CHAPTER II
HOW UNDINE HAD COME TO THE FISHERMAN
Now when she had gone, both Huldbrand and the fisherman sprang from their seats and were bent on following the angry girl. But before they had reached the cottage door, Undine had long vanished in the darkness without, and not a sound of her light footstep betrayed whither she had gone. Huldbrand looked questioningly at his host. “Perchance,” he mused to himself, “this sweet vision, which hath gone back again into the night, is but one of those marvellous shapes which, a short while agone, played their mad tricks upon me in the forest.”
But the old man muttered between his teeth: “This is not the first time that she hath treated us thus. Now shall we have aching hearts and sleepless eyes the livelong night; for who knoweth but that she may sometime come to harm, if she remaineth alone in the dark until daylight?”
“Then for God’s sake,” cried the knight, “let us follow her forthwith!”
“And what would be the use?” returned the old man. “It would be a sin were I to let you pursue the foolish girl in solitude and darkness; while as for me, my old limbs could not catch the runaway, even if we knew whither she had gone.”
“Nathless,” quoth Huldbrand, “let us at least call after her and beg her to come back,” and eagerly did he raise his voice, “Undine! Undine! Come back!”
But the old man shook his head. “Little good will shouting serves,” saith he. “Thou knowest not her perversity.” And yet he too could not forbear to call, “Undine! Undine! Come back, I beg you, come back if only this once!”
It came to pass, however, as the fisherman had surmised. No Undine could be seen or heard, and since the old man could by no means suffer that Huldbrand should go forth alone, they had perforce to return to the cottage. There they found the fire almost extinguished on the hearth, while the old wife, to whom Undine’s flight and danger seemed of far smaller moment than they did to her husband, had already retired to rest. The fisherman bestirred himself to blow up the embers, and put fresh wood upon them; and by the light of the kindling flame he sought out a tankard of wine, which he placed between himself and his guest.
“Sir Knight,” quoth he, “I perceive that thou too art disturbed about the silly girl. It were better, methinks, that we both should talk and drink and so pass the night, than that we should toss sleeplessly upon our rush mats. Is it not so?”