Читать книгу The Legend of Ulenspiegel - Charles de Coster - Страница 18

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Claes, when he parted from his brother, mounted his donkey once more, taking Ulenspiegel on the crupper behind him. He passed by the great square of Meyborg, and there beheld, assembled in groups, a great number of pilgrims, who seeing them became enraged and flourishing their cudgels they all suddenly cried out, “Scamp!” because of Ulenspiegel, who, opening his breeches, plucked up his shirt and showed them his nether visage.

Claes, seeing that it was his son they were threatening, said to him:

“What did you do for them to be so angry against you?”

“Dear father,” replied Ulenspiegel, “I am sitting on the donkey, saying no word to any man, and nevertheless they say I am a scamp.”

Then Claes set him in front.

In this position Ulenspiegel thrust out his tongue at the pilgrims, who, roaring, shook their fists at him, and lifting up their cudgels, would fain have beaten Claes and the donkey.

But Claes smote the beast with his heels to flee from their wrath, and while they pursued, losing their breath, he said to his son:

“Thou wert then born on a luckless day, for thou art sitting in front of me, doing no harm to any, and yet they would fain destroy thee.”

Ulenspiegel laughed.

Passing by Liège, Claes learned that the poor Rivageois were starving and that they had been placed under the jurisdiction of the Official, a tribunal composed of ecclesiastical judges. They made a riot demanding bread and lay judges. Some were beheaded or hanged, and the rest banished out of the country, such at that time was the clemency of Monseigneur de la Marck, the gentle archbishop.

Claes saw by the way the banished folk, fleeing from the pleasant vale of Liège, and on the trees near to the town the bodies of men hanged for being hungry. And he wept over them.