As soon as the heathen thought that side was done he turned the trout again, and behold not a bit more broiled was it than when he began. “Bad luck to me,” said the soldier, “but this beats the world. However, cunning as you think yourself, I’ll try you again, my darling.”
So saying, he turned the trout over and over, and he kept the fire blazing hot, but not a sign of a burn would show on the pretty creature. He might have known he was doing a wrong thing, seeing that his endeavors accomplished nothing, and yet he kept on as he had begun.
“Well, my jolly little trout,” said he at last, “maybe you’re fried enough, though you don’t seem to be any more so than you were when I pulled you out of the stream. But perhaps you are better than you look, and a tit-bit after all.”
Then he picked up his knife and fork to have a taste of the trout, but the moment he put his knife into the fish there was a piercing screech, and the trout flopped out of the frying-pan into the middle of the floor. Immediately, on the spot where it fell, stood a beautiful lady—the loveliest creature that eyes had ever seen, dressed in white, and a band of gold in her hair, and her arm stained with blood.
“Look where you cut me, you villain,” said she, and she held her arm out toward him. “Why couldn’t you leave me cool and comfortable in the river, and not disturb me in my duty?”
The soldier, trembling with terror, stammered out some lame excuse, and begged for his life, asked her ladyship’s pardon, and declared that he did not know she was on duty. “If I had known it,” said he, “I am too good a soldier to have meddled with you.”
“I was on duty,” the lady affirmed. “I was watching for my true love, who is coming to me; and if he comes while I am away, so that I miss him, I’ll turn you into the little fish that is called a pinkeen, and I’ll hunt you up and down for evermore, while grass grows or water runs.”
The soldier nearly fainted away at the thought of being turned into a pinkeen. He begged for mercy harder than ever, and the lady said: “Renounce your evil ways, or you’ll repent too late. Be a good man for the future and go regularly to church; and now take me and put me back in the river where you found me.”
“Oh, my lady!” exclaimed the soldier, “how could I have the heart to drown a beautiful lady like you?”
Before he could say another word the lady had vanished, and he saw the little trout on the floor. So he put it on a clean plate, and away he ran to the river as fast as he could go, fearful that her lover would come while she was away. He ran and he ran until he came to the edge of the stream and then he threw the trout into the water.