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 ashore. 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.