But he dared not stand still in his despair; something most dreadful would befall him, he thought. Then he espied the high wall of a garden, and a little house, under a lime-tree with faded yellow leaves. He went into the enclosure and ran along broad paths where the brown and gold lime-leaves thickly covered the ground. Purple asters and other gay autumn flowers grew by the grass plots in wild abundance. Then he came to a pond. By the side of it was a large house, with windows and doors all opening down to the ground. Climbing roses and other creepers grew against the walls. But it was all shut up and deserted. Half-stripped chestnut trees stood about the house, and on the earth, among the fallen leaves Johannes saw the shining brown chestnuts. The cold, dead feeling about his heart disappeared. He thought of his own home--there two chestnut-trees grew, and at this season he always went out to pick up chestnuts. He suddenly longed to be there, as though an inviting voice had called him. He sat down on a bench close to the big house and cried himself to rest. A peculiar smell made him look up. A man was standing by him, with a white apron on and a pipe in his mouth. Round his waist he had a wisp of bast with which he tied up the flowers. Johannes knew that smell so well! It reminded him of his own garden, and the gardener who brought him pretty caterpillars and showed him starling's eggs. He was not frightened,--though it was a man who stood before him. He told the man that he had got lost and did not know his way, and thankfully followed him to the little cottage under the lime-tree. Indoors, the gardener's wife sat knitting black stockings. A large kettle of water was hung to boil over the turf-fire in the hearth-place. On the mat by the fire lay a cat with her forepaws crossed, just as Simon had been lying when Johannes left home. Johannes was made to sit down by the fire to dry his feet. 'Tick-tick, tick-tick,' said the great hanging clock. Johannes looked at the steam which came singing out of the kettle, and at the little flames which skipped and jumped fantastically about the peat blocks. 'Here I am among men,' thought he. It was not alarming. He felt easy and safe. They were kind and friendly, and asked him what he would like to do. 'I would rather stay here,' he replied. Here he was at peace, and if he went home there would be scolding and tears. He would have to listen in silence, and he would be told that he had been very naughty. He would be obliged to look back on the past, and think everything over once more.