On the following morning as he came out onto the dike he saw a different world from the one he had found the day before; it was indeed low tide again but the day was growing and the rays from the bright spring sun fell almost perpendicularly on the shallows which extended as far as the eye could reach; the white gulls glided calmly hither and thither and, invisible above them, high under the azure sky the larks sang their eternal melody. Hauke, who did not know how nature can deceive us with her charm, stood on the northwest corner of the dike and sought the new bed of the water-course which had given him such a shock the day before; but with the sunlight darting directly down from the zenith he could not even find it at first; not until he shaded his eyes with his hand from the dazzling rays did it show itself unmistakably. Nevertheless the shadows in the dusk of the evening before must have deceived him; it was outlined but very weakly now; the mouse-passages that had been laid bare must have been more responsible for the damage done to the dike than the tide. To be sure, it must be changed; but by careful digging and, as Ole Peters had said, by fresh sodding and a few rods of straw work the damage could be repaired. "It wasn't so bad, after all," he said to himself with relief, "you made a fool of yourself yesterday!" He called the commissioners together and the work was decided upon, for the first time without any objection being raised. The dikegrave thought he felt a strengthening calm spreading through his still weakened body; and in a few weeks everything was neatly carried out.