298 Hans Brinker

“ Yes, but not for you, my lad. I must wait for the grand-
children. Why, you are nearly a man. Have you helped
your mother, boy, through all these years?”

“¢ Ay, and bravely !”” put in Dame Brinker.

«Let me see,” muttered the father, looking in a puzzled
way at them all: “ how long is it since the night when the
waters were coming in? ’Tis the last I remember.”

“We have told thee true, Raff. It was ten years last
Pinxter-week.”

“Ten years—and I fell then, you say. Has the fever
been on me ever since?”

Dame Brinker scarce knew how to reply. Should she tell
him all? Tell him that he had been an idiot, almost a
lunatic? The doctor had charged her on no account to
worry or excite his patient.

Hans and Gretel looked astonished when the answer came.

“© Like enough, Raff,’ she said, nodding her head, and
raising her eyebrows. ‘ When a heavy man like thee falls
on his head, it’s hard to say what will come. But thou’rt
well now, Raff. Thank the good Lord!”

The newly awakened man bowed his head.

« Ay, well enough, mine vroww,” he said, after a moment’s
silence ; “but my brain turns, somehow, like a spinning-wheel. .
Tt will not be right till I get on the dikes again. When shall
I be at work, think you?” ;

“Hear the man!” cried Dame Brinker, delighted, yet
frightened, too, for that matter. “ We must get him on the
bed, Hans. Work, indeed !”

They tried to raise him from the chair; but he was not
ready yet.

“Be off with ye!” he said, with something like his old