It was unfortunately impossible to-day to choose the shorter road to Wissow. The fields and meadows along the shore, through which Elsa had passed the evening before, were too wet, the coachman said, in consequence of the torrents of rain which had been falling since last night. They saw traces of this as soon as they had left the comparatively higher ground on which the castle with the park and home farm were situated, and had reached the hollow which extended along the side of the chain of hills on which the village stood, and which joined at either end the plain. The wheels sank at once almost to the axles, although the road was well gravelled and was in general quite dry; and they had some trouble in getting through it though it extended for barely two hundred yards. It was dreadful, said Herr Damberg, the farmer, who met them on their way to the village, and rode a little way back by the sides of the carriage; and one couldn't tell yet whether it might not get much worse, and if it would not be better to follow Captain Schmidt's advice, who had sent word all round the coast yesterday that there would be a frightfully high tide if the storm came up from the east, which might reach far inland, and measures should be taken to prepare for it. Well, the castle and the home farm lay high enough, unless things got worse than bad; but the hollow here, whose bottom was on the same level as, or even lower than the marshes, would at any rate be flooded, and then at Warnow they would be on an island. And a pleasant situation that would be, particularly as inland here they had got no boats, and nobody could tell how long this state of things might last. He was only glad that he had not signed the new agreement with the Count. The wheatfields and meadows there were all very well, but they could not yield enough to carry one through a calamity such as threatened now, and the consequences of which were not to be foretold, especially when rents were twice as high as they used to be. "Ah! yes, my lady," said Herr Damberg, "your good husband was a just man. He thought of other people, and not of himself alone, like some other gentlemen. Well, my lady, I must go back now, and look after things at home, before they all lose their heads there. I hope your ladyship and the young lady will get safe to Wissow and back again, and tell the Captain that he had better keep some boats ready for us, as he may have work to do here before night." The old man said this quite seriously, and then pulled his cap, which he had taken off, well down upon his forehead, set spurs to his horse, and rode down to the farm just as the carriage reached the first house in the village.