Goldmund khe area from many previous rides. The knight owned a barn beyond the frozen marsh, and farther on there was a farmhouse where he was known; hed be able to rest and spend the night in one of those places. Everything else had to wait until tomorrow. Gradually, the feeling of freedom aat took hold of him again; he had grown unaced to it. It did not have a pleasant taste on this icy, gloomy winter day; it smelled strongly of hardship, hunger, and want, ahe vastness of it, its great expas merciless harshness was almost f and soothing to his spoiled, fused heart.
He walked until he felt tired. My riding days are over, he thought. Oh, wide world! A little snow was falling. In the distahe edges of the forest fused with gray clouds; infinite sileretched to the end of the world. What was happening to Lydia, that poor, anguished heart? He felt bitterly sorry for her; he thought of her tenderly as he rested under a bare, lonely ash in the middle of the deserted marshland. Finally the cold drove him on. Stiff-legged, he stood up, forced himself to a brisk pace; the meager light of the drab day already seemed to be dwindling. The slow trot across the bare fields put ao his musing. It was not a question of thinking now, or of haviions, no matter how delicate aiful; it was now a question of keeping alive, of reag a spot for the night in time, of getting through this cold, inhospitable world like a marten or a fox, and not giving out too soon, in the open fields. Everything else was unimportant.
He thought he heard the sound of distant hoofs and looked around in surprise. Could anyone be following him? He reached for the small hunting knife in his pocket and slipped off the woodeh. The rider became visible; he reized a horse from the knights stable; stubbornly it was heading toward him. Fleeing would have been useless. He stopped and waited, without actual fear, but very tense and curious, his heart beating faster. For a sed a thought shot through his head: "If I killed this rider, how well off Id be; Id have a horse and the world would be mine." But when he reized the rider, the young stableboy Hans, with his light-blue, watery eyes and the good, embarrassed boys face, he had to laugh; to murder this good dear fellow, one would have to have a heart of stone. He greeted Hans with a friendly hand and tenderly patted Hannibal, the horse, on its warm, moist neck; it reized him immediately.
"Where are you headed, Hans?" he asked.
"To you," laughed the boy with shinih. "Youve run a good distance. I t stay; Im only here to give yards and this."
"Regards from whom?"
"From Lady Lydia. Well, you certainly gave us a nasty day, Master Goldmund, I was glad to get away for a while. But the squire must not know that Ive been gone, and with an errand that could e my neck. Here!"
He handed him a small package; Goldmund took it.
"I say, Hans, you dont happen to have a piece of bread in one of your pockets that you might give me?"
"Bread? I might find a crust." He rummaged in his pockets and pulled out a piece of black bread. Then he wao ride off again.
"How is the lady?" asked Goldmund. "Didnt she give you any message? No little letter?"
"Nothing. I saw her only for a moment. Theres a storm at the house, you know; the squire is pag like King Saul. She told me to give you these things, and nothing else. Ive got to get baow."
"All right, all right, just a moment more! Say, Hans, you coul