Mrs. Behrens went down the garden path with Bräsig feeling ready for anything that might befall. She opened the garden-gate and went out alone, leaving Bräsig squatted under the hedge like a great toad, but no sooner was she by herself than her courage oozed away, and she said: "Come to the ditch with me, Bräsig, you're too far away there, and must be close at hand to help me when I've caught him." "All right!" said Bräsig, and he accompanied her to the ditch. 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. [Illustration: BETWEEN DANCES BENJAMIN VAUTIER]