"Is that meant as a warning for me?" said Ekkehard. "I don't understand it. My way is not towards the Säntis." Full of thoughts, he descended to the valley again. In the night he prayed at the grave of St. Gallus, and early in the morning he bid good-bye to all. The volume of Virgil, and the little bottle of Thieto were packed up in his knapsack, which also held the few things besides that he possessed. He, who has not even his own person, his wishes and his desires at his free disposal, can still less have any worldly possessions and goods. The Abbot gave him two gold-pieces and some silver coins, as a travelling penny. In a ship, laden with corn, he crossed the lake; a favourable wind filling the sail, and courage and the love of travel swelling his bosom. At dinner-time the castle of Constance, as well as the cathedral with its towers, became more and more distinct. With a joyous bound, Ekkehard sprang on shore. In Constance he might have stopped and claimed the hospitality of the Bishop, but this he did not do. The place was disagreeable to him,--he hated it from the bottom of his heart. Not on account of its position and scenery, for in that respect, it may be boldly compared with any town on the lake, but on account of a man whom he detested. This was the Bishop Salomon, who had been lately buried, with great pomp in the cathedral. Ekkehard was a simple-minded, straightforward and pious man. To become proud and overbearing in the service of the church, seemed very wrong to him; to combine this with worldly tricks and knavery highly blamable,--and in spite of wickedness of heart, to become famous, most strange. Such however had been the Bishop Salomon's career. Ekkehard well remembered having heard from older companions, how the young nobleman had forced his way, into the monastery, and acted as spy; how he had managed to represent himself as indispensable to the Emperor, until the mitre of an Abbot of St. Gall was exchanged for that of a Bishop of Constance. And the fate which had befallen the messengers of the exchequer,--that was related by the children in the streets. These, the intriguing prelate, had provoked and insulted so long, till they trying to right themselves with the sword, had made him prisoner; but though Sir Erchanger's wife Berchta, tended and nursed him like a Lord, during his captivity, and begged him for the kiss of peace, and ate out of the same plate with him, his revenge was not appeased, until the Emperor's court of law, at Adingen, condemned his enemies to be beheaded. And the daughter which he had begotten in the early days of his student-life, was even then Lady Abbess at the cathedral in Zurich. All this was known to Ekkehard; and in the church where that man was buried, he did not like to pray.