"Speak," said one of the commissioners. Hauke spread the plan of the new dike out on the table. "A few minutes ago," he said, "one of you asked where we should get all the necessary earth. You see here that as far as the foreland extends out into the shallows there is a strip of land left free outside the line of the dike; we can take the earth from there and from the foreland that runs along the dike, north and south from the new koog. If we only have a good thick layer of clay on the water side, we can fill in, on the inside or in the middle, with sand. But now we must find a surveyor to stake out the line of the new dike on the foreland. The one who helped me to work out the plan will probably suit us best. Further, we must make contracts with several cartwrights for single tip-carts in which to haul the clay and other material. In damming up the water-course and on the inner sides, where we may have to do with sand, we shall need, I can't say now how many hundred loads of straw, perhaps more than we shall be able to spare here in the marsh. Let us consider then, how all this is to be obtained and arranged; and later we shall also want a capable carpenter to make the new sluice here on the west side towards the water." The commissioners had gathered round the table, looked indifferently at the map and now gradually began to speak, but, as it seemed, more for the sake of saying something. When they came to discuss the engaging of a surveyor one of the younger ones said: "You have thought it out, dikegrave; you must know who would be best fitted for the work." But Hauke replied: "As you are all under oath you must speak your own, not my opinion, Jacob Meyen; and if you can do better I will let my proposal drop." "Oh well, it will be right enough," said Jacob Meyen. But one of the older men did not think so. He had a nephew who was a surveyor, such a surveyor as had never been seen here in the marsh country; he was said to know even more than the dikegrave's blessed father, Tede Haien! So the merits of both surveyors were discussed and it was finally decided to give the work to them both together. It was the same thing when they came to consider the tip-carts, the straw supply, and everything else, and Hauke arrived home late and almost exhausted, on the gelding which he still rode at that time. But he had no sooner sat down in the old easy chair which had belonged to his predecessor, who, though more ponderous, had lived more lightly, than his wife was at his side. "You look so tired, Hauke," she said, stroking the hair away from his forehead with her slender hand. "I am, a little," he answered. "And how is it going?" "Oh, it's going," he said with a bitter smile; "but I must turn the wheels myself and I can be glad if somebody else does not hold them back." "But they don't all do that, do they?" "No, Elke; your godfather, Jewe Manners, is a good man; I wish he were thirty years younger."