It was too late that day, but he resolved to go to the confessional on the morrow, for absolution had always relieved and lightened his heart.  But how trivial his errors had been!  True, the wrong he had now committed was not a mortal sin, and would hardly impose a severe penance upon him, yet it burdened him like the most infamous crime.  He did not understand himself, and often wondered why he, reckless Heinz, thus made a mountain out of a molehill.  Yet when, after this reflection, he uttered a sigh of relief, it seemed as if a voice within commanded him not to think lightly of what had passed, for on that evening he had ceased to bestow pleasure on every one, and instead of, as usual, being helpful and agreeable, he had plunged others who had done him no wrong—­nay, perhaps a whole household, whose daughter had given him the first love of her young heart-into misery and disgrace.  Had he considered the consequences of his act, he would still be merry Heinz.  Then he remembered how, when a boy, playing with other lads high up among the mountains just as it was beginning to thaw, he had hurled the work they had finished with so much toil, a snow man, down the slope, rejoicing with his playfellows over its swift descent towards the valley, until they noticed with what frightful speed its bulk increased as it sped over its snowy road, till at last, like a terrible avalanche, it swept away a herdsman’s hut—­fortunately an empty one.  Now, also, his heedlessness had set in motion a mass which constantly rolled onward, and how terrible might be the harm it would do!

If Hartmann, the Emperor’s son, were only there!  He confided everything to him, for he was sure of his silence.  Both his duty as a knight and his conscience forbade him to relate his experiences and ask counsel from any one else.

He was still absorbed in these gloomy thoughts when, just before reaching the Walch, he heard Biberli’s deep sigh.  Here, behind and beside the frames of the cloth weavers, stood the tents before which the followers and soldiers of the princes and dignitaries who had come to the Reichstag were still sitting around the camp fire, carousing and laughing.

Any interruption was welcome to him, and to Biberli it seemed like a deliverance to be permitted to use his poor endangered tongue, for his master had asked what grief oppressed him.

“If you desired to know what trouble did not burden my soul I could find a speedier answer,” replied Biberli piteously.  “Oh, this night, my lord!  What has it not brought upon us and others!  Look at the black clouds rising in the south.  They are like the dark days impending over us poor mortals.”

Then he confided to Heinz his fears for himself and Katterle.  The knight’s assurance that he would intercede for him and, if necessary, even appeal to the Emperor’s favour, somewhat cheered his servitor’s drooping spirits, it is true, but by no means restored his composure, and his tone was lugubrious enough as he went on: