One of Life's Slaves

Chapter 4

A STOLEN INTERVIEW

Holman made his usual turn into Selvig's public-house every evening to

brace himself for his return home. When the ale-bottle had been emptied,

and a proper number of drams consumed, his at first hurried, restless

look was stiffened into a dull, staring, fixed mask. It was the crust

about his heart, far within the unconscious, degraded man, who enjoyed

his daily hour of oblivion to that life-struggle which he had taken upon

himself when he chose to unite his lot inseparably with that of his

duty-breathing wife, that life-struggle in which he continually declared

"pass," and turned aside. When he sat there silently staring over his

glass, it was felt that he was brooding over something, possibly only

the number of drams he had drunk, possibly his bill, possibly, too, a

remote world of thought, where, like a philosopher, he gazed silently

down into unfathomable depths. Or possibly he was musing in silent

resignation upon the problem of matrimony, and the strange law of

consequence which had set him down here in the public-house.

But regularity in all things, said Holman, and when the clock struck

eight, with his tools in his hand and his head bent, he turned his

faltering steps homewards.

On Saturday evenings, when work was over at the workshop, a tall, active

young girl, with large wrists, thin arms and a stooping figure, would

often come down to fetch him. She had a basket, and a piece of paper on

which was written what she was to buy with the week's wages.

The two would then go up the street together, walking slower and slower

as they went. Time after time he would stop, and look thoughtfully about

him with one hand in his pocket, and an occasionally ejaculated "H'm,

h'm!"--until they arrived at Mrs. Selvig's steps and green door, when he

would suddenly declare that he had some "things" lying in there: he

would be out again directly.

Silla knew by experience what "directly" meant, and meanwhile went her

own way over the yards.

Through the lovely August evening, one troop of workmen after another

came over the bridge near the mouth of the river, several of them with

the same sort of escort as her father, of wife or child. It was so usual

and its meaning so self-evident, that no one ever gave it a thought.

While the different gates and yards were emitting their streams of

workmen, Silla had approached one of the narrow passages with which the

loading places are furrowed. On each side was a wooden hoarding, and

there were stacks of timber within. The irregularly cut up, black muddy

roadway led into a forge and implement yard.

Just at the corner lay a heap of rubbish, full of broken bottles and

pottery. She stood there with her basket, every now and then taking a

step backwards, up the heap, to make room for passers-by. In this way

she gained the top of the heap, and could see over the hoarding into the

yard.

They were still busy receiving wages in there in a crowd round a little

shed which did duty as an office.

With outstretched neck, and her two shining dark eyes turned almost like

a bird's, she stood and looked eagerly in. There was no mistake about

her object.

"Well, lass! are you looking for your sweetheart?" said a voice below.

But, as she at that moment caught sight of Nikolai, and he signalled to

her, she took no notice of the voice, and waved her basket vigorously.

He came out down the passage, unwashed and sooty, straight from his

work.

"He's gone now!"

"Who?"

"He had red hair, and had on blue braces and a sailmaker's cap. I think

it was the man from Gr***** they call Ottersnake; and he accused me of

standing here and looking for my sweetheart!"

"I'll sweetheart him! If I only get hold of him, I'll hammer him into

nails! And then I'll pull his red hair to oakum, so that his father will

only need to put it into the pitch-kettle!"

He looked about; but as the Ottersnake, who was doomed to so cruel and

terrible a fate, was nowhere to be seen, his wrath suddenly subsided,

and with an upward movement of the head, he proposed:

"Baker Ring's, Silla?"

He had his week's wages in his pocket, so they made a short cut through

two or three muddy back yards, which had planks laid down across the

worst places, up to the baker's shop.

Oh, how they bought, and how they did eat!

There were some specially delicious expensive cakes with jam inside. And

it was the two collars, that he had thought of buying for himself next

week, that they ate up!

With a great feeling of his own importance Nikolai related how he had

now forged six large iron hooks with links to them; and she must not

imagine that they wanted nothing but hammering--no, they had to be

hammered out and beaten and bent at the right time! Down there they only

made stakes and picks and tires; but he meant to be either a locksmith

or a brazier.

This did not interest Silla very much; she wanted to hear about the

picnic on Sunday, when he had gone to the woods with the journeymen. It

must have been awfully jolly! And didn't they dance too?

"I should just think they did. Anders Berg is a capital fellow; he's

going to set up for himself in Svelvig soon, and get married."

"And were the others engaged, too?"

"Pshaw!"

"Well?"

"Pooh!"

"What's the matter with you? Can't you tell me?"

"Why, it's nothing--only nonsense! There's not one of them that'll make

a smith's wife--creatures that have larks now with one fellow and now

with another?"

"And did you dance?"

"Oh, the 'prentices have only to run after beer; but when I'm a

journeyman--but, Silla, the time--we must hurry!" he broke off suddenly.

"Oh, it's not late yet. One more nice one with jam--do go in and buy it!

Oh, do, Nikolai!" she begged, and as he ran in to get what she wanted,

she called after him:

"And some sweets to eat on the way home--some of those at four for a

halfpenny."

"Can't you eat it as you go along, Silla?" he urged, when he came out

again; "you must make haste! Just think if she heard at home that you

had been with me."

"Pooh, there's no hurry," and she leaned against the wall, and regaled

herself--"for you see," she mumbled, "father won't be out of Mrs.

Selvig's yet a-while, and I'll say first of all that _that_ has kept me:

I can reckon at least half an hour for that. And then to mother I have

the excuse that it's Saturday evening, and there were so many people in

the shop that I could hardly get to the counter. And when I won't have

any supper, you know, I'll only say I've got such a headache with

standing and waiting in the shop: it was so stifling in there. I think

mother's nose would be very fine, if she could guess that I had met you.

Well, what are you looking so solemn about?"

"She at home"--he never named her mother in any other fashion--"forces

you into lies every single day; no one has a right to speak the truth

but her!"

"Oh!" she tossed her head impatiently; she had heard this so often.

"She eats up all the honesty in the room by herself, you know, for it's

quite impossible to act honestly by her, for very terror. She keeps

discipline, and much or little, it's all the same. Any one who wants to

speak the truth without using his fists to back it up will get thrashed

as I did! It doesn't matter for me; but when I think of you going home

and making up all those lies again, and that you are so frightened, and

haven't the strength to stand against them, Silla!"

She tried to laugh and make light of it; but her face fell sadly. She

could not bear this unpleasant subject, for she was obliged to tell

lies, however angry he might be.

And then she suddenly began to hurry.

"No, no, we must go home, Nikolai. I daren't stand here any longer."

Nikolai was starting off, but stopped suddenly at sight of Silla's

dismayed countenance. She had turned her pocket inside out, and stood

holding it while she gazed and searched on the ground round her. Then,

in feverish haste, she unfastened her bodice, and searched there.

"The money! Oh, the money, Nikolai!" she cried anxiously, and went on

shaking her skirt and looking about her, almost beside herself. "The

silver was wrapped up in the two dollar notes, just as father gave them

to me, and I put them into my pocket at once."

"What _shall_ I do, Nikolai?" She began to cry, but all at once, with a

sudden thought, she flew to the basket. But it was not there.

They searched and searched.

Of course it must be at the corner by the rubbish-heap, for she had

stood there and waved her basket. It would be lying among the broken

bottles.

The pale, thin rim of the autumn moon had risen over the yards while

they were searching there step by step, Silla every now and then

uttering a despondent, monotonous "Suppose I don't find it!" and Nikolai

plunging his arm up to the elbow into puddles in which the roll of money

might have fallen.

They had been by the bridge, they had searched the rubbish-heap, they

had looked up and down and everywhere; it was not to be found.

It was beginning to be late, and Mrs. Holman was waiting at home. She

would be really waiting now.

Silla began to cry.

Nikolai had only asked her once or twice to be quiet, and he would find

the money. Now he suddenly said:

"I should like to give you another good feed of cakes to-day, and then

throw myself into the sea with you, Silla. It would be no lie that we

lay there."

Whether his proposition was meant seriously or not, it did not gain a

hearing with her. She sat hopeless and despairing on a log while the big

tears ran down her cheeks.

The seventeen-year-old workshop apprentice stood thoughtfully, with his

flat cap pushed back over his rough hair, blackened by the week's work.

He was gazing intently into an old rotten hole in the log. The hole

became more and more rotten, more and more hollow, more and more empty

while his busy thoughts were trying to find an expedient. But none came.

Fully aware of her fate, Silla rose, took her basket, and started

homewards with her eyes fixed on the ground. She was going to the

scaffold. Nikolai accompanied her as far as he dared, reiterating in

different ways: "Don't be afraid, Silla, they can't kill you!"

Something like a low wail said that she heard him.

When she disappeared round the corner, he made a short cut which only he

and one or two old yard cats knew of; and from the hoarding at the

bottom of the square he saw her go, with bent head and the same quiet

step, without stopping, down the cellar stairs.

When it was dark, he stood outside the window and listened. He heard her

still sobbing quietly, after the storm that had passed over her.

Mrs. Holman had examined and cross-examined, and at last extracted from

Silla the confession that she had been with Nikolai. That she, Mrs.

Holman's daughter, in spite of all prohibitions, sought the society of

that misled prodigal, who had rewarded her with such ingratitude, was

enough to bring her to her grave. And no one would persuade her either

that Holman's hardly-earned week's wages could vanish like steam from a

kettle. A half-starved apprentice-boy, walking beside a well-filled

pocket--any one could understand what the result of that would be.

Master Nikolai had only carefully and craftily watched his time, when he

knew that Silla had her father's money in her pocket, to get it shuffled

into his own.

Matters were not improved by Silla in her obstinacy declaring that he

had not so much as seen the money--as if Nikolai would take a farthing

from _her_!

This last remark sealed his fate--there should be no concealment of his

conduct on Mrs. Holman's part.

There was a commotion in the forge-yard, when the nest day a

police-officer came and arrested Nikolai. He was to be taken to the

police-station for having defrauded a young girl on Saturday evening of

the whole of her father's week's wages.

But when they were gone, Anders Berg swore, as he brought the

sledge-hammer down on the anvil, that that Nikolai had never done. The

others--Jan Peter, and Katrinus, and Bernt Johan Jakobsen and Petter

Evensen--they thought nothing; but to bring the police into a

respectable work-yard! He had better get work in some other place after

this!

For the first moment Nikolai had only one sensation--the paralysing fear

by which a first acquaintance with the police is always accompanied. The

feeling that he had a good conscience did indeed leap up within him, but

only to die away again immediately. He had so often had that, and it had

always proved to be too thin a sheet of ice to stand upon in the hour of

trial. That kind of self-esteem was a plant which had too often been

trodden under Mrs. Holman's heel to be able to bloom now as a fragrant,

full-blown flower within him.

The outcome of his reflections was a sudden twist and a violent jerk, by

which he hoped to escape from his inconvenient companion, the sole

result, however, being that he immediately had a constable at each arm.

When brought up for examination before the police superintendent, a

dark, unwilling defiance glowed in his face, and the sharp glance--too

sharp for a lad of his age--did not prepossess any one in his favour.

Silla? He had not been with any Silla on Saturday.

It would never occur to him to betray her, and it was only when he was

confronted with her and her mother, and heard that she had confessed,

that he admitted it.

Silla continued to maintain, in a voice choked with tears, that he had

not taken the money, but this proved nothing either for or against him.

On the other hand what had more weight were the facts that had been

elucidated on ransacking and examining the room in which he lodged--he

lived in a garret at glazier Olsen's with three other apprentices--for

they all agreed in saying that on the Saturday in question he had come

home late, after they were asleep, and had gone out again very early on

the Sunday morning.

The assertion of the accused that this was to renew the search for the

lost money down by the yard did not seem very credible. But it was

impossible to get any nearer to him.

A hardened young rascal. This was his foster-mother's testimony too.

Nikolai stood with his cap in his hand, looking down at the floor. He

had a habit of drawing the skin of his forehead up and down when he was

meditating. In the broad, young face with the large features, the grey

eyes into which there sometimes came a peculiar look, and the c**k's

comb, of a tinge between zinc and copper, the police inspector's

penetrating and--after many year's practice--not easily deceived eye saw

the marks of one who would probably in the future often give occupation

to the police.

"In order to exclude the possibility of conferences with the other

apprentices in his room," he dictated for the record, "considering that

the accused has manifested _mala fides_ by an attempt to escape, as well

as by his untruthful conduct and denials under examination, he will, for

the present, be placed under arrest."

As the words of the order were read out, there were a few involuntary

contractions of the muscles in Nikolai's face, which was damp with

perspiration; there quivered in it the poor man's curse, at never having

a way of escape; a false step, and he is caught, a lost dollar, and he

comes before the court.

After another examination Nikolai was acquitted for want of evidence.

The morning when the prison door closed behind him, he slunk down the

street with a feeling that all the windows on both sides were looking at

him; it was anything but the gait of one who can let his honesty's sun

shine once more.

Down at his lodging at Mrs. Olsen's he found his few things put ready in

the cupboard under the stairs to be fetched away, and a message was left

that his place in the garret was occupied by some one else.

He did not ask why. Mrs. Olsen's silence hurt him more than if she had

cried aloud about people who drew on her "an examination and search of

the house, and other disturbances."

And then he had to go down and show himself at the forge again--to

H***** the master, and Anders Berg, and the journeymen, and all the

apprentices.

It was with uncertain steps and stopping time after time. What did

Anders Berg think, he wondered.

In a fit of despondency he half turned. But he must do it. So he held up

his head and began to whistle. But as he neared the coal-begrimed wooden

palings of the work-yard the whistling ceased, and he was in a cold

perspiration when he entered the gate.

Without saying a word he went to the coal-bin and began to lift some

bars of pig-iron which had to be moved aside. While he did so, no one

either greeted or spoke to him.

Anders Berg had an iron in the furnace, and it was not until he and

another man had finished hammering it out, that he came up to Nikolai

and said:

"I was sure you would come back again. Here's some work for you; you can

file these three keys."

Whereupon Nikolai was placed at one of the vices, and was soon busily at

work with both coarse and fine files.

Anders Berg's words had done him such good, had placed him at once as it

were on his feet before the whole workshop, and in his heart he made a

vow of friendship and devotion to Anders Berg for ever.

There were showers of sparks and a ringing from the sledge-hammers in

the large smithy, and sharp blows of hammers, while the files shrieked

and whistled and set one's teeth on edge. The work went on and Nikolai

thought he had never known until to-day how splendid it was to be a

smith. He might as well do the key-bit with the fine file at once, while

the key was on that side of the vice; and he filed the notch as neatly

and smoothly as if it had been intended for a chest of drawers, and not

a great pipeless key for a wooden gate.

Now came the handle. He worked away with the coarse file, until he could

scarcely hear the sledge-hammer for its shrieking.

At the anvil stood a man making clincher nails, while one of the

apprentices pulled the bellows and occasionally gathered the nails

together. They were talking and laughing, and now and again some loud

exclamation penetrated to Nikolai. It was only when the boy made a

grimace at him, that it occurred to Nikolai that he was the subject of

the conversation, and instantly the large file became quite light in his

hand, and he had suddenly eyes and ears only for what was going on

around him.

They were standing talking and nodding over there by the vices; Jan

Peter ran and repeated what this one said and what the other one said.

It was easy to see what the meaning of it all was, and that he now stood

there like any show animal; no, like something much worse--like one who

was capable of going to the pockets of any one of them!

There was not one of the apprentices who would share his night's lodging

with him now. He could see that.

He stood straining his ears, with a feeling that they were killing him

in all the work-yards round--they were filing him down at the vices,

hammering him flat with the small hammers, and crushing him with the

sledge-hammers. He guessed and understood glances and looks.

"Well, you know, Matthias," he heard from away there by the nails which

the man was now gathering into his apron, "there are many easier trades

than standing in a smithy: make a good pick out of your fists, lad!"

"He-he-he!" laughed the boy addressed.

"Or make yourself pincers that you can get down into skirt-pockets

with--all the lassies in the town, lad, that have any pence."

Nikolai heard every word and the hoarse laughter that followed; he was

very pale.

Coarse merriment shone in the man's sooty face, and, as their eyes met,

he made a contemptuous grimace.

Soon after he came past with his apron full of nails. Their eyes met

again; the scornful ones grew more scornful; Nikolai seemed to see them

in a haze, and then the journeyman received a blow full in the face

which laid him on his back, scattering the nails as he fell.

There was a short pause of surprise before they all rushed upon him.

But Nikolai swung the big file about him like a madman. He felt with

frenzied pleasure, how he would strike--strike down the whole smithy one

by one until justice was done him. Wait a little, he had only begun

yet--a hammer was lying on the block.

But the men in the smithy did not wait, and the next moment it was he

who lay on his back, his eyes blinded by blue and yellow sparks, and as

many of his adversaries around and upon him as there was room for; he

should be held fast and sent about his business now--he had used a

weapon!

He felt a powerful grasp on his coat collar, a grasp that included the

skin, felt himself dragged up and, without a pause, half carried, half

flung, out of the smithy door.

It was Anders Berg, who had exerted his power to rescue him, and

who--still only slightly relaxing his hold--led him out of the gate.

It was his farewell to the smithy.

"I'll just tell you something," exclaimed Anders Berg later, when the

commotion had subsided; he was still red in the face and spoke loudly,

while he hammered cold.

"There's come a wrong bend in Nikolai; but it isn't his fault!"

The hammer rang on the iron.

Nikolai did not take a lodging anywhere that evening; he was too bruised

and dirty for that, his clothes too torn and ragged, and, more than

anything else, he felt too sore to meet people now that he had left the

smithy in such a way.

When night fell, he had once more taken up his familiar quarters in one

of the stacks of planks down at the timber-yard. There, in one of the

deep square spaces he lay and looked up at the stars and thought how

entertaining the world had become!