She heard these words even before she had closed the stable door again.
"Well?" asked the old man, as she stepped into the room.
"Ole was willing to do it," said his daughter, biting her lips a little, and sat down opposite Hauke on one of the roughly carved chairs which in those days were still made at home on winter evenings. Out of a drawer she had taken a white stocking with a red bird pattern on it, which she was now knitting; the long-legged creatures might have represented herons or storks. Hauke sat opposite her, deep in his arithmetic; the dikemaster himself rested in his armchair and blinked sleepily at Hauke's pen. On the table, as always in the house of the dikemaster, two tallow candles were burning, and behind the windows with their leaden frames the shutters were closed and fastened from within; now the wind could bang against them as hard as it liked. Once in a while Hauke raised his head and glanced for a moment at the bird stockings or at the narrow, calm face of the girl.
Suddenly from the armchair there rose a loud snore, and a glance and smile flew back and forth between the two young people; gradually the breathing grew more quiet, and one could easily talk a little--only Hauke did not know about what.
But when she raised her knitting and the birds appeared in their whole length, he whispered across the table: "Where have you learned that, Elke?"
"Learned what?" the girl returned.
"This bird knitting?" said Hauke.
"This? From Trin Jans out there on the dike; she can do all sorts of things. She was servant here to my grandfather a long time ago."
"At that time I don't suppose you were born?" said Hauke.
"I think not; but she has often come to the house since then."