CHURCHYARD ON A NORTH SEA ISLANDJacob Alberts
CHURCHYARD ON A NORTH SEA ISLANDJacob Alberts
Jacob Alberts
Hauke stretched out his arm towards her. "Give me your hand on it, Elke."
A deep scarlet shot up under the girl's dark brows. "Why? I don't lie," she cried.
Hauke was about to answer, but she was already out of the stable, and standing with the pitchfork in his hand he could only hear the ducks and hens outside quacking and cackling around her.
It was in January of the third year of Hauke's service that a winter festival was to be held. "Eisboseln" (winter golf) they call it here. There had been no wind along the coast and a steady frost had covered all the ditches between the fens with a firm, smooth crystal surface so that the divided pieces of land now formed an extensive course over which the little wooden balls filled with lead, with which the goal was to be reached, could be thrown. A light northeast breeze blew day after day. Everything was ready. The uplanders from the village lying to the east across the marsh and in which stood the church of the district, who had won the previous year, had been challenged and had accepted. Nine players had been picked out on each side. The umpire and the spokesmen had also been chosen. The latter, who had to discuss disputed points when a doubtful throw was in question, were generally men who knew how to present their case in the best light, usually fellows who had a ready tongue as well as common sense. First among these was Ole Peters, the dikegrave's head man. "See that you throw like devils," he said, "I'll do the talking for nothing."
It was towards evening of the day before the festival. A number of the players had gathered in the inside room of the parish tavern on the uplands, to decide whether or not a few applicants who had come at the last minute should be accepted. Hauke Haien was among the latter. At first he had decided not to try, although he knew that his arms were well trained in throwing. He feared that Ole Peters,who held a post of honor in the game, would succeed in having him rejected and he hoped to spare himself such a defeat. But Elke had changed his mind at the eleventh hour. "He wouldn't dare to, Hauke," she said; "he is the son of a day laborer; your father has a horse and cow of his own and is the wisest man in the village as well."
"Yes, but what if he should do it in spite of that?"
She looked at him half smiling with her dark eyes. "Then," she said, "he'll get turned down when he wants to dance with his master's daughter in the evening." Thereupon Hauke had nodded to her with spirit.
Outside the tavern the young people, who still wanted to enter the game, were standing in the cold, stamping their feet and looking up at the top of the church-tower, which was built of stone and stood beside the public-house. The pastor's pigeons, which fed in summer on the fields of the village, were just coming back from the peasants' yards and barns where they had sought their grain and were now disappearing into their nests under the eaves of the tower. In the west, above the sea, hung a glowing evening crimson.
"It'll be good weather tomorrow!" said one of the young fellows walking up and down stamping, "but cold, cold!" Another, after he had seen the last pigeon disappear, went into the house and stood listening at the door of the room through which there now came the sound of lively conversation; the dikegrave's second man came and stood beside him. "Listen, Hauke, now they're shouting about you," and within they could distinctly hear Ole Peters' grating voice saying, "Second men and boys don't belong in it."
"Come," said the other boy and taking Hauke by the sleeve he tried to pull him up to the door. "Now you can hear what they think of you."
But Hauke pulled himself away and went outside the house again. "They didn't lock us out so that we should hear what they said," he called back.
The third applicant was standing in front of the house. "I'm afraid I shan't be taken without a hitch," he calledto Hauke, "I am hardly eighteen years old; if only they don't ask for my baptismal certificate! Your head man will talk you up all right, Hauke!"
"Yes, up and out!" growled Hauke and kicked a stone across the way, "but not in."
The noise inside increased; then gradually it grew still; those outside could hear again the gentle northeast wind as it swept by the top of the church tower. The boy who had been listening came back to the others. "Who were they talking about in there?" asked the eighteen-year-old boy.
"Him," the other answered and pointed to Hauke; "Ole Peters tried to make out he was still a boy, but they were all against that. And Jess Hansen said, 'and his father has land and cattle.' 'Yes, land,' said Ole Peters, 'land that could be carted away on thirteen barrows!' Finally Ole Hensen began to speak: 'Keep still there,' he called, 'I'll put you straight; tell me, who is the first man in the village?' They were all quiet a minute and seemed to be thinking, then someone said 'I suppose it's the dikegrave!' And all the others shouted, 'Well, yes; it must be the dikegrave!' 'And who is the dikegrave?' asked Ole Hensen again; 'and now think carefully!' Then one of them began to laugh softly and then another until at last the whole room was just full of laughter. 'Well, go call him then,' said Ole Hensen; 'you surely don't want to turn away the dikegrave from your door!' I think they're still laughing; but you can't hear Ole Peters' voice any more!" the boy finished his report.
Almost at that moment the door of the room inside was flung open and loud, merry cries of "Hauke! Hauke Haien!" rang out into the cold night.
So Hauke went into the house and did not stop to hear who the dikegrave was; what had been going on in his head during these moments nobody ever knew.
When, some time later, he approached his master's house he saw Elke standing down at the gate of thecarriage-drive. The moonlight glistened over the immeasurable white-frosted pasture-land. "Are you standing here, Elke?" he asked.
She only nodded: "What happened?" she said. "Did he dare?"
"What would he not do?"
"Well, and?"
"It's all right, Elke. I can try tomorrow."
"Good-night, Hauke!" and she ran lightly up the mound and disappeared into the house.
Hauke followed her slowly.
On the following afternoon a dark mass of people was seen on the broad pasture-land that ran along towards the east on the land side of the dike. Sometimes the mass stood still, then, after a wooden ball had twice flown from it over the ground which the sun had now freed from frost, it moved gradually forward away from the long, low houses that lay behind it. The two parties of winter golfers were in the middle, surrounded by all the young and old who were living or staying either in these houses or on the uplands. The older men were in long coats, smoking their short pipes with deliberation, the women in shawls and jackets, some of them leading children by the hand or carrying them in their arms. Out of the frozen ditches which were crossed one after another the pale shine of the noonday sun sparkled through the sharp points of the reeds; it was freezing hard. But the game went on uninterruptedly, and all eyes followed again and again the flying wooden ball, for the whole village felt that on it hung the honor of the day. The spokesman of the home side carried a white staff with an iron point, that of the upland party a black one. Wherever the ball ceased rolling this staff was driven into the frozen ground amid the quiet admiration or the mocking laughter of the opposing party and whoever first reached the goal with his ball won the game for his side.
There was very little conversation in the crowd; only when a capital cast was made the young men or womensometimes broke into a cheer, or one of the old men took his pipe out of his mouth and tapped the thrower with it on the shoulder, saying, "That was a throw, said Zacharias, and threw his wife out of the attic window," or "That's how your father used to throw, may God have mercy on his soul!" or some other pleasant words.
The first time he cast luck had not been with Hauke; just as he threw his arm out behind him to hurl the ball a cloud which had covered the sun till then passed away from it and the dazzling rays struck him full in the eyes; his cast was too short, the ball fell on a ditch and stuck in the uneven ice.
"That doesn't count! That doesn't count! Throw again, Hauke!" shouted his partners.
But the uplanders' spokesman objected: "It must count. What's cast is cast."
"Ole! Ole Peters!" shouted the men from the marsh. "Where is Ole? Where the devil can he be?"
But he was there already. "Don't shout so! Is there something wrong with Hauke? That's just how I thought it would be."
"Oh, nonsense! Hauke must throw again; now show that you've got your mouth in the right place."
"I certainly have that!" shouted Ole, and he went up to the other spokesman and made a long harangue. But the sharp cuts and witty points that usually filled his speech were lacking this time. At his side stood the girl with the enigmatical brows and watched him sharply with angry eyes; but she might not speak for the women had no voice in the game.
"You're talking nonsense," shouted the other spokesman, "because reason is not on your side. Sun, moon and stars treat us all alike and are in the sky all the time; it was a clumsy cast and all clumsy casts count!"
Thus they talked at each other for a while, but the end of it was that, according to the umpire's decision, Hauke was not allowed to repeat his cast.
"Forward!" cried the uplanders and their spokesman pulled the black staff out of the ground and the next player took his stand there when his number was called and hurled the ball forward. In order to see the throw the dikegrave's head man was obliged to pass Elke Volkerts. "For whose sake did you leave your brains at home today?" she whispered to him.
He looked at her almost fiercely and all trace of fun disappeared from his broad face. "For your sake," he said, "for you have forgotten yours too."
"Oh, come! I know you, Ole Peters!" answered the girl drawing herself up, but he turned his head away and pretended not to hear.
And the game and the black staff and the white one went on. When Hauke's turn to throw came again his ball flew so far that the goal, a large whitewashed hogshead, came plainly into sight. He was now a solidly built young fellow and mathematics and throwing had occupied him daily since he was a boy. "Oh ho! Hauke!" the crowd shouted; "the archangel Michael could not have done better himself!" An old woman with cakes and brandy made her way through the crowd to him; she poured out a glass and offered it to him: "Come," she said, "let us be friends; you are doing better today than when you killed my cat!" As he looked at her he saw that it was Trien' Jans. "Thank you, Mother," he said; "but I don't drink that stuff." He felt in his pockets and pressed a newly coined mark-piece into her hand. "Take that and drink this glass yourself, Trien'; then we shall be friends again!"
"You're right, Hauke!" returned the old woman obeying him. "You're right; it is better for an old woman like me than for you!"
"How are you getting on with your ducks?" he called after her as she was going away with her basket; but she only shook her head without turning round and clapped her old hands in the air. "It's no good, Hauke; there are toomany rats in your ditches; God have mercy on me! I must find some other way of earning my bread." And with this she pushed her way into the crowd again, offering her spirits and honey-cakes as she went.
At last the sun had sunk behind the dike and in its place had left a reddish violet glow that flamed up into the sky; now and then black crows flew by and seemed for the moment to be of gold; it was evening. On the fields however the dark crowd of people kept on moving farther and farther away from the black houses in the distance behind them towards the hogshead; an exceptionally good cast might reach it now. It was the marsh party's turn and Hauke was to throw.
The chalky hogshead stood out white in the broad shadows that now fell from the dyke across the course. "You'll have to leave it to us, this time!" cried one of the uplanders, for the contest was hot and they were at least ten feet in advance.
Hauke's tall, lean figure stepped out of the crowd; the gray eyes in his long Friesian face were fixed on the hogshead; his hand, which hung at his side, held the ball.
"The bird's too big for you, eh?" came the grating voice of Ole Peters close to his ear, "shall we exchange it for a gray pot?"
Hauke turned and looked at him steadily. "I'm throwing for the marsh," he said. "Where do you belong?"
"To the marsh too, I imagine; but you are throwing for Elke Volkerts, eh?"
"Stand aside!" shouted Hauke and took his position again. But Ole pressed forward with his head still nearer to him. Then suddenly, before Hauke himself could do anything, a hand gripped the intruder and pulled him backwards so that he stumbled against his laughing comrades. It was not a large hand that did so, for as Hauke hastily turned his head he saw Elke Volkerts beside him pulling her sleeve to rights, and her dark brows were drawn angrily across her hot face.
The power of steel shot into Hauke's arm; he bent forward a little, weighed the ball in his hand once or twice, then he drew his arm back and a dead silence fell on both sides; all eyes followed the flying ball, it could be heard whistling through the air; suddenly, far away from the spot where it was thrown, the silver wings of a gull hid it as, shrieking, the bird flew across from the dike. But at the same moment it was heard in the distance striking against the hogshead. "Hurrah for Hauke!" shouted the marshlanders and the news ran loudly through the crowd: "Hauke! Hauke Haien has won the game!"
But Hauke himself as they all crowded about him had only felt for a hand at his side and even when they called again: "What are you waiting for, Hauke? Your ball is lying in the hogshead!" he only nodded and did not move from the spot; not until he felt the little hand clasp his firmly did he say: "I believe you're right; I think I've won!"
Then the whole crowd streamed back and Elke and Hauke were separated and swept along by the crowd towards the tavern on the road that turned up by the dikegrave's mound towards the uplands. But here they both escaped and while Elke went up to her room Hauke stood at the back, in front of the stable door and watched the dark mass of people wandering up to the tavern, where a room was ready for the dancers. Night gradually fell over the open country; it grew stiller and stiller about him, only behind him he could hear the cattle moving in the stable; he fancied he could already catch the sound of the clarinets in the tavern on the uplands. All at once he heard the rustle of a gown round the corner of the house and firm little steps went down the footway that led through the fens up onto the uplands. Now, in the dusk, he could see the figure swinging along and he knew that it was Elke; she too was going to the dance in the tavern. The blood rushed up into his throat; should he not run after her and go with her? But Hauke was no hero where women were concerned; weighing this question he remained standing till she had disappeared from his sight in the dark.
Then, when the danger of overtaking her had passed, he too went the same way till he reached the tavern up by the church, and the talking and shouting of the crowd before the house and in the passage, and the shrill tones of the violins and clarinets within, surrounded him with a deafening noise. Unnoticed he made his way into the "guildhall." It was not large and was so full that he could scarcely see a step in front of him. In silence he stood leaning against the door-jamb and watched the moving throng; the people seemed to him like fools; he did not need to fear either that anyone would think of the struggle in the afternoon or of who had won the game an hour ago. Each man had eyes only for his girl and turned round and round with her in a circle. He was seeking for one only and at last—there she was! She was dancing with her cousin, the young dike commissioner—but she had already disappeared again and he could see only other girls from the marsh and the uplands for whom he cared nothing. Then suddenly the violins and the clarinets ceased and the dance was at an end; but already another was beginning. The thought passed through Hauke's mind whether Elke would really keep her word, if she might not dance past him with Ole Peters. He almost screamed at the idea; then—well, what would he do then? But she did not seem to be dancing this dance at all and at last it came to an end and another, a two-step, which was just beginning to be popular then, followed. The music started with a mad flourish, the young fellows rushed up to the girls, the lights on the walls flared. Hauke nearly dislocated his neck trying to distinguish the dancers; and there, the third couple, was Ole Peters and—but who was the girl? A broad fellow from the marsh stood in front of her and hid her face. But the dance went on madly and Ole and his partner circled out where he could see them. "Vollina! Vollina Harders!" Hauke almost shouted aloud and gave a sigh ofrelief. But where was Elke? Had she no partner or had she refused them all because she did not want to dance with Ole? The music stopped again and then a new dance began but still he did not see her. There was Ole, still with his fat Vollina in his arms! "Well," said Hauke to himself, "it looks as if Jess Harders with his twenty-five acres would soon have to retire! But where is Elke?"
He left the door and pushed his way further into the room; suddenly he found himself standing before her as she sat with an older friend in a corner. "Hauke!" she exclaimed, raising her narrow face to look at him; "are you here? I didn't see you dancing!"
"I haven't danced," he replied.
"Why not, Hauke?" and half rising she added: "Will you dance with me? I wouldn't with Ole Peters; he won't come again!"
But Hauke made no move to begin. "Thank you, Elke," he said, "but I don't know how well enough; they might laugh at you; and then * * *" he broke off suddenly and looked at her with feeling in his gray eyes as if he must leave it to them to finish what he would say.
"What do you mean, Hauke?" she asked softly.
"I mean, Elke, that the day can have no happier ending for me than it has had already."
"Yes," she said, "you won the game."
"Elke!" he said with scarcely audible reproach.
A hot red flamed up into her face. "There!" she said, "what do you want?" and dropped her eyes.
A partner now came and claimed her friend and after she had gone Hauke spoke louder. "I thought I had won something better, Elke!"
Her eyes searched the floor a few seconds longer; then she raised them slowly and a glance, filled with the quiet strength of her being, met his and ran through him like summer warmth. "Do as your feeling tells you, Hauke," she said; "we ought to know each other!"
Elke did not dance again that evening and when theywent home they went hand in hand; from the sky above the stars sparkled over the silent marsh; a light east wind blew and made the cold severe, but the two walked on without many wraps as if spring had suddenly come.
Hauke had thought of something, to be used perhaps only in the uncertain future, but with which he hoped to celebrate a secret festival. Accordingly he went to town the next Sunday to the old goldsmith Andersen and ordered a thick gold ring. "Stretch out your finger till I measure it," said the old man and took hold of Hauke's third finger. "It's not as big as most of you people have," he went on. But Hauke said: "I'd rather you measured my little finger," and he held it out to him.
The goldsmith looked at him somewhat puzzled; but what did he care what the whim of a young peasant might be. "We'll probably find one among the ladies' rings," he said, and the blood mounted into Hauke's cheeks. But the ring fitted his little finger and he took it hastily and paid for it with bright silver. Then, with his heart beating loudly and as if it were a solemn act, he put it into his waistcoat pocket. And from then on he carried it there day by day with a restless yet proud feeling, as if his waistcoat pocket were made only to carry a ring in.
So he carried it for years, in fact, the ring had to leave that pocket for a new one; no opportunity to escape presented itself. It had indeed passed through Hauke's head to go straight to his master; after all, his father belonged in the village and held land there. But in his calmer moments he knew well that the old dikegrave would have laughed at his second man. And so he and the dikegrave's daughter lived on side by side, she in girlish silence, and yet both as if they walked hand in hand.
A year after the winter festival Ole Peters had left the dikegrave's service and married Vollina Harders; Hauke had been right; the old man had retired and instead of his fat daughter his brisk son-in-law now rode the yellow mareto the fens and on his way back, it was said, always up the side of the dike. Hauke was now head man and a younger fellow had taken his former place. At first the dikegrave had not wanted to advance him. "He's better as second man," he had growled, "I need him here with my books!" But Elke had said, "Then Hauke would leave, Father!" That frightened the old man and Hauke had been made head man but he still kept on as before helping in the administration of the dike.
After another year had passed he began to talk to Elke about his father's growing feeble, and explained that the few days that the master allowed him in summer in which to help at home were no longer enough; the old man was overworking himself and he, Hauke, could not stand by and see it go on. It was a summer evening; the two were standing in the twilight under the great ash in front of the door of the house. For a time the girl looked up in silence at the bough of the tree; then she answered, "I did not want to say it, Hauke; I thought you would find the right thing to do yourself."
"Then I must go away out of your house," he said, "and cannot come again."
They were silent for a time and watched the sunset glow that was just sinking into the sea over behind the dike. "You must know best," she said; "I was at your father's this morning and found him asleep in his armchair; he had a drawing-pen in his hand and the drawing-board with a half finished drawing lay before him on the table. Afterwards he woke and talked to me for a quarter of an hour but only with difficulty, and then, when I was going, he clung to my hand as if he were afraid that it was for the last time; but * * *."
"But what, Elke?" asked Hauke, as she hesitated to go on.
A few tears ran down over the girl's cheeks. "I was only thinking of my father," she said; "believe me, it will be hard for him to lose you." And with an effort sheadded: "It often seems to me as if he too were preparing for his end."
Hauke did not answer; it seemed to him as if the ring in his pocket suddenly moved but before he could suppress his indignation at this involuntary stir Elke went on: "No, don't be angry, Hauke! I trust and believe that even so you will not forsake us!"
At that he seized her hand eagerly and she did not draw it away. For some time longer the two stood there together in the growing dusk till their hands slipped apart and they went their different ways. A gust of wind struck the ash-tree and rustled through its leaves, rattling the shutters on the front of the house; but gradually the night fell and silence lay over the vast plain.
The old dikegrave yielded to Elke's persuasion and allowed Hauke to leave his service although the latter had not given notice at the proper time. Two new men had since been engaged. A few months later Tede Haien died, but before he died he called his son to his bed: "Sit down here beside me, child," he said in a feeble voice, "close beside me! You need not be afraid; the one who is with me is only the dark angel of the Lord who has come to call me."
And the grief-stricken son sat down close to the dark wall-bed: "Speak, Father, tell me all that you still have to say!"
"Yes, my son, there is still something," said the old man and stretched out his hands on the counterpane. "When you, only a half-grown boy, went into the dikegrave's service you had it in your mind to be a dikegrave yourself some day. You infected me with the idea and gradually I too came to think that you were the right man for that. But your inheritance was too small for you to hold such an office. I have lived frugally during the time you were in service. I thought to increase it."
Hauke pressed his father's hands warmly and the old man tried to sit up so that he could see him. "Yes, myson," he said, "the paper is there in the top drawer of the strong chest. You know, old Antje Wohlers had a field of five and a half acres; but in her crippled old age she could not get on with the rent from it alone; so every Martinmas I gave the poor creature a certain sum and more too, when I had it; and for that she made over the field to me; it is all legally arranged. Now she too is lying at the point of death; the disease of our marshes, cancer, has overtaken her; you will not have anything more to pay!"
He closed his eyes for a time; then he added: "It isn't much; but still you will have more than you were accustomed to with me. May it serve you for your life in this world!"
Listening to his son's thanks the old man fell asleep. He had nothing more to attend to, and a few days later the angel of the Lord had closed his eyes forever, and Hauke came into his paternal inheritance.
On the day after the funeral Elke came to his house. "Thank you for looking in, Elke!" was Hauke's greeting.
But she answered: "I am not just looking in; I want to tidy the house a little so that you can live in comfort. With all his figures and drawings your father had not time to look about him much and death too brings confusion; I'll make it a little homelike for you again!"
He looked at her with his gray eyes full of trust: "Tidy up, then," he said; "I like it better too."
And so she began to clear up the room. The drawing-board which still lay there was dusted and put away in the attic. Drawing-pens, pencils and chalk were carefully locked away in a drawer of the strong chest. Then the young servant was called in and helped to move the furniture of the whole room into a different and better position so that there seemed to be more light and space. "Only we women can do that," said Elke, smiling, and Hauke, in spite of his grief for his father, looked on with happy eyes and helped too when it was necessary.
And when, towards twilight—it was at the beginning ofSeptember—everything was as she wanted it for him, she took his hand and nodded to him with her dark eyes. "Now come and have supper with us; I had to promise my father to bring you back with me; then when you come home later everything will be ready for you."
When they entered the spacious living-room of the dikegrave, where the shutters were already closed and the two lights burning on the table, the old man started to get up out of his armchair but his heavy body sank back again and he contented himself with calling out to his former servant: "That's right, Hauke, I'm glad you've come to look up your old friends again! Just come nearer, nearer!" And when Hauke came up to his chair he took his hand in both his podgy ones and said: "Well, well, my boy, don't grieve too much, for we must all die and your father was not one of the worst! But, come, Elke, bring the roast in; we need to strengthen ourselves! There is a lot of work ahead of us, Hauke! The autumn inspection is coming on; the dike and sluice accounts are piled as high as the house; then there's the recent damage to the dike on the western koog—I don't know which way to turn my head; but yours, thank God, is a good bit younger; you are a good lad, Hauke!"
And after this long speech in which the old man had laid bare his whole heart, he fell back in his chair and blinked longingly at the door through which Elke was just entering with the roast. Hauke stood beside him smiling. "Now sit down," said the dikegrave; "we mustn't waste time; this dish doesn't taste good cold."
And Hauke sat down; it seemed to him a matter of course that he should share in Elke's father's work. And when later the autumn inspection came and a few months more had been added to the year, he had really done the greater part of it.
The narrator stopped and looked about him. The shriek of a gull had struck the window and outside in the entrancethe stamping of feet was heard as if someone were shaking off the clay from his heavy boots.
The dikegrave and the commissioners turned their heads towards the door. "What is it?" exclaimed the former.
A stout man with a sou'wester on his head entered. "Sir," he announced, "we both saw it, Hans Nickels and I: the rider of the white horse has thrown himself into the water-hole!"
"Where did you see that?" asked the dikegrave.
"There is only the one hole; in Jansen's fen where the Hauke Haien Koog begins."
"Did you only see it once?"
"Only once; and it only looked like a shadow; but that doesn't mean that it was the first time."
The dikegrave had risen. "You will excuse me," he said, turning to me, "we must go out and see where the mischief is brewing." He went out with the messenger and the rest of the company rose too and followed him.
I was left alone with the schoolmaster in the large bare room; we now had a clear view through the uncurtained windows which were no longer hidden by people sitting in front of them, and could see how the wind was driving the dark clouds across the sky. The old man still sat in his place, a superior, almost compassionate smile on his lips. "It has grown too empty here," he said, "will you come upstairs with me to my room? I live here in the house, and, believe me, I know the weather here near the dike; we have nothing to fear for ourselves."
COMMUNION SERVICE ON A NORTH SEA ISLANDFrom the Painting by Jacob AlbertsPERMISSION PHOTOGRAPHISCHE GESEILSCHAFT BERLIN
COMMUNION SERVICE ON A NORTH SEA ISLANDFrom the Painting by Jacob AlbertsPERMISSION PHOTOGRAPHISCHE GESEILSCHAFT BERLIN
I accepted gratefully; for I too was beginning to feel chilly there, and after taking a light we climbed the stairs to an attic-room which did indeed look towards the west like the other, but whose windows were now covered with dark woolen hangings. In a bookcase I saw a small collection of books and beside it the portraits of two old professors; in front of a table stood a large easy-chair. "Make yourself at home," said my friendly host and threw a few pieces of peat into the still faintly burning stove,on the top of which stood a tin kettle. "Just a few minutes! It will soon begin to sing and then I will brew a glass of grog for us; that will keep you awake."
"I don't need that," I answered; "I don't grow sleepy following your Hauke on his way through life."
"Really?" and he nodded to me with his wise eyes after I had been comfortably settled in his easy chair. "Let me see, where were we?——Oh yes, I know. Well then!"
Hauke had come into his paternal inheritance, and as old Antje Wohlers had also succumbed to her illness, her field had increased it. But since the death, or, rather, since the last words of his father, something had grown up in him, the seed of which he had carried in his heart since his boyhood; more than often enough he repeated to himself that he was the right man when there should have to be a new dikegrave. That was it. His father who surely understood it, who, in fact, had been the wisest man in the village, had, as it were, added these words to his inheritance as a final gift; Antje Wohlers' field, which he also owed to him, should form the first stepping-stone to this height. For, to be sure, a dikegrave must be able to point to far more extensive property than this alone. But his father had lived frugally for lonely years and had bought this new possession with the money thus saved; he could do that too, he could do more than that; for his father's strength had been gone, while he could still do the hardest work for years to come. Of course, even if he did succeed in that way, yet the keen edge that he had put on his old master's administration had not made friends for him in the village, and Ole Peters, his old antagonist, had lately come into an inheritance and was beginning to be a well-to-do man. A number of faces passed before his inward vision and they all looked at him with unfriendly eyes; then wrath against these people took hold of him and he stretched out his arms as if he would seize them; for they wanted to keep him from the office to which he alone was suited. And these thoughts did not leave him; they were always there and soside by side with honor and love there grew up ambition and hatred in his young heart. But he hid them deep within him; even Elke did not suspect their existence.
With the coming of the New Year there was a wedding. The bride was a relative of the Haiens, and Hauke and Elke were both there as invited guests; in fact they sat side by side at the wedding breakfast owing to the failure of a nearer relative to come. Only the smile that passed over both their faces betrayed their joy at this. But Elke sat listless in the noise of the conversation and the clatter of glasses that went on about them.
"Is there something the matter?" asked Hauke.
"Oh, no, not really; there are only too many people here for me."
"But you look so sad!"
She shook her head; then they were both silent again.
Gradually a feeling as if he were jealous because of her silence grew in him and he took her hand secretly under cover of the tablecloth; it did not start but closed confidingly round his. Had a feeling of loneliness taken hold of her as she watched her father growing older and weaker day by day? Hauke did not think of putting this question to himself but he ceased to breathe now as he drew the gold ring from his pocket. "Will you leave it there?" he asked, trembling as he slipped it onto the third finger of her slender hand.
The pastor's wife was sitting opposite them at the table; suddenly she laid down her fork and turned to her neighbor: "Good gracious, look at that girl!" she exclaimed, "she's pale as death!"
But the blood was already coming back into Elke's face. "Can you wait, Hauke?" she asked softly.
The prudent Friesian stopped to think for a moment. "For what?" he said then.
"You know well; I don't need to tell you."
"You are right," he said; "yes, Elke, I can wait—if only the time's within reason!"
"Oh God, I'm afraid it's near! Don't speak like that, Hauke, you are talking of my father's death!" She laid the other hand on her breast: "Till then," she said, "I will wear the ring here; never fear, you will never get it back as long as I live."
Then they both smiled and his hand pressed hers so that at any other time the girl would have screamed aloud.
During this time the pastor's wife had been looking steadily at Elke's eyes which now burned as with dark fire beneath the lace edging of her little gold-brocaded cap. But the increasing noise at the table had prevented the older woman from understanding anything that was said; she did not turn to her neighbor again either, for budding marriages—and that is what this looked like to her—even if it were only because of the fee that budded for her husband at the same time, she was not in the habit of disturbing.
Elke's premonition had come true. One morning after Easter the dikegrave Tede Volkerts had been found dead in his bed; his countenance bore witness to a peaceful end. He had often spoken in the previous months of being tired of life and had had no appetite for his favorite dish, a roast joint, or even for a young duck.
And now there was a great funeral in the village. In the burying ground about the church on the upland, lying towards the west, was a lot surrounded by an iron fence. In it the broad, blue grave-stone had been lifted up and was now leaning against a weeping ash. A figure of Death with a very full and prominent set of teeth had been chiseled on the stone and below stood in large letters:
Dat is de Dot, de allens fritt,Nimmt Kunst un Wetenschop di mit;De kloke Mann is nu vergånGott gäw em selik Uperstån.This is Death who eats up all,Art and science go at his call;The clever man has left us forlornGod raise him on resurrection morn!
Dat is de Dot, de allens fritt,Nimmt Kunst un Wetenschop di mit;De kloke Mann is nu vergånGott gäw em selik Uperstån.
This is Death who eats up all,Art and science go at his call;The clever man has left us forlornGod raise him on resurrection morn!
This was the resting place of the former dikegrave, Volkert Tedsen. Now a new grave had been dug in which his son, the dikegrave Tede Volkerts, was to be laid. The funeral procession was already coming up from the marsh below, a throng of carriages from all the villages in the parish; the one at the head bore the heavy coffin, the two glossy black horses from the dikegrave's stables were already drawing it up the sandy slope to the uplands; the horses' manes and tails waved in the brisk spring breeze. The churchyard was filled to the walls with people, even on top of the brick gate boys squatted with little children in their arms; all were anxious to see the burying.
In the house down on the marsh Elke had prepared the funeral repast in the living-room and the adjoining parlor; old wine stood at every place; there was a bottle of Langkork for the chief dikegrave—for he too had not failed to come to the ceremony—and another for the pastor. When everything was ready she went through the stable out to the back door; she met no one on her way; the men had gone with the carriages to the funeral. There she stood, her mourning clothes fluttering in the spring breeze, and looked across to the village where the last carriages were just driving up to the church. After a while there was a commotion there and then followed a dead silence. Elke folded her hands; now they were probably lowering the coffin into the grave: "And to dust thou shalt return!" Involuntarily, softly, as if she could hear them from the churchyard she repeated the words; then her eyes filled with tears, her hands which were folded across her breast sank into her lap; "Our Father, who art in heaven!" she prayed with fervor. And when she had finished the Lord's prayer she stood there long, immovable, she, from now on the owner of this large lowland farm; and thoughts of death and of life began to strive within her.
A distant rumble roused her. When she opened her eyes she saw again one carriage following the other in rapid succession, driving down from the marsh and coming towardsher farm. She stood upright, looked out once more with a keen glance and then went back, as she had come, through the stable and into the solemnly prepared living rooms. There was no one here either, only through the wall she could hear the bustle of the maids in the kitchen. The banquet table looked so still and lonely; the mirror between the windows was covered with white cloth, so were the brass knobs of the warming-oven; there was nothing to shine in the room any more. Elke noticed that the doors of the wall-bed in which her father had slept for the last time were open and she went over and closed them tight; absently she read the words painted on them in gold letters among the roses and pinks:
"Hest du din Dågwerk richtig danDa kommt de Slåp von sülvst heran."If you have done your day's work rightSleep will come of itself at night.
"Hest du din Dågwerk richtig danDa kommt de Slåp von sülvst heran."
If you have done your day's work rightSleep will come of itself at night.
That was from her grandfather's time! She glanced at the cupboard; it was almost empty but through the glass-doors she could see the cut-glass goblet which, as he had been fond of telling, her father had won once in his youth tilting in the ring. She took it out and stood it at the chief dikegrave's place. Then she went to the window, for already she could hear the carriages coming up the drive. One after another stopped in front of the house, and, more cheerful than when they first came, the guests now sprang down from their seats to the ground. Rubbing their hands and talking, they all crowded into the room; it was not long before they had all taken their places at the festive table on which the well-cooked dishes were steaming, the chief dikegrave and the pastor in the parlor; noise and loud conversation ran along the table as if the dreadful silence of death had never hovered here. Silently, her eyes on her guests, Elke went round with the maids among the tables to see that nothing was missing. Hauke Haien too sat in the living-room besides Ole Peters and other small landowners.
After the meal was over the white clay pipes were fetched out of the corner and lighted and Elke was busy again passing the coffee cups to her guests, for she did not spare with that either today. In the living-room, at her father's desk, the chief dikegrave was standing in conversation with the pastor and the white-haired dike commissioner Jewe Manners. "It is all very well, Gentlemen," said the former, "we have laid the old dikegrave to rest with honors; but where shall we find a new one? I think, Manners, you will have to take the dignity upon you!"
Smiling, the old man raised the black velvet cap from his white hair: "The game would be too short, Sir," he said; "when the deceased Tede Volkerts was made dikegrave, I was made commissioner and I have been it now for forty years!"
"That is no fault, Manners; you know the dike affairs so much the better and will have no trouble with them!"
But the old man shook his head: "No, no, your Grace, leave me where I am and I can keep on in the game for another few years yet!"
The pastor came to his aid. "Why," he said, "do we not put into office the man who has really exercised it in the last years?"
The chief dikegrave looked at him. "I don't understand you, pastor."
The pastor pointed into the parlor where Hauke seemed to be explaining something to two older men in a slow earnest way. "There he stands," he said, "the tall Friesian figure with the clever gray eyes beside his lean nose and the two bumps in his forehead above them! He was the old man's servant and now has a little piece of his own; of course, he is still rather young!"
"He seems to be in the thirties," said the chief dikegrave, measuring Hauke with his eyes.
"He is scarcely twenty-four," returned Commissioner Manners; "but the pastor is right; all the good proposals for the dike and drain work and so on that have come fromthe dikegrave's office during the last years have come from him; after all, the old man didn't amount to much towards the end."
"Indeed?" said the chief dikegrave; "and you think that he would be the man now to move up into his old master's place?"
"He would be the man," answered Jewe Manners; "but he lacks what we call here 'clay under his feet'; his father had about fifteen, he may have a good twenty acres; but no one here has ever been made dikegrave on that."
The pastor opened his mouth as if he were about to speak, when Elke Volkerts, who had been in the room for some little time, suddenly came up to them. "Will your Grace allow me a word?" she said to the chief officer, "it is only so that an error may not lead to a wrong!"
"Speak out, Miss Elke!" he answered; "wisdom always sounds well from a pretty girl's mouth."
"—It is not wisdom, your Grace; I only want to tell the truth."
"We ought to be able to listen to that too, Jungfer Elke."
The girl's dark eyes glanced aside again as if she wanted to reassure herself that no superfluous ears were near. "Your Grace," she began then, and her breast rose with strong emotion, "my godfather, Jewe Manners, told you that Hauke Haien only possesses about twenty acres, and that is true for the moment; but as soon as is necessary Hauke will have as many more acres as there are in my father's farm which is now mine; this with what he now has ought to be * * *."
Old Manners stretched his white head towards her as if he were looking to see who it was that spoke. "What's that?" he said, "what are you saying, child?"
Elke drew a little black ribbon out of her bodice with a shining gold ring on the end of it. "I am engaged, Godfather," she said; "here is the ring, and Hauke Haien is my betrothed."
"And when—I suppose I may ask since I held you at the font, Elke Volkerts—when did this happen?"
"It was some time ago, but I was of age, Godfather Manners," she said; "my father was already growing feeble and, as I knew him, I did not want to trouble him with it; now that he is with God he will see that his child is well cared for with this man. I should have said nothing about it till my year of mourning was over, but now, for Hauke's sake and on account of the koog, I have had to speak." And turning to the chief dikegrave she added: "Your Grace will pardon me, I hope!"
The three men looked at one another. The pastor laughed, the old commissioner contented himself with murmuring "Hum, hum!" while the chief dikegrave rubbed his forehead as if he were concerned with an important decision. "Yes, my dear girl," he said at last, "but how is it with the matrimonial property rights here? I must confess I am not thoroughly at home in these complicated matters."
"That is not necessary, your Grace," answered the dikegrave's daughter, "I will transfer the property to Hauke before the marriage. I have my own little pride," she added, smiling; "I want to marry the richest man in the village!"
"Well, Manners," said the pastor, "I suppose that you, as godfather, will have no objection when I unite the young dikegrave and the daughter of the old one in marriage!"
The old man shook his head gently. "May God give them his blessing!" he said, devoutly.
But the chief dikegrave held out his hand to the girl. "You have spoken truly and wisely, Elke Volkerts; I thank you for your forceful explanations and I hope also in the future and on more joyous occasions than this to be the guest of your house; but—the most wonderful thing about it all is that a dikegrave should be made by such a young woman."
"Your Grace," replied Elke, who looked at his kindlyface again with her serious eyes, "the right man may well be helped by his wife!" Then she went into the adjoining parlor and silently laid her hand in Hauke Haien's.
It was several years later. Tede Haien's little house was now occupied by an active workman with his wife and children. The young dikegrave Hauke Haien lived with his wife in what had been her father's house. In summer the mighty ash rustled in front of the house as before; but on the bench which now stood beneath it generally only the young wife was to be seen in the evening sitting alone with her sewing or some other piece of work. There was still no child in this home and Hauke had something else to do than to spend a leisure evening in front of the house, for in spite of the help he had given the old dikegrave the latter had bequeathed to him a number of unsettled matters pertaining to the dike, matters with which Hauke had not liked to meddle before; but now they must all gradually be cleared up and he swept with a strong broom. Then came the management and work of the farm itself, increased as it was by the addition of his own property, and moreover he was trying to do without a servant boy. And so it happened that, except on Sunday when they went to church, he and Elke saw each other only at dinner, when Hauke was generally hurried, and at the beginning and end of the day; it was a life of continuous work and yet a contented one.
And then the tongues of the busy-bodies disturbed the peace. One Sunday after church a somewhat noisy gang of the younger landowners in the marsh and upland districts were sitting drinking in the tavern on the uplands. Over the fourth or fifth glass they began to talk, not indeed about the king and the government—no one went so high in those days—but about the municipal officials and their superiors and above all about the municipal taxes and assessments, and the longer they talked the less they were satisfied with them, least of all with the new dike assessments; all the drains and sluices which had hitherto been all right now needed repairs; new places were always being found in the dike that needed hundreds of barrows of earth; the devil take it all!
"That's your clever dikegrave's doing," shouted one of the uplanders, "who always goes about thinking and then puts a finger into every pie."
"Yes, Marten," said Ole Peters, who sat opposite the speaker; "you're right, he's tricky and is always trying to get into the chief dikegrave's good books; but we've got him now."
"Why did you let them load him onto you?" said the other; "now you've got to pay for it."
Ole Peters laughed. "Yes, Marten Fedders, that's the way it goes with us here and there's nothing to be done. The old dikegrave got the office on his father's account; the new one on his wife's." The laughter that greeted this sally showed how it pleased the company.
But it was said at a public house table and it did not stop there; soon it went the rounds on the uplands as well as down on the marshes; thus it came to Hauke's ears too. And again all the malicious faces passed before his inward eye and when he thought of the laughter at the tavern table it sounded more mocking than it had been in reality. "The dogs!" he shouted and looked wrathfully to one side as if he would have had them thrashed.
At that Elke laid her hand on his arm: "Never mind them! They would all like to be what you are!"
"That's just it," he answered rancorously.
"And," she went on, "did not Ole Peters himself marry money?"
"That he did, Elke; but what he got when he married Vollina was not enough to make him dikegrave!"
"Say rather; he was not enough himself to become dikegrave!" And Elke turned her husband round so that he looked at himself in the mirror, for they were standing between the windows in their room. "There stands thedikegrave," she said; "now look at him; only he who can exercise an office holds one!"
"You are not wrong there," he answered, thinking, "and yet * * * Well, Elke, I must go on to the eastern sluice; the gates don't lock again."
She pressed his hand. "Come, look at me a minute first! What is the matter with you, your eyes look so far away?"
"Nothing, Elke; you're right."
He went; but he had not been gone long when he had forgotten all about the repairs to the sluice. Another idea which he had half thought out and had carried about with him for years, but which had been pushed into the background by urgent official duties, now took possession of him anew and more powerfully than before as if suddenly it had grown wings.
Hardly realizing where he was going he found himself up on the seaward dike, a good distance to the south, towards the town; the village that lay out in this direction had long disappeared on his left; still he went on, his gaze turned towards the water-side and fixed steadily on the broad stretch of land in front of the dikes; anyone with him could not have helped seeing what absorbing mental work was going on behind those eyes. At last he stopped; there the foreland narrowed down to a little strip along the dike. "It must be possible," he said to himself. "Seven years in office! they shan't say again that I am dikegrave only on my wife's account!"
Still he stood and his keen glance swept carefully over the green foreland in all directions; then he went back to where another small strip of green pasture-land took the place of the broad expanse lying before him. Close to the dike however a strong sea current ran through this expanse separating nearly the whole outland from the mainland and making it into an island; a rough wooden bridge led across to it so that cattle or hay and grain carts could pass over. The tide was low and the golden September sun glistenedon the bare strip of mud, perhaps a hundred feet wide, and on the deep water-course in the middle of it through which the sea was even now running. "That could be dammed," said Hauke to himself after watching it for some time. Then he looked up and, in imagination, drew a line from the dike on which he stood, across the water-course, along the edge of the island, round towards the south and back again in an easterly direction across the water-course and up to the dike. And this invisible line which he now drew was a new dike, new too in the construction of its profile which till now had existed only in his head.
"That would give us about a thousand acres more of reclaimed land," he said, smiling to himself; "not exactly a great stretch, but still——"
Another calculation absorbed him. The outland here belonged to the community, its members each holding a number of shares according to the size of their property in the parish or by having legally acquired them in some other way. He began to count up how many shares he had received from his own, how many from Elke's father and how many he had bought himself since his marriage, partly with an indistinct idea of benefit to be derived in the future, partly when he increased his flocks of sheep. Altogether he held a considerable number of shares; for he had bought from Ole Peters all that he had as well, when the latter became so disgusted at losing his best ram in a partial inundation that he decided to sell. But that was a rare accident, for as far back as Hauke could remember only the edges were flooded even when the tides were unusually high. What splendid pasture and grain land it would make and how valuable it would be when it was all surrounded by his new dike! A kind of intoxication came over him as he thought of it, but he dug his nails into the palms of his hands and forced his eyes to look clearly and soberly at what lay before him. There was this great dike-less area on the extreme edge of which a flock of dirty sheep now wandered grazing slowly; who knew what storms and tidesmight do to it even within the next few years; and for him it would mean a lot of work, struggle, and annoyance. Nevertheless, as he went down from the dike and along the foot-path across the fens towards his mound, he felt as if he were bringing a great treasure home with him.
Elke met him in the hall; "How did you find the sluice?" she asked.
He looked down at her with a mysterious smile: "We shall soon need another sluice," he said, "and drains and a new dike!"
"I don't understand," replied Elke as they went into the room. "What is it that you want, Hauke?"
"I want," he said slowly and stopped a moment. "I want to have the big stretch of outland that begins opposite our place and then runs towards the west, all diked in and a well-drained koog made out of it. The high tides have left us in peace for nearly a generation, but if one of the really bad ones should come again and destroy the new growth, everything might be ruined at one blow; only the old slip-shod way of doing things could have let it go on like that so long."
She looked at him in amazement. "Then you blame yourself!" she said.
"Yes, I do, Elke; but there has always been so much else to do."
"I know, Hauke; you have done enough!"
He had seated himself in the old dikegrave's easy-chair and his hands gripped both arms of it firmly.
"Have you the courage to do it?" asked his wife.
"Indeed I have, Elke," he said hastily.
"Don't go too fast, Hauke; that is an undertaking of life and death and they will nearly all be against you; you will get no thanks for all your trouble and care!"
He nodded: "I know!" he said.
"And suppose it doesn't succeed!" she exclaimed again; "ever since I was a child I have heard that thatwater-course could not be stopped and therefore it must never be touched."
"That is simply a lazy man's excuse," said Hauke; "why should it be impossible to stop it?"
"I never heard why; perhaps because it flows through so straight; the washout is too strong." Suddenly a memory came back to her and an almost roguish smile dawned in her serious eyes. "When I was a child," she said, "I heard the hired men talking about it once; they said that the only way to build a dam there that would hold was to bury something alive in it while it was being made; when they were building a dike on the other side—it must have been a hundred years ago—a gypsy child that they bought from its mother at a high price had been thrown into it and buried alive; but now probably no one would sell her child."
Hauke shook his head. "Then it is just as well that we have none, or they would probably require it of us!"
"They wouldn't get it!" said Elke, and threw her arms across her own body as if in fear.
And Hauke smiled; but she went on to another question: "And the tremendous expense! Have you thought of that?"
"Indeed I have, Elke; we shall gain in land much more than the expense of building the dike, and then too the cost of maintaining the old dike will be much less; we shall work ourselves and we have more than eighty teams in the parish and no lack of young hands. At least you will not have made me dikegrave for nothing, Elke; I will show them that I am one."
She had crouched down in front of him and was looking at him anxiously; now she rose with a sigh. "I must go on with my day's work," she said slowly stroking his cheek; "you do yours, Hauke."
"Amen, Elke," he said with an earnest smile; "there is work here for both of us!"
And there was work enough for both, though now thehusband's burden became even heavier. On Sunday afternoons and often late in the evening Hauke and a capable surveyor sat together, deep in calculations, drawings and plans; it was the same when Hauke was alone and he often did not finish till long after midnight. Then he crept into his and Elke's bedroom, for they no longer used the stuffy wall-beds in the living-room, and so that he might at last get some rest, his wife lay with closed eyes as if asleep although she had been waiting for him with a beating heart. Then he sometimes kissed her brow, whispering a word of endearment, and laid himself down to wait for the sleep which often did not come to him till cock-crow. During the winter tempests he would go out on the dike with paper and pencil in his hand and stand there drawing and making notes while a gust of wind tore his cap from his head and his long tawny hair blew across his hot face. As long as the ice did not prevent it he would take one of the men-servants and go out in the boat to the shallows and measure the depth of the currents there with a rod and plumb-line, whenever he was in doubt. Elke often trembled for him, but the only sign she showed of it when he came home again was the firmness of her hand-clasp or the gleaming light in her usually quiet eyes. "Have patience, Elke," he said once when it seemed to him that his wife did not want to let him go; "I must be perfectly clear about it myself before I make my proposal." At that she nodded and let him go. His rides into town to the chief dikegrave were no trifle either, and they and all the work of managing the house and farm were always followed by work on his papers late into the night. He almost ceased to associate with other people except in his work and business; he even saw less of his wife from day to day. "It is a hard time and it will last a long while yet," said Elke to herself and went about her work.
At last, when the sun and spring winds had broken up the ice everywhere the preparatory work came to an end. The petition to the chief dikegrave to be recommended toa higher department was ready. It contained the proposal for a dike to surround the foreland mentioned, for the benefit of the public welfare, especially of the koog and not less of the Sovereign's exchequer as, in a few years, the latter would profit by taxes from about one thousand acres. The whole was neatly copied, packed in a strong tubular case, together with plans and drawings of all the localities as they were at present and as planned, of sluices and drains and everything else in question, and was provided with the dikegrave's official seal.
"Here it is, Elke," said the young dikegrave, "now give it your blessing."
Elke laid her hand in his: "We will hold fast to each other," she said.
"That we will."
Then the petition was sent into town by a messenger on horseback.
"You will notice, my dear sir," the schoolmaster interrupted his tale as he looked at me with kindness in his expressive eyes, "that what I have told you up to now I have gathered during nearly forty years of activity in this district from reliable accounts from what has been told me by the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of enlightened families. Now in order that you may bring this into harmony with the final course of events I have to tell you that the rest of my story was at the time and still is the gossip of the whole marsh village when, about All Saints' Day, the spinning wheels begin to whirr."