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 so side 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.