“We will not say much about that,” replied the Fisherman; and he led his guest into the cottage.

There, close by the hearth, from whence a scanty fire shed its glimmering light over the clean little room, sat the Fisherman’s old wife.  When their noble guest came in, she rose to give him a kind welcome, but immediately resumed her place of honour, without offering it to him; and the Fisherman said with a smile:  “Do not take it amiss, young sir, if she does not give up to you the most comfortable place; it is the custom among us poor people that it should always belong to the oldest.”

“Why, husband!” said his wife, quietly, “what are you thinking of?  Our guest is surely a Christian gentleman, and how could it come into his kind young heart to turn old people out of their places?  Sit down, my young lord,” added she, turning to the Knight; “there stands a very comfortable chair for you; only remember it must not be too roughly handled, for one leg is not so steady as it has been.”  The Knight drew the chair carefully forward, seated himself sociably, and soon felt quite at home in this little household, and as if he had just returned to it from a far journey.

The three friends began to converse openly and familiarly together.  First the Knight asked a few questions about the forest, but the old man would not say much of that; least of all, said he, was it fitting to talk of such things at nightfall; but, on household concerns, and their own way of life, the old folks talked readily; and were pleased when the Knight told them of his travels, and that he had a castle near the source of the Danube, and that his name was Lord Huldbrand of Ringstetten.  In the middle of their discourse, the stranger often observed a noise outside a small window, as if someone were dashing water against it.  The old man knit his brows and looked grave whenever this occurred; at last, when a great splash of water came full against the panes, and some found its way into the room, he could bear it no longer, but started up, crying, “Undine! will you never leave off these childish tricks—­when we have a stranger gentleman in the house too!” This produced silence outside, all but a sound of suppressed giggling, and the Fisherman said as he came back; “My honoured guest, you must put up with this, and perhaps with many another piece of mischief; but she means no harm.  It is our adopted child Undine; there is no breaking her of her childish ways, though she is eighteen years old now.  But as I told you she is as good a child as ever lived at bottom.”

“Ay, so you may say!” rejoined his wife, shaking her head.  “When you come home from fishing, or from a journey, her playful nonsense may be pleasant enough.  But, to be keeping her out of mischief all day long, as I must do, and never get a word of sense from her, nor a bit of help and comfort in my old age, is enough to weary the patience of a saint.”

“Well, well,” said the good man, “you feel toward Undine as I do toward the lake.  Though its waves are apt enough to burst my banks and my nets, yet I love them for all that, and so do you love our pretty wench, with all her plaguey tricks.  Don’t you?”