I mind me likewise that I then beheld fair Waldtrud, the forester’s daughter, inasmuch as she full heartily wished me joy; yet I remember even better that I felt no pang of jealousy, and indeed scarce looked at the wench, by reason that there were many other matters of which the sight gave me far greater joy.

It was a delightful and never-to-be-forgotten hour, albeit over-short; by my uncle’s desire we ere long made ready to go homewards.  Now when Gotz was carrying his mother from the hot chamber to the sleigh, and I was left looking about me for certain kerchiefs of my aunt’s, I perceived, squatted behind the great green-tiled stove, Young Kubbeling in a heap, and with his face hidden in his hands.  He moved not till I spoke to him; then he dried his wet eyes with his fur hood, and when I laid my hand on his shoulder he drew a deep breath, and said: 

“It has been a moving morning, Mistress Margery.  But it will all come right.  It has come upon me as a sharp blow to be sure; and I have no longer any business here in the forest, all the more so by reason that I have children and grandchildren at home who have looked over-long for the old man’s home-coming.  I will set forth to-morrow early.  To tell the truth to none but you, I cannot endure to be away from the old place a longer space than it takes to go to Alexandria and back.  My old heart is grown over-soft and weary for an absence of two journeys.  And yet another matter for your ear alone:  You will be the wife of a noblehearted man, but mind you, he has long been free to wander whithersoever he would.  Take it to heart that you make his home dear and happy, else it will be with you as it is with my old woman, who hath never mastered that matter, and who lives alone for more days in the year than ever we dreamed the morning we were wed.”

Hereupon we went forth together; and I took his counsel to heart, and Gotz never left me for any long space of time, save when he must.

As for Kubbeling, he kept his word and departed from us on the morrow morning; yet we often saw him again after that time, and the finest falcon in our mews is that he sent us as a wedding gift; and after our marriage Ann received a fine colored parrot as a gift from old Uhlwurm, and the old man had made it speak for her in such wise that it could say right plainly:  “Uhlwurm is Ann’s humble servant.”

We now spent two days at the forest lodge in bliss, as though paradise had come down on earth; and albeit it is a perilous thing to rejoice in the love of a man who has wandered far beyond seas, yet has it this good side:  that many matters which to another seem far away and out of reach, he deems near at hand, and half the world is his as it were.  And how well could Gotz make me to feel as though I shared his possession!