perchance he will come again into the cemetery, even as he came last night, howling most horribly through all the hours of darkness! G.o.d be with you, my son. But go not there." And the cure crossed himself.

"The ashes beat upon my heart," answered Ulenspiegel.

The cure said:

"Because you have so brave a spirit I will help you."

"Monsieur le Cure," said Ulenspiegel, "you will be doing a great kindness, as well to me as to this poor desolated land of ours, if you will go to Toria, the dead girl's mother, and to her two brothers also, and tell them that the wolf is near at hand, and that I am going out to wait for it and kill it."

The cure said:

"If you want to know where you should lie in wait, let me advise you to keep along by the path which leads to the cemetery. It runs between two hedges of broom. It is so narrow two men could scarcely walk abreast."

"I understand," said Ulenspiegel. "And you, brave cure, will you tell the girl's mother and her husband and her brothers to come themselves and wait together in the church about the hour of the curfew. There, if they hear a cry like the cry of a seagull, it will mean that I have seen the werwolf. Then they must sound the wacharm on the bell, and come fast to my a.s.sistance. And if there are any other brave men...."

"There are none, my son," replied the cure. "The fishermen are less afraid of the plague and of death itself than of the werwolf. Do not go, I beseech you."

Ulenspiegel answered:

"The ashes beat upon my heart."