man had often to
journey.

It was true that he entered the dreaded shades with fear, yet no
spectre ever crossed his path. But perhaps that was because the
thoughts of the old man were pure, or perhaps because he never entered
the forest without singing a hymn in a clear brave voice.

As the fisherman sat mending his nets on this fair summer eve he began
to move restlessly, to glance around uneasily.

Then a sudden terror fell upon him as he heard a noise in the forest
behind.

Ah, how the trees rustled and how the grass was being trampled
underfoot! Could it be a horseman who made haste to escape from some
terrible foe?

And now, although he was wide awake, the fisherman seemed to see a
figure, which he had seen before only in his dreams.

He saw the figure of a tall, strong, snow-white man, who came with
slow steps toward him, and at each step he took, the figure nodded his
great white head.

The fisherman rubbed his eyes as he glanced toward the wood. At the
same moment the wind seemed to blow the leaves aside to make room for
the snow-white man, whose head never ceased to nod.

'Well,' said the fisherman to himself, 'I have ever passed through the
forest unharmed, why should I fear that evil will befall me here?' and
he began to repeat aloud a verse of the Bible.

At the sound of his own voice courage crept back into the heart of the
fisherman, moreover the words of the Holy Book rebuked his fears. Nor
was it long before he was able even to laugh and to see how foolish he
had been.

For listen! The white nodding man was after all only a stream which
the fisherman knew very well, a stream which ran and bubbled out of
the forest and fell into the lake. As for the rustling noise, the
fisherman saw what had caused that, as a gaily clad knight rode forth
from the forest shadows toward the little cottage.

This was no spectre or spirit of the wood, this stranger who wore the
garments of a knight of high degree. He rode a white horse, which
stepped softly, so that the flowers in the meadows lifted their
delicate heads uninjured by his tread.

The fisherman raised his cap as the stranger drew near, and then
quietly went on mending his nets.

Now when the knight saw the old man's face it was welcome to him, as
indeed any human face would have been after the terrors of the forest.
There he had seen strange mocking faces peering at him whichever way
he turned, there he had been followed by strange shadowy for