His road now led almost steeply down the mountain-side, so that the trees that had once stood below him again gave him their shade, but at the same time cut off from him the view of the lake, which only now and then peeped out between the gaps in the branches. Soon the way went gently upwards again, and to left and right the woods disappeared, yielding place to vine-clad hills stretching along the pathway; while on either side stood fruit-trees in blossom, filled with the hum of the bees as they busily pried into the blossoms. A tall man wearing a brown overcoat advanced to meet the traveller. When he had almost come up to him, he waved his cap and cried out in a loud voice: "Welcome, welcome, brother Reinhard! Welcome to my Immensee estate!" "God's greeting to you[4], Eric, and thank you for your welcome," replied the other. [4] This form of salutation is especially common in the south of Germany. By this time they had come up close to one another, and clasped hands. "And is it really you?" said Eric, when he at last got a near sight of the grave face of his old school-fellow. "It is I right enough, Eric, and I recognize you too; only you almost look cheerier than you ever did before." At these words a glad smile made Eric's plain features all the more cheerful. "Yes, brother Reinhard," he said, as he once more held out his hand to him, "but since those days, you see, I have won the great prize; but you know that well enough." Then he rubbed his hands and cried cheerily: "This _will_ be a surprise! You are the last person she expects to see." "A surprise?" asked Reinhard. "For whom, pray?" "Why, for Elisabeth." "Elisabeth! You haven't told her a word about my visit?" "Not a word, brother Reinhard; she has no thought of you, nor her mother either. I invited you entirely on the quiet, in order that the pleasure might be all the greater. You know I always had little quiet schemes of my own." Reinhard turned thoughtful; he seemed to breathe more heavily the nearer they approached the house. On the left side of the road the vineyards came to an end, and gave place to an extensive kitchen-garden, which reached almost as far as the lake-shore. The stork had meanwhile come to earth and was striding solemnly between the vegetable beds. "Hullo!" cried Eric, clapping his hands together, "if that long-legged Egyptian isn't stealing my short pea-sticks again!" The bird slowly rose and flew on to the roof of a new building, which ran along the end of the kitchen-garden, and whose walls were covered with the branches of the peach and apricot trees that were trained over them. "That's the distillery," said Eric. "I built it only two years ago. My late father had the farm buildings rebuilt; the dwelling-house was built as far back as my grandfather's time. So we go ever forward a little bit at a time."