"No, Elke," he said, "no one makes an enemy of me; only it is a responsible office to protect the community from God's sea."
He freed himself so as to avoid further questioning from the wife that he loved. He went into the stable and shed as if he had to inspect everything; but he saw nothing around him; he was only intent on quieting his prick of conscience, on trying to convince himself that it was a morbidly exaggerated fear.
"The year of which I am telling you," said my host, the schoolmaster, after a while, "was the year 1756, which will never be forgotten about here; in Hauke Haien's house it brought with it a death. At the end of September the almost ninety-year-old Trien' Jans was found dying in the room which had been given up to her in the barn. According to her desire she had been propped up against her pillows and her eyes looked through the little leaded panes into the distance; there must have been a thinner over a denser layer of air lying there along the sky for at this moment there was a clear mirage and the sea was reflected like a glistening strip of silver above the edge of the dike so that it shone dazzlingly into the room; the south end of Jeverssand too was visible."
At the foot of the bed crouched little Wienke and held her father's hand tightly in one of hers as he stood close by. Death was just engraving the Hippocratic face on the dying woman and the child stared breathlessly at the uncanny, incomprehensible change in the plain countenance with which she was so familiar. "What is she doing? What is it, Father?" she whispered fearfully and dug her finger nails into her father's hand.
"She is dying," said the dikegrave.
"Dying," repeated the child and seemed to fall into confused thought.
But the old woman moved her lips once more: "Jins! Jins!" a shrill cry of distress broke from her and she stretched out her bony arms towards the reflection of the sea that glistened outside: "Help me! Help me! You are above the water. * * * God have mercy on the others!"
Her arms sank, there was a slight cracking of the bedstead; she had ceased to live.
The child drew a deep sigh and raised her pale eyes to her father: "Is she still dying?" she asked.