Accepting her fate resignedly, Hildegarde eventually found her way to Rome, where she devoted herself to the care of the sick, and especially of the sick pilgrims who came to the "Eternal City." In course of time, so the story goes, her revengeful lover, whose name, Taland, is almost as common a one in Tyrol as Smith in England, having lost his sight, came on a pilgrimage, and whilst in Rome was cared for by Hildegarde, "whose tender and saintly hands," we are told, "not only restored his physical sight, but also his moral perception of right and wrong." He was so overcome with remorse when he learned to whom, under Providence, he owed his restoration to sight, that he confessed his fault to Hildegarde, and insisted upon accompanying her to Charlemagne, to whom he also confessed, and proved Hildegarde to have been blameless. The Emperor at once restored her to favour and honour. In another story connected with Bregenz, which was made the subject of a poem by the late Adelaide Ann Proctor, one has preserved an incident connected with the heroic conduct of a Bregenz woman in saving the town from surprise and destruction by the Swiss. There are several versions of the story, which dates from 1408, but probably, as it is of a legendary character, the one given in the ballad is as correct as any other. Unhappily, the Bregenz folk of to-day appear to know little of this heroine; and on one occasion on which we visited the town, and made a search for the effigy of the Maid and her steed on the gate of the old castle, or walls of the upper town, we were unable to find it. No one seemed to know the story of the "Maid of Bregenz," and an old lady, who had a temporary stall outside the gate for the sale of cakes and other refreshments, became quite irascible upon our persisting in the belief that there must have been a "Maid," and that she (the old lady) ought to know the legend. "There is no 'Maid of Bregenz,'" she said angrily at last. Adding, after a pause, during which she looked us up and down as though to decide upon our nationality, "But mad English people have asked me hundreds of times about her. I know nothing. There is no more to be said." And with this she returned to her perusal of the paper she had been reading when we accosted her, and we had to be content. We made our way down the somewhat rugged and steep road to the lower town a little crestfallen, although the view of the lake in the late afternoon sunshine of a July day was exquisite beyond description, the water deep blue and green in patches, with the incoming and outgoing boats and steamers leaving frothy-white or rippling wakes behind them almost as long as they themselves remained in sight. One determination we came to. It was in future not to inquire too closely into such pretty and poetical stories as that of the "Maid of Bregenz," and not to allow our desire for legendary or antiquarian knowledge to permit us to run the risk of further disillusionment.[28]