His heart beat high, and his head lost its aching pains, and his feet felt light; so light as if there were wings to his ankles. He would not go to Zirl, because Zirl he knew so well, and there could be nothing very wonderful waiting there; and he ran fast the other way. When he was fairly out from under the shadow of Martinswand, he slackened his pace, and saw the sun come on his path, and the red day redden the gray-green water, and the early Stellwagen from Landeck, that had been lumbering along all the night, overtook him. He would have run after it, and called out to the travelers for alms, but he felt ashamed; his father had never let him beg, and he did not know how to begin. The Stellwagen rolled on through the autumn mud, and that was one chance lost. He was sure that the first Findelkind had not felt ashamed when he had knocked at the first castle gates. By and by, when he could not see Martinswand by turning his head back ever so, he came to an inn that used to be a posthouse in the old days when men traveled only by road. A woman was feeding chickens in the bright clear red of the cold daybreak. Findelkind timidly held out his hand. "For the poor!" he murmured, and doffed his cap. 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.