ms from
which escape had been wellnigh impossible; here at length was a kind
and friendly mortal. He would ask him for the food and shelter of
which both he and his steed stood in need.

'Dear sir,' answered the fisherman when he had listened to the
knight's request, 'dear sir, if you will deign to enter our lonely
cottage, you will find a welcome with the food and shelter we offer.
As for your horse, can it have a better stable than this tree-shaded
meadow, or more delicious fodder than this green grass?'

Well pleased with this answer, the knight dismounted, and together he
and the fisherman freed the white horse from its saddle and bridle,
and turned it loose into the waving meadow.

Then the old man led the stranger into the cottage.

Here, by the light of the kitchen fire, sat the fisherman's wife. She
rose, with a kind greeting for the unexpected guest. Then seating
herself again in her armchair, she pointed to an old stool with a
broken leg. 'Sit there, good knight,' she said; 'only you must sit
still, lest the broken leg prove too weak to bear you.'

Carrying the stool over beside the old woman, the knight placed it
carefully on the floor and seated himself as he was bidden. As he sat
there talking with the good old fisherman and his wife, it seemed to
him almost as though he were their son, who had come home again after
journeying in a distant land.

It was only when the knight began to speak of the wood that the
fisherman grew restless and refused to listen.

'It were wiser, Sir Knight,' he said, 'not to talk of the wood at
nightfall, or indeed to say much of it at any time.'

And then the old couple told their guest how simply they lived in the
little cottage by the lake, and they in their turn listened eagerly
while the knight told them of himself. He was named Sir Huldbrand, and
he dwelt in his castle of Ringstetten, which stood near the source of
the river Danube.

Now, as he talked or listened to the quiet tales of the old fisherman,
the knight heard a strange sound that seemed to come from the
direction of the window. Again and again it came, a strange sound as
of water being dashed against the window-panes.

It was plain that the fisherman heard it too, for at each splash a
frown crossed his good-natured face.

A louder splash, and a shower of water streamed through the loosely
built window-frame into the kitchen.

Then the old man could sit still no longer. He hastened to the window,
an