"About eight days ago, I rode into the imperial city beyond this
forest. A grand tournament and tilting was held there, and I spared
neither lance nor steed. As I stood still a moment to rest myself, in
a pause of the noble game, and had just given my helmet in charge to a
squire, my eye fell upon a most beautiful woman, who stood, richly
adorned, in one of the galleries, looking on. I inquired her name,
and found that this charming lady was Bertalda, the adopted daughter
of one of the principal lords in the neighbourhood. I observed that
her eye was upon me too, and as is the way with us young knights, I
had not been slack before, but I now fought more bravely still. That
evening I was Bertalda's partner in the dance, and so I was again
every evening during the jousting."
Here a sudden pain in his left hand, which hung beside him, checked
the Knight in his tale, and he looked at his hand. Undine's pearly
teeth had bitten one of his fingers sharply, and she looked very black
at him. But the next moment that look changed into an expression of
tender sadness, and she whispered low: "So you are faithless too!"
Then she hid her face in her hands, and the Knight proceeded with his
tale, although staggered and perplexed.
"That Bertalda is a high-spirited, extraordinary maid. On the second
day she charmed me far less than the first, and on the third, less
still. But I remained with her, because she was more gracious to me
than to any other knight, and so it fell out that I asked her in jest
for one of her gloves. 'You shall have it,' said she, 'if you will
visit the haunted forest alone, and bring me an account of it.' It was
not that I cared much for her glove, but the words had been spoken,
and a knight that loves his fame does not wait to be twice urged to
such a feat."
"I thought she had loved you," interrupted Undine.
"It looked like it," he replied.
"Well," cried the maiden, laughing, "she must be a fool indeed! To
drive _him_ away whom she loves! and into a haunted forest besides!
The forest and its mysteries might have waited long enough, for me."
"I set out yesterday morning," continued the Knight, smiling kindly at
Undine. "The stems of the trees looked so bright in the morning
sunshine, as it played upon the green turf, and the leaves whispered
together so pleasantly, that I could not but laugh at those who
imagined any evil to lurk in such a beautiful place. I shall very soon
have ridden through it and back again, thought I, pushing on cheerily,
and before I was aware of it, I found myself in the depths of its
leafy shades, and the plains behind me far out of sight. It then
occurred to me that I was likely enough to lose my way in this
wilderness of trees, and that this might be the only real danger to
which the traveller was here exposed. So I halted, and took notice of
the course of the sun; it was now high in the heavens.
"On looking up, I saw something black among the boughs of a tall oak.
I took it for a bear, and seized my rifle; but it addressed me in a
human voice, most hoarse and grating, saying: 'If I did not break off
the twigs up here, what should we do to-night for fuel to roast you
with, Sir Simpleton?' And he gnashed his teeth, and rattled the
boughs, so as to startle my horse, which ran away with me before I
could make out what kind of a devil it was."
"You should not mention _his_ name," said the Fisherman, crossing
himself; his wife silently did the same, while Undine turned her
beaming eyes upon her lover, and said--
"He is safe now; it is well they did not really roast him. Go on,
pretty youth."
He continued: "My terrified horse had almost dashed me against many a
trunk and branch; he was running down with fright and heat, and yet
there was no stopping him. At length he rushed madly toward the brink
of a stony precipice; but here, as it seemed to me, a tall white man
threw himself across the plunging animal's path, and made him start
back, and stop. I then recovered the control of him, and found that,
instead of a white man, my preserver was no other than a bright
silvery brook, which gushed down from the hill beside me, checking and
crossing my horse in his course."
"Thanks, dear brook!" cried Undine, clapping her hands. But the old
man shook his head, and seemed lost in thought.
"Scarcely had I settled myself in the saddle, and got firm hold of my
reins again," proceeded Huldbrand, "when an extraordinary little man
sprang up beside me, wizen and hideous beyond measure; he was of a
yellow-brown hue, and his nose almost as big as the whole of his body.
He grinned at me in the most fulsome way with his wide mouth, bowing
and scraping every moment. As I could not abide these antics, I
thanked him abruptly, pulled my still-trembling horse another way, and
thought I would seek some other adventure, or perhaps go home; for
during my wild gallop the sun had passed his meridian, and was now
declining westward. But the little imp sprang round like lightning,
and stood in front of my horse again.
"'Make way!' cried I impatiently, 'the animal is unruly, and may run
over you.'
"'Oh,' snarled the imp, with a laugh more disgusting than before,
'first give me a piece of coin for having caught your horse so nicely;
but for me, you and your pretty beast would be lying in the pit down
yonder: whew!'
"'Only have done with your grimaces,' said I, 'and take your money
along with you, though it is all a lie: look there, it was that honest
brook that saved me, not you--you pitiful wretch!' So saying, I
dropped a gold coin into his comical cap, which he held out toward me
like a beggar.
"I trotted on, but he still followed, screaming, and, with
inconceivable rapidity, whisked up to my side. I put my horse into a
gallop; he kept pace with me, though with much difficulty, and twisted
his body into various frightful and ridiculous attitudes, crying at
each step as he held up the money: 'Bad coin! bad gold! bad gold! bad
coin!' And this he shrieked in such a ghastly tone, that you would
have expected him to drop down dead after each cry.
"At last I stopped, much vexed, and asked, 'What do you want, with
your shrieks? Take another gold coin; take two if you will, only let
me alone.'
"He began his odious smirking again, and snarled, 'It's not gold, it's
not gold that I want, young gentleman; I have rather more of that than
I can use: you shall see.'
"All at once the surface of the ground became transparent; it looked
like a smooth globe of green glass, and within it I saw a crowd of
goblins at play with silver and gold. Tumbling about, head over heels
they pelted each other in sport, making a toy of the precious metals,
and powdering their faces with gold dust. My ugly companion stood half
above, half below the surface; he made the others reach up to him
quantities of gold, and showed it to me laughing, and then flung it
into the fathomless depths beneath. He displayed the piece of gold I
had given him to the goblins below, who held their sides with laughing
and hissed at me in scorn. At length all their bony fingers pointed at
me together; and louder and louder, closer and closer, wilder and
wilder grew the turmoil, as it rose toward me, till not my horse only,
but I myself was terrified; I put spurs into him, and cannot tell how
long I may have scoured the forest this time.
"When at last I halted, the shades of evening had closed in. Through
the branches I saw a white footpath gleaming and hoped it must be a
road out of the forest to the town. I resolved to work my way thither;
but lo! an indistinct, dead-white face, with ever-changing features,
peeped at me through the leaves; I tried to avoid it, but wherever I
went, there it was. Provoked, I attempted to push my horse against
it; then it splashed us both over with white foam, and we turned away,
blinded for the moment. So it drove us, step by step, further and
further from the footpath, and indeed never letting us go on
undisturbed but in one direction. While we kept to this, it was close
upon our heels, but did not thwart us. Having looked round once or
twice, I observed that the white foaming head was placed on a gigantic
body, equally white. I sometimes doubted my first impression, and
thought it merely a waterfall, but I never could satisfy myself that
it was so. Wearily did my horse and I precede this active white
pursuer, who often nodded at us, as if saying, 'That's right! that's
right!' and it ended by our issuing from the wood here, where I
rejoiced to see your lawn, the lake, and this cottage, and where the
long white man vanished."
"Thank Heaven, he is gone," said the old man, and he then proceeded to
consider how his guest could best return to his friends in the city.
Upon this, Undine was heard to laugh in a whisper.
Huldbrand observed it, and said: "I thought you had wished me to stay;
and now you seem pleased when we talk of my going?"
"Because," replied Undine, "you cannot get away. Only try to cross the
swollen brook, in a boat, on horseback, or on foot. Or rather, do not
try, for you would be dashed to pieces by the branches and stones that
it hurls along. And as to the lake, I know how that is: father never
ventures across it in his boat."
Huldbrand laughed, and got up to see whether she had spoken true; the
old man went with him, and the maiden tripped along playfully by their
side. They found she had told them no worse than the truth and the
Knight resigned himself to staying in the island, as it might now be
called till the floods had subsided. As they returned homeward, he
whispered in his pretty companion's ear--"Well, my little Undine! are
you angry at my staying?"
"Ah," said she sullenly, "never mind. If I had not bitten you, who
knows what might have come out in your story of Bertalda?"