Page:Undine.djvu/92

44 he would on no account take the knight's rich mantle when it was offered to him, choosing instead an old grey overcoat of the fisherman. Thereupon they returned to the outer room, and the old dame at once gave up her easy chair for the reverend father, and would not rest till he had sate himself down in it. "For," quoth she, "thou art old and weary, and a priest to boot." Moreover, Undine pushed under the stranger's feet the little stool on which she was wont to sit by Huldbrand's side, and showed herself in all ways gentle and kind towards the priest. Huldbrand whispered some jest about it in her ear, but she answered full seriously, "He is a servant of Him who hath made us all: holy things must not be mocked."

Then the knight and fisherman refreshed their guest with food and wine, and when he had somewhat recovered himself he began to tell his story. He told how the day before he had set out from his monastery, which lay far on the other side of the great lake, with intent to journey to the Bishop, for that he ought to know how deep was the distress into which both monastery and its dependent villages had fallen owing to the present marvellous floods. He had gone far out of his way, for the floods compelled him, and this day towards evening he had been forced to ask the aid of two stout boatmen to cross an arm of the lake, where the water had overflown its banks. "Hardly, however," said he, "had our little craft touched the waves when the furious storm came down upon us