to sit by the side
of Huldbrand, and she showed herself in every way most gentle and
kind in her care of the good old man. Huldbrand whispered some
raillery at it in her ear, but she replied very seriously: "He is a
servant of Him who created us all; holy things are not to be jested
with." The knight and the fisherman then refreshed their reverend
guest with food and wine, and when he had somewhat recovered
himself, he began to relate how he had the day before set out from
his cloister, which lay far beyond the great lake, intending to
travel to the bishop, in order to acquaint him with the distress
into which the monastery and its tributary villages had fallen on
account of the extraordinary floods.

After a long, circuitous route, which these very floods had obliged
him to take, he had been this day compelled, toward evening, to
procure the aid of a couple of good boatmen to cross an arm of the
lake, which had overflowed its banks.

"Scarcely however," continued he, "had our small craft touched the
waves, than that furious tempest burst forth which is now raging
over our heads. It seemed as if the waters had only waited for us,
to commence their wildest whirling dance with our little boat. The
oars were soon torn out of the hands of my men, and were dashed by
the force of the waves further and further beyond our reach. We
ourselves, yielding to the resistless powers of nature, helplessly
drifted over the surging billows of the lake toward your distant
shore, which we already saw looming through the mist and foam.
Presently our boat turned round and round as in a giddy whirlpool; I
know not whether it was upset, or whether I fell overboard. In a
vague terror of inevitable death I drifted on, till a wave cast me
here, under the trees on your island."

"Yes, island!" cried the fisherman; "a short time ago it was only a
point of land; but now, since the forest-stream and the lake have
become well-nigh bewitched, things are quite different with us."

"I remarked something of the sort," said the priest, "as I crept
along the shore in the dark, and hearing nothing but the uproar
around me. I at last perceived that a beaten foot-path disappeared
just in the direction from which the sound proceeded. I now saw the
light in your cottage, and ventured hither, and I cannot
sufficiently thank my heavenly Father that after preserving me from
the waters, He has led me to such good and pious people as you are;
and I feel this a