t he brought home
for a good roast in the kitchen. When he came in with his booty, Undine
seldom failed to greet him with a scolding, because he had cruelly
deprived the happy joyous little creatures of life as they were sporting
above in the blue ocean of the air; nay more, she often wept bitterly
when she viewed the water-fowl dead in his hand. But at other times,
when he returned without having shot any, she gave him a scolding
equally serious, since, owing to his carelessness and want of skill,
they must now put up with a dinner of fish. Her playful taunts ever
touched his heart with delight; the more so, as she generally strove to
make up for her pretended ill-humour with endearing caresses.

The old people saw with pleasure this familiarity of Undine and
Huldbrand; they looked upon them as betrothed, or even as married, and
living with them in their old age on their island, now torn off from the
mainland. The loneliness of his situation strongly impressed also
the young Huldbrand with the feeling that he was already Undine's
bridegroom. It seemed to him as if, beyond those encompassing floods,
there were no other world in existence, or at any rate as if he could
never cross them, and again associate with the world of other men; and
when at times his grazing steed raised his head and neighed to him,
seemingly inquiring after his knightly achievements and reminding him
of them, or when his coat-of-arms sternly shone upon him from the
embroidery of his saddle and the caparisons of his horse, or when his
sword happened to fall from the nail on which it was hanging in the
cottage, and flashed on his eye as it slipped from the scabbard in its
fall, he quieted the doubts of his mind by saying to himself, "Undine
cannot be a fisherman's daughter. She is, in all probability, a native
of some remote region, and a member of some illustrious family."

There was one thing, indeed, to which he had a strong aversion: this
was to hear the old dame reproving Undine. The wild girl, it is true,
commonly laughed at the reproof, making no attempt to conceal the
extravagance of her mirth; but it appeared to him like touching his own
honour; and still he found it impossible to blame the aged wife of
the fisherman, since Undine always deserved at least ten times as
many reproofs as she received; so he continued to feel in his heart an
affectionate tenderness for the ancient mistress of the house, and his
whole life flowed on in the calm