"Out, you rascal! Do you hear? Take care, if you have the boldness to come back again."
The painful grip led him through the sounding corridor—the glass door rattled, and Johannes stood outside, under the dark, lowering clouds.
He did not cry now, but gazed quietly out in front of him as he slowly walked on. The sorrowful wrinkles were deeper above his eyes, and they stayed there.
The little redbreast sat in a linden hedge and peered at him. He stood still and silently returned the look. But there was no trust now in the timid, peeping little eyes; and when he took a step nearer, the quick little creature whirred away from him.
"Away, away! A human being!" chirped the sparrows, sitting together in the garden path. And they darted away in all directions.
The open flowers did not smile, but looked serious and indifferent; as they do with every stranger.
Johannes did not heed these signs, but was thinking of what the cruel men had done to him. He felt as if his inmost being had been violated by a hard, cold touch. "They shall believe me!" thought he. "I will get my little key and show it to them."
"Johannes! Johannes!" called a light, little voice. There was a bird's nest in a holly tree, and Wistik's big eyes peeped over the brim of it. "Where are you bound for?"
"It is all your fault, Wistik," said Johannes. "Let me alone."
"How did you come to talk about it to human beings? They do not understand. Why do you tell them these things? It is very stupid of you."