Day after day the forest stream rushed wildly on. The bed along which it thus hastened grew wider and wider, separating the island with the fisherman's cottage yet farther from the mainland.
The knight was well pleased to linger where he was. Never had he found the days pass by so swiftly.
He discovered an old crossbow in a corner of the cottage. When he had mended it he would wander forth in search of birds, and if he succeeded in bringing some down with his arrows, he would carry them back to fill the larder of the little cottage.
And Undine, for she was pitiful, would not fail to upbraid the knight for taking the life of the little birds, so glad, so free. Seeing them lying there, quiet and still, she would weep.
Yet, did Huldbrand return without his prey, so wilful was the maiden that she would blame him, and complain that she could now have nought to eat save fish or crabs.
But the knight loved Undine's wayward words. And well he knew that after she had shown her anger most, she would in but a little while be again kind and gentle as before.
On the quiet island Huldbrand heard no call to knightly deeds. His sword hung unused on the cottage wall, his steed fed undisturbed among the sweet-scented meadows.
'The maiden is the daughter of a great prince, thought the knight. 'It is not possible that she should remain in this humble cottage all her life. She shall be my bride, and in days to come she shall dwell in my castle of Ringstetten on the banks of the Danube.'
Meanwhile, naught disturbed the dwellers in the little cottage, save now and again when her foster-mother would chide Undine in the presence of the knight.
Now, though this displeased Huldbrand, he could not blame the old woman, for it was ever true that the maiden deserved reproof more often than she received it.
At length wine and food began to grow scarce in the little cottage. In the evening, when the wind howled around their home, the fisherman and the knight had been used to cheer themselves with a flask of wine. But now that the fisherman was not able to reach the city, his supply of wine had come to an end. Without it the old man and the knight grew silent and dull.
Undine teased them, laughed at them, but they did not join in her merriment.
Then one evening the maiden left the cottage, to escape, so she said, from the gloomy faces in the little kitchen. It was a stormy night, and as it grew dark the wind began to blow, the waters to rise. Huldbrand and the fisherman thought of the terrible night on which they had sought so long in vain for the wilful maiden. They even began to fear that they had lost her again, and together they rushed to the door. But to their great delight Undine was standing there, laughing and clapping her little hands.