A NORTH SEA ISLANDER'S CONGREGATIONJacob Alberts
A NORTH SEA ISLANDER'S CONGREGATIONJacob Alberts
Jacob Alberts
About five or six hundred feet north of the dikegrave's farm, as one stood on the dike, one could see a few thousand feet out in the shallows and, somewhat farther from the opposite bank, a little islet called "Jeverssand" or "Jevershallig." It had been used by the grandfathers of that day as a sheep pasture, for at that time it had been covered with grass; but even that had ceased because several times the low islet had been flooded by the sea, especially in midsummer, and the grass had been damaged and made unfit for the sheep. So it happened that, except for the gulls and other birds that fly along the shore, and perhaps an occasional fishhawk, nothing visited it any more; and on moonlight evenings, looking out from the dike, only the foggy mists could be seen as they hung lightly or heavily above it. When the moon shone from the east on the islet people also thought they could distinguish a few bleached skeletons of drowned sheep and the skeleton of a horse, though how the latter had come there no one could explain.
Once, towards the end of March, late in the evening, the day-laborer who lived in Tede Haien's house and the young dikegrave's man Iven Johns stood together at that spot and gazed out fixedly at the islet, which could scarcely be distinguished in the misty moonlight; apparently something unusual had caught their attention and kept them standing there. The day laborer stuck his hands in his pockets and shook himself. "Come on, Iven," he said, "that's nothing good; let us go home!"
The other one laughed, but a shudder could be heard through his laughter. "Oh, nonsense! It's a living creature, a big one! Who in the devil's name could have driven it out there onto that piece of mud! Look! Now it's stretching its head over towards us! No, it's lowering its head, it's eating! I thought there was no grass there! Whatever can it be?"
"What business is that ofours?" answered the other. "Good night, Iven, if you won't go along; I'm going home."
"Good-night then," the day laborer called back as he trotted home along the dike. The servant looked round after him a few times, but the desire to see something uncanny kept him where he was. Then a dark, stocky figure came along the dike from the village towards him; it was the dikegrave's stable boy. "What do you want, Karsten?" the man called out to him.
"I?—nothing," answered the boy; "but the master wants to speak to you, Iven Johns."
The man had his eyes fixed on the islet again. "All right; I'm coming in a minute," he said.
"What are you looking at?" asked the boy.
The man raised his arm and pointed to the islet in silence. "Oh ho!" whispered the boy; "there's a horse—a white horse—it must be the devil who rides it—how does a horse get out there on Jevershallig?"
"Don't know, Karsten; if only it's a real horse!"
"Oh, yes, Iven; look, it's grazing just like a horse! But who took it out there; there isn't a boat big enough in the whole village! Perhaps after all it's only a sheep; Peter Ohm says, in the moonlight ten stocks of peat look like a whole village. No, look! Now it's jumping—it must be a horse!"
The two stood for a time in silence, their eyes fixed on what they could see but indistinctly over there. The moon was high in the sky and shone down on the broad shallow sea whose rising tide was just beginning to wash over the glistening stretches of mud; no sound of any animal was to be heard all around, nothing but the gentle noise of the water; the marsh too, behind the dike, was empty; cows and oxen were all still in their stalls. Nothing was moving; the only thing that seemed to be alive was what they took to be a horse, a white horse, out on Jevershallig. "It's growing lighter," said the man breaking the silence; "I can see the white sheep bones shining clearly."
"So can I," said the boy, stretching his neck; then, as if an idea had suddenly struck him, he pulled at the man's sleeve. "Iven," he whispered, "the horse's skeleton that always used to lie there, where is it? I can't see it!"
"I don't see it either, that's queer!" said the man.
"Not so very queer, Iven! Sometimes, I don't know in what nights, the bones are said to rise up and act as if they were alive."
"So?" said the man; "that's old wives' superstition!"
"May be, Iven," said the boy.
"Well, I thought you came to fetch me; come on, we must go home. There's nothing new to see here."
The boy would not move till the man had turned him round by force and pulled him onto the path. "Listen, Karsten," he said when the ghostly island was already a good bit behind them, "they say you're a fellow that's ready for anything; I believe you'd like best to investigate that yourself."
"Yes," replied Karsten, shuddering a little at the recollection, "yes, I'd like to, Iven."
"Are you in earnest?" asked the man after Karsten had given him his hand on it. "Well then, tomorrow evening we'll take our boat; you can go over to Jeverssand and I'll wait for you on the dike."
"Yes," replied the boy, "we can do that. I'll take my whip with me."
"Yes, do!"
In silence they went up the high mound to their master's house.
The same time the following evening the man was sitting on the big stone in front of the stable door as the boy came up to him cracking his whip. "That makes an odd whistle!" said Iven.
"To be sure, look out for yourself," answered the boy; "I have plaited nails into the lash."
"Come along then," said the other.
As on the day before the moon was in the eastern sky and shone down clearly from its height. Soon they were both out on the dike and looking over at Jevershallig that stood like a spot of fog in the water. "There it is again," said the man; "I was here after dinner and it wasn't there, but I could distinctly see the white skeleton of the horse lying there."
The boy stretched his neck. "It isn't there now, Iven," he whispered.
"Well, Karsten, how is it?" asked the man. "Are you still itching to row over there?"
Karsten thought for a moment; then he cracked his whip in the air. "Undo the boat, Iven!"
Over on the island it looked as if whatever was walking there raised its head and stretched it out towards the mainland. They did not see it any longer; they were already walking down the dike and to the place where the boat lay. "Now, get in," said the man after he had untied it. "I'll wait till you come back. You must head for the east shore, there was always a good landing there." The lad nodded silently and then rowed out, with his whip, into the moon-lit night. The man wandered along the dike back to the place where they had stood before. Soon he saw the boat ground near a steep dark spot on the other side to which a broad water-course flowed, and a short, thickset figure sprang ashore. Wasn't that the boy cracking his whip? Or it might be the sound of the rising tide. Several hundred feet to the north he saw what they had taken to be a white horse, and now—yes, the figure of the boy was going straight towards it. Now it raised its head as if startled and the boy—he could hear it plainly—snapped his whip. But—what could he be thinking of? He had turned round and was walking back along the way he had gone. The creature on the other side seemed to go on grazing steadily, he had not heard it neigh; at times white stripes of water seemed to pass across the apparition. The man watched it as if spellbound.
Then he heard the grounding of the boat on the side on which he stood and soon he saw the boy coming out of the dusk and towards him up the side of the dike. "Well, Karsten," he said, "what was it?"
The boy shook his head. "It wasn't anything," he said. "Just before I landed I saw it from the boat and then, when I was once on the island—the devil knows where the beast went, the moon was shining brightly enough; but when I came to the place there was nothing there but thebleached bones of half a dozen sheep and a little farther on lay the horse's skeleton with its long, white skull and the moon was shining into its empty eye-sockets!"
"Hmm!" said the man; "did you look carefully?"
"Yes, Iven, I stood close up to it; a God-forsaken lapwing that had gone to sleep behind the bones flew up shrieking and startled me so that I cracked my whip after it a few times."
"And that was all?"
"Yes, Iven, I didn't see anything else."
"And it's enough," said the man, pulling the boy towards him by the arm and pointing across to the islet. "Do you see anything over there, Karsten?"
"As I live, there it is again!"
"Again?" said the man; "I was looking over there the whole time and it never went away; you went right towards the uncanny thing."
The boy stared at him; a look of horror that did not escape the man appeared on his usually saucy face. "Come," said the latter, "let us go home; seen from here it is alive and over there it is only bones—that is more than you and I can understand. Keep your mouth shut about it; things like that must not be questioned."
So they turned and the boy trotted along beside him; they did not speak and the marsh lay in unbroken silence at their side.
But after the moon had declined and the nights had grown dark something else happened.
Hauke Haien had ridden into town at the time the horse-fair was going on, without however having anything to do with that. Nevertheless towards evening when he came home he brought a second horse with him; but its coat was rough and it was so thin that its ribs could be counted and its eyes lay dull and sunken in their sockets. Elke had gone out in front of the door to meet her husband. "For heaven's sake!" she exclaimed, "what's the old white horse for?" For as Hauke came riding up in front of thehouse and drew rein under the ash she saw that the poor creature was lame too.
But the young dikegrave sprang laughing from his brown gelding. "Never mind, Elke, it didn't cost much."
"You know that the cheapest thing is usually the dearest," his wise wife answered.
"Not always, Elke; this animal is four years old at the most; look at him more carefully! He has been starved and abused; our oats will do him good and I will take care of him myself so that he shan't be overfed."
During this conversation the animal stood with his head lowered; his mane hung down long over his neck. While her husband was calling the men Elke walked round the horse looking him over, but she shook her head: "We never had such a nag as this in our stable!"
When the stable boy came round the corner of the house he suddenly stopped with terror-stricken eyes. "Well, Karsten," said the dikegrave, "what's the matter with you? Don't you like my white horse?"
"Yes—Oh, yes, master, why not?"
"Well, then, take both the horses into the stable but don't feed them; I am coming over there in a minute myself."
Cautiously the boy took hold of the white horse's halter and then hastily, as if to protect himself, he seized the rein of the gelding which had also been trusted to his care. Hauke went into the house with his wife; she had warm beer ready for him and bread and butter were also at hand.
He was soon satisfied and, rising began to walk up and down the room with his wife. "Now let me tell you, Elke," he said, while the evening glow shone on the tiles in the walls, "how I happened to get the animal. I stayed at the chief dikegrave's about an hour; he had good news for me—some changes will undoubtedly have to be made in my plans; but the main thing, my profile, has been accepted and the order to begin work on the new dike may get here any day now."
Elke sighed involuntarily: "Then it is to be done after all!" she said apprehensively.
"Yes, wife," replied Hauke; "it's going to be uphill work but that is why God brought us together, I think. Our farm is in such good order now that you can take a good part of it on your shoulders; think ten years ahead—then our property will have greatly increased!"
At his first words she had pressed her husband's hand assuringly in hers, but his last remark brought her no joy. "Who will the place be for?" she said. "Unless you take another wife instead of me; I cannot bear you any children."
Tears rushed to her eyes; but he drew her close and held her tight in his arms: "Let us leave that to God," he said; "but now, and even then, we shall be young enough to enjoy the fruits of our labor ourselves."
She looked at him long with her dark eyes while he held her thus. "Forgive me, Hauke," she said, "at times I am a despondent woman."
He bent his face to hers and kissed her. "You are my wife and I am your husband, Elke! And nothing can change that."
At that she put her arms close round his neck. "You are right, Hauke, and whatever comes will come to us both." Then, blushing, she drew away from his arms. "You were going to tell me about the white horse," she said softly.
"Yes, I will, Elke. I've already told you that I was in high spirits over the good news that the chief dikegrave had given me; and just as I was riding out of the town, there, on the dam, behind the harbor, I met a ragged fellow; I didn't know whether he was a vagabond or a tinker or what. He was pulling the white horse on the halter after him and the animal raised its head and looked at me with pleading eyes, as if it were begging me for something; and at the moment I was certainly rich enough. 'Hello, fellow!' I shouted, 'where are you going with the old nag?'
"He stopped and the white horse stopped too. 'Going to sell it,' he said and nodded to me with cunning in his eyes.
"'To anyone else, but not to me!' I said merrily.
"'Why not?' he answered; 'it's a fine horse and well worth a hundred thalers.'
"I laughed in his face.
"'Oh, you needn't laugh,' he said; 'you needn't pay me that! But I can't use the beast; it would starve with me. It would soon look different if you had it a little while.'
"So I jumped down from my gelding and looked at the animal's mouth and saw that it was still young. 'How much do you want for it?' I asked, for the horse was looking at me again as if begging.
"'Take it for thirty thalers, sir,' said the fellow, 'and I'll throw in the halter.'
"And so, Elke, I took the brown, clawlike hand that the lad offered me and it was a bargain. So we have the white horse, and cheap enough too, I think. Only it was curious; as I rode away with the horse I heard laughing behind me and when I turned my head I saw the Slovak standing there, his legs apart, his arms behind his back, laughing like the devil."
"Phew!" exclaimed Elke; "if only the white horse doesn't bring you anything from his old master! I hope he'll thrive for you, Hauke."
"He shall thrive for his own sake, at least as far as I can manage it!" And with that the dikegrave went out to the stable as he had told the boy he would.
But this was not the only evening on which he fed the horse; from then on he always did it himself and kept it under his eye all the time; he wanted to show that he had made a good bargain and at least the horse should have every chance. And it was only a few weeks before the animal began to hold up its head; gradually the rough hair disappeared, a smooth, blue-mottled coat began to show and when, one day, he led it about the yard, it stepped out daintily with its strong, slender legs. Hauke thought ofthe tattered, adventurous fellow who had sold it: "The chap was a fool, or a scoundrel who had stolen it!" he murmured to himself. Soon, whenever the horse heard his step in the stable it would throw its head round and whinny to him, and then Hauke saw that its face was covered with hair as the Arabs like to have it while its brown eyes flashed fire. Then he led it out of the stall and put a light saddle on it, but he was hardly on its back before a whinny of joy broke from the animal and off it flew with him, down the mound onto the road and then towards the dike; but the rider sat tight and once they were on top the horse quieted down and stepped lightly, as if dancing, while it tossed its head towards the sea. Hauke patted and stroked its smooth neck but the caress was no longer necessary; the horse seemed to be entirely one with its rider and after he had ridden out a bit on the dike towards the north he turned it easily and rode back to the yard.
The men were standing below at the entrance to the driveway, waiting for their master to come back. "There, John," the latter called, as he sprang from his horse, "take him and ride him down to the fen, to the others; he carries you as if you were in a cradle!"
The horse tossed his head and whinnied loudly out into the sunny open country, while the man unbuckled the saddle and the boy carried it off to the harness-room; then he laid his head on his master's shoulder and suffered himself to be caressed. But when the man tried to swing himself up onto his back he sprang suddenly and sharply aside and then stood quiet again, his beautiful eyes fixed on his master. "Oh ho, Iven!" cried the latter, "did he hurt you?" and tried to help his man onto his feet.
Iven rubbed his hip hard. "No, master, it's not so bad; but the devil can ride the white horse!"
"And so will I!" added Hauke, laughing. "Take the rein and lead him to the fen, then."
And when the man, somewhat ashamed of himself, obeyed, the white horse quietly allowed himself to be led.
A few evenings later the man and the stable-boy were standing together at the stable door; behind the dike the evening glow had paled, and on the inner side the koog lay in deep dusk; occasionally the lowing of some startled cow came from the distance or the shriek of a lark as a weasel or water rat put an end to its life. The man was leaning against the door-post smoking a short pipe, the smoke of which he could no longer see; he and the boy had not yet spoken to each other. The latter had something on his mind, but he did not know how to approach the silent man with it. "Look, Iven," he said at last. "You know the horse's skeleton on Iverssand?"
"What about it?" asked the man.
"It isn't there any more; not in the daytime nor by moonlight; I've been out on the dike at least twenty times."
"I suppose the old bones have fallen apart!" said Iven, and went on smoking calmly.
"But I was out there by moonlight too; there's nothing walking about over on Jeverssand!"
"Well," said the man, "if the bones have fallen to pieces I suppose it can't get up any more."
"Don't joke, Iven! I know now; I can tell you where it is."
The man turned towards him with a start. "Well, where is it then?"
"Where?" the boy repeated impressively. "It's standing in our stable. It's been standing there ever since it has not been on the islet. It's not for nothing that the master always feeds it himself. I know what I'm talking about, Iven."
The man puffed away violently for a while. "You're a bit off, Karsten," he said at last; "our white horse? If ever a horse was alive it's he. How can a bright lad like you believe in such an old woman's tale!"
But the boy could not be convinced: if the devil was in the horse why shouldn't it be alive? On the contrary, somuch the more for that! He started every time that he went into the stable towards evening, where even in summer the animal was sometimes bedded, when he saw it toss its fiery head towards him so sharply. "The devil take it!" he would murmur, then, "we shan't be together much longer."
So he began to look about him secretly for a new place, gave notice, and on All Saints' Day entered Ole Peters' service. There he found attentive listeners to his story of the dikegrave's devil-horse. Ole's fat wife, Vollina, and her stupid father, the former dike commissioner Jess Harders, listened to it with pleasurable shuddering, and later repeated it to everyone who had a spite against the dikegrave or who enjoyed tales of that kind.
In the meantime towards the end of March the order to begin work on the new dike had been received through the chief dikegrave. Hauke's first step was to call together the dike commissioners and they all assembled one day in the tavern up by the church and listened while he read the main points to them from the various documents: from his petition, from the report of the chief dikegrave, finally from the decision in which, above all, the profile that he had proposed was accepted, so that the new dike would not be steep like the other but slope gradually on the water-side; but they did not listen with cheerful or even satisfied faces.
"Yes, yes," said an old commissioner, "we are in for it now and no protests can help us, for the chief dikegrave is backing up our dikegrave."
"You're right enough, Dethlev Wiens," said another; "the spring work is at the door and now we've got to make miles of dike, so of course we must drop everything else."
"You can finish all that this year," said Hauke; "things won't move as fast as that."
Few of them were ready to admit it. "And your profile!" said a third, bringing up a new subject; "on the outside, towards the water, the dike will be wider than Lawrenz's child was long! Where are we to get the material? When will the work be done?"
"If not this year, then next; that will depend mainly on ourselves," said Hauke.
A laugh of annoyance passed through the company. "But why all this useless work? The dike is not to be any higher than the old one," shouted a new voice; "and that's been standing for more than thirty years I think!"
"That's right," said Hauke; "the old dike broke thirty years ago, then thirty-five years before that and again forty-five years before that; since then, although it still stands there steep and contrary to reason, the highest tides have spared us. But in spite of such tides the new dike will stand for a hundred and then another hundred years; it will not be broken through because the gentle slope towards the water offers no point of attack to the waves and so you will gain for yourselves and your children a safe and certain land, and that is why our sovereign and the chief dikegrave are backing me up; and it is that, too, that you ought to be able to see yourselves, for it is to your own advantage."
As no one seemed anxious to give an immediate answer to this an old white-haired man rose from his chair with difficulty. It was Elke's godfather, Jewe Manners, who still held office as commissioner at Hauke's request. "Dikegrave Hauke Haien," he said, "you are putting us to a great deal of trouble and expense and I wish you had waited for that till God had called me home; but—you are right, no one with reason can fail to see that. We ought to thank God every day that, in spite of our laziness, he has preserved that valuable piece of foreland from storm and water for us; but now it is the eleventh hour when we ourselves must take hold and try with all our knowledge and ability to save it for ourselves without depending any more on God's long-suffering. I am an old man, my friends; I have seen dikes built and broken; but the dike that Hauke Haien has projected, by virtue of the understanding thatGod has given him, and that he has succeeded in getting our sovereign to grant—that dike no one of you who are alive here today will ever see break; and if you yourselves will not thank him your grandchildren will one day not be able to refuse him the crown of honor that is his!"
Jewe Manners sat down again, took his blue handkerchief from his pocket and wiped a few drops from his forehead. The old man was still known for his thoroughness and inviolable uprightness, and as those assembled were not ready to agree with him they continued their silence. But Hauke Haien took the floor and they all saw how pale he had grown. "I thank you, Jewe Manners," he said, "for being here and for speaking as you have spoken; the rest of you, gentlemen, will please regard the new dike, for which indeed I am responsible, at least as something which cannot be changed now. Let us accordingly decide what is to be done next!"
"Speak," said one of the commissioners. Hauke spread the plan of the new dike out on the table. "A few minutes ago," he said, "one of you asked where we should get all the necessary earth. You see here that as far as the foreland extends out into the shallows there is a strip of land left free outside the line of the dike; we can take the earth from there and from the foreland that runs along the dike, north and south from the new koog. If we only have a good thick layer of clay on the water side, we can fill in, on the inside or in the middle, with sand. But now we must find a surveyor to stake out the line of the new dike on the foreland. The one who helped me to work out the plan will probably suit us best. Further, we must make contracts with several cartwrights for single tip-carts in which to haul the clay and other material. In damming up the water-course and on the inner sides, where we may have to do with sand, we shall need, I can't say now how many hundred loads of straw, perhaps more than we shall be able to spare here in the marsh. Let us consider then, how all this is to be obtained and arranged; and later we shall also want acapable carpenter to make the new sluice here on the west side towards the water."
The commissioners had gathered round the table, looked indifferently at the map and now gradually began to speak, but, as it seemed, more for the sake of saying something. When they came to discuss the engaging of a surveyor one of the younger ones said: "You have thought it out, dikegrave; you must know who would be best fitted for the work."
But Hauke replied: "As you are all under oath you must speak your own, not my opinion, Jacob Meyen; and if you can do better I will let my proposal drop."
"Oh well, it will be right enough," said Jacob Meyen.
But one of the older men did not think so. He had a nephew who was a surveyor, such a surveyor as had never been seen here in the marsh country; he was said to know even more than the dikegrave's blessed father, Tede Haien!
So the merits of both surveyors were discussed and it was finally decided to give the work to them both together. It was the same thing when they came to consider the tip-carts, the straw supply, and everything else, and Hauke arrived home late and almost exhausted, on the gelding which he still rode at that time. But he had no sooner sat down in the old easy chair which had belonged to his predecessor, who, though more ponderous, had lived more lightly, than his wife was at his side. "You look so tired, Hauke," she said, stroking the hair away from his forehead with her slender hand.
"I am, a little," he answered.
"And how is it going?"
"Oh, it's going," he said with a bitter smile; "but I must turn the wheels myself and I can be glad if somebody else does not hold them back."
"But they don't all do that, do they?"
"No, Elke; your godfather, Jewe Manners, is a good man; I wish he were thirty years younger."
A few weeks later, after the dike-line had been staked out and most of the tip-carts delivered, the dikegrave called a meeting in the parish tavern of all those who had shares in the koog which was to be surrounded by the new dike, and also of the owners of land that lay behind the old dike. His object was to lay before them a plan for the distribution of labor and expense, and to hear any objections they might have to make. The latter class of owners would have to do their part, too, inasmuch as the new dike and the new drains would diminish the cost of maintenance of the older ones. This plan had been a difficult piece of work for Hauke, and if, through the kind offices of the chief dikegrave, a dike messenger and a dike clerk had not been assigned to him he would not have finished it so soon, although every day for some time he had been working late into the night. Then, when, tired out, he sought his couch, he did not find his wife waiting for him in pretended sleep as formerly; she too had now such a full measure of daily work that at night she lay in imperturbable slumber as if at the bottom of a deep well.
When Hauke had read his plan and spread out again on the table the papers which had already lain in the tavern for three days so that they might be examined, it appeared that there were serious men present who regarded this conscientious diligence with deference, and after calm deliberation submitted to the dikegrave's just demands. Others, however, whose shares in the new territory had been sold either by themselves or their fathers or other former possessors, protested against being made to bear part of the cost of the new koog, in which they no longer had any interest, without considering that the new works would gradually disburden the old territory. And others again who were blessed with shares in the new koog shouted that they wanted to sell them, that they would let them go at a low price; for on account of the unjust demands made of them they could not afford to hold them. But Ole Peters, who was leaning against the door-post with wrath in his face,called out: "Think it over first and then trust to our dikegrave! He knows how to figure! After he already had most of the shares he persuaded me to sell him mine, and as soon as he had them he decided to build a dike around this new koog."
After he had spoken there was dead silence in the meeting for a moment. The dikegrave stood at the table on which he had spread out his papers before; he raised his head and looked at Ole Peters. "You know well, Ole Peters," he said, "that you slander me; you do it nevertheless because you know, as well, that a good deal of the mud with which you pelt me will stick! The truth is that you wanted to get rid of your shares and that I needed them at that time for sheep breeding; and, if you want to know more, I can tell you that it was the abusive words that you used in the tavern, when you said that I was only the dikegrave on my wife's account, that aroused me; I wanted to show you all that I could be a dikegrave on my own account, and so, Ole Peters, I have done what the dikegrave before me should have done long ago. And if you bear me a grudge because at that time your shares became mine—you hear yourself that there are men enough here who are offering theirs at a low price now, merely because this is more work than they want to do."
A murmur of applause broke from a small part of the men assembled and old Jewe Manners, who stood among them, shouted: "Bravo, Hauke Haien! God will give you success in your undertaking."
They were not able to finish, however, although Ole Peters was silent, and they did not disperse till supper time. A second meeting was necessary before everything could be arranged, and then only because Hauke took it upon himself to provide four teams for the following month instead of the three that would properly have fallen to his lot.
LIVING ROOM IN A FRISIAN FARMHOUSEJacob Alberts
LIVING ROOM IN A FRISIAN FARMHOUSEJacob Alberts
Jacob Alberts
Finally when the bells were all ringing through the country for Whitsuntide the work had been begun. Unceasingly the tip-carts moved from the foreland to the dike-line where they dumped their loads of clay, while an equal number were already making the return trip to the foreland for new loads. At the dike-line itself stood men with shovels and spades to shovel the clay into place and level it; tremendous wagons of straw were brought and unloaded; the latter was used not only to cover the lighter material such as the sand and loose earth on the inside of the dike, but also, when portions of the dike had been finished and covered with sod, a firm coat of straw was laid over that to protect it from the gnawing waves; overseers were appointed who walked hither and yon, and, in time of storm, stood with wide-open mouths shouting their orders through the wind and weather. Among them rode the dikegrave on his white horse, which he now used exclusively, and the animal flew here and there with its rider as he gave his short, dry orders, praised the laborers or, as sometimes happened, dismissed a lazy or incompetent man without mercy. "It's no use!" he would say at such times; "we can't have the dike spoiled on account of your laziness!" While he was still far away as he rode up out of the koog they heard his horse snorting and all hands began to work with a better will: "Look alive! Here comes the rider of the white horse!"
While the workmen were stretched off on the ground in groups eating their lunch Hauke rode along the deserted works and his eyes were keen to discover spots where careless hands had handled the spade. If, however, he rode up to the men and explained to them how the work must be done, they did indeed look up and went on chewing their bread patiently, but he never heard a word of agreement or any other remark from them. Once at that hour, it was already late, when he found a place in the dike where the work had been particularly well done; he rode up to the next group of lunchers, sprang from his horse, and asked pleasantly who had done such good work there, but they merely looked at him shyly and sullenly and namedslowly a few men as if they did it against their will. The man whom he had asked to hold his horse, which was standing as quiet as a lamb, held it with both hands and looked, as if in fear, at the animal's beautiful eyes which, as usual, were fixed on its master.
"Well, Marten," said Hauke; "why do you stand as if you had been struck by lightning?"
"Your horse is as quiet, sir, as if it were thinking of some mischief."
Hauke laughed and took hold of the rein himself, when the horse at once began to rub its head caressingly against his shoulder. A few of the workmen looked fearfully over at horse and rider; others, as if all that did not concern them, continued to eat their lunch in silence, now and then throwing a crumb to the gulls which had remembered this feeding-place, and, balancing on their slender wings, tipped forward almost onto their heads. The dikegrave stood for a while, absently watching the begging birds as they caught the pieces thrown to them in their bills; then he sprang into the saddle and rode away without looking round at the men; the few words which they now spoke sounded to him almost like mockery. "What is it?" he said to himself; "was Elke right when she said they were all against me? Even these servants and small owners for many of whom my new dike means added prosperity?"
He spurred his horse so that it flew down to the koog like mad. He himself knew nothing, to be sure, of the uncanny nimbus that his former stable-boy had thrown about the rider of the white horse; but if only the people had seen him then as he galloped along, his eyes staring out of his lean face, and his horse's red nostrils cracking!
Summer and autumn had passed by; the work had gone on till near the end of November; then frost and snow had called a halt; the men had not been able to finish and it was decided to leave the koog lying open. Eight feet the dike rose above the level of the ground; only to the west towards the water where the sluice was to be laid a gaphad been left; also above, in front of the old dike, the water-course was still untouched. Thus, as for the last thirty years, the tide could flow into the koog without doing much damage there or to the new dike. And so the work of men's hands was consigned to the great God above, and placed under his protection until the spring sun should make its completion possible.
In the meantime preparations had been made in the dikegrave's house for a happy event; in the ninth year of their married life a child was born to him and his wife. It was red and shriveled and weighed its seven pounds as new-born children should when, like this one, they belong to the female sex; only, its cry had been strangely muffled and did not please the midwife. But the worst was that on the third day Elke lay in a high fever, wandered in her speech and did not know either her husband or the old nurse. The wild joy that had seized upon Hauke at the sight of his child had turned into tribulation. The doctor had been fetched from the town; he sat beside the bed, felt Elke's pulse, wrote prescriptions and looked helplessly about him. Hauke shook his head; "He can't help; only God can help!" He had figured out a kind of Christianity for himself; but there was something that prevented his praying. When the old doctor had driven away he stood at the window staring out into the winter day and, while the patient screamed aloud in her delirium, he clasped his hands together tightly; he did not know himself whether it was an act of devotion or due to his tremendous fear of losing control of himself.
"Water! The water!" whimpered the sick woman. "Hold me!" she screamed; "hold me, Hauke!" Then her voice died down; it sounded as if she were crying; "into the sea, out into the ocean? O, dear God, I'll never see him again!"
At that he turned and pushed the nurse away from the bed. He dropped on his knees, put his arms round hiswife and held her close: "Elke! Elke! Oh, know me, Elke, I am right here with you!"
But she only opened wide her eyes burning with fever and looked about her as if helplessly lost.
He laid her back on her pillows; then, twisting his hands together, he cried: "Oh Lord, my God, do not take her from me! Thou knowest I cannot be without her!" Then he seemed to recollect himself and added softly: "I know, indeed, Thou canst not always do as Thou wouldst, not even Thou; Thou art all-wise; Thou must do according to thy wisdom—Oh Lord, speak to me if only by a breath!"
It was as if a sudden stillness had fallen; he heard nothing but gentle breathing; when he turned to the bed his wife lay there in calm slumber; only the nurse looked at him with horrified eyes. He heard the door move: "Who was that?" he asked.
"The maid, Ann Grete, went out, sir; she came to bring the child-bed basket."
"Why do you look at me so confusedly, Mrs. Levke?"
"I? I was frightened at your prayer; such a prayer will never save anyone from death!"
Hauke looked at her with penetrating eyes: "Do you too, like Ann Grete, go to the conventicle where the Dutch jobbing tailor Jantje is?"
"Yes, sir; we both hold the living faith!"
Hauke did not answer her. The dissenting conventicle movement which was in great vogue at that time had also put forth blossoms among the Friesians; artisans who had come down in the world, or schoolmasters who had been dismissed for drunkenness, played the chief part in it, and girls, young and old women, loafers and lonely people assiduously attended the secret meetings in which anyone could play the priest. Of the dikegrave's household Ann Grete and the stable-boy, who was in love with her, spent their free evenings there. Elke, to be sure, had not failed to express her misgivings about this to Hauke; but it had been his opinion that no one should interfere in mattersof faith; the conventicle would not hurt anyone and it was at least better than the tavern!
So it had gone on, and therefore too he had kept silence this time. But others did not keep silent about him! The words of his prayer circulated from house to house; he had denied God's omnipotence, and what was a God without omnipotence? He was an atheist; perhaps the affair of the devil-horse might be true, after all!
Hauke heard nothing of this; in those days he had eyes and ears only for his wife; even the child had vanished from his mind.
The old doctor came again, came every day, sometimes twice, then he stayed all night, wrote another prescription, and the man, Iven Johns, galloped off to the apothecary's with it. And then his face lost something of its seriousness, he nodded confidentially to the dikegrave: "We'll pull through! With God's help!" And one day—was it that his art had triumphed over the disease or, after Hauke had prayed, had God been able to find another way out after all—when the doctor was alone with the patient he spoke to her and the old man's eyes beamed: "Mrs. Haien, now I can tell you confidently, today the doctor has his holiday; things were bad with you, but now you belong to us again, to the living!"
At that a flood of joy broke from her dark eyes: "Hauke, Hauke, where are you?" she cried, and when in response to her clear call he rushed into the room and up to her bed, she threw her arms around his neck: "Hauke, my husband, I'm saved! I'm going to stay with you!"
The old doctor drew his silk handkerchief from his pocket, passed it over his forehead and cheeks and went out of the room nodding his head.
On the third evening after this day a pious orator—it was a slipper-maker who had been dismissed from work by the dikegrave—preached in the conventicle at the Dutch tailor's, and explained to his hearers God's qualities: "But whoever denies God's omnipotence, whoever says:'I know Thou canst not do as Thou wouldst'—we all know the wretched one; he lies like a stone upon the community—he has fallen away from God and seeks the enemy of God, the lover of sins, to be his comforter; for man must reach out for some staff. But you, beware of him who prays thus; his prayer is a curse!"
This too was carried about from house to house. What is not in a small community? And it also came to Hauke's ears. He did not speak of it, not even to his wife; only at times he embraced her vehemently and held her close: "Be true to me, Elke! Be true to me!" Then her eyes looked up at him full of astonishment: "True to you? To whom else should I be true?" But after a little while the meaning of his words came to her: "Yes, Hauke, we are true to each other, not only because we need each other." And then he went about his work and she about hers.
So far that would have been well; but in spite of all his absorbing work there was a feeling of loneliness round him, and defiance and reserve towards others crept into his heart; only towards his wife did he always remain the same, and morning and evening he knelt by his child's cradle as if that were the place of his eternal salvation. With the servants and laborers however he grew stricter; the awkward and careless whom formerly he had reproved quietly were now startled by the sudden harshness of his rebuke and Elke sometimes had to go softly and put things right.
When spring approached work on the dike began again; the gap in the western line of the dike was now closed by a cofferdam dike, in the form of a half-moon both towards the inside and towards the outside, in order to protect the sluice which was now about to be built. And, like the sluice, the main dike grew gradually to its height, which had to be attained by more and more rapid labor. The dikegrave, who was directing the work, did not find it easier; for in place of Jewe Manners, who had died during the winter,Ole Peters had been appointed dike commissioner. Hauke had not wanted to try to prevent it; but, instead of the encouraging words and affectionate slaps on his left shoulder that went with them, which he had so often received from his wife's old godfather, he met with secret resistance and unnecessary objections from his successor, which had to be battered down with unnecessary reasons; for Ole did indeed belong to the men of consequence but, as far as dike matters were concerned, not to the wise men; and moreover the "scribbling farm-hand" of before was still in his way.
The most brilliant sky again spread out over sea and marsh, and the koog grew gay with strong cattle whose lowing from time to time interrupted the wide stillness; high in the air the larks sang unceasingly; one did not hear it till, for the length of a breath, the song was silent. No bad weather disturbed the work and the sluice already stood with its unpainted timber-structure without having needed the protection of the temporary dike even for one night; God seemed to favor the new work. Frau Elke's eyes also laughed to her husband when he came riding home from the dike on his white horse; "You've grown to be a good horse, after all," she would say and pat the animal's smooth neck. But Hauke, when she held the child, would spring down and let the tiny little thing dance in his arms; and when the white horse fixed its brown eyes on the child he would say perhaps, "Come here, you shall have the honor too!" Then he would put little Wienke—for so she had been christened—on his saddle and lead the horse round in a circle on the mound. Even the old ash-tree sometimes had the honor; he would seat the child on a springy bough and let it swing. The mother stood with laughing eyes in the door of the house, but the child did not laugh. Its eyes, on either side of a delicate little nose, looked rather dully out into the distance, and the tiny hands did not reach for the little stick that her father held out to her. Hauke did not notice it and of course he knew nothingof such little children; only Elke, when she saw the bright-eyed girl on the arm of her work-woman whose child had been born at the same time as hers, sometimes said sorrowfully: "My baby isn't as far along as yours, Stina!" and the woman, shaking the sturdy boy whom she held by the hand, with rough love, would answer: "Oh, well, children are different; this one here stole the apples out of the pantry before he had passed his second year!" And Elke stroked the curly hair out of the fat little boy's eyes and then secretly pressed her own quiet child to her heart.
By the time October was coming on the new sluices on the west side stood firm in the main dike, which closed on both sides, and now, with the exception of the gaps at the water-course, fell away with its sloping profile all round towards the water sides and rose fifteen feet above the ordinary tide. From its northwest corner there was an unobstructed view out past Ievers Islet to the shallows; but the winds here cut in more sharply; they blew one's hair about and anyone who wanted to look out from here had to have his cap firmly on his head.
At the end of November, when wind and rain had set in, there only remained the opening close up to the old dike to be stopped, on the bottom of which, on the north side, the sea-water shot through the water-course into the new koog. On both sides stood the walls of the dike: the gulf between them had now to be closed. Dry summer weather would undoubtedly have made the work easier but it had to be done now in any case, for if a storm broke the whole construction might be endangered. And Hauke did his utmost to carry the thing to a finish now. The rain streamed down, the wind whistled; but his haggard form on the fiery white horse appeared, now here, now there, out of the black mass of men who were working above as well as below, on the north side of the dike, beside the opening. Now he was seen down by the tip-carts which already had to bring the clay from far out on the foreland, and ofwhich a compact body was just reaching the water-course and sought to dump its load there. Through the splashing of the rain and the blustering of the wind were heard from time to time the sharp orders of the dikegrave, who wanted to be the sole commander there that day; he called up the carts according to their numbers and ordered those who pushed forward back; "halt" sounded from his lips and the work below ceased. "Straw, a load of straw down here!" he called to those above, and from one of the carts on the top a load of straw plunged down onto the wet clay. Below, men jumped into it, tore it apart and called to those above not to bury them. And then new carts came and Hauke was already above once more, and looked down from his white horse into the gulf, and watched them shoveling and dumping; then he turned his eyes out to the sea. It was blowing hard and he saw how the fringe of water crept farther and farther up the dike and how the waves rose higher and higher; he saw too how the men were dripping and could scarcely breathe at their hard work for the wind, which cut off the air at their mouths, and for the cold rain that streamed down over them. "Stick to it, men! Stick to it!" he shouted down to them. "Only one foot higher, then it's enough for this tide!" And through all the din of the storm the noise of the workmen could be heard; the thud of the masses of clay as they were dumped, the rattling of the carts and the rustling of the straw as it slid down from above went on unceasingly. Now and then the whining of a little yellow dog became audible, that was knocked about among the men and teams, shivering and as if lost; but suddenly there sounded a piteous howl from the little creature, from down below in the gulf. Hauke looked down; he had seen it being thrown into the opening from above; an angry flush shot up into his face. "Stop! Hold on!" he shouted down to the carts, for the wet clay was being poured on without interruption.
"Why?" a rough voice from below called up to him; "surely not on account of the wretched beast of a dog?"
"Stop! I say," shouted Hauke again; "Bring me the dog! Our work shall not be stained by any outrage!"
But not a hand moved; only a few shovels of sticky clay still flew down beside the howling animal. Thereupon he put spurs to his horse, so that it shrieked aloud and dashed down the dike, and all stood back before him. "The dog!" he shouted; "I want the dog!"
A hand slapped him gently on the shoulder as if it were the hand of old Jewe Manners; but when he looked round it was only a friend of the old man's. "Take care, dikegrave!" he whispered to Hauke. "You have no friends among these men; let the dog be!"
The wind whistled, the rain streamed; the men had stuck their spades into the ground, some of them had thrown them down. Hauke bent down to the old man: "Will you hold my horse, Harke Jens?" he asked; and the man had scarcely got the reins into his hand before Hauke had jumped into the chasm and was holding the little whining creature in his arms; and almost in the same instant he was up again in the saddle and galloping back up the dike. His eyes traveled over the men who were standing by the wagons. "Who was it?" he called. "Who threw the creature down?"
For a moment they were all silent; for anger flashed from the dikegrave's haggard face and they had superstitious fear of him. From one of the teams a bull-necked fellow stepped up to him. "I did not do it, dikegrave," he said and biting a little end off a roll of chewing tobacco he calmly stuffed that into his mouth before he went on; "but whoever did it did right; if your dike is to hold, something living must go into it!"
"Something living? In what catechism did you learn that?"
"In none, sir," replied the fellow and an insolent laugh came from his throat; "even our grandfathers knew that, who could certainly have measured themselves with you inChristianity! A child is still better; if that can't be had, a dog probably does instead!"
"Be silent with your heathenish doctrines!" Hauke shouted at him; "it would fill it up better if you were thrown in!"
"Oh ho!" The shout rang out from a dozen throats and the dikegrave found himself surrounded by wrathful faces and clenched fists; he saw that these were indeed no friends; the thought of his dike came over him with a shock; what should he do if they should all throw down their shovels now? And as he looked down he saw again old Jewe Manners' friend going about among the workmen, speaking to this one and that, laughing to one, tapping another on the shoulder with a friendly smile, and one after the other took hold of his spade again; a few moments more and the work was once more in full swing. What more did he want? The water-course would have to be closed and he hid the dog securely enough in the folds of his cloak. With sudden decision he turned his white horse towards the nearest wagon: "Straw to the edge!" he shouted commandingly and mechanically the teamster obeyed; soon it rustled down into the depths and on all sides the work stirred anew and all hands took hold busily.
The work had gone on thus for another hour; it was after six o'clock and already deep dusk was descending; the rain had ceased. Hauke called the superintendents to him as he sat on his horse: "Tomorrow morning at four o'clock," he said, "every man must be at his place; the moon will still be up; with God's help we shall be able to finish then! And one more thing," he called as they were about to go. "Do you know this dog?" and he took the trembling animal out of his cloak.
They replied in the negative; only one of them said: "He's been running about begging in the village for days; he doesn't belong to anyone!"
"Then he is mine," said the dikegrave. "Don't forget—tomorrow morning at four o'clock!" and rode away.
When he got home Ann Grete was just coming out of the door; she was cleanly and neatly dressed and it passed through his mind that she was just on her way to the tailor in the conventicle: "Lift up your apron!" he called to her and as she involuntarily obeyed he threw the little dog, covered with clay as he was, into it. "Take him to little Wienke; he shall be her little playfellow! But wash and warm him first, thus you will be doing a deed that is pleasing to God, for the creature is almost benumbed."
And Ann Grete could not refuse to obey her master, and so on that evening she did not get to the conventicle.
And on the following day the last touch of a spade was put to the new dike; the wind had gone down; now and again the gulls and avocets hovered above the land and water in graceful flight; from Jevershallig resounded the thousand-voiced honking of the barnacle geese that even at that time of year were enjoying themselves on the coast of the North Sea, and out of the morning mist, which hid the broad expanse of marsh, a golden autumn day gradually rose and illumined the new work of men's hands.
A few weeks later the chief dikegrave came with the government commissioners to inspect it. A great banquet, the first since the funeral repast at the time of old Tede Volkerts' death, was given in the dikegrave's house. All the dike commissioners and the men having the largest holdings of land in the new koog were invited. After dinner the dikegrave's carriage and all those of the guests were got ready. The chief dikegrave put Elke into the gig, before which the brown gelding stood stamping; then he jumped in himself and took the reins; he wanted to drive his dikegrave's clever wife himself. So they drove off merrily from the mound and out into the road, up the way to the new dike and along the top of that round, recently reclaimed koog. In the meantime a light northwest wind had sprung up and the tide was driven up on the north and west sides of the new dike; but it could not fail to benoticed that the gentle slope broke the force of the waves. The government commissioners were loud in their praise of the dikegrave, soon drowning the doubts that the local commissioners now and then hesitatingly uttered.
This occasion too passed by; but there was still another satisfaction in store for the dikegrave one day when he was riding along the new dike sunk in quiet self-congratulatory thought. The question might well occur to him why the koog, which never would have been there but for him and in which the sweat of his brow and his sleepless nights were buried, had now been named "the new Caroline Koog," after one of the princesses of the ruling house; but it certainly was so: in all the documents pertaining to it that was the name used, in some of them it was even written in red Gothic letters. At that point he looked up and saw two laborers with their farm implements coming towards him, one some twenty paces behind the other: "Wait for me, then," he heard the one that was following call; but the other, who was just standing at the path that led down into the koog, called back: "Some other time, Jens! It's late; I've got to dig clay here!"
"Where?"
"Why here, in the Hauke-Haien-Koog!"
He called it aloud as he ran down the path as if he wanted the whole marsh that lay below to hear. But to Hauke it was as if he heard his fame proclaimed; he rose in his saddle, put spurs to his horse and looked with steady eyes across the broad scene that lay at his left. "Hauke-Haien-Koog!" he repeated softly; that sounded as if it could never be called anything else. Let them be as obstinate as they would, his name could not be downed; the princess' name—would it not soon exist only in mouldy old documents? The white horse galloped on proudly and in Hauke's ears the words continued to ring: "Hauke-Haien-Koog! Hauke-Haien-Koog!" In his thoughts the new dike almost grew to be an eighth wonder of the world; in all Friesland there was none to equal it! And he let the whitehorse dance; he felt as if he stood in the midst of all Friesians; he towered above them by a head and his keen glance swept over them with pity.
Gradually three years had passed since the building of the new dike; the latter had proved successful and the expense of repairs had been but slight. In the koog white clover was now blooming nearly everywhere and when you walked across the protected pastures the summer breeze wafted a whole cloud of sweet scent towards you. It had been necessary to replace the nominal shares with real ones and to assign permanent holdings to each of the men interested. Hauke had not been slow in acquiring a few new ones himself, before that; Ole Peters had held back stubbornly; no part of the new koog belonged to him. Even so it had not been possible to make the division without vexation and dispute; but it had been done nevertheless, and this day too lay behind the dikegrave.
From then on he lived a lonely life, devoting himself to his duties as a farmer and a dikegrave, and to his immediate family; his old friends were no longer alive and he was not fitted to make new ones. But under his roof was peace which even his quiet child did not disturb; it spoke little; the continual questioning that is peculiar to brighter children seldom came from its lips and when it did it was usually in such a way that it was difficult to answer; but the dear, simple little face almost always wore an expression of content. The little girl had two playfellows and that was all she wanted: when she wandered about the mound the little yellow dog that Hauke had saved always accompanied her, jumping and springing, and whenever the dog appeared little Wienke was not far away either. The dog was called "Perle" and her second comrade, a peewit-gull, was "Klaus."
It was a hoary old woman who had installed Klaus at the farm; the eighty-year-old Trien' Jans had no longer been able to make a living in her cottage on the outside dike, andElke had thought that the worn-out servant of her grandfather might still find with them a few peaceful hours at the end of her life and a comfortable place to die. So half by force she and Hauke had fetched the old body to the farm and settled her in the little northwest room of the new barn, which the dikegrave had been obliged to build when he enlarged his place a few years before. A few of the maids had been given their rooms next to hers so that they could look after her at night. All round the walls she had her old household goods; a strong box made of red cedar, above which hung two colored pictures of the prodigal son, a spinning wheel which had long since been laid aside and a very clean four-post bed in front of which stood a clumsy footstool covered with the white skin of the deceased Angora cat. But she also still had something living, and had brought it with her: this was the gull Klaus that had stuck to her for years and been fed by her; when winter came, to be sure, it flew south with the other gulls and did not come again till the wormwood exhaled its sweet odor along the shore.
The barn lay somewhat farther down the mound; from her window the old woman could not see out over the dike to the sea. "You've got me here like a prisoner," she murmured one day when Hauke came in, and pointed with her gnarled finger to the fens which lay spread out below. "Where is Jeverssand? Out there above the red or above the black ox?"
"What do you want with Jeverssand?" asked Hauke.
"Oh, never mind Jeverssand," grumbled the old woman. "But I want to see where, long ago, my lad went to God!"
"If you want to see that," replied Hauke, "you must go and sit up under the ash-tree; from there you can look well out over the sea."
"Yes," said the old woman; "yes, if I had your young legs, dikegrave!"
For a long time such were the thanks for the aid that the dikegrave and his wife had given her; then all at oncethere was a change. One morning Wienke's little head peeped in at her through the half-open door. "Well!" called the old woman, who was sitting on her wooden chair with her hands clasped, "what message have you got to tell me?"
But the child came silently nearer and looked at her unceasingly with indifferent eyes.
"Are you the dikegrave's child?" asked Trien' Jans, and, as the child lowered her head as if nodding, she continued: "Sit down here on my footstool then! It was an Angora tom-cat—as big as that! But your father killed him. If he were still alive you could ride on him."
Wienke looked at the white skin dumbly; then she knelt down and began to stroke it with her little hands as children do a living cat or dog. "Poor Tomcat!" she said, and continued her caresses.
"There," exclaimed the old woman after a while, "now it's enough; and you can still sit on him today; perhaps your father only killed him for that!" Then she lifted the child up by both arms and set her down roughly on the stool. But as Wienke sat there silent and immovable, only looking at her all the time, 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 after all: she put out her bony hand and stroked the little girl's sparse hair and an expression came into the child's eyes as if she liked the touch.