“If thou are not really there, if thou art but a floating mist, then let me too cease to live and become a shadow like thee, thou dear Undine!” Crying these words aloud, he stepped deeper still into the waters.
“Look round, look round,” came a voice to his ear; and as he turned he saw by the moonlight, momentarily unveiled, a little island encircled by the flood; and there under the branches of the overhanging trees was Undine, smiling and nestling happily in the flowery grass.
Ah, how much more joyously now than before did the knight use the aid of his stout pine-branch! Nimbly he crossed the flood, and stood beside the maiden on a little plot of grass, safely guarded and screened by the good old trees. Undine half raised herself from the ground, and under the green leafy tent, throwing her arms round his neck, she drew the knight down beside her on her soft couch.
“Beautiful friend,” whispered she, “thou shalt tell me thy story here. Here the cross old people cannot hear us. And our roof of leaves giveth us as good shelter as their poor old hut!”
“Nay, but it is Paradise itself!” quoth Huldbrand, as he covered her face with eager kisses.
Meantime the fisherman had come to the edge of the stream and raised his voice to the young people. “Why, how is this, Sir Knight?” said he, “I welcomed thee as one honest man may welcome another, and behold, I find thee playing in secret the lover with my foster-child, and leaving me the while to run hither and thither through the night in search of her!”
“I have only just found her myself, old father,” returned the knight.
“So much the better,” was the answer, “and now bring her across forthwith to firm ground.”
But this Undine would by no means allow. She protested that she would rather go with the stranger into the depths of the forest than return to the cottage where no one would do what she wished, and from which the knight himself would sooner or later depart. Then, again throwing her arms round Huldbrand, she sang with pretty grace:
The old man wept bitterly at her song, but this seemed not to move her a jot. She was all for kissing and caressing her new friend, until he said to her, “Undine, if the old man’s grief touch not thy heart, it toucheth mine; let us go back to him.”
She opened wide her large eyes in wonder, and spoke at last slowly and hesitatingly. “If this be thou wish, well and good. What is right for thee is right for me. But the old man yonder must first give me his word that he will let thee tell me what thou sawest in the wood and—other things will follow as they must.”
“Come, only come,” cried the fisherman, unable to utter another word. He stretched his hands to her across the rushing stream, and as he nodded his head as though in fulfilment of her request, his white hair fell strangely over his face in such sort that Huldbrand bethought himself of the nodding white man of the forest. But not letting himself think of anything that might baffle or confuse him, the knight took the beautiful girl in his arms and bore her over the narrow space where the stream had divided her little island from the shore.
The old man fell on Undine’s neck and seemed as though he could never have his fill of joy; his good wife also came up and with great tenderness kissed her recovered child. No word of reproach passed their lips, and even Undine, forgetting all her petulance, almost overwhelmed her foster-parents with loving endearments. When at last they had recovered themselves of their transports, lo, it was already dawn and the lake shone rosy red. Peace had followed storm and the little birds were singing merrily on the dripping branches. And now when Undine insisted on hearing the knight’s story, the old couple smiled and readily acceded to her wish. They brought out breakfast under the trees which screened the cottage from the lake and then sated down with thankful hearts. Undine, because she must needs have it so, lay on the grass at Huldbrand’s feet, the while he proceeded with his story.
