At the beginning of October, the new lock stood solidly at the west side in the main dike, now closed on both sides. Except for the gaps by the channel, the new dike now sloped all the way round with a gentle profile toward the water and rose above the ordinary high tide by fifteen feet. From the northwestern corner one, could look unhindered past Jevers Island out over the sea. But, to be sure, the winds blew more sharply here; one's hair fluttered, and he who wanted a view from this point had to have his cap securely on his head.
Toward the end of November, when storm and rain had set in, there remained only one gap to close, the one hard by the old dike, at the bottom of which the sea water shot through the channel into the new enclosure. At both sides stood the walls of the dike; now the cleft between them had to vanish. Dry summer weather would have made the work easier; but it had to be done anyway, for a rising storm might endanger the whole work. And Hauke staked everything on accomplishing the end. Rain poured down, the wind whistled; but his lean figure on the fiery white horse rose now here, now there out of the black masses of people who were busy by the gap, above and below, on the north side of the dike. Now he was seen below beside the dump-carts that already had to go far on the foreland to get the clay; a crowded lot of these had just reached the channel in order to cast off their loads. Through the splashing of the rain and the roaring of the wind, from time to time sounded the sharp orders of the dikemaster, who wanted to rule here alone to-day. He called the carts according to their numbers and ordered back those that were crowding up. When his "Stop" sounded, then all work ceased. "Straw!" Send down a load of straw! he called to those above, and the straw from one of their loads came tumbling down on to the wet clay. Below men jumped about in it and tore it apart and called up to the others that they did not want to be buried. Again new carts came, and Hauke was up on top once more, and looked down from his white horse into the cleft below and watched them shovel and dump their loads. Then he glanced out over the sea. The wind was sharp and he saw how the edge of the water was climbing higher up the dike and that the waves rose still higher. He saw, too, that the men were drenched and could scarcely breathe during their hard work because of the wind which cut off the air right before their mouths and because of the cold rain that was pouring down on them. "Hold out, men! Hold out!" he shouted down to them. "Only one foot higher; then it'll be enough for this flood." And through all the raging of the storm one could hear the noise of the workmen; the splashing of the masses of clay tumbling down, the rattling of the carts and the rustling of the straw let down from above went on unceasingly. In the midst of these noises, now and then, the wailing of a little yellow dog could be heard, which, shivering and forlorn, was knocked about among all the men and teams. Suddenly a scream of anguish from the little animal rose out of the cleft. Hauke looked down: he had seen the dog hurled down from above. His face suddenly flushed with rage. "Stop! Stop!" he shouted down to the carts; for the wet clay was being heaped up unceasingly.
"Why?" a rough voice bawled up from below, "not on account of the wretched brat of a dog?"
"Stop, I say!" Hauke shouted again; "bring me the dog! I don't want any crime done with our work."
But not a hand stirred; only a few spades full of tough clay were still thrown beside the howling animal. Then he spurred his white horse so that it uttered a cry and stormed down the dike, and all gave way before him. "The dog!" he shouted, "I want the dog!"
A hand slapped his shoulder gently, as if it were the hand of old Jewe Manners, but when Hauke looked round, he saw that it was only a friend of the old man's. "Take care, dikemaster!" he whispered to him. "You have no friends among these people; let this dog business be!"
The wind whistled, the rain splashed, the men had stuck their spades into the ground, some had thrown them away. Hauke bent down to the old man. "Do you want to hold my horse, Harke Jens?" he asked; and the latter scarcely had the reins in his hand when Hauke had leaped into the cleft and held the little wailing animal in his arms. Almost in the same moment he sat high in his saddle again and galloped back to the dike. He glanced swiftly over the men who stood by the teams. "Who was it?" he called. "Who threw down this creature?"
For a moment all was silent, for rage was flashing from the face of the dikemaster, and they had a superstitious fear of him. Then a muscular fellow stepped down from a team and stood before him. "I didn't do it, dikemaster," he said, bit off a piece from his roll of tobacco, and calmly pushed it into his mouth before he went on, "but he who did it, did right; if your dike is to hold, something alive has to be put into it!"
"Something alive? From what catechism have you learned that?"
"From none, sir!" replied the fellow with a pert laugh: "our grandfathers knew that, who, I am sure, were as good Christians as you! A child is still better; if you can't get that, a dog will do!"
"You keep still with your heathen doctrines," Hauke shouted at him, "the hole would be stopped up better if you had been thrown into it!"
"Oho!" sounded from a dozen throats, and the dikemaster saw grim faces and clenched fists round him; he saw that these were no friends. The thought of his dike came over him like a sudden fear. What would happen if now all should throw down their spades? As he glanced down he again saw the friend of old Jewe Manners, who walked in and out among the workmen, talked to this one and that one, smiled at one, slapped another on the shoulder with a pleasant air--and one after another took up his spade again. After a few minutes the work was in full swing--What was it that he still wanted? The channel had to be closed and he hid the dog safely in the folds of his cloak. With a sudden decision, he turned his white horse to the next team: "Let down the straw!" he called despotically, and the teamster obeyed mechanically. Soon it rustled down into the depth, and on all sides all arms were stirring again.
This work lasted an hour longer. It was six o'clock, and deep twilight was descending; the rain had stopped. Then Hauke called the superintendents together beside his horse: "To-morrow morning at four o'clock," he said, "everybody is to be in his place; the moon will still be shining, then we'll finish with God's blessing. And one thing more," he cried, when they were about to go: "do you know this dog?" And he took the trembling creature out of his cloak.
They did not know it. Only one man said: "He has been begging round the village for days; he belongs to nobody."
"Then he is mine!" said the dikemaster. "Don't forget: to-morrow morning at four o'clock!" And he rode away.
When he came home, Ann Grethe stepped out of the door. She had on neat clothing, and the thought shot through his head that she was going to the conventicle tailor's.
"Hold out your apron!" he called to her, and as she did so automatically, he threw the little dog, all covered with clay, into the apron.
"Carry him in to little Wienke; he is to be her companion! But wash and warm him first; then you'll do a good deed, too, that will please God, for the creature is almost frozen!"
And Ann Grethe could not help obeying her master, and therefore did not get to the conventicle that day.
The next day the last cut with the spade was made on the new dike. The wind had gone down; gulls and other sea birds were flying back and forth over land and water in graceful flight. From Jevers Island one could hear like a chorus of a thousand voices the cries of the wild geese that still were making themselves at home on the coast of the North Sea, and out of the white morning mists that spread over the wide marshes, gradually rose a golden autumn day and shed its light on the new work of human hands.
After a few weeks the commissioners of the ruler came with the dikemaster general for inspection. A great banquet, the first since the funeral banquet of old Tede Volkerts, was given in the house of the dikemaster, to which all the dike overseers and the greater landowners were invited. After dinner all the carriages of the guests and of the dikemaster were made ready. The dikemaster general helped Elke into the carriage in front of which the brown horse was stamping his hoofs; then he leaped in after her and took the reins himself, for he wanted to drive the clever wife of his dikemaster himself. Then they rode merrily from the hill down to the road, then up to the new dike, and upon it all round the new enclosed land. In the mean time a light northwest wind had risen and the tide was driven against the north and west sides of the new dike. But one could not help being aware of the fact that the gentle slope made the attack of the water gentler; and praise was poured on the new dikemaster from the lips of the ruler's commissioners, so that the objections which now and then were slowly brought out by the overseers, were soon stifled by it.
This, too, passed by. But the dikemaster received another satisfaction one day as he rode along on the new dike, in quiet, self-conscious meditation. The question naturally arose in his mind why the new enclosure, which would not have had its being without him, into which he had put the sweat of his brow and his night watches, now finally was named after one of the princesses "the new Caroline-land." But it was so: on all the documents concerned with it stood the name, on some even in red Gothic letters. Then, just as he was looking up, he saw two workmen coming toward him with their tools, the one about twenty paces behind the other. "Why don't you wait!" he heard the one behind calling. The other, who was just standing by a path which led down into the new land, called to him: "Another time, Jens. I'm late; I have to dig clay here."
"Where?"
"Down here, in the Hauke-Haien-land."
He called it aloud, as he trotted down the path, as if he wanted the whole marsh below to hear it. But Hauke felt as if he were hearing his fame proclaimed; he rose from his saddle, spurred on his horse and with steady eyes looked over the wide land that lay to his left. "Hauke-Haien-land! Hauke-Haien-land!" he repeated softly; that sounded as if in all time it could not have another name. Let them defy him as they would--they could not get round his name; the name of the princess--wouldn't that soon moulder in old documents?--His white horse galloped proudly and in his ears he heard a murmur: "Hauke-Haien-land! Hauke-Haien-land!" In his thoughts the new dike almost grew into the eighth wonder of the world; in all Frisia there was not the like of it. And he let the white horse dance, for he felt as if he were standing in the midst of all the Frisians, towering over them by the height of a head, and glancing down upon all keenly and full of pity.
Gradually three years had gone by since the building of the dike. The new structure had proved its worth, the cost of repairing had been small. And now almost everywhere in the enclosed land white clover was blooming, and as one walked over the sheltered pastures, the summer wind blew toward one a whole cloud of sweet fragrance. Thus the time had come to turn the shares, which hitherto had only been ideal, into real ones, and to allot to each shareholder the piece which he was to keep as his own. Hauke had not been slow to acquire some new shares before this; Ole Peters had kept back out of spite, and owned nothing in the new land. The distribution of the parts could not be accomplished without annoyance and quarreling; but it was done, nevertheless. This day, too, lay behind the dikemaster.
From now on he lived in a lonely way for his duties as farmer and as dikemaster and for those who were nearest to him. His old friends were no longer living, and he was not the man to make new ones. But under his roof was a peace which even the quiet child did not mar. She spoke little, the constant questioning that is so characteristic of bright children was rare with her and usually came in such a way that it was hard to answer; but her dear, simple little face almost always wore an expression of content. She had two play-fellows, and they were enough: when she wandered over the hill, the rescued little yellow dog always jumped round her, and when the dog appeared, little Wienke did not stay away long. The second companion was a pewit gull. As the dog's name was "Pearl" so the gull was called "Claus."
Claus had been installed on the farm by an aged woman. Eighty-year-old Trin Jans had not been able to keep herself any longer in her hut on the outer dike; and Elke had thought that the aged servant of her grandfather might find peaceful evening hours and a good room to die in at her home. So, half by force, she and Hauke had brought her to their farm and settled her in the little northwest room in the new barn that the dikemaster had had built beside the main house when he had enlarged his establishment. A few of the maids had been given rooms next to the old woman's and could help her at night. Along the walls she kept her old furnishings; a chest made of wood from sugar boxes, above it two coloured pictures of her lost son, then a spinning-wheel, now at rest, and a very neat canopied bed in front of which stood an unwieldy stool covered with the white fur of the defunct Angora cat. But something alive, too, she had had about her and brought with her: that was the gull Claus, which had been attached to her and fed by her for years. To be sure, when winter came, it flew with the other gulls to the south and did not come again until the wormwood was fragrant on the shore.
The barn was a little lower down on the hill, so the old woman could not look over the dike at the sea from her window. "You keep me here as in prison, dikemaster," she muttered one day, as Hauke stepped in to see her, and she pointed with her bent finger at the fens that spread out below. "Where is Jeverssand? Above those red oxen or those black ones?"
"What do you want Jeverssand for?" asked Hauke.
"Jeverssand!" muttered the old woman. "Why, I want to see where my boy that time went to God!"
"If you want to see that," Hauke replied, "you'll have to sit up there under the ash tree. From there you can look over the whole sea."
"Yes," said the old woman; "yes, if I had your young legs, dikemaster."
This was the style of thanks the dikemaster and his wife received for some time, until all at once everything was different. The little child's head of Wienke one morning peeped in through her half-open door. "Well," called the old woman, who sat with her hands folded on her wooden stool; "what have you to tell me?"
But the child silently came nearer and looked at her constantly with its listless eyes.
"Are you the dikemaster's child?" Trin Jans asked, and as the child lowered its head as if nodding, she went on: "Then sit down here on my stool. Once it was an Angora cat--so big! But your father killed it. If it were still alive, you could ride on it."
Wienke silently turned her eyes to the white fur; then she knelt down and began to stroke it with her little hands as children are wont to do with live cats or dogs. "Poor cat!" she said then and went on with her caresses.
"Well," cried the old woman after a while, "now that's enough; and you can sit on him to-day, too. Perhaps your father only killed him for that." Then she lifted up the child by both arms and set it down roughly on the stool. But when it remained sitting there, silent and motionless and only kept looking at her, she began to shake her head. "Thou art punishing him, Lord God! Yes, yes, Thou art punishing him!" she murmured. But pity for the child seemed to come over her; she stroked its scanty hair with her bony hand, and the eyes of the little girl seemed to show that this did her good.
From now on Wienke came every day to the old woman in her room. Soon she sat down on the Angora stool of her own accord, and Trin Jans put small bits of meat and bread which she always saved into the child's little hands, and made her throw them on the floor. Then the gull shot out of some corner with screams and wings spread out and pounced on the morsels. At first the great, rushing bird frightened the child and made her cry out; but soon it all happened like a game learned by heart, and her little head only had to appear in the opening of the door, when the bird rushed up to her and perched on her head and shoulders, until the old woman helped and the feeding could begin. Trin Jans who before never could bear to have anyone merely stretch out a hand after her "Claus," now patiently watched the child gradually win over the bird altogether. It willingly let itself be chased, and she carried it about in her apron. Then, when on the hill the little yellow dog would jump round her and up at the bird in jealousy, she would cry: "Don't, don't, Pearl!" and lift the gull with her little arms so high, that the bird, after setting itself free, would fly screaming over the hill, and now the dog, by jumping and caressing, would try to win its place in her arms.
When by chance Hauke's or Elke's eyes fell upon this strange four-leaved clover which, as it were, was held to the same stem only by the same defect--then they cast tender glances upon the child. But when they turned away, there remained on their faces only the pain that each carried away alone, for the saving word had not yet been spoken between them. One summer morning, when Wienke sat with the old woman and the two animals on the big stones in front of the barn door, both her parents passed by--the dikemaster leading his white horse, with the reins flung over his arm. He wanted to ride on the dike and had got his horse out of the fens himself; on the hill his wife had taken his arm. The sun shone down warmly; it was almost sultry, and now and then a gust of wind blew from the south-southeast. It seemed that her seat was uncomfortable for the child. "Wienke wants to go too!" she cried, shook the gull out of her lap and seized her father's hand.
"Then come!" said he.
But Elke cried: "In this wind? She'll fly away from you!"
"I'll hold her all right; and to-day we have warm air and jolly water; then she can see it dance!"
Then Elke ran into the house and got a shawl and a little cap for her child. "But a storm is brewing," she said; "hurry and get on your way and be back soon."
Hauke laughed: "That shan't get us!" and lifted the child to his saddle. Elke stayed a while on the hill and, shading her eyes with her hand, watched the two trot down the road and toward the dike. Trin Jan sat on the stone and murmured incomprehensible things with her lips.
The child lay motionless in her father's arms. It seemed as if it breathed with difficulty under the pressure of the sultry air. He bent down his head to her: "Well, Wienke?" he asked.
The child looked at him a while: "Father," she said, "you can do that. Can't you do everything?"
"What is it that I can do, Wienke?"
But she was silent; she seemed not to have understood her own question.
It was high tide. When they came to the dike, the reflection of the sun on the wide water flashed into her eyes, a whirlwind made the waves eddy and raised them high up, ever new waves came and beat splashing against the beach. Then, in her fear, her little hands clung round her father's fist which was holding the reins, so that the horse made a bound to the side. The pale-blue eyes looked up at Hauke in confused fright: "The water, father! The water!" she cried.
But he gently freed his hand and said: "Be calm, child; you are with your father; the water won't hurt you!"
She pushed her pale blond hair from her forehead and again dared to look upon the sea. "It won't hurt me," she said trembling; "no, tell it not to hurt us; you can do that, and then it won't do anything to us!"
"I can't do that, child," replied Hauke seriously; "but the dike on which we are riding shelters us, and this your father has thought out and has had built."
Her eyes turned upon him as if she did not quite understand that; then she buried her strikingly small head in the wide folds of her father's coat.
"Why are you hiding, Wienke?" he whispered to her; "are you afraid?" And a trembling little voice rose out of the folds of the coat: "Wienke would rather not look; but you can do everything, can't you, father?"
Distant thunder was rolling against the wind. "Hoho!" cried Hauke, "there it comes!" And he turned his horse round to ride back. "Now we want to go home to mother!"
The child drew a deep breath; but not until they had reached the hill and the house did she raise her little head from her father's breast. When Elke had taken off the little shawl and cap in the room, the child remained standing before her mother like a dumb little ninepin.
"Well, Wienke," she said, and shook her gently, "do you like the big water?"
But the child opened her eyes wide. "It talks," she said. "Wienke is afraid!"
"It doesn't talk; it only murmurs and roars!"
The child looked into the void: "Has it got legs?" she asked again; "can it come over the dike?"
"No, Wienke; your father looks out for that, he is the dikemaster."
"Yes," said the child and clapped her little hands together with an idiotic smile. "Father can do everything--everything!" Then suddenly, turning away from her mother, she cried: "Let Wienke go to Trin Jans, she has red apples!"
And Elke opened the door and let the child out. When she had closed it again, she glanced at her husband with the deepest anguish in her eyes from which hitherto he had drawn only comfort and courage that had helped him.
He gave her his hand and pressed hers, as if there were no further need for words between them; then she said in a low voice: "No, Hauke, let me speak: the child that I have borne you after years will stay a child always. Oh, good God! It is feeble-minded! I have to say it once in your hearing."
"I knew it long ago," said Hauke and held tightly his wife's hand which she wanted to draw away.
"So we are left alone after all," she said again.
But Hauke shook his head: "I love her, and she throws her little arms round me and presses close to my breast; for all the treasures of the world I wouldn't miss that!"
The woman stared ahead darkly: "But why?" she asked; "what have I, poor mother, done?"
"Yes, Elke, that I have asked, too, of Him who alone can know; but you know, too, that the Almighty gives men no answer--perhaps because we would not grasp it."
He had seized his wife's other hand too, and gently drew her toward him. "Don't let yourself be kept from loving your child as you do; be sure it understands that."
Then Elke threw herself on her husband's breast and cried to her heart's content and was no longer alone with her grief. Then suddenly she smiled at him; after pressing his hand passionately, she ran out and got her child from old Trin Jans' room, took it on her lap and caressed and kissed it, until it stammered:
"Mother, my dear mother!"
Thus the people on the dikemaster's farm lived quietly; if the child had not been there, it would have been greatly missed.
Gradually the summer passed by; the migrating birds had flown away, the song of larks was no longer in the air; only in front of the barns, where they pecked at the grain in thrashing time, one could hear some of them scream as they flew away. Already everything was frozen hard. In the kitchen of the main house Trin Jans sat one afternoon on the wooden steps of a stairway that started beside the stove and led to the attic. In the last weeks it seemed as if a new life had entered into her. Now she liked to go into the kitchen occasionally and watch Elke at work; there was no longer any idea of her legs not being able to carry her so far, since one day little Wienke had pulled her up here by her apron. Now the child was kneeling beside her, looking with her quiet eyes into the flames that were blazing up out of the stove-hole; one of her little hands was clinging to the old woman's sleeve, the other was in her own pale blonde hair. Trin Jans was telling a story: "You know," she said, "I was in the service at your great-grandfather's, as housemaid, and there I had to feed the pigs. He was cleverer than all the rest--then it happened--it was awfully long ago--but, one night, by moonlight, they had the lock to the sea closed, and she couldn't go back into the sea. Oh, how she screamed and clutched her hard, bristly hair with her fish-hands! Yes, child, I saw her and heard her scream. The ditches between the fens were all full of water, and the moon beamed on them so that they shone like silver; and she swam from one ditch into another and raised her arms and clapped what hands she had together, so that one could hear the splash from far, as if she wanted to pray. But, child, those creatures can't pray. I sat in front of the house door on a few beams that had been driven there to build with, and looked far over the fens; and the mermaid was still swimming in the ditches, and when she raised her arms, they were glittering with silver and diamonds. At last I saw her no longer, and the wild geese and gulls that I had not been hearing all the time were again flying through the air with whistling and cackling."
The old woman stopped. The child had caught one word: "Couldn't pray?" she asked. "What are you saying? Who was that?"
"Child," said the old woman; "it was the mermaid; they are monsters and can't be saved."
"Can't be saved!" repeated the child, and a deep sigh made her little breast heave, as if she had understood that.
"Trin Jans!" a deep voice sounded from the kitchen door, and the old woman was a little startled. It was the dikemaster Hauke Haien, who leaned there by the post; "what are you telling the child? Haven't I told you to keep your fairy-tales for yourself or else to tell them to the geese and hens?"
The old woman looked at him with an angry glance and pushed the little girl away. "That's no fairy-tale," she murmured, "my great-uncle told it to me!"
"Your great-uncle, Trin? You just said you had seen it yourself."
"That doesn't matter," said the old woman; "but you don't believe me, Hauke Haien; you want to make my great-uncle a liar!" Then she moved nearer to the stove and stretched her hands out over the flames of the stove-hole.
The dikemaster cast a glance at the window: twilight had scarcely begun. "Come, Wienke!" he said and drew his feeble-minded child toward him; "come with me, I want to show you something outside, from the dike. But we have to walk; the white horse is at the blacksmith's." Then he took her into the room and Elke wrapped thick woolen shawls round the child's neck and shoulders; and soon her father walked with her on the old dike toward the northwest, past Jeverssand, where the flats stretched out broad and almost endless.
Now he would carry her, now she would walk holding his hand; the twilight thickened; in the distance everything vanished in mist and vapour. But in parts still in sight, the invisibly swelling streams that washed the flats had broken the ice and, as Hauke Haien had once seen it in his youth, steaming mists rose out of the cracks as at that time, and there again the uncanny foolish figures were hopping toward one another, bowed and suddenly stretched out into horrible breadths.
The child clung frightened to her father and covered her face with his hand. "The sea devils!" she whispered, trembling, through his fingers; "the sea devils!"
He shook his head: "No, Wienke, they are neither mermaids nor sea devils; there are no such things; who told you about them?"
She looked up to him with a dull glance; but she did not reply. Tenderly he stroked her cheeks: "Look there again!" he said, "they are only poor hungry birds! Look now, how that big one spreads its wings; they are getting the fish that go into those steaming cracks!"
"Fish!" repeated Wienke.
"Yes, child, they are all alive, just as we are; there is nothing else; but God is everywhere!"
Little Wienke had fixed her eyes on the ground and held her breath; she looked frightened as if she were gazing into an abyss. Perhaps it only seemed so; her father looked at her a long while, he bent down and looked at her little face, but on it was written no emotion of her inscrutable soul. He lifted her on his arm and put her icy little hands into one of his thick woollen mittens. "There, my Wienke"--the child could not have been aware of the note of passionate tenderness in his words--"there, warm yourself, near me! You are our child, our only one. You love us--" The man's voice broke; but the little girl pressed her small head tenderly against his rough beard.
And so they went home in peace.
After New Year care had once more entered the house. A fever of the marshes had seized the dikemaster; he too had hovered near the edge of the grave, and when he had revived under Elke's nursing and care, he scarcely seemed the same man. The fatigue of his body also lay upon his spirit, and Elke noticed with some worry that he was always easily satisfied. Nevertheless, toward the end of March, he had a desire to mount his white horse and for the first time to ride along his dike again. This was one afternoon when the sun that had shone before, was shrouded for a long while by dim mist.
In the winter there had been a few floods; but they had not been serious. Only over by the other shore a flock of sheep had been drowned on an island and a piece of the foreland torn away; here on this side and on the new land no damage worth mentioning had been done. But in the last night a stronger storm had raged; now the dikemaster had to go out and inspect everything with his own eyes. He had ridden along on the new dike from the southeastern corner and everything was well preserved. But when he reached the northeastern corner, at the point where the new dike meets the old one, the new one, to be sure, was unharmed. But where formerly the channel had reached the old dike and flowed along it, he saw a great, broad piece of the grassy scar destroyed and washed away and a hollow in the body of the dike worn by the flood, in which, moreover, a network of paths made by mice was exposed. Hauke dismounted and inspected the damage close by: there was no doubt that the mischief done by the mice extended on invisible.
He was startled violently. All this should have been considered when the new dike was being built; as it had been overlooked then, something had to be done now. The cattle were not yet grazing in the fens, the growth of the grass was unusually backward; wherever he looked there was barrenness and void. He mounted his horse again and rode up and down the shore; it was low tide, and he was well aware of how the current had again dug itself a new bed in the clay and had now hit upon the old dike. The new dike, however, when it was hit, had been able to withstand the attack on account of its gentler slope.
A heap of new toil and care rose before the mind's eye of the dikemaster. Not only did the old dike have to be reenforced, its profile, too, had to be made more like that of the new one; above all, the channel, which again had proved dangerous, had to be turned aside by new dams or walls.
Once more he rode on the new dike up to the farthest northwestern corner, then back again, keeping his eyes continually on the newly worn bed of the channel which was marked off clearly on the exposed clay beside him. The white horse pushed forward, snorted and pawed with its front hoofs; but the rider held him back, for he wanted to ride slowly, and to curb the inner unrest that was seething within him more and more wildly.
If a storm flood should come again--a flood like the one in 1655, when property and unnumbered human beings were swallowed up--if it should come again, as it had come several times before! A violent shudder came over the rider--the old dike would not hold out against the sudden attack. What then--what would happen then? There would be only one, one single way of possibly saving the old enclosed land with the property and life in it. Hauke felt his heart stand still, his usually so steady head grew dizzy. He did not utter it, but something spoke within him strongly enough: your land, the Hauke-Haien-land, would have to be sacrificed and the new dike pierced.
In his mind's eye he saw the rushing tide break in and cover grass and clover with its salty, foaming spray. His spur pricked the flanks of his white horse, which, with a sudden scream, flew along the dike and down the road that led to the hill of the dikemaster.
He came home with his head full of inner fright and disorderly plans. He threw himself into his armchair, and when Elke came into the room with their daughter, he rose again, lifted up the child and kissed it. Then he chased away the little yellow dog with a few light slaps. "I have to go up to the inn again," he said, and took his cap from the hook by the door, where he had only just put it.
His wife looked at him anxiously. "What do you want to do there? It is near evening, Hauke."
"Dike matters!" he muttered. "I'll meet some of the overseers there."
She followed him and pressed his hand, for with these words he had already left the door. Hauke Haien, who hitherto had made all decisions by himself, now was eager for a word from those whom he had not considered worthy of taking an interest before. In the room of the tavern he found Ole Peters with two of the overseers and an inhabitant of the district at the card table.
"I suppose you come from out there, dikemaster?" said Ole, who took up the already half distributed cards and threw them down again.
"Yes, Ole," Hauke replied; "I was there; it looks bad."
"Bad? Well, it'll cost a few hundred pieces of sod and a straw covering. I was there too this afternoon.
"It won't be done so cheaply, Ole," replied the dikemaster; "the channel is there again, and even if it doesn't hit the old dike from the north, it hits it from the northwest."
"You should have left it where you found it," said Ole drily.
"That means," returned Hauke, "the new land's none of your business; and therefore it should not exist. That is your own fault. But if we have to make walls to protect the old dike, the green clover behind the new one will bring us a profit above the cost."
"What are you saying, dikemaster?" cried the overseers; "Walls? How many? You like to have the most expensive of everything."
The cards lay untouched upon the table. "I'll tell you, dikemaster," said Ole Peters, and leaned on both elbows, "your new land that you presented to us is a devouring thing. Everybody is still laboring under the heavy cost of your broad dike; and now that is devouring our old dike too we are expected to renew it. Fortunately it isn't so bad; the dike has held out so far and will continue to hold out. Mount your white horse to-morrow and look at it again!"
Hauke had come here from the peace of his own house; behind these words he had just heard, moderate though they were, there lay--and he could not but be aware of it--tough resistance; he felt, too, as if he were lacking his old strength to cope with it. "I will do as you advise, Ole," he said; "only I fear I shall find it as I have seen it to-day."
A restless night followed this day. Hauke tossed sleepless upon his pillows. "What is the matter?" asked Elke who was kept awake by worry over her husband; "if something depresses you, speak it out; that's the way we've always done."
"It's of no consequence, Elke," he replied, "there is something to repair on the dike at the locks; you know that I always have to work over these things at night." That was all he said; he wanted to keep freedom of action; unconsciously the clear insight and strong intelligence of his wife was a hindrance to him which he instinctively avoided in his present weakness.
The following morning when he came out on to the dike once more the world was different from the one he had seen the day before; it was low tide again, to be sure, but the day had not yet attained its noon, and beams of the bright spring sun fell almost perpendicularly onto the endless flats. The white gulls flew quietly hither and thither, and invisible above them, high under the azure sky, larks sang their eternal melody. Hauke, who did not know how nature can deceive one with her charms, stood on the northwestern corner of the dike and looked for the new bed of the channel that had startled him so yesterday, but in the sunlight pouring down from the zenith, he did not even find it at first. Not until he had shaded his eyes from the blinding rays, did he recognise it. Yet the shadows in the twilight of yesterday must have deceived him: it could be discerned but faintly. The exposed mouse business must have done more damage to the dike than the flood. To be sure, things had to be changed; however, this could be done by careful digging and, as Ole Peters had said, the damage could be repaired by fresh sod and some bundles of straw for covering.
"It wasn't so bad," he said to himself, relieved; "you fooled yourself yesterday." He called the overseers, and the work was decided on without contradiction, something that had never happened before.
The dikemaster felt as if a strengthening calm were spreading through his still weakened body and after a few weeks everything was neatly carried out.
The year went on, but the more it advanced and the more undisturbed the newly spread turf grew green through the straw covering, the more restlessly Hauke walked or rode past the spot. He turned his eyes away, he rode on the inside edge of the dike. A few times, when it occurred to him that he would have to pass by the place, he had his horse, though it was already saddled, led back into the stable. Then again, when he had no business there, he would wander to it, suddenly and on foot, so as to leave his hill quickly and unseen. Sometimes he had turned back again, unable once more to inflict on himself the sight of this uncanny place. Finally, he felt like breaking up the whole thing with his own hands, for this piece of the dike lay before his eyes like a bite of conscience that had taken on form outside of himself. And yet his hand could not touch it any more; and to no one, not even his wife, could he talk about it. Thus September had come; at night a moderate storm had raged and at last had blown away to the northwest. On the dull forenoon after it, at low tide, Hauke rode out on the dike and, as his glance swept over the flats, something shot through him: there, on from the northwest, he suddenly saw the ghostly new bed of the channel again, more sharply marked and worn deeper. No matter how hard he strained his eyes, it would not go.
When he came home, Elke seized his hand. "What's the matter, Hauke?" she said, as she looked at his gloomy face. "There is no new calamity, is there? We are so happy now; it seems, you are at peace now with all of them."
After these words, he did not feel equal to expressing his confused fear.
"No, Elke," he said, "nobody is hostile to me; but it is a responsible function--to protect the community from our Lord's sea."
He withdrew, so as to escape further questioning by his beloved wife. He walked through stable and barn, as if he had to look over everything; but he saw nothing round about. He was preoccupied only with hushing up his conscience, with convincing himself that it was a morbidly exaggerated fear.
The year that I am telling about, my host, the schoolmaster, said after a while, was the year 1756, which will surely never be forgotten in this region. Into the house of Hauke Haien it brought a death. At the end of September Trin Jans, almost ninety years old, was dying in the barn furnished for her. According to her wishes, they had propped her up in her pillows, and her eyes wandered through the little windows with their leaden casements far out into the distance. A thin layer of atmosphere must have lain above a thicker one up in the sky, for there was a high mirage and the reflection raised the sea like a glittering strip of silver above the edge of the dike, so that it shone dazzlingly into the room. The southern tip of Jeverssand was visible, too.
At the foot of the bed little Wienke was cowering, holding with one hand that of her father who stood beside her. On the face of the dying woman death was just imprinting the Hippocratic face, and the child stared breathlessly on the uncanny incomprehensible change in the plain, but familiar features.
"What is she doing? What is that, father?" she whispered, full of fear, and dug her finger nails into her father's hand.
"She is dying!" said the dikemaster.
"Dying!" repeated the child, and seemed to have fallen, into a confused pondering.
But the old woman moved her lips once more: "Jens! Jens!" her screams broke out, like cries in danger, and her long arms were stretched out against the glittering reflection of the sea; "Help me! Help me! You are in the water---- God have mercy on the others!"
Her arms sank down, a low creaking of the bedstead could be heard; she had ceased to live.
The child drew a deep breath and lifted her pale eyes to her father's. "Is she still dying?" she asked.
"She has done it!" said the dikemaster, and took his child in his arms. "Now she is far from us with God."
"With God!" repeated the child and was silent for a while, as if she had to think about these words. "Is that good--with God?"
"Yes, that is the best." In Hauke's heart, however, the last words of the dying woman resounded heavily. "God have mercy on the others!" a low voice said within him. "What did the old hag mean? Are the dying prophets--?"
Soon after Trin Jans had been buried by the church, there was more and more talk about all kinds of mischief and strange vermin that had frightened the people in North Frisia, and there was no doubt that on mid-Lent Sunday the golden cock was thrown down by a whirlwind. It was true, too, that in midsummer a great cloud of vermin fell down, like snow, from the sky, so that one could scarcely open one's eyes, and afterwards it lay on the fens in a layer as high as a hand, and no one had ever seen anything like it. But at the end of September, after the hired man had driven to the city market with grain and the maid Ann Grethe with butter, they both climbed down, when they came home, with faces pale from fright. "What's the matter? What's the matter with you?" cried the other maids, who had come running out when they heard the wagon roll up.
Ann Grethe in her travelling clothes stepped breathless into the spacious kitchen. "Well, tell us," cried the maids again, "what has happened?"
"Oh, our Lord Jesus protect us!" cried Ann Grethe. "You know, old Marike of the brickworks from over there across the water--we always stand together with our butter by the drugstore at the corner--she told me, and Iven Johns said too--'There's going to be a calamity!' he said; 'a calamity for all North Frisia; believe me, Ann Grethe!' And"--she muffled her voice--"maybe there's something wrong after all about the dikemaster's white horse!"
"Sh! Sh!" replied the other maids.
"Oh, yes, what do I care! But over there, on the other side, it's even worse than ours. Not only flies and vermin, but blood has poured down from the sky like rain. And the Sunday morning after that, when the pastor went to his washbowl, he found five death's heads in it, as big as peas, and everybody came to look at them. In the month of August horrible red-headed caterpillars crawled all over the land and devoured what they found, grain and flour and bread, and no fire could kill them off."
The talker broke off suddenly; none of the maids had noticed that the mistress of the house had stepped into the kitchen. "What are you talking about there?" she said. "Don't let your master hear that!" And as they all wanted to tell about it now, she stopped them. "Never mind; I heard enough; go to your work; that will bring you better blessings." Then she took Ann Grethe with her into the room and settled the accounts of the market business.
Thus the superstitious talk in the house of the dikemaster found no reception from its master and mistress. But it spread into the other houses, and the longer the evenings grew, the more easily it found its way in. Something like sultry air weighed on all, and it was secretly said that a calamity, a serious one, would come over North Frisia.