Meanwhile, wholly unconscious of the dark apprehensions which the venerable knight entertained on his account, Sir Otto was riding on his way beneath the pleasant sunlight of spring, in company with the brave Sir Arinbiorn. It was indeed no longer as it had been on his first setting out in quest of adventures, when, at the same season of the year, he thought that he had found the terrestrial paradise on the blooming banks of the Mayne, and looked on every one whom he then met either as a friend, who would sympathize in his pleasure, or a foe, whom he must honourably conquer. Wonderful might it be to consider how very old a knight-errant, or any other mortal, might become in the space of one year! Truly we may say, that Sir Otto was now far older than three hundred and sixty five days could naturally have made him. Yet he was still young enough to think, that, amid the withered leaves of his former good fortune, the blossoms of pleasure might again spring forth; and for these blossoms he looked not only to that morning light, which can only be beheld after the night of death, but he believed that they might yet appear in those oppressed sultry hours of noonday, which we here name life. The two young heroes had now arrived on the frontiers of East Friesland; and one morning, when they had rode to the top of a beautiful green hill, suddenly the wide sea appeared before them, with its boundless domain of blue waves, with their bright coronets of foam all gleaming in the now dazzling sunlight. Otto spread out his arms, as if he could have embraced both the earth and seas in his rapture, and then broke out in a loud cry of admiration: at last he dismounted thoughtfully from his horse, and kneeled upon the grass in silent prayer. Whoever has beheld the sea, and remembers his own feelings when he saw it for the first time, will not wonder that Sir Otto von Trautwangen should be thus moved.