"I want," he began slowly and then stopped for a second, "I want the big foreland that begins opposite our place and stretches on westward to be diked in and made into a solid enclosure. The high floods have left us in peace for almost a generation now; but when one of the bad ones comes again and destroys the growth down there--then all at once there'll be an end to all this glory. Only the old slackway has let things stay like this till to-day." She looked at him with astonishment: "Why, you are scolding yourself!" she said. "I am, Elke; but till now there were so many other things to do." "Yes, Hauke; surely, you have done enough." He had sat down in the armchair of the old dikemaster, and his hands were clutching both arms fast. "Have you the courage for it?" his wife asked him. "I have that, Elke," he spoke hastily. "Don't be too hasty, Hauke; that work is a matter of life and death; and almost all the people will be against you, they won't thank you for your labor and trouble." He nodded. "I know that!" he said. "And if it will only succeed," she cried again, "ever since I was a child I heard that the channel can't be stopped up, and that therefore one shouldn't touch it." "That was an excuse for the lazy ones!" said Hauke; "why shouldn't one be able to stop up the channel?" "That I have not heard; perhaps because it goes right through; the rush of the water is too strong." A remembrance came over her and an almost mischievous smile gleamed out of her serious eyes: "When I was a child," she told, "I heard our hired men talk about it once; they said, if a dam was to hold there, some live thing would have to be thrown into the hole and diked up with the rest; when they were building a dike on the other side, about a hundred years ago, a gipsy child was dammed in that they had bought from its mother for a lot of money. But now I suppose no one would sell her child." Hauke shook his head: "Then it is just as well that we have none; else they would do nothing less than demand it of us." "They shouldn't get it!" said Elke and folded her arms across her body as if in fear. And Hauke smiled; but she asked again: "And the huge cost? Have you thought of that?" "I have, Elke; what we will get out of it will far surpass the cost; even the cost of keeping up the old dike will be covered a good bit by the new one. We do our own work and there are over eighty teams of horses in the community, and there is no lack of young strong arms. At least you shan't have made me dikemaster for nothing, Elke; I want to show them that I am one!" She had been crouching in front of him and looking at him full of care; now she rose with a sigh. "I have to go back to my day's work," she said, and gently stroked his cheek; "you do yours, Hauke." "Amen, Hike!" he said with a serious smile; "there is work enough for us both."