Undine Part 4

'By this path I reached the end of the wood, and as the meadows and the lake came into sight the white man vanished, and I found myself standing near to your little cottage.'

As the knight had now finished the story of his adventure, the fisherman began to talk to his guest of how he might return in safety to the city and to the followers who there awaited him.

Huldbrand, listening to the old man, yet caught the soft ripple of Undine's laughter.

'Why do you laugh, Undine?' asked the knight. 'Are you so pleased to hear your foster-father talk of my return to the city?'

'I laugh for joy that you cannot leave us,' said the maiden. 'You have but to look to see that you must stay.'

Huldbrand and the fisherman rose and saw that what the maiden had said was indeed true. It would not be possible for the knight to leave the little island until the stream had once more returned to its usual course.

As they entered the cottage, Huldbrand whispered to the maiden, 'Undine, tell me that you are glad that I cannot yet return to the crowded city.'

But the maiden's face was no longer glad, nor would she answer the knight's question. She had remembered Bertalda.

When the stream had grown quiet the knight would go back to the lady for whose sake he had undergone such strange perils. And of that time the wilful maiden did not wish to think.

CHAPTER V

THE KNIGHT STAYS AT THE COTTAGE

Day after day the forest stream rushed wildly on. The bed along which it thus hastened grew wider and wider, separating the island with the fisherman's cottage yet farther from the mainland.

The knight was well pleased to linger where he was. Never had he found the days pa.s.s by so swiftly.

He discovered an old crossbow in a corner of the cottage. When he had mended it he would wander forth in search of birds, and if he succeeded in bringing some down with his arrows, he would carry them back to fill the larder of the little cottage.

And Undine, for she was pitiful, would not fail to upbraid the knight for taking the life of the little birds, so glad, so free. Seeing them lying there, quiet and still, she would weep.

Yet, did Huldbrand return without his prey, so wilful was the maiden that she would blame him, and complain that she could now have nought to eat save fish or crabs.

But the knight loved Undine's wayward words. And well he knew that after she had shown her anger most, she would in but a little while be again kind and gentle as before.

On the quiet island Huldbrand heard no call to knightly deeds. His sword hung unused on the cottage wall, his steed fed undisturbed among the sweet-scented meadows.

'The maiden is the daughter of a great prince, thought the knight. 'It is not possible that she should remain in this humble cottage all her life. She shall be my bride, and in days to come she shall dwell in my castle of Ringstetten on the banks of the Danube.'

Meanwhile, naught disturbed the dwellers in the little cottage, save now and again when her foster-mother would chide Undine in the presence of the knight.

Now, though this displeased Huldbrand, he could not blame the old woman, for it was ever true that the maiden deserved reproof more often than she received it.

At length wine and food began to grow scarce in the little cottage.

In the evening, when the wind howled around their home, the fisherman and the knight had been used to cheer themselves with a flask of wine.

But now that the fisherman was not able to reach the city, his supply of wine had come to an end. Without it the old man and the knight grew silent and dull.

Undine teased them, laughed at them, but they did not join in her merriment.

Then one evening the maiden left the cottage, to escape, so she said, from the gloomy faces in the little kitchen. It was a stormy night, and as it grew dark the wind began to blow, the waters to rise.

Huldbrand and the fisherman thought of the terrible night on which they had sought so long in vain for the wilful maiden. They even began to fear that they had lost her again, and together they rushed to the door. But to their great delight Undine was standing there, laughing and clapping her little hands.

'Come with me,' she cried when she saw them, 'come with me and I will show you a cask which the stream has thrown ash.o.r.e. If it is not a wine cask you may punish me as you will.'

The men went with her, and there in a little creek they found the cask and began to roll it toward the cottage.

But though they rolled it rapidly the storm crept quickly up. So black were the clouds, so threatening, that it seemed each moment that the rain would burst forth upon them.

Undine helped the men to roll the cask, and as the sky grew yet more threatening she looked up at the dark clouds and said in a warning voice, 'Beware, beware that you wet us not.'

'It is wrong of you thus to try to rebuke the storm,' said her foster-father, but at his words the maiden only laughed low to herself in the darkness.

It would seem, however, that Undine's warning had been of use, for it was not until the cask was rolled in at the cottage door that the storm broke.

By the bright glow of the fire they opened the cask and found that it did indeed hold wine. They tasted it and found it very good, and soon they were once more as gay as the maiden could wish.

Then suddenly the fisherman grew grave, grieving for him who had lost the cask.

'Nay, grieve not,' said the knight, 'I will seek for the owner and repay him for his loss when I come again to my castle at Ringstetten.'

The fisherman smiled and was content.

Undine, however, was angry with the knight. 'It is foolish,' said she, 'to talk of seeking for the owner of the cask. Were you lost in the search I should weep. Would you not rather stay by my side?'

'Yes, and that do you right well know,' answered the knight.

'Then,' said the maiden, 'why should you speak of helping other people. It is but foolish talk.'

The foster-mother sighed as she listened to Undine's careless words, while the fisherman forgot his usual quiet and scolded her sharply.

'Your words are wild, and are such as no Christian maiden should utter,' he said. 'May G.o.d forgive both you and those who have allowed you thus to speak.'

'It is indeed true,' said Undine, 'that as I think I speak. Why, therefore, should you scold me for my words.'

'Say no more,' said the fisherman, for he was very angry.

Then the maiden, who, for all her wilfulness, was timid as a bird, drew close to the knight and whispered, 'Are you also angry with me, Sir Knight.'

Huldbrand could find no words with which to comfort the maiden, whom he had learned to love. He could only hold her hand and stroke her golden hair, but with this Undine was well content.

CHAPTER VI

THE WEDDING