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Page 18
"If it be what I fear it is, no weapon of yours can protect us."
Undine in the meanwhile went to the door, and cried with the firm
voice of fearless displeasure: "Spirits of the earth! if mischief be
your aim, Kuhleborn shall teach you better manners."
The terror of the rest was increased by this wild speech; they looked
fearfully upon the girl, and Huldbrand was just recovering presence
of mind enough to ask what she meant, when a voice reached them from
without:
"I am no spirit of the earth, though a spirit still in its earthly
body. You that are within the cottage there, if you fear God and
would afford me assistance, open your door to me."
By the time these words were spoken, Undine had already opened it;
and the lamp throwing a strong light upon the stormy night, they
perceived an aged priest without, who stepped back in terror, when
his eye fell on the unexpected sight of a little damsel of such
exquisite beauty. Well might he think there must be magic in the
wind and witchcraft at work, when a form of such surpassing
loveliness appeared at the door of so humble a dwelling. So he
lifted up his voice in prayer:
"Let all good spirits praise the Lord God!"
"I am no spectre," said Undine, with a smile. "Do I look so very
frightful? And you see that I do not shrink from holy words. I too
have knowledge of God, and understand the duty of praising Him; every
one, to be sure, has his own way of doing this, for so He has created
us. Come in, father; you will find none but worthy people here."
The holy man came bowing in, and cast round a glance of scrutiny,
wearing at the same time a very placid and venerable air. But water
was dropping from every fold of his dark garments, from his long
white beard and the white locks of his hair. The fisherman and the
knight took him to another apartment, and furnished him with a change
of raiment, while they gave his own clothes to the women to dry. The
aged stranger thanked them in a manner the most humble and courteous;
but on the knight's offering him his splendid cloak to wrap round
him, he could not be persuaded to take it, but chose instead an old
grey coat that belonged to the fisherman.
They then returned to the common apartment. The mistress of the
house immediately offered her great chair to the priest, and
continued urging it upon him till she saw him fairly in possession of
it. "You are old and exhausted," said she, "and are, moreover, a man
of God."
Undine shoved under the stranger's feet her little stool, on which at
all other times she used to sit near to Huldbrand, and showed herself
most gentle and amiable towards the old man. Huldbrand whispered
some raillery in her ear, but she replied, gravely:
"He is a minister of that Being who created us all; and holy things
are not to be treated with lightness."
The knight and the fisherman now refreshed the priest with food and
wine; and when he had somewhat recovered his strength and spirits, he
began to relate how he had the day before set out from his cloister,
which was situated far off beyond the great lake, in order to visit
the bishop, and acquaint him with the distress into which the
cloister and its tributary villages had fallen, owing to the
extraordinary floods. After a long and wearisome wandering, on
account of the rise of the waters, he had been this day compelled
toward evening to procure the aid of a couple of boatmen, and cross
over an arm of the lake which had burst its usual boundary.
"But hardly," continued he, "had our small ferry-boat touched the
waves, when that furious tempest burst forth which is still raging
over our heads. It seemed as if the billows had been waiting our
approach only to rush on us with a madness the more wild. The oars
were wrested from the grasp of my men in an instant; and shivered by
the resistless force, they drove farther and farther out before us
upon the waves. Unable to direct our course, we yielded to the blind
power of nature, and seemed to fly over the surges toward your
distant shore, which we already saw looming through the mist and foam
of the deep. Then it was at last that our boat turned short from its
course, and rocked with a motion that became more wild and dizzy: I
know not whether it was overset, or the violence of the motion threw
me overboard. In my agony and struggle at the thought of a near and
terrible death, the waves bore me onward, till I was cast ashore here
beneath the trees of your island."
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