soul had derived so much benefit from the short
pilgrimage to Altotting, she hoped to obtain far more from a visit to
Santiago di Compostella, famed throughout Christendom.

True, her old master, Loni, whom she had met at Regensburg, permitted her
to join his band, but when she perceived that he was far less prosperous
than before, and that she could not be useful to him in any way, she left
him at Cologne because a kindhearted captain offered to take her to
Vlissingen without pay. Thence she really did set out upon the pilgrimage
to Santiago di Compostella; but St. James, the patron saint of the
Spaniards, whose untiring mercy so many praised, did not prove specially
favourable to her. The voyage to Compostella, the principal place where
he was reverenced, which annually attracted thousands of pilgrims, cost
her her last penny, and the cold nights which she was obliged to spend on
deck increased her cough until it became almost unendurably violent.

In Santiago di Compostella both her means and her strength were
exhausted. After vainly expecting for a long time some token of the
saint's helpful kindness, only two courses were left: either she must
remain in Compostella and join the beggars in the crowded road to the
place of pilgrimage, or she must accept the proposal made by tongueless
Cyriax and go back with him to Germany. At first she had been afraid of
the brutal fellow, who feigned insanity and was led about by his wife
with a chain; but once, when red-haired Gitta was seized by the
Inquisition, and spent two days and two nights in jail, and Kuni nursed
her child in her place, she had found him more friendly. Besides, in
Compostella, the swearer had been in his most cheerful mood. Every day
had filled his purse, because there was no lack of people and he
understood how to extort money by the terror which horrible outbreaks of
his feigned malady inspired among the densely crowded pilgrims. His wife
possessed a remedy which would instantly calm his ravings, but it was
expensive, and she had not the money to buy it. Not only in Compostella,
but also on the long journey from Bavaria through the Swiss mountains,
France, Navarre, and the whole of northern Spain, there were always
kind-hearted or timid people from whom the money for the "dear
prescription" could be obtained.

A cart drawn by a donkey conveyed the child of this worthy couple. When
Kuni met her at Compostella she was a sickly little girl about two years