"Stop, thief!" cried Regnan. The boy looked back, and, thinking the fiddle a club, turned and ran into a pond. They were now on the edge of the town. Regnan called to the boy to come out, and raised the fiddle involuntarily.
"If you throw," said the boy, "I will dip up water in your hat."
Regnan called again, and up went the fiddle.
"If you throw," cried the boy, "I will lie down in the water."
It was growing darker. The boy was going farther into the pond.
"It is the fiddle that frightens him," said Regnan to himself. He laid it beside a tree. "See, my boy, see! My hands are empty. I will come to you." He plunged into the pond and followed the boy.
"I will wait on this side. The club is over there," rejoined the boy, going all the while.
In trying to increase his pace, and watch at the same time, he stumbled and fell up to his neck in the water. The beaver upset and floated.
Regnan caught it and pushed on. When the boy reached the bank his wits came to him. He pulled off the coat and vest, left them and disappeared in the darkness. Regnan embraced the hat, vest, and coat as he walked around the pond to get his fiddle. He was wet and felt a chill coming upon him. He sat down beside the fiddle. For an hour he shivered and thought of his wife, the neighbors, and the anniversary. All at once he thought of Nordad the tinker.
Just then someone rode a horse up to the pond a short distance from him and let the reins fall for it to drink.
"Am I to be kidnapped like Nordad the tinker?" whispered Regnan to himself. "I will crawl off." In dragging the fiddle one of the strings was broken. The noise frightened the horse. It plunged through the pond. The rider, in trying to reach the reins, fell into the water, but quickly rose to his feet and started in pursuit of the fleeing horse. Soon both horse and rider were out of sight and hearing.
Regnan breathed freely and said: "My fiddle, it may be you have saved me from being kidnapped." He then arose and started homeward. An hour later he was on the lawn before his house. Posey, arrived home some time since, came up to him.
"Posey, my girl," said he, "I wonder if your mistress is as patient as you are. Oh, how could she be?"
He then crept up to a corner of the house where he could see and hear. Everything showed that Kitty had done her duty. She was sitting in the center of some twenty women. Some were fanning her; some were crying. Others were at her back conducting a mock marriage. The men and women at the window were discussing Regnan aloud.