and terrible, who nodded his head unceasingly with vague and bodeful portent. Nay, but as he raised his eyes towards the wood, he thought he saw the nodding man drawing nigh through the branches of the trees. Yet comfort came to him and a better mind: for he bethought himself how no evil had befallen him even in the forest itself, and here upon the open tongue of land there was little chance of evil influences. So he said aloud a verse from Holy Writ, repeating it with all his heart, and his courage came back so that he almost laughed at the vain fancy that had possessed him. And the white nodding man he saw to be nothing but a stream, well-known and familiar, which ran foaming from the forest and fell into the lake. But the noise he had heard was no fancy. It was in sooth caused by a gallant knight, bravely apparelled, who issued forth from the shadow of the wood and came riding towards the cottage. A scarlet mantle was thrown over his doublet, embroidered with gold; red and violet feathers waved from his golden-coloured headgear; and a beautiful sword, richly dight, flashed from his shoulder-belt. The white horse whereon the knight rode was more slender than chargers are wont to be, and as he trod lightly over the turf, it seemed as though the green and flowery carpet took no harm from the print of his hoofs.
It was a fair and comely sight to see the knight advance. Nathless, the old fisherman was not wholly at his ease, albeit that he told himself that no evil
