Seeing that he was allowed to say what he pleased, the monk lifted up his nose on board the ship; and the sailors and soldiers, to make him the more ready and eager to preach, slandered Madame the Virgin, Messieurs the Saints, and the pious practices of the Holy Roman Church.

Then, becoming enraged, he vomited out a flood of abuse against them.

“Aye!” he cried, “aye, here am I then in the den of the Beggars! Yea, these are indeed those accursed devourers of the land! Yea. And they say that the Inquisitor, that holy man, has burned too many of them! Nay: there is still some of the filthy vermin left. Aye, on these goodly and gallant ships of our Lord the King, once so clean and well scoured, now can be seen the vermin of the Beggars, aye, the stinking vermin. Aye, they are vermin, foul, stinking, infamous vermin, the singing captain, the cook with his belly filled with impiety, and all of them with their blasphemous crescents. When the king will have his ships scoured with the suds of artillery, it will need more than a hundred thousand florins’ worth of powder and cannon shot to clear away this filthy, beastly stinking infection. Aye, ye were all born in Madame Lucifer’s alcove, condemned to dwell with Satanas between walls of vermin, under curtains of vermin, on mattresses of vermin. Yea, and there it was that in their infamous loves they begat and conceived the Beggars. Aye, and I spit upon you.”

At this word the Beggars said to him:

“Why do we keep here this idle rascal, who is good for nothing but to spew up insults? Let us hang him rather.”

And they set about doing it.

The monk, seeing the rope ready, the ladder propped against the mast, and that they were about to bind his hands, said woefully:

“Have pity upon me, Messieurs the Beggars, it is the demon of anger that speaks in my heart and not your humble captive, a poor monk that hath but one only neck in this world: gracious lords, have mercy: shut my mouth if ye will with a choke-pear; ’tis a bitter fruit, but hang me not.”

But they, without giving heed, and despite his furious struggles, were dragging him towards the ladder. He cried then so shrill and loud that Lamme said to Ulenspiegel, who was with him and tending him in the cook’s galley:

“My son! my son! they have stolen a pig from the stable, and they are making off. Oh, the robbers! if I could but rise!”

Ulenspiegel went up and saw nothing but the monk. And he, catching sight of Ulenspiegel, fell upon his knees, with his hands outstretched to him.

“Messire Captain,” said he, “captain of the valiant Beggars, redoubtable on land and on sea, your soldiers are fain to hang me because I have transgressed with my tongue: ’tis an unjust punishment, Messire Captain, for so must all advocates, procurators, preachers, and women, be given a hempen collar, and the world would be unpeopled; Messire, save me from the rope. I shall pray for you; you will never be damned: grant me pardon. The devil of prating carried me away and made me speak without ceasing: ’tis a mighty misfortune. My poor bile soured then and made me say a thousand things I never think. Grace, Messire Captain, and you, Messieurs, intercede for me.”

Suddenly Lamme appeared on the deck in his shirt and said:

“Captain and friends, ’twas not the pig but the monk that was squealing; I am overjoyed. Ulenspiegel, my son, I have conceived a high design with regard to His Paternity; give him his life, but leave him not at liberty, else will he do some ill trick upon the ship: rather have a cage built for him on the deck, a strait cage well opened and airy, where he can do no more than sit down and sleep; such a one as they make for capons; let me feed him, and let him be hanged if he does not eat as much as I will.”

“Let him be hanged if he will not eat,” said Ulenspiegel and the Beggars.

“What dost thou mean to do with me, big man?” said the monk.

“Thou shalt see,” replied Lamme.

And Ulenspiegel did as Lamme wished, and the monk was put in a cage, and all could contemplate him at their leisure.

Lamme had gone down into his galley; Ulenspiegel followed and heard him disputing with Nele:

“I will not lie down,” he was saying, “no, I will not lie down to have others groping and fumbling with my sauces; no, I will not stay in my bed, like a calf!”

“Do not be angry, Lamme,” said Nele, “or your wound will reopen and you will die.”

“Well,” said he, “I will die: I am tired of living without my wife. Is it not enough for me to have lost her, without your trying furthermore to prevent me, me the master cook of this place, from myself keeping watch over the soup? Know ye not that there is a health inherent in the steam of sauces and fricassees? They even nourish my spirit and armour me against misfortunes.”

“Lamme,” said Nele, “thou must needs hearken to our counsel and let thyself be healed by us.”

“I am fain to let myself be healed,” said Lamme: “but rather than another should enter here, some ignorant good-for-naught, a frowsy, ulcerous, blear-eyed, dropping nosed fellow, and come to king it as master cook in my place, and paddle with his filthy fingers in my sauces, I would rather kill him with my wooden ladle, which would be iron for that task.”

“All the same,” said Ulenspiegel, “thou must have an assistant; thou art sick…”

“An assistant for me,” said Lamme, “for me, an assistant! Art thou then stuffed with naught but ingratitude, as a sausage is full of minced meat? An assistant, my son, and ’tis thou that dost say so to me, thy friend, who have nourished thee so long time and so succulently! Now will my wound reopen. False friend, who then would dress thy food like me? What would ye do, ye two, if I were not there to give thee, chief-captain, and thee, Nele, some dainty stew or other?”

“We will work ourselves in the galley,” said Ulenspiegel.

“Cooking,” said Lamme: “thou art good to eat of it, to smell it, to sniff it up, but to perform it, no: poor friend and chief-captain, saving your respect, I could make thee eat leather wallets cut up into ribbons, and thou wouldst take it for toughish tripe: leave me, my son, to be still the master cook of here, else I shall dry up, like a lathstick.”

“Remain master cook then,” said Ulenspiegel; “if thou dost not heal, I will shut up the galley and we shall eat naught save biscuits.”

“Ah! my son,” said Lamme, weeping for joy, “thou art good and kind as Notre Dame herself.”

IV

And in any case he appeared to be healing.

Every Saturday the Beggars saw him measuring the monk’s waist girth with a long leather thong.

The first Saturday he said:

“Four feet.”

And measuring himself, he said:

“Four feet and a half.”

And he seemed melancholy.

But, speaking of the monk, on the eighth Saturday he was full of joy and said:

“Four feet and three quarters.”

And the monk, angry, when he took his measure, would say to him:

“What do you want with me, big man?”

But Lamme would put out his tongue at him without a word.

And seven times a day, the sailors and soldiers saw him come with a new dish, saying to the monk:

“Here be rich beans in Flemish butter: didst thou eat the like in thy monastery? Thou hast a goodly phiz; there is no starving on this ship. Dost thou not feel cushions of fat coming on thy back? Before long thou wilt have no need of a mattress to lie on.”

At the monk’s second meal:

“Here,” he would say, “there are koeke-bakken after the Brussels fashion; the French folk call them crêpes, for they wear crapes on their kerchiefs for a sign of mourning: these are not black, but fair of hue and golden browned in the oven: seest thou the butter streaming off them? So shall it be with thy belly.”

“I have no hunger,” the monk would say.

“Thou must needs eat,” was Lamme’s answer. “Dost thou deem that these are pancakes of buckwheat? ’tis pure wheat, my father, father in grease, fine flour of the wheat, my father with the four chins: already I see the fifth one coming, and my heart rejoices. Eat.”

“Leave me in peace, big man,” said the monk.

Lamme, becoming wrathful, would reply:

“I am the lord and disposer of thy life: dost thou prefer the rope to a good bowl of pea soup with sippets, such as I am about to fetch thee presently?”

And coming with the bowl:

“Pea soup,” quoth Lamme, “loves to be eaten in company: and therefore I have just added thereto knoedels of Germany, goodly dumplings of Corinth flour, cast all alive into boiling water: they are heavy, but make plenteous fat. Eat all thou canst; the more thou dost eat the greater my joy: do not feign disgust; breathe not so hard as if thou hadst over much: eat. Is it not better to eat than to be hanged? Let’s see thy thigh! it thickens also; two feet seven inches round about. Where is the ham that measureth as much?”

An hour after he came back to the monk:

“Come,” said he, “here are nine pigeons: they have been slaughtered for thee, these innocent beasts that wont to fly unfearing above the ships: disdain them not; I have put into their bellies a ball of butter, breadcrumbs, grated nutmeg, cloves pounded in a brass mortar shining like thy skin: Master Sun rejoices to be able to admire himself in a face as bright as thine, by reason of the grease, the good grease I have made for thee.”

At the fifth meal he would fetch him a waterzoey.

“What thinkest thou,” quoth he, “of this hodgepodge of fish? The sea carries thee and feedeth thee: she could do no more for the King’s Majesty. Aye, aye, I can see the fifth chin visibly a-coming a little more on the left side than on the right side: we must fatten up this side that is neglected, for God saith to us: ‘Be just to each.’ Where would justice be, if not in an equitable distributing of grease? I will bring thee for thy sixth repast mussels, those oysters of the poor, such as they never served thee in thy convent: ignorant folk boil them and eat them so; but that is but the prologue to the fricassee; they must next be stripped of their shells, and their gentle bodies put in a pan, then stewed delicately with celery, nutmeg, and cloves, and bind the sauce with beer and flour, and serve them with buttered toast. I have done them in this fashion for thee. Why do children owe so great a gratitude to their fathers and mothers? Because they have given them shelter and love, but beyond all things, food: thou oughtest then to love me as thy father and thy mother, and even as to them thou owest me the gratitude of thy stomach: roll not against me then such savage eyes.

“Presently I shall bring thee a soup of beer and flour, well sweetened with cinnamon a-plenty. Knowest thou for why? That thy fat may become translucent and shiver upon thy skin: such it is seen when thou movest. Now here is the curfew ringing: sleep in peace, taking no thought for the morrow, certain to find thy succulent repasts once more, and thy friend Lamme to give them thee without fail.”

“Begone and leave me to pray to God,” said the monk.

“Pray,” said Lamme, “pray with the cheerful music of snoring: beer and sleep will make grease for thee, goodly grease. For my part, I am glad of it.”

And Lamme went off to put himself in bed.

And the sailors and soldiers would say to him:

“Why, then, do you feed so richly this monk that wishes thee no good?”

“Let me alone,” said Lamme, “I am accomplishing a mighty work.”

V

December was come, the month of long dark nights. Ulenspiegel sang:

“Monseigneur Sa Grande Altesse
Takes off his mask,
Eager to reign over the Belgian land.
The Estates Spaniardized
But not Angevined
Deal with the taxes.
Beat upon the drum
Of Anjou’s thwarting.

“They have within their power
Domains, excise, and funds,
Making of magistrates
And offices as well.
He hateth the Reformed
Monsieur Sa Grande Altesse,
An atheist in France
Oh! Anjou’s thwarting.

“For he would fain be king
By the sword and by force,
King absolute in all.
This Monseigneur, this Grande Altesse;
Fain would he foully seize
Many fair towns, yea, Antwerp, too;
Signorkes and pagaders rise early,
Oh! Anjou’s thwarting!

“’Tis not upon thee, France,
That this folk rushes, mad with rage;
These deadly weaponed blows
Fall not upon thy noble body;
And they are not thy offspring
Whose corpses in great heaps
Choke the Kip-Dorp Gate.
Oh! the thwarting of Anjou!

“No, these are no sons of thine
The people fling from the ramparts.
’Tis the High Highness of Anjou,
The passive libertine Anjou,
Living, France, on thy very blood,
And eager to drink ours;
But ’twixt the cup and lip…
Oh! the thwarting of Anjou.

“Monsieur Sa Grande Altesse.
In a defenceless town
Cried, ‘Kill! kill! Long live the Mass!’
With his handsome minions,
With eyes wherein gleams
The shameful fire, impudent, restless,
Lust without love.
Oh! the thwarting of Anjou!

“’Tis they that are smitten, not thee, poor folk,
On whom they weigh with tax,
Salt tax, poll tax, deflowering,
Contemning thee, making thee give
Thy corn, thy horses, thy wains,
Thou that art a father to them.
Oh! the thwarting of Anjou!

“Thou that art a mother to them,
Suckling the misbehaviour
Of these parricides that sully
Thy name abroad, France, that dost feast
On the savours of their glory
When they add by savage feast.
Oh! the thwarting of Anjou!

“A floret to thy soldier crown,
A province to thy territory.
Give the stupid cock ‘Lust and battle’
Thy foot on the neck.
People of France, people of men,
The foot that treads them down!
And all the peoples will love thee
For the thwarting of Anjou.”

VI

In May, when the peasant women of Flanders by night throw backwards slowly over their heads three black beans to keep them from sickness and death, Lamme’s wound opened again: he had a high fever and asked to be laid on the deck of the ship, over against the monk’s cage.

Ulenspiegel was very willing; but for fear lest his friend might fall into the sea in a fever fit, he had him strongly fastened down upon his bed.

In his interludes of reason, Lamme incessantly enjoined on them not to forget the monk: and he thrust out his tongue at him.

And the monk said:

“Thou dost insult me, big man.”

“Nay,” replied Lamme, “I am fattening thee.”

The wind blew soft, the sun shone warm; Lamme in his fever was securely tied on his bed, so that in his witless spasms of leaping he might not jump over the side of the ship; and deeming himself still in his galley, he said:

“This fire is bright to-day. Soon it will rain ortolans. Wife, spread snares in our orchard. Thou art lovely thus, with thy sleeves rolled up to the elbow. Thy arm is white, I would fain bite it, bite with my lips that are teeth of live velvet. Whose is this lovely flesh, whose those lovely breasts showing beneath thy white jacket of fine linen? Mine, my sweet treasure. Who will make the fricassee of cock’s comb and chickens’ rumps? Not too much nutmeg, it brings on fever. White sauce, thyme, and laurel: where are the yolks of eggs?”

Then making a sign for Ulenspiegel to bring his ear close to his mouth, he said to him in a low voice:

“Presently it will rain venison; I shall keep thee four ortolans more than the others. Thou art the captain; betray me not.”

Then hearing the sea beat softly on the ship’s side:

“The soup is boiling, my son; the soup is boiling, but how slow is this fire to heat up!”

As soon as he recovered his wits, he said, speaking of the monk:

“Where is he? doth he grow in grease?”

Seeing him then, he put out his tongue at him and said:

“The great work is being accomplished; I am content.”

One day he asked to have the great scales set up on the deck, and to be set in it, he on one pan, the monk on the other: scarcely was the monk in place than Lamme soared like an arrow in the air, and rejoicing, he said, looking at him:

“He weighs it down! he weighs it down! I am a weightless spirit beside him: I will fly in the air like a bird. I have my idea: take him away that I may come down; now put on the weights. Put him back. What does he weigh? Three hundred and fourteen pounds. And I? Two hundred and twenty.”

VII

The night of the day after this, when the dawn was rising gray, Ulenspiegel was awakened by Lamme crying:

“Ulenspiegel! Ulenspiegel! help, rescue, keep her from going away. Cut the cords! cut the cords!”

Ulenspiegel came up on the deck and said:

“Why dost thou call out? I see naught.”

“’Tis she,” replied Lamme, “she, my wife, there, in that skiff rounding that flyboat; aye, that flyboat whence there came the sound of singing and the viol strings.”

Nele had come up on deck.

“Cut the cords, my dear,” said Lamme. “Seest thou not that my wound is cured, her soft hand hath healed it; she, aye, she. Dost thou see her standing up in the skiff? Dost thou hear? she is singing still. Come, my beloved, come; flee not from thy poor Lamme, who was so lonely in the world without thee.”

Nele took his hand, touched his face.

“He hath the fever still,” she said.

“Cut the cords,” said Lamme; “give me a skiff! I am alive, I am happy, I am healed!”

Ulenspiegel cut the cords: Lamme, leaping from his bed in breeches of white linen, without a doublet, set to work himself to lower away the skiff.

“See him,” said Nele to Ulenspiegel: “his hands tremble with impatience as they work.”

The skiff ready, Ulenspiegel, Nele, and Lamme went down into it with an oarsman, and set off towards the flyboat anchored far off in the harbour.

“See the goodly flyboat,” said Lamme, helping the oarsman.

On the fresh morning sky, coloured like crystal gilded by the rays of the young sun, the flyboat showed up her hull and her elegant masts.

While Lamme rowed:

“Tell us now how didst find her again,” asked Ulenspiegel.

Lamme replied, speaking in jerks:

“I was sleeping, already much better. All at once a dull noise. A piece of wood struck the ship. A skiff. A sailor hurries up at the noise: ‘Who goes there?’ A soft voice, her voice, my son, her voice, her sweet voice: ‘Friends.’ Then a deeper voice: ‘Long live the Beggar: the commander of the flyboat Johannah to speak with Lamme Goedzak.’ The sailor drops the ladder. The moon was shining. I see a man’s shape coming up on to the deck: strong hips, round knees, wide pelvis; I say to myself: ‘a pretended man’: I feel as it might be a rose opening and touching my cheek: her mouth, my son, and I hear her saying to me, she – dost thou follow? – herself, covering me with kisses and with tears: ’twas liquid perfumed fire falling on my body: ‘I know I am sinning; but I love thee, my husband! I have sworn before God: I am breaking my oath, my man, my poor man! I have come often without daring to come nigh thee; the sailor at last allowed me: I dressed thy wound, thou knewest me not; but I have healed thee; be not wroth, my man! I have followed thee, but I am afraid; he is upon this ship, let me go; if he saw me he would curse me and I should burn in the everlasting fire!’ She kissed me again, weeping and happy, and went away in spite of me, despite my tears: thou hadst bound me hand and foot, my son, but now…”

And saying this he bent mightily to his oars: ’twas like the taut string of a bow that launches the arrow forthright.

As they approached the flyboat, Lamme said:

“There she is, upon the deck, playing the viol, my darling wife with her hair of golden brown, with the brown eyes, the cheeks still fresh and young, the bare round arms, the white hands. Leap onward, skiff, over the sea!”

The captain of the flyboat, seeing the skiff coming up and Lamme rowing like a demon, had a ladder dropped from the deck. When Lamme was by it, he leapt from the skiff on to the ladder at the risk of tumbling into the sea, thrusting the skiff three fathoms behind him and more; and climbing like a cat up to the deck, ran to his wife, who swooning with joy, kissed and embraced him, saying:

“Lamme! come not to take me: I have sworn to God, but I love thee. Ah! dear husband!”

Nele cried out:

“It is Calleken Huybrechts, the pretty Calleken.”

“’Tis I,” said she, “but alas! the hour of noon has gone by for my beauty.”

And she seemed wretched.

“What hast thou done?” said Lamme: “what became of thee? Why didst thou leave me? Why wilt thou leave me now?”

“Listen,” said she, “and be not wroth; I will tell thee: knowing that all monks are men of God I confided in one of them: his name was Broer Cornelis Adriaensen.”

Hearing which Lamme:

“What!” said he, “that wicked hypocrite who had a sewer mouth, full of filth and dirt, and spoke of naught but spilling the blood of the Reformed; what! that praiser of the Inquisition and the edicts! Ah, it was a blackguardly good-for-naught rascal!”

Calleken said:

“Do not insult the man of God.”

“The man of God!” said Lamme, “I know him; ’twas a man of filth and foulness. Wretched fate! my beautiful Calleken fallen into the hands of this lascivious monk! Come not near me, I will kill thee: and I that loved her so much! my poor deceived heart that was all her own! What dost thou come hither for? Why didst thou tend me? thou shouldst have left me to die. Begone, thou; I would see thee no more, begone, or I fling thee in the sea. My knife!..”

She, embracing him:

“Lamme,” said she, “my husband, weep not: I am not what thou deemest: I have not belonged to this monk.”

“Thou liest,” said Lamme, weeping and grinding his teeth both at the same time. “Ah! I was never jealous, and now I am. Sad passion, anger, and love, the need to slay and embrace. Begone, thou! no, stay! I was so good to her! Murder is master in me. My knife! Oh! this burns, devours, gnaws; thou laughest at me…

She embraced him weeping, gentle and submissive.

“Aye,” said he, “I am a fool in my anger: aye, thou didst guard my honour, that honour a man is mad enough to hang on a woman’s skirts. So it was for that thou wast wont to pick out thy sweetest smiles to ask me leave to go to the sermon with thy she-friends.”

“Let me speak,” said the woman, embracing him. “May I die on the instant if I deceive thee!”

“Die, then,” said Lamme, “for thou art going to lie.”

“Listen to me,” said she.

“Speak or speak not,” said he, “’tis all one to me.”

“Broer Adriaensen,” she said, “passed for a good preacher; I went to hear him: he set the ecclesiastic and celibate estate above all others as being more proper to win paradise for the faithful. His eloquence was great and fiery: several wives of good repute, of whom I was one, and in especial a goodly number of widow women and girls, had their minds troubled by it. The estate of celibacy being so perfect, he enjoined upon us to dwell therein: we swore thenceforward no longer to be spouses…”

“Save to him, no doubt,” said Lamme, weeping.

“Be silent,” said she, angry.

“Go to,” said he, “finish: thou hast fetched me a bitter blow; I shall never be whole of it.”

“Yea,” said she, “my man, when I shall be always with thee.”

And she would fain have embraced and kissed him, but he repulsed her.

“The widows,” said she, “swore between his hands never to marry again.”

And Lamme listened to her, lost in his jealous musing.

Calleken, shamefaced, went on:

“He desired,” she said, “to have no penitents save young and beauteous wives or maids: the others he sent back to their own curés. He established an order of devotees, making us all swear to have no other confessors but himself only: I swore it; my companions, more initiate than I, asked me if I was fain to be instructed in the Holy Discipline and the Holy Penance: I wished it. There was at Bruges, at the Stone Cutters’ Quay, by the convent of the Franciscan friars, a house dwelt in by a woman called Calle de Najage, who gave girls instruction and lodging, for a gold carolus by the month: Broer Cornelis could enter her house without being seen to leave his cloister. It was to this house I went, into a little chamber where he was alone: there he ordered me to tell him all my natural and carnal inclinations: at first I dared not; but in the end I gave way, wept, and told him all.”

“Alas!” wept Lamme, “and this swine monk thus received thy sweet confession.”

“He still told me, and this is true, my husband, that above earthly modesty is a celestial modesty, through which we make unto God the sacrifice of our earthly shames, and that thus we avow to our confessors all our secret desires, and are then worthy to receive the Holy Discipline and the Holy Penance.

“In the end he made me strip naked before him, to receive upon my body, which had sinned, the too-light chastisement of my faults. One day he made me unclothe myself; I fainted when I must let my body linen fall: he revived me with salts and flasks. – ‘’Tis well for this time, daughter,’ said he, ‘come back in two days’ time and bring a rod.’ That went on for long without ever … I swear it before God and all his saints … my man … understand me … look at me … see if I lie: I remained pure and faithful … I loved thee.”

“Poor sweet body,” said Lamme, “O stain upon thy marriage robe!”

“Lamme,” said she, “he spoke in the name of God and of our Holy Mother Church; was I not to listen to him? I loved thee always, but I had sworn to the Virgin, by dreadful oaths, to deny myself to thee: yet I was weak, weak to thee. Dost thou recall the hostelry of Bruges? I was at the house of Calle de Najage thou didst pass by upon thine ass with Ulenspiegel. I followed thee; I had a goodly sum of money; I spent nothing ever for myself. I saw thee an hungered: my heart pulled towards thee, I had pity and love.”

“Where is he now?” asked Ulenspiegel.

Calleken replied:

“After an inquiry ordered by the magistrate and an investigation of evil men, Broer Andriaensen must needs leave Bruges, and took refuge in Antwerp. They told me on the flyboat that my man had made him prisoner.”

“What!” said Lamme, “this monk I am fattening is…”

“He,” answered Calleken, hiding her face.

“A hatchet! a hatchet!” said Lamme, “let me kill him, let me auction his fat, the lascivious he-goat! Quick, let us back to the ship. The skiff! where is the skiff?”

Nele said to him:

“’Tis a foul cruelty to kill or to wound a prisoner.”

“Thou lookest on me with a cruel eye; wouldst thou prevent me?” said he.

“Aye,” said she.

“Well, then,” said Lamme, “I will do him no hurt: let me only fetch him out from his cage. The skiff! where is the skiff?”

They climbed down into it speedily; Lamme made haste to row, weeping the while.

“Thou art sad, husband?” said Calleken to him.

“Nay,” said he, “I am glad: doubtless thou wilt never leave me again?”

“Never!” said she.

“Thou wast pure and faithful, thou sayest; but, sweet, my darling, beloved Calleken, I lived but to find thee, and lo, now, thanks to this monk, there will be poison in all our happiness, poison of jealousy … as soon as I am sad or but only tired, I shall see thee naked, submitting thy lovely body to that infamous flagellation. The spring time of our loves was mine, but the summer was for him; the autumn will be gray, soon will come the winter to bury my faithful love.”

“Thou art weeping?” said she.

“Aye,” quoth he, “what is past can never come again.”

Then Nele said:

“If Calleken was faithful, she ought to leave thee alone for thy ill words.”

“He knoweth not how I love him,” said Calleken.

“Dost thou say true?” cried Lamme; “come, darling; come, my wife; there is no longer gray autumn nor winter that diggeth graves.”

And he seemed cheerful, and they came to the ship.

Ulenspiegel gave Lamme the keys of the cage, and he opened it; he tried to pull the monk out on the deck by the ear, but he could not; he tried to fetch him out sideways, he could not do that, either.

“We must break all; the capon is fattened,” said he.

The monk then came forth, rolling about big daunted eyes, holding his paunch with both hands, and fell down on his seat because of a great wave that passed beneath the ship.

And Lamme, speaking to the monk:

“Wilt thou still say, ‘big man’? Thou art bigger than I. Who made thee seven meals a day? I. Whence cometh it, bawler, that now thou art quieter, milder towards the poor Beggars?”

And continuing further:

“If thou dost stay another year encaged, thou wilt not be able to come out again: thy cheeks quiver like pork jelly when thou dost move: thou criest no longer already; soon thou wilt not be able to breathe.”

“Hold thy peace, big man,” said the monk.

“Big man,” said Lamme, becoming furious; “I am Lamme Goedzak, thou art Broer Dikzak, Vetzak, Leugenzak, Slokkenzak, Wulpszak, the friar big sack, grease sack, lying sack, cram sack, lust sack: thou hast four fingers deep of fat under thy skin, thy eyes can be seen no longer: Ulenspiegel and I would both lodge comfortably within the cathedral of thy belly! Thou didst call me big man; wilt thou have a mirror to study thy Bellyness? ’Tis I that fed thee, thou monument of flesh and bone. I have sworn that thou wouldst spit grease, sweat grease, and leave behind thee spots of grease like a candle melting in the sun. They say that apoplexy cometh with the seventh chin; thou hast five and a half by now.”

Then to the Beggars:

“Look at this lecher! ’tis Broer Cornelis Adriaensen Rascalsen, of Bruges: there he preached the new modesty. His grease is his punishment; his grease is my work. Hear now, all ye sailors and soldiers: I am about to leave you, to leave thee, thee, Ulenspiegel, to leave thee, too, thee, little Nele, to go to Flushing where I have property, to live there with my poor wife that I have found again. Of yore ye took an oath to grant me all that I might ask of you…”

“On the word of the Beggars,” said they.

“Then,” said Lamme, “look on this lecher, this Broer Adriaensen Rascalsen of Bruges; I swore to make him die of fatness like a hog; construct a wider cage, force him to take twelve meals a day instead of seven; give him a rich and sugared diet: he is like an ox already; see that he be like an elephant, and ye will soon see him fill the cage.”

“We shall fatten him,” said they.

“And now,” went on Lamme, speaking to the monk, “I bid thee also adieu, rascal, thee whom I cause to be fed monkishly instead of having thee hanged: grow in grease and in apoplexy.”

Then taking his wife Calleken in his arms:

“Look, growl or bellow, I take her from thee; thou shalt whip her never more.”

But the monk, falling in a fury and speaking to Calleken:

“Thou art going away then, carnal woman, to the bed of lust! Aye, thou goest without pity for the poor martyr for the word of God, that taught thee the holy, sweet, celestial discipline. Be accursed! May no priest give thee absolution; may earth be burning underneath thy feet; may sugar be salt to thee; may beef be as dead dog to thee; may thy bread be ashes; may the sun be ice to thee, and the snow hell fire; may thy child-bearing be accursed; may thy children be detestable; may they have the bodies of apes, pigs’ heads greater than their bellies; mayst thou suffer, weep, moan in this world and in the other, in the hell that awaits thee, the hell of sulphur and bitumen kindled for females such as thou art. Thou didst refuse my fatherly love: be thrice accursed by the Blessed Trinity, seven times accursed by the candlesticks of the Ark; may confession be to thee damnation; may the Host to thee be mortal poison, and may every paving stone in the church rise up to crush thee and say to thee: ‘This woman is the fornicator, this woman is accursed, this woman is damned’.”