Nevertheless, from the moment of his entering into the priory, Meinrad had felt a yearning in his heart for a life more secluded, in which he could pray and meditate without distraction. About two leagues off, beyond the lake, rose Mount Etzel, covered with dense forest. Often from the window of his cell did his eyes rest, with an invincible longing, on the blue mountain. The desire became, at length, so uncontrollable, that he resolved to visit the Etzel, and seek among its rocks for some place where he might pass his days in repose. One day, accordingly, he took with him one of his pupils, and, entering a boat, rowed to the foot of the desired mount. A few hours after he was at the summit, and his heart beat with a sweet joy at the sight of a place to which his yearning soul had long turned. Behind him was a pathless forest of pines, inhabited by wolves, but he feared them not. He descended the hill by the side of Rapperschwyl, and arrived at the village, called afterwards Altendorf. He rested at the house of a pious widow, who received him hospitably. To her Meinrad confided his design, and asked her to minister to his necessities on the Etzel, should he retire thither. She readily promised to do so. Having thanked her, he returned full of joy to Bollingen. He asked the prior to give him his benediction and permission to accomplish his project. He, with regret, permitted him to respond to the call of grace, and Meinrad at once tore himself from his companions and pupils, and crossed the lake to the beloved mountain. This was in June, 828, when Meinrad was aged thirty-one. He took nothing with him save his missal, a book of instructions on the Gospels, the rule of S. Benedict, and the works of Cassian. Burdened with these volumes, he climbed the Etzel, and stood on a commanding point. At his feet and before him lay the blue lake of Zürich, its waters sleeping in sunshine; behind him was the gloomy horror of the forest. Beyond, the Alpine peaks wreathed in glaciers, glittering in the light, and around him a solemn silence, broken only by the distant scream of a magpie, or the creaking of the pines in the breeze. The first care of the new solitary was to provide himself with shelter against rain and storm. He collected broken boughs, and interlaced them between four pines that served as corner posts to his hovel, and roofed it in with fern. This was his first house; but shortly after, the widow, having heard that he had retired to the Etzel, built him a hut of pine logs, and a little chapel, in which he might offer the Holy Sacrifice. She attended to all his necessities, as she had promised, and Meinrad was now at the summit of happiness.