"Oh!" said Hauke and gave a low whistle, drawing his breath in through his teeth, "That is why she has dragged all that clay and stone down from the upland. But if she does that she will build on the road on the inside of the dike; has she got a permit?"
"I don't know," said Elke; but Hauke had spoken the last word so loud that the dikegrave started up out of his slumber. "What permit?" he asked and looked almost wildly from one to the other. "What is the permit for?"
But when Hauke had explained the matter to him he tapped him on the shoulder laughing. "Well, well, the inside road is wide enough; God have mercy on the dikegrave if he has got to bother about every duckhouse as well!"
It made Hauke's heart heavy to think that he had been the means of delivering the old woman's ducklings up to the rats and he allowed himself to let the dikegrave's excuse stand. "But Master," he began again, "there are some that would be better off for just a little nip and if you don't want to do it yourself just give the commissioner a nudge who is supposed to see that the dike regulations are carried out."
"How, what's the lad saying?" and the dikegrave sat perfectly upright while Elke let her elaborate stocking fall and listened.
"Yes, Master," Hauke went on, "you have already had the spring inspection; but all the same Peter Jansen has not harrowed out the weeds on his piece till today. In summer the goldfinches will play merrily about the red thistle-blossoms there! And close beside it there's another piece—I don't know whom it belongs to—but there's a regular hollow in the dike on the outside. When the weather's fine its always full of little children who roll about in it, but—God preserve us from high water!"
The old dikegrave's eyes had grown steadily bigger.
"And then," began Hauke again.
"Well, and what else, young man?" asked the dikegrave; "haven't you done yet?" and his voice sounded as if his second man had already said too much to please him.
"Yes, and then, Master," went on Hauke, "you know that fat girl Vollina, the daughter of Harders, the commissioner, who always fetches her father's horses home from the fens,—once she's up on the old yellow mare with her fat legs then it's: 'Cluck, cluck! Get up!' And that's the way she always rides, right up the slope of the dike!"