"It is well," answered Heilmann, when told this: "now is the
time for my office; I want no assistant." He addressed spiritual
exhortations to the widowed bride, but little impression could be made
on so worldly and thoughtless a mind. The old Fisherman, although
grieved to the heart, resigned himself more readily to the awful
dispensation; and when Bertalda kept calling Undine a witch and a
murderer, the old man calmly answered: "The stroke could not be turned
away. For my part, I see only the hand of God therein; and none
grieved more deeply over Huldbrand's sentence, than she who was doomed
to inflict it, the poor forsaken Undine!" And he helped to arrange the
funeral ceremonies in a manner suitable to the high rank of the dead.
He was to be buried in a neighbouring hamlet, whose churchyard
contained the graves of all his ancestors, and which he had himself
enriched with many noble gifts. His helmet and coat of arms lay upon
the coffin, about to be lowered into earth with his mortal remains;
for Lord Huldbrand of Ringstetten was the last of his race.
The mourners began their dismal procession, and the sound of their
solemn dirge rose into the calm blue depths of heaven. Heilmann walked
first, bearing on high a crucifix, and the bereaved Bertalda followed
leaning on her aged father. Suddenly, amid the crowd of mourners who
composed the widow's train, appeared a snow-white figure, deeply
veiled, with hands uplifted in an attitude of intense grief.
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