第6章 OF A NUPTIAL CEREMONY

A low knocking at the door was heard in the midst of this stillness, startling all the inmates of the cottage；for there are times when a little circumstance, happening quite unexpectedly, can unduly alarm us. But there was here the additional cause of alarm that the enchanted forest lay so near, and that the little promontory seemed just now inaccessible to human beings.They looked at each other doubtingly, as the knocking was repeated accompanied by a deep groan, and the knight sprang to reach his sword.But the old man whispered softly：“If it be what I fear, no weapon will help us.”

Undine meanwhile approached the door and called out angrily and boldly：“Spirits of the earth, if you wish to carry on your mischief, Kuhleborn shall teach you something better.”

The terror of the rest was increased by these mysterious words；they looked fearfully at the girl, and Huldbrand was just regaining courage enough to ask what she meant, when a voice said without：“I am no spirit of the earth, but a spirit indeed still within its earthly body. You within the cottage, if you fear God and will help me, open to me.”At these words, Undine had already opened the door, and had held a lamp out in the stormy night, by which they perceived an aged priest standing there, who stepped back in terror at theunexpected sight of the beautiful maiden.He might well think that witchcraft and magic were at work when such a lovely form appeared at such an humble cottage door：he therefore began to pray：“All good spirits praise the Lord!”

“I am no spectre,”said Undine, smiling；“do I then look so ugly?Besides you may see the holy words do not frighten me. I too know of God and understand how to praise Him；every one to be sure in his own way, for so He has created us.Come in, venerable father；you come among good people.”

The holy man entered, bowing and looking round him, with a profound, yet tender demeanor. But the water was dropping from every fold of his dark garment, and from his long white beard and from his gray locks.The fisherman and the knight took him to another apartment and furnished him with other clothes, while they gave the women his own wet attire to dry.The aged stranger thanked them humbly and courteously, but he would on no account accept the knight's splendid mantle, which was offered to him；but he chose instead an old gray overcoat belonging to the fsherman.They then returned to the apartment, and the good old dame immediately vacated her easy-chair for the reverend father, and would not rest till he had taken possession of it.“For,”said she,“you are old and exhausted, and you are moreover a man of God.”Undine pushed under the stranger's feet her little stool, on which she had been wont to sit by the side of Huldbrand, and she showed herself in every way most gentle and kind in her care of the good old man.Huldbrand whispered some raillery at it in her ear, but she replied very seriously：“He is a servant of Him who created us all；holy things arenot to be jested with.”

The knight and the fisherman then refreshed their reverend guest with food and wine, and when he had somewhat recovered himself, he began to relate how he had the day before set out from his cloister, which lay far beyond the great lake, intending to travel to the bishop, in order to acquaint him with the distress into which the monastery and its tributary villages had fallen on account of the extraordinary foods. After a long, circuitous route, which these very floods had obliged him to take, he had been this day compelled, toward evening, to procure the aid of a couple of good boatmen to cross an arm of the lake, which had overfowed its banks.

“Scarcely however,”continued he,“had our small craft touched the waves, than that furious tempest burst forth which is now raging over our heads. It seemed as if the waters had only waited for us, to commence their wildest whirling dance with our little boat.The oars were soon torn out of the hands of my men, and were dashed by the force of the waves further and further beyond our reach.We ourselves, yielding to the resistless powers of nature, helplessly drifted over the surging billows of the lake toward your distant shore, which we already saw looming through the mist and foam.Presently our boat turned round and round as in a giddy whirlpool；I know not whether it was upset, or whether I fell overboard.In a vague terror of inevitable death I drifted on, till a wave cast me here, under the trees on your island.”

“Yes, island!”cried the fsherman；“a short time ago it was only a point of land；but now, since the forest-stream and the lake have become well-nigh bewitched, things are quite different with us.”

“I remarked something of the sort,”said the priest,“as I crept along the shore in the dark, and hearing nothing but the uproar around me. I at last perceived that a beaten foot-path disappeared just in the direction from which the sound proceeded.I now saw the light in your cottage, and ventured hither, and I cannot suffciently thank my heavenly Father that after preserving me from the waters, He has led me to such good and pious people as you are；and I feel this all the more, as I do not know whether I shall ever behold any other beings is this world, except those I now address.”

“What do you mean?”asked the fsherman.

“Do you know then how long this commotion of the elements is to last?”replied the holy man.“And I am old in years. Easily enough may the stream of my life run itself out before the overfowing of the forest-stream may subside.And indeed it were not impossible that more and more of the foaming waters may force their way between you and yonder forest, until you are so far sundered from the rest of the world that your little fshing-boat will no longer be suffcient to carry you across, and the inhabitants of the continent in the midst of their diversions will have entirely forgotten you in your old age.”

The fisherman's wife started at this, crossed herself and exclaimed.“God forbid.”But her husband looked at her with a smile, and said“What creatures we are after all!even were it so, things would not be very different—at least not for you, dear wife—than they now are. For have you for many years been further than the edge of the forest?and have you seen any other human beings than Undine and myself?The knight and this holy man have only come to as lately.They will remain with us if we do become aforgotten island；so you would even be a gainer by it after all.”

“I don't know,”said the old woman；“it is somehow a gloomy thought, when one imagines that one is irrecoverably separated from other people, although, were it otherwise, one might neither know nor see them.”

“Then you will remain with us!then you will remain with us!”whispered Undine, in a low, half-singing tone, as she nestled closer to Huldbrand's side. But he was absorbed in the deep and strange visions of his own mind.

The region on the other side of the forest-river seemed to dissolve into distance during the priest's last words：and the blooming island upon which he lived grew more green, and smiled more freshly in his mind's vision. His beloved one glowed as the fairest rose of this little spot of earth, and even of the whole world, and the priest was actually there.Added to this, at that moment an angry glance from the old dame was directed at the beautiful girl, because even in the presence of the reverend father she leaned so closely on the knight, and it seemed as if a torrent of reproving words were on the point of following.Presently, turning to the priest, Huldbrand broke forth：“Venerable father, you see before you here a pair pledged to each other：and if this maiden and these good old people have no objection, you shall unite us this very evening.”The aged couple were extremely surprised.They had, it is true, hitherto often thought of something of the sort, but they had never yet expressed it, and when the knight now spoke thus, it came upon them as something wholly new and unprecedented.

Undine had become suddenly grave, and looked downthoughtfully while the priest inquired respecting the circumstances of the case, and asked if the old people gave their consent. After much discussion together, the matter was settled；the old dame went to arrange the bridal chamber for the young people, and to look out two consecrated tapers which she had had in her possession for some time, and which she thought essential to the nuptial ceremony.The knight in the mean while examined his gold chain, from which he wished to disengage two rings, that he might make an exchange of them with his bride.

She, however, observing what he was doing, started up from her reverie, and exclaimed：“Not so!my parents have not sent me into the world quite destitute；on the contrary, they must have anticipated with certainty that such an evening as this would come.”Thus saving, she quickly left the room and reappeared in a moment with two costly rings, one of which she gave to her bridegroom, and kept the other for herself. The old fsherman was extremely astonished at this, and still more so his wife, who just then entered, for neither had ever seen these jewels in the child's possession.

“My parents,”said Undine,“sewed these little things into the beautiful frock which I had on, when I came to you. They forbid me, moreover, to mention them to anyone before my wedding evening, so I secretly took them, and kept them concealed until now.”

The priest interrupted all further questionings by lighting the consecrated tapers, which he placed upon a table, and summoned the bridal pair to stand opposite to him. He then gave them to each other with a few short solemn words；the elder couple gave their blessing to the younger, and the bride, trembling and thoughtful, leaned uponthe knight.Then the priest suddenly said：“You are strange people after all.Why did you tell me you were the only people here on the island?and during the whole ceremony, a tall stately man, in a white mantle, has been looking at me through the window opposite.He must still be standing before the door, to see if you will invite him to come into the house.”

“God forbid,”said the old dame with a start；the fisherman shook his head in silence, and Huldbrand sprang to the window. It seemed even to him as if he could still see a white streak, but it soon completely disappeared in the darkness.He convinced the priest that he must have been absolutely mistaken, and they all sat down together round the hearth.