"And suppose it doesn't succeed!" she exclaimed again; "ever since I was a child I have heard that that water-course could not be stopped and therefore it must never be touched." "That is simply a lazy man's excuse," said Hauke; "why should it be impossible to stop it?" "I never heard why; perhaps because it flows through so straight; the washout is too strong." Suddenly a memory came back to her and an almost roguish smile dawned in her serious eyes. "When I was a child," she said, "I heard the hired men talking about it once; they said that the only way to build a dam there that would hold was to bury something alive in it while it was being made; when they were building a dike on the other side--it must have been a hundred years ago--a gypsy child that they bought from its mother at a high price had been thrown into it and buried alive; but now probably no one would sell her child." Hauke shook his head. "Then it is just as well that we have none, or they would probably require it of us!" "They wouldn't get it!" said Elke, and threw her arms across her own body as if in fear. And Hauke smiled; but she went on to another question: "And the tremendous expense! Have you thought of that?" "Indeed I have, Elke; we shall gain in land much more than the expense of building the dike, and then too the cost of maintaining the old dike will be much less; we shall work ourselves and we have more than eighty teams in the parish and no lack of young hands. At least you will not have made me dikegrave for nothing, Elke; I will show them that I am one." She had crouched down in front of him and was looking at him anxiously; now she rose with a sigh. "I must go on with my day's work," she said slowly stroking his cheek; "you do yours, Hauke." "Amen, Elke," he said with an earnest smile; "there is work here for both of us!"