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Page 37
"It is down-hill," said he, "and the load for my greys will therefore
be light."
The knight accepted his offer, and entered the waggon with Bertalda.
The horse followed patiently after, while the waggoner, sturdy and
attentive, walked beside them.
Amid the silence and deepening obscurity of the night, the tempest
sounding more and more remote, in the comfortable feeling of their
security, a confidential conversation arose between Huldbrand and
Bertalda. He reproached her in the most flattering words for her
resentful flight. She excused herself with humility and feeling; and
from every tone of her voice it shone out, like a lamp guiding to the
beloved through night and darkness, that Huldbrand was still dear to
her. The knight felt the sense of her words rather than heard the
words themselves, and answered simply to this sense.
Then the waggoner suddenly shouted, with a startling voice: "Up, my
greys, up with your feet! Hey, now together!--show your spirit!--
remember who you are!"
The knight bent over the side of the waggon, and saw that the horses
had stepped into the midst of a foaming stream, and were, indeed,
almost swimming, while the wheels of the waggon were rushing round
and flashing like mill-wheels; and the waggoner had got on before, to
avoid the swell of the flood.
"What sort of a road is this? It leads into the middle of the
stream!" cried Huldbrand to his guide.
"Not at all, sir," returned he, with a laugh; "it is just the
contrary. The stream is running in the middle of our road. Only
look about you, and see how all is overflowed!"
The whole valley, in fact, was in commotion, as the waters, suddenly
raised and visibly rising, swept over it.
"It is Kuhleborn, that evil water-spirit, who wishes to drown us!"
exclaimed the knight. "Have you no charm of protection against him,
friend?"
"I have one," answered the waggoner; "but I cannot and must not make
use of it before you know who I am."
"Is this a time for riddles?" cried the knight. "The flood is every
moment rising higher; and what does it concern ME to know who YOU
are?"
"But mayhap it does concern you, though," said the guide; "for I am
Kuhleborn."
Thus speaking he thrust his head into the waggon, and laughed with a
distorted visage. But the waggon remained a waggon no longer; the
grey horses were horses no longer; all was transformed to foam--all
sank into the waters that rushed and hissed around them; while the
waggoner himself, rising in the form of a gigantic wave, dragged the
vainly-struggling courser under the waters, then rose again huge as a
liquid tower, swept over the heads of the floating pair, and was on
the point of burying them irrecoverably beneath it. Then the soft
voice of Undine was heard through the uproar; the moon emerged from
the clouds; and by its light Undine was seen on the heights above the
valley. She rebuked, she threatened the floods below her. The
menacing and tower-like billow vanished, muttering and murmuring; the
waters gently flowed away under the beams of the moon; while Undine,
like a hovering white dove, flew down from the hill, raised the
knight and Bertalda, and bore them to a green spot, where, by her
earnest efforts, she soon restored them and dispelled their terrors.
She then assisted Bertalda to mount the white palfrey on which she
had herself been borne to the valley; and thus all three returned
homeward to Castle Ringstetten.
CHAPTER 8
After this last adventure they lived at the castle undisturbed and in
peaceful enjoyment. The knight was more and more impressed with the
heavenly goodness of his wife, which she had so nobly shown by her
instant pursuit and by the rescue she had effected in the Black
Valley, where the power of Kuhleborn again commenced. Undine herself
enjoyed that peace and security which never fails the soul as long as
it knows distinctly that it is on the right path; and besides, in the
newly-awakened love and regard of her husband, a thousand gleams of
hope and joy shone upon her.
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