The Steward had business at Cologne; so for two days the young men were free to wander about the town, looking into the churches and worried by the schoolboy tricks of the university students.  Three days journeying brought them late at night and dead tired to Niederwerth.  The aged Prior—­he had been sixty years in the monastery—­on learning their destination showed them great courtesy and kindness; and when they had supped, insisted, despite all their protests, on washing their feet himself.  Next day he showed them over the monastery, took them into the rooms where the brethren were at work, and explained what each of them had to do:  ‘just as though we were his equals,’ says Butzbach, on whom his modesty and friendliness made a deep impression.  Indeed, his conversation greatly strengthened them in their determination to enter the religious life; although he did not conceal from them the temptations which they might expect, from the Devil.

On 17 December he gave them leave to proceed, and sent one of the monastery servants and a lay-brother to escort them.  Their way lay through Coblenz; and Peter as a weaker vessel was sent on, to go slowly ahead with the lay-brother, whilst the servant and Butzbach stopped in the town to execute some commissions.  But they had under-estimated Peter’s weakness.  After a midday meal the second pair set out briskly, in the comfortable reflection that the others were already part-way to Laach.  To their disgust as they crossed the bridge over the Moselle, they found Peter and his companion lolling outside an inn, unable to talk properly or to stand upright.  The Prior’s warning against the Devil had been speedily justified.  Peter had been tempted to spend his last day of freedom in a carouse, and every penny he possessed had gone over a fine dinner and costly wines.

To Butzbach this was the more serious, because he had given his purse to Peter to carry, and all that had gone too.  Johannisberg still had strong ties for him.  He had found peace there and made friends, and it was near his home.  Many times, at silent moments as he journeyed along from Deventer, it had come into his head to wonder whether Laach too could give him peace, whether he could settle so far off.  Now, if the old ties should be too strong to resist, thanks to Peter, he would have to set out on his way penniless.

Sharp words brought the offenders to some measure of their senses; but it was a dismal party that splashed along the muddy roads that December afternoon.  Evening brought them to Saffig, and hospitable reception in the house of George von Leyen, brother of the Prior of Niederwerth and father of the Abbot to whom they were going; and the parents’ praises of their son’s goodness and kindness were comforting to hear.  Ten miles next morning brought them to Laach; and when they came over the hill, and saw the great abbey with its towers and dome beside the lake, which even in winter could smile amid its woods, Butzbach