But the dikemaster general gave the girl his hand: "You have spoken truly and wisely, Elke Volkerts; I thank you for your firm explanations and hope to be a guest in your house in the future, too, on happier occasions than today. But that a dikemaster should have been made by such a young lady--that is the wonderful part of this story!"
"Your Honor," replied Elke and looked at the kindly high official with her serious eyes, "a true man ought to be allowed the help of his wife!" Then she went into the adjoining parlor and laid her hand silently in that of Hauke Haien.
Several years had gone by: in the little house of Tede Haien now lived a vigorous workman with his wife and child; the young dikemaster Hauke Haien lived with his wife Elke Volkerts on the farm of her father. In summer the mighty ash tree murmured as before in front of the house; but on the bench that now stood beneath it, the young wife was usually seen alone in the evening, sitting with some sewing in her hands; there was no child yet from this marriage. The husband had other things to do than to sit in front of his house door, for, in spite of his having helped in the old man's management before, there was still a multitude of labors to be done which, in those other times, he had not found it wise to touch upon; but now everything had to be cleared up gradually, and he swept with a stiff broom. Besides that, there was the management of the farm, enlarged by his own land, especially as he was trying to save a second hired man. So it came about that, except on Sundays, when they went to church, the two married people saw each other usually only during dinner, which Hauke ate with great haste, and at the rise and close of day; it was a life of continuous work, although one of content.
Then a troublesome rumor started. When one Sunday, after church, a somewhat noisy company of young landowners from the marshes and the higher land had stayed over their cups at the inn, they talked, when it came to the fourth and fifth glass, not about the king and the government, to be sure--they did not soar so high in those days--but about communal and higher officials, specially about the taxes demanded of the community. And the longer they talked, the less there was that found mercy in their eyes, particularly not the new dike taxes. All the sluices and locks had always held out before, and now they have to be repaired; always new places were found on the dike that required hundreds of cartloads of earth--the devil take the whole affair!
"That's all on account of your clever dikemaster," cried one of the people of the higher land, "who always goes round pondering and sticks his finger into every pie!"
"Yes, he is tricky and wants to win the favor of the dikemaster general; but we have caught him!"
"Why did you let him be thrust on you?" said the other; "now you have to pay in cash."
Ole Peters laughed. "Yes, Marten Fedders, that's the way it is here, and it can't be helped: the old one was made dikemaster on account of his father, the new one on account of his wife." The laughter which ran round the table showed how this sally was appreciated.
But as it had been spoken at the public table of an inn, it did not stay there, and it was circulated in the village of the high land as well as that of the marshes below; and so it reached Hauke. Again the row of ill-meaning faces passed by his inner eye, and he heard the laughter round the tavern table more jeering than it really was. "Dogs!" he shouted, and his eyes looked grimly to the side, as if he wanted to have these people whipped.
Then Elke laid her hand upon his arm: "Let them be; they all would like to be what you are."