e stranger, laughing, "what a prodigiously
grand marriage yours must be, if you are to cast off your relations in
this way! Have you forgotten Uncle Kuehleborn, who brought you all the
way here on his back so kindly?"

"But I entreat you," said Undine, "never come to me again. I am afraid
of you now; and will not my husband become afraid of me, if he finds I
have so strange a family?"--"My little niece," said Kuehleborn, "please
to remember that I am protecting you all this time; the foul Spirits
of Earth might play you troublesome tricks if I did not. So you had
better let me go on with you, and no more words. The old Priest there
has a better memory than yours, for he would have it he knew my face
very well, and that I must have been with him in the boat, when he
fell into the water. And he may well say so, seeing that the wave
which washed him over was none but myself, and I landed him safe on
the shore, in time for your wedding."

Undine and the Knight looked at Father Heilmann, but he seemed to be
plodding on in a waking dream, and not listening to what was said.
Undine said to Kuehleborn, "There, I can see the end of the wood; we
want your help no longer, and there is nothing to disturb us but you.
So in love and kindness I entreat you, begone, and let us go in
peace." This seemed to make Kuehleborn angry; he twisted his face
hideously, and hissed at Undine, who cried aloud for help. Like
lightning the Knight passed round her horse, and aimed a blow at
Kuehleborn's head with his sword. But instead of the head, he struck
into a waterfall, which gushed down a high cliff near them, and now
showered them all with a splash that sounded like laughter, and wetted
them to the bone. The Priest, seeming to wake up, said, "Well, I was
expecting this, because that brook gushed down the rock so close to
us. At first I could not shake off the idea that it was a man, and was
speaking to me." The waterfall whispered distinctly in Huldbrand's
ear, "Rash youth, dashing youth, I chide thee not, I shame thee not;
still shield thy precious wife safe and sure, rash young soldier,
dashing Knight!"

A little further on they emerged into the open plains. The city lay
glittering before them, and the evening sun that gilded her towers,
lent its grateful warmth to dry their soaked garments.

X.--OF THEIR WAY OF LIFE IN THE TOWN

The sudden disappearance of the young Knight Huldbrand of Ringstetten
had made a great stir in the city, a