Old Lisbeth sat by the fire and spun, but on the opposite side of the hearth her son Dietrich crouched idle, his cheek upon his hand, gazing into the embers. For many weeks he had been growing more and more silent and listless, and no one could tell what ailed him. Was it that Johanna, the maiden he was courting, had been cruel to him, or was something wrong with his work? His old mother looked across at him and wondered. Outside the wind was blowing, and brought plainly to their ears the sound of the river as it rushed through the valley towards the lake of Pöhlde, that the Hartz-folk call the Tumpensee. Now and then the blast rose to so shrill a pitch that you might have thought a voice was calling from afar; and when this happened, Dietrich would start from his seat and make as though he would rush from the house, but each time he checked himself, and sank with a shiver upon the bench again. At last Lisbeth could bear it no longer.
“What ails thee, son?” she cried. “Art thou bewitched, that a mere gust of wind can set thee all a-tremble?”
Dietrich was silent for a while, casting furtive glances toward door and window, as though he were afraid that his reply might call up some unwelcome sight. At last he answered in a whisper—
“I doubt I am, indeed, mother! Hast thou ever heard tell of voices rising from the river and the lake yonder? Or was any one drowned there these days, that one should see a gleam of red-gold hair beneath the water?”
Lisbeth turned pale.
“Heaven help us!” she exclaimed in a low voice, as though she, too, were afraid of being overheard, “do thou have nothing to do with the river-side or the banks of the lake, Dietrich. That is how men come by their death.”
“But knowest thou anything of it, mother? What is there to fear, if fear there be?” persisted the young man.
“What care I for such tales! Tales there are of spell-bound maidens who call for some one to deliver them, and of water-snakes, and such nonsense; the country is full of them, thou knowest as well as I. But there is no need to believe them,” continued Lisbeth hastily, as if fearing she had said too much. “Do thou take thy Johanna to wife, and bring her home; that will drive all such fancies from thy head.”
A look of pain crossed Dietrich’s face.
“Ah, Johanna!” he exclaimed, “if I could but turn my mind to thoughts of her! Yet I fear she has fancied me cold and neglectful of late.”