"Is something ailing you?" asked Hauke.
"Oh, really nothing; only there are too many people here for me."
"But you look so sad!"
She shook her head; then again she said nothing.
Then something like jealousy rose within him on account of her silence, and secretly, under the overhanging tablecloth, he seized her hand. She did not draw it away, but clasped it, as if full of confidence, round his. Had a feeling of loneliness come over her, as she had to watch the failing body of her father every day? Hauke did not think of asking her this; but his breathing stopped, as he pulled the gold ring from his pocket. "Will you let it stay?" he asked trembling, while he pushed the ring on the ring-finger of the slender hand.
Opposite them at the table sat the pastor"s wife; she suddenly laid down her fork and turned to her neighbor: "My faith, look at that girl!" she cried; "she is turning deadly pale!"
But the blood was returning into Elke"s face. "Can you wait, Hauke?"
she asked in a low voice.
Clever Frisian though he was, he nevertheless had to stop and think a few seconds. "For what?" he asked then.
"You know perfectly well; I don"t need to tell you."
"You are right," he said; "yes, Elke, I can wait--if it"s within a human limit."
"Oh, G.o.d, I"m afraid, a very near one! Don"t talk like that, Hauke; you are speaking of my father"s death!" She laid her other hand on her breast; "Till then," she said, "I shall wear the gold ring here; you shan"t be afraid of getting it back in my lifetime!"
Then both smiled, and their hands pressed each other so tightly that on other occasions the girl would have cried out aloud.
The pastor"s wife meanwhile had looked incessantly at Elke"s eyes, which were now glowing like dark fire under the lace fringe of her little gold brocade cap. But in the growing noise at the table she had not understood a word; neither did she turn to her partner again, for she was accustomed not to disturb budding marriages--and this seemed to be such a case--if only for the sake of the promise of the wedding-fee for her husband, who did the marrying.
Elke"s presentiment had come true; one morning after Easter the dikemaster Tede Volkerts had been found dead in his bed. When one looked at his face, one could see written upon it that his end had been calm. In the last months he had often expressed a weariness of life; his favorite roast, even his ducks, wouldn"t please him any more.
And now there was a great funeral in the village. Up on the high land in the burying-ground round the church there was on the western side a burial-place surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. Upright against a weeping willow stood a broad blue tombstone upon which was hewn the image of death with many teeth in the skeleton jaws; beneath it one could read in large letters:
"Ah, death all earthly things devours, Takes art and knowledge that was ours; The mortal man at rest here lies-- G.o.d give, that blessed he may rise."
It was the burial-place of the former dikemaster Volkert Tedsen; now a new grave had been dug in which his son, Tede Volkerts, was to be buried. And now the funeral procession was coming up from the marshes, a mult.i.tude of carriages from all parish villages. Upon the first one stood the heavy coffin, and the two shining black horses of the dikemaster"s stable drew it up the sandy hill to the high land; their tails and manes were waving in the sharp spring breeze. The graveyard round the church was filled with people up to the ramparts; even on the walled gate boys were perching with little children in their arms; all wanted to see the burying.
In the house down in the marshes Elke had prepared the funeral meal in the best parlour and the living-room. Old wine was set on the table in front of the plates; by the plate of the dikemaster general--for he, too, was not missing today--and of the pastor there was a bottle of "Langkork" for each. When everything was ready, she went through the stable in front of the yard door; she met no one on the way, for the hired men were at the funeral with two carriages. Here she stood still and while her mourning clothes were waving in the spring wind, she watched the last carriages down in the village drive up to the church.
There after a while a great turmoil appeared, which seemed to be followed by a deadly silence. Elke folded her hands; now they must be letting the coffin into the grave: "And to dust thou shalt return!"
Inevitably, in a low voice, as if she could have heard them from up here, she repeated the words. Then her eyes filled with tears, her hands folded across her breast sank into her lap. "Our Father, who art in heaven!" she prayed ardently. And when the Lord"s prayer was finished, she stood a long time motionless--she, now the mistress of this great marsh farm; and thoughts of death and of life began to struggle within her.
A distant rumbling waked her. When she opened her eyes, she again saw one carriage after another drive rapidly down from the marshes and up to her farm. She straightened herself, looked ahead sharply once more and then went back, as she had come, through the stable into the solemnly ordered living-rooms. Here too there was n.o.body; only through the wall could she hear the bustle of the maids in the kitchen. The festive board looked so quiet and deserted; the mirror between the windows had been covered with white scarfs, and likewise the bra.s.s k.n.o.bs of the stove: there was nothing bright any more in the room. Elke saw that the doors of the alcove-bed, in which her father had slept his last sleep were open and she went up and closed them fast. Almost absently she read the proverb that was written on them in golden letters between roses and carnations:
"If thou thy day"s work dost aright, Then sleep comes by itself at night."
That was from her grandfather! She cast a glance at the sideboard; it was almost empty. But through the gla.s.s doors she could still see the cut-gla.s.s goblet which her father, as he used to tell with relish, had once won as a prize when riding the ring in his youth. She took it out and set it in front of the dikemaster general"s plate. Then she went to the window, for already she heard the carriages drive up the hill; one after the other they stopped in front of her house, and, more briskly than they had come, the guests leaped from their seats to the ground.
Rubbing their hands and chattering, all crowded into the room; it was not long before they sat down at the festive board, where the well-prepared dishes were steaming--in the best parlor the dikemaster general and the pastor. And noise and loud talking ran along the table, as if death had never spread its awful stillness here. Silent, with her eyes upon her guests, Elke walked round the tables with her maids, to see that nothing was missing at the funeral meal. Hauke Haien, too, sat in the living-room with Ole Peters and other small landowners.
When the meal was over, the white pipes were taken out of the corner and lighted, and Elke was again busy offering the filled coffee cups to her guests; for there was no economy in coffee, either, on this day. In the living-room, at the desk of the man just buried, the dikemaster general stood talking with the pastor and the white-haired dike overseer Jewe Manners.
"Well, gentlemen," said the former; "we have buried the old dikemaster with honor; but where shall we get the new one? I think, Manners, you will have to make up your mind to accept this dignity."
Old Manners smiled and lifted his little black velvet cap from his white hair: "Mr. Dikemaster General," he said, "the game would be too short then; when the deceased Tede Volkers was made dikemaster I was made overseer and have been now for forty years."
"That is no defect, Manners; then you know the affairs all the better and won"t have any trouble with them."
But the old man shook his head: "No, no, your Honor, leave me where I am, then I can run along with the rest for a few years longer."
The pastor agreed with him: "Why not give the office," he said, "to the man who has actually managed the affairs in the last years?"
The dikemaster general looked at him: "I don"t understand you, pastor!"
But the pastor pointed with his finger to the best parlor, where Hauke in a slow serious manner seemed to be explaining something to two older people. "There he stands," he said; "the long Frisian over there with the keen grey eyes, the bony nose and the high, projecting forehead. He was the old man"s hired man and now has his own little place; to be sure, he is rather young."
"He seems to be about thirty," said the dikemaster general, inspecting the man thus presented to him.
"He is scarcely twenty-four," remarked the overseer Manners; "but the pastor is right: all the good work that has been done with dikes and sluices and the like in the last years through the office of dikemaster has been due to him; the old man couldn"t do much toward the end."
"Indeed?" said the dikemaster general; "and you think, he would be the right man to move up into the office of his old master?"
"He would be absolutely the right man," replied Jewe Manners; "but he lacks what they call here "clay under one"s feet;" his father had about fifteen, he may well have twenty acres; but with that n.o.body has yet been made dikemaster."
The pastor had already opened his mouth, as if he wanted to object, when Elke Volkers, who had been in the room for a while, spoke to them suddenly: "Will your Honor allow me a word?" she said to the dikemaster general; "I am speaking only to prevent a mistake from turning into a wrong."
"Then speak, Miss Elke," he replied; "wisdom always sounds well from the lips of pretty girls."
"It isn"t wisdom, your Honor; I only want to tell the truth."
"That too one must be able to hear, Miss Elke."
The girl let her dark eyes glance sideways, as if she wanted to make sure that there were no superfluous ears about: "Your Honor," she began then, and her breast heaved with a stronger motion, "my G.o.dfather, Jewe Manners, told you that Hauke Haien owned only about twenty acres; that is quite true in this moment, but as soon as it will be necessary, Hauke will call his own just so many more acres as my father"s, now my own farm, contains. All that together ought to be enough for a dikemaster."
Old Manners stretched his white head toward her, as if he had to see who was talking there: "What is that?" he said; "child, what are you talking about?"
But Elke pulled a gleaming gold ring on a black ribbon out of her bodice: "I am engaged, G.o.dfather Manners," she said; "here is my ring, and Hauke Haien is my betrothed."
"And when--I think I may ask that, as I held you at your baptism, Elke Volkerts--when did that happen?"
"That happened some time ago; but I was of age, G.o.dfather Manners," she said; "my father"s health had already fallen off, and as I knew him, I thought I had better not get him excited over this; now that he is with G.o.d, he will see that his child is in safekeeping with this man. I should have kept still about it through the year of mourning; but for the sake of Hauke and of the diked-in land, I had to speak." And turning to the dikemaster general, she added: "Your Honor will please forgive me."
The three men looked at one another; the pastor laughed, the old overseer limited himself to a "hm, hm!" while the dikemaster general rubbed his forehead as if he were about to make an important decision.
"Yes, dear miss," he said at last, "but how about marriage property rights here in this district? I must confess I am not very well versed in these things at this moment in all this confusion."
"You don"t need to be, your Honor," replied the daughter of the dikemaster, "before my wedding I shall make my goods over to my betrothed. I have my little pride too," she added smiling; "I want to marry the richest man in the village."
"Well, Manners," said the pastor, "I think you, as G.o.dfather, won"t mind if I join the young dikemaster with the old one"s daughter!"