That had been Marianne, who now related further.

She had gone yesterday afternoon from Oakwood, where she was living now, upward along the Woodbach, to the place where the berries grew the most plentifully, as she knew these many years that she had sought and sold them in the taverns of Upper and Lower Wood.

As she was seeking for berries close by the water, bending down behind the willow bush, she saw how the bush was being shaken and how something had remained hanging to it.

She bent around the bush to find out what it might be, and saw the black velvet jacket on the water! "Oh, dear God!" she then cried out with unutterable horror, and never stopped crying until, under her desperate rubbing with skirt and apron, Erick opened his eyes and looked with surprise at Marianne.

Now she quickly took the large market-basket in which she intended to put the many small baskets, when they were filled; threw the latter all in a heap, put the dripping Erick in it, and carried him, as quickly as she could, toward her small cottage, far beyond Oakwood, in which she lived together with her cousin.