Part 31 (1/2)
And all of them, young and old, cursed the devil with a thunder of cries; and they came up to him menacingly, surrounding the chair and raising their tools to strike.
But Smetse stopped them and spoke again to the devil. ”If your highness,” he said, ”is minded to hold to his n.o.ble bones, let him deign to grant me the seven years, for the time for laughter is past, let me tell you.”
”Baes,” said the workmen, ”whence comes to thee this kindness beyond measure? Why hold so long and fair parley with this fellow? Let us first break him up, and then he will offer thee the seven years of his own accord.”
”Seven years!” said the devil, ”seven years! he shall not have so much as the shadow of a minute. Strike, men of Ghent, the lion is in the net; ye who could not find a hole deep enough to hide yourselves in when he was free and showed his fangs. Flemish cowards, see what I think of you and your threats.” And he spat on them.
At this spittle the bars, hammers, and other tools fell on him thick as hail, breaking his bones and the plates of his armour, and Smetse and his workmen said as they beat to their hearts' content:
”Cowards were we, who wished to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d in the sincerity of our hearts; valiant was he who prevented us with steel, stake, and live burial.
”Cowards were we for having always laughed readily and drunk joyously, like men who, having done what they had to do, make light of the rest: valiant was this dark personage when he had poor men of the people arrested in the midst of their merrymaking at Kermis-time and put death where had been laughter.
”Cowards were the eighteen thousand eight hundred persons who died for the glory of G.o.d; cowards those numberless others who by the rapine, brutality and insolence of the fighting men, lost their lives in these lands and others. Valiant was he who ordained their sufferings, and more valiant still when he celebrated his own evil deeds by a banquet.
”Cowards were we always, we who, after a battle, treated our prisoners like brothers; valiant was he who, after the defeat in Friesland, had his own men slaughtered.
”Cowards were we, who laboured without ceasing, spreading abroad over the whole world the work of our hands; valiant was he when, under the cloak of religion, he slew the richer among us without distinction between Romans and Reformers, and robbed us by pillage and extortion of thirty-six million florins. For the world is turned upside down; cowardly is the busy bee who makes the honey, and valiant the idle drone who steals it away. Spit, n.o.ble duke, on these Flemish cowards.”
But the duke could neither spit nor cough, for from the roughness of the blows they had given him he had altogether lost the shape of a man, so mingled and beaten together were bones, flesh, and steel. But there was no blood to be seen, which was a marvellous thing. Suddenly, while the workmen, wearied with beating, were taking breath, a weak voice came out from this hotch-potch of bones, flesh, and steel, saying:
”Thou hast the seven years, Smetse.”
”Very well then, My Lord,” said he, ”sign the quittance.”
This the devil did.
”And now,” said Smetse, ”will your highness please to get up.”
At these words, by great marvel, the devil regained his shape. But while he was walking away, holding up his head with great haughtiness and not deigning to look at his feet, he tripped over a sledge lying on the ground, and fell on his nose with great indignity, thereby giving much occasion for laughter to the workmen, who did not fail to make use of it. Picking himself up he threatened them with his fist, but they burst out laughing more loudly than ever. He came at them, grinding his teeth; they hooted him. He tried to strike with his sword a short and st.u.r.dy little workman; but the man seized the sword from his hands and broke it in three pieces. He struck another in the face with his fist, but the man gave him so good and valiant a kick as to send him sprawling on the quay with his legs in the air. There, flus.h.i.+ng with shame, he melted into red smoke, like a vapour of blood, and the workmen heard a thousand joyous and merry voices, saying: ”Beaten is the b.l.o.o.d.y Duke, shamed is the lord of the axe, inglorious the prince of butchers! Vlaenderland tot eeuwigheid! Flanders for ever!” And a thousand pairs of hands beat applause all together. And the dawn broke.
XIV. Of the great fears and pains of Smetse's wife.
Smetse, going to look for his wife, found her in the kitchen on her knees before the picture of St. Joseph. ”Well, mother,” said he, ”what didst think of our dance? Was it not a merry one? Ah, henceforth they will call our house the House of Beaten Devils.”
”Yes,” said his wife, wagging her head, ”yes, and also the house of Smetse who was carried away to h.e.l.l. For that is where thou wilt go; I know it, I feel it, I foretell it. This devil's coming all accoutred for war presages evil. He will come back, no longer alone, but with a hundred thousand devils armed like himself. Ah, my poor man! They will carry lances, swords, pikes, hooked axes, and arquebuses. They will drag behind them canon which they will fire at us; and everything will be ground to pieces, thou, I, the smithy, and the workmen. Alas, everything will be levelled to the ground! And where our smithy now stands will be nothing but a sorry heap of dust. And the folk walking past along the quay will say when they see this dust: 'There lies the house of Smetse, the fool who sold his soul to the devil.' And I, after dying in this fas.h.i.+on, shall go to Paradise, as I dare to hope. But thee, my man, oh, woe unspeakable! they will take away with them and drag through fire, smoke, brimstone, pitch, boiling oil, to that terrible place where those are punished who, wis.h.i.+ng to break a pact made with the devil, have no special help from G.o.d or his holy saints. Poor little man, my good comrade, dost know what there is in store for thee? Ho, a gulf as deep as the heavens are high, and studded all down its terrible sides with jutting points of rock, iron spikes, horrid spears, and a thousand dreadful pikes. And dost know what manner of gulf this is, my man? 'Tis a gulf wherein a man may keep falling always--dost understand me, always, always--gashed by the rocks, cut about by the spears, torn open by the pikes, always, always, down all the long length of eternity.”
”But, wife,” said Smetse, ”hast ever seen this gulf whereof thou speakest?”
”Nay,” said she, ”but I know what manner of place it is, for I have often heard tell of it in the church of St. Bavon. And the good canon predicant would not lie.”
”Ah, no,” said Smetse.
XV. Of the b.l.o.o.d.y King.
When the last night of the seventh year was come Smetse was in his smithy, looking at the enchanted sack, and asking himself with much anxiety how he could make the devil get into it.