The old woman looked at him sharply. "Oh, is it you, little
Findelkind? Have you run off from school? Be off with you home! I
have mouths enough to feed here."

Findelkind went away, and began to learn that it is not easy to be
a prophet or a hero in one's own country.

He trotted a mile farther, and met nothing. At last he came to
some cows by the wayside, and a man tending them.

"Would you give me something to help make a monastery?" he said
timidly, and once more took off his cap. The man gave a great
laugh. "A fine monk, you! And who wants more of these lazy drones?
Not I."

Findelkind never answered; he remembered the priest had said that
the years he lived in were very hard ones, and men in them had no
faith.

Ere long he came to a big walled house, with turrets and grated
casements,--very big it looked to him,--like one of the first
Findelkind's own castles. His heart beat loud against his side,
but he plucked up his courage, and knocked as loud as his heart
was beating.

He knocked and knocked, but no answer came. The house was empty.
But he did not know that; he thought it was that the people within
were cruel, and he went sadly onward with the road winding before
him, and on his right the beautiful impetuous gray river, and on
his left the green Mittelgebirge and the mountains that rose