“Diderik, what did you see? I have done nothing.”
“Iselin, I saw what you did,” he says again; “I saw you.”
And then her rich, glad laughter rings through the wood, and she goes off with him, full of rejoicing from top to toe. And whither does she go? To the next mortal man; to a huntsman in the woods.
It was midnight. Æsop had broken loose and been out hunting by himself; I heard him baying up in the hills, and when at last I got him back it was one o'clock. A girl came from herding goats; she fastened her stocking and hummed a tune and looked around. But where was her flock? And what was she doing in the woods at midnight? Ah, nothing, nothing. Walking there for restlessness, perhaps, for joy; 'twas her affair. I thought to myself, she had heard Æsop in the woods, and knew that I was out.
As she came up I rose and stood and looked at her, and I saw how slight and young she was. Æsop, too, stood looking at her.
“Where do you come from?” I asked.
“From the mill,” she answered.
But what could she have been doing at the mill so late at night?
“How can you venture into the woods so late?” I said—“you so slight and young?”