At the end of three years the peregrinations of the caravan came to an abrupt termination; a termination which it certainly did not seek or desire. Gutenberg fell suddenly dangerously ill. It was with difficulty that his companions procured him shelter and a lodging with a boatman, who possessed, on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite the rich and powerful convent of Erbach, a hut where he earned a scanty livelihood, partly by fishing, partly by the profits he made in carrying over pilgrims in his little boat to the monastery. It was here that Gutenberg was obliged to remain, overcome by sickness. The place suited him inasmuch as it was removed from the haunts of men, which the old man, soured by grief and depressed by misfortune, endeavoured, every day more and more, to avoid; the hut, which was buried in the vine-branches, overlooked the Rhine, whose waters almost bathed its threshold. It is thus that, in the year of Our Lord Jesus 1465, John Gutenberg, the inventor of the art of printing, was laid up under this wretched roof, a prey to sickness, forgotten and forsaken by mankind. The most trying season of the year had found him still travelling; fatigue, illness, grief, disappointment of every kind, had overpowered the old man, and it was on this account that his two companions watched with so much anxiety and anguish by the side of their master’s pallet. They shared between them the care of the sufferer, and while Claude Musny went about here and there offering his services to the vine-dressers, and the monks of the convent, Beildech remained in attendance on his master. Occasionally, at rare intervals, a monk of Erbach, expert in the art of healing, crossed the water, at the earnest entreaty of Claude, to visit the infirm old man, whose ordinary physician was a shepherd of the neighbourhood, who, by means of potions and prayers, vainly endeavoured to restore vitality to an existence already worn out. On one of the last evenings of the autumn of this same year, Beildech and the young Frenchman sat by Gutenberg’s couch watching his restless and feverish sleep. Outside, the night was dark and gloomy; the waters of the Rhine, swollen by the rain, beat against the walls of the hut, and a sharp wind which blew down in squalls from the hills shook the framework of the miserable dwelling. The sick man had been suffering all day; he complained of a burning heat in his head, especially in his eyes, and Beildech had observed with uneasiness his uncertain and hesitating hold of the porringer when put into his hand. Claude sat silent at the foot of the bed, and every time that Gutenberg moved or moaned the shepherd began muttering unintelligible prayers. Beildech stood at the window listening to the noise of the river and the wailing of the wind.