At last, he left the woods and saw before him a meadow over which a fine, drizzling rain was falling. A horse stood in the middle of it near a leafless willow-tree, motionless and with drooping head, while the water dripped slowly from its shining sides, and out of its matted mane.
Johannes walked along by the woods. He looked with tired, anxious eyes toward the lonely horse and the grey, misty rain, and he whimpered softly.
"All is over now," he thought. "The sun will never come out again. After this it will always be with me as it is now—here."
But he dared not stand still in his despair; something more frightful yet would happen, he thought.
Then he saw the grand enclosure of a country-seat, and, under a linden tree with bright yellow foliage, a little cottage.
He went within the enclosure, and walked through broad avenues where the ground was thickly covered with layers of brown and yellow linden leaves. Purple asters grew along the grass-plots, and other brilliant autumn flowers were flaming there.
Then he came to a pond. Beside it stood a large house with low windows and glass doors. Rose-bushes and ivy grew against the wall. It was all shut up, and wore a gloomy look. Chestnut-trees, half stripped of their foliage, stood all around; and, amid their fallen leaves, Johannes saw the shining brown chestnuts.
Then that chill, deathly feeling passed away. He thought of his own home. There, too, were chestnut-trees, and at this season he always went to find the glossy nuts. Suddenly he began to feel a longing—as though he had heard the call of a familiar voice. He sat down upon a bench near the house, and gave vent to his feelings in tears.
A peculiar odor caused him to look up. A man stood near him with a white apron on, and a pipe in his mouth. About his waist were strips of linden bark for binding up the flowers. Johannes knew this scent so well; it made him think of his own garden, and of the gardener, who brought him pretty caterpillars, and showed him starlings' eggs.
He was not alarmed, although it was a human being who stood beside him. He told the man that he had been deserted and was lost, and he gratefully followed him to the small dwelling under the yellow-leaved linden-tree.