Canal-like ditches such as this are no longer to be found in all the country-side, for the thorough system of drainage to which the land has been subjected has done away with their use; but every farmer will remember them in the old time. They were from fifteen to twenty feet wide at the top, but tapered away till quite narrow at the bottom, and were fringed with thorns and other bushwood. They were generally dry except in spring and autumn, when there was a foot or a foot and half of water in them, or in summer for a day or two after a thunder-storm. That was the case now.--"Bräsig hide yourself behind that thorn so that you may come to the rescue at once."--"Very well," said Bräsig.--"But, Mrs. Behrens," he continued after a pause, "you must think of a signal to call me to your help."--"Yes," she said. "Of course! But what shall it be? Wait! when I say; '_The Philistines be upon thee_' spring upon him."--"I understand, Mrs. Behrens!" "Goodness gracious me!" thought the clergyman's wife. "I feel as if I were quite a Delilah. Going to a _rendezvous_ at half past eight in the evening! At my age too! Ah me, in my old age I'm going to do what I should have been ashamed of when I was a girl."--Then aloud. "Bräsig don't puff so loud anyone could hear you a mile off." Resuming her soliloquy: "And all for the sake of a boy, a mischievous wretch of a boy. Good gracious! If my pastor knew what I was about!"--Aloud. "What are you laughing at, Bräsig? I forbid you to laugh, it's very silly of you."--"I didn't laugh, Mrs. Behrens."--"Yes, you _did_, I heard you distinctly."--"I only yawned, Mrs. Behrens, it's such frightfully slow work lying here."--"You oughtn't to yawn at such a time. I'm trembling all over.--Oh, you little wretch, what misery you have caused me! I can't tell anyone what you've made me suffer, and must just bear it in silence. It was God who sent Bräsig to my help."--Suddenly Bräsig whispered in great excitement, his voice sounding like the distant cry of a corn-crake: "Mrs. Behrens, draw yourself out till you're as long as Lewerenz's child;[15] make yourself as thin as you possibly can, and put on a pretty air of confusion, for I see him coming over the crest of the hill. His figure stands out clearly against the sky."--Little Mrs. Behrens felt as if her heart had stopped beating, and her anger waxed hotter against the boy who had brought her into such a false position. She was so much ashamed of herself for being where she was, that she would most assuredly have run away if Bräsig had not laughed again, but as soon as she heard that laugh, she determined to stay and show him that he was engaged in a much more serious undertaking than he seemed to imagine.--