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 pass 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