One of Life's Slaves

Chapter 7

"THE WORLD IS RIGHT ENOUGH AFTER ALL"

Down in H*****'s smithy it looked as if it were going to be not only

blue Monday,[2] but blank Tuesday too. With the exception of one

solitary figure, it was black and empty. Outside the door a row of iron

picks, spades and crowbars, were waiting to be sharpened for the navvies

on the new harbour works.

[Footnote 2: An extra day's holiday taken by workmen after the lawful

bank holiday is called "blue Monday"; if still another follows, it is

called "blank Tuesday."]

H***** was going about with his leather apron hanging down over one

shoulder, as furious as a Berserk. There were no respectable men and

apprentices to be had nowadays; but he would give them notice man by

man, as sure as his name was H*****!

One was standing there grinding. And he had stood there quite alone,

filing with all his might at his journeyman's probation work, the whole

of St. John's day yesterday. That's how it is: one goes on the spree,

and another pinches and is so stingy about his money, that he would

willingly lay his soul in the fire for it. The fellow was a good enough

workman, to be sure, and if he had not had that affair with the police,

then--yes, no--no, yes, to be sure, he was acquitted of that, so he was!

The person in question was Nikolai, who had entered H*****'s smithy

again to complete his years of apprenticeship.

Ah, at last! There came two men sauntering over the yard to the smithy.

H***** turned round and pretended not to see them; on consideration, it

was not the time to part with one's men. He only went up himself and

took one of the crowbars out of the forge; and when the two culprits

arrived, he stood there, tall, lean, strong, and grey-haired, hammering

so that the sparks flew.

This piece of work, unworthy of the master, spoke louder than the

angriest reproaches, and when in silence he flung the crowbar down, and

began sharpening a pick, it was sufficiently evident that there was

thunder in the air.

By degrees during the morning they arrived, with staring eyes, beating

temples, and faces either pale or red from being up all night, one with

a swollen eye, another with a plaster across his nose. Their voices were

hoarse, and they each went silently to work. They must exert themselves

if they were to get through all the tool-work that remained.

Work went on uninterruptedly almost the whole afternoon, without a word

being spoken over the whole smithy. By that time most of the work had

been got through, and H***** himself went out to do business in the

town.

Those who were left at work shone with perspiration, and either because

work had been the best cure for the excesses of the preceding Midsummer

Day and Midsummer Eve, or it was the general relief at the departure of

the master, one man began suddenly to sing, a couple more to yawn and

stretch themselves lazily in the enjoyment of their pleasant

recollections; and then the talk began about the way they had each spent

their holiday.

Only Nikolai went on undisturbed; he cared more about a screw-hole in

the hinge on his probation work than all their Midsummer Eve outings,

and if he only worked away now, it would be finished by the end of the

month.

His small hammer sounded above their talk,--the tar-barrels, wood-stacks

and old house-walls that they had burnt, and their drinking and

merriment until they had not a penny left,--haw-haw!

The hammer rang above it all.

Jan Peter had gone in a boat over to the islands, and seen so many

bonfires,[3] both there and on the hills round, that it was impossible

to count them.

[Footnote 3: It is the custom in Norway on Midsummer Eve to burn large

bonfires, which can be seen for many miles round.]

Yes, when a fellow's drunk!

The hammer went on again.

One man stretched himself and yawned with the whole Midsummer holiday in

his jaws. "Up on Grefsen ridge, cold punch had flowed down the hill as

good as free. Veyergang's son had given the girls at the factory an old

boat from Maridal Lake and half a barrel of pitch; heard the cuckoo and

had larks all night--came down again when it was nearly eight o'clock."

The hammer rang no longer.

"Veyergang's son--the girls at Veyergang's factory!" Nikolai stood,

anxious and uncertain, listening, and now and again glancing quickly and

sharply over at the man who was speaking.

Then he washed off the soot, and disappeared.

* * * * *

Silla had been down to the Valsets' cottage to fetch the customary

evening pint of milk, when at the gate she met Nikolai. He said he had

seen her go in, but she knew quite well that he had been watching for

her.

"You can't think what fun I had on Midsummer Eve, Nikolai!" she said,

holding out the can by the handle towards him. "If you only knew! No,

never in all my life!"

"Up on Grefsen ridge?"

"How did you know; tell me, how did you know?"

"Oh, I--one of the smiths was up there. But I can't understand how you

could get away from her at home."

"No, it was a near chance, too, I can tell you!" She looked round, and

said in a cautious whisper: "Mother doesn't know but that I lay and

turned over in my bed at home all Midsummer night. She went to eat St.

John's porridge with aunt out at Asker, and I was to stay at home, and

iron; but at nine o'clock, I said good-bye and went my way. Oh

Nikolai!"--she clapped her hands, laughing--"you should have heard how

she scolded yesterday morning when she came back, because I was still in

bed! Did you hear that we were treated to punch, too?"

"Who gave it you?"

"Ah, wouldn't you like to know! But, Nikolai, you won't tell. It was a

certain person who treated us."

"Indeed!"

"He came up to see that they did not light the bonfire too near the

wood. Yes, you must know, Nikolai, that it was no less a person than

young Veyergang! There was a Midsummer party at his father's, and they

were to see the fire from the stairs at exactly half-past eleven.

"And then he treated them to punch? You too?"

"It was just me! 'Her with the black eyes,' he said."

"Perhaps he has spoken to you before, too?"

"Yes, indeed; he knows perfectly well that my name is Silla. I meet him

every single day, you must know."

Nikolai made a movement as if he were bringing down a hammer on the

hillside. "Indeed!"

"Last Saturday in the office, when he had reckoned a _krone_ too much in

the pass-book, he said I could keep it and spend it on cakes."

"Ha! ha! Did he say that? Wonderful, how kind he is!" Nikolai said this

with something that was meant for laughter. "The cook is very kind, too,

when she feeds the goose so as to get hold of it!"

He stood with one arm round the gate-post, looking at her; she had grown

so pretty and elegant, and almost taller since he had seen her last. "A

young girl who doesn't even know that she is pretty."

Silla pouted; her whole expression was one of supercilious disavowal.

"If they offer her a cake, or a handkerchief, or a little fun, she

stretches out her neck and runs up. I should think you might understand

that, Silla, from all you see round you! How many of them, I should like

to know, will ever come to be the wife of an honest working-man? They

manage to dance a few times, and then it's all over. And they wanted to

be just as kind to you now, Silla! That Veyergang is on the watch for

you! If I'm not on the watch for him----" He suddenly looked pale and

ugly.

"What are you thinking of, Nikolai? Don't go on like that!"

"You may well say what was I thinking of, to stand there grinding

and filing away the whole month at my probation work, and then let you

go up there among that pack of wolves. But I was born like that--that

everything should go wrong with me!"

Silla stood, as she always did when Nikolai put on this tone, downcast

and dispirited, her slender figure bending forwards, and her eyes on the

ground.

"We two, Silla," he continued at length, with a shake as if of

resolution, but his voice trembled--"we two have been, as it were,

brought up together. And with things as they were, if they could make me

go wrong, it would have been still easier for you to be twisted by them,

for I was strong, you see; but you were weak, and had always to creep

like a cat among lies and difficulties. And so--so--I thought that we

two--who have always stood by one another--and I haven't had anyone else

I could trust, as you know, Silla, and neither have you--that we should

join hands. And if you're of the same mind, then----"

He had clasped his broad hands round the gate-post, and was squeezing it

with all the strength of his square-set figure, while he waited for her

answer. He gazed at her bent head, but she did not look up; and he drew

a deep breath, for he felt that he must go on.

"And now I've got together a little money, and not bought anything, and

have filed and filed away at my probation work; because when I become

journeyman, and another year has passed, and I've laid by a little,

then--then it might be that you could get away from the factory dirt and

the ordering at home both at once, and be a real smith's wife, Silla.

You've never had any one to take care of you as I've done, you know; and

you don't know how good I'll be to you! For a fellow who hasn't had

either father or mother, and since I was up at the police-station I

haven't had many companions either--" But here his emotion overpowered

him.

"Such an uncommonly pretty smith's wife you would make, Silla! If any

one has eyes for a smith, it's you; they are like sparks in the fire!

And then to come home and see only the top of your pretty little black

head at the room door! In spite of having always been treated like a

dog, and worse than that--like a thief, it would all be nothing at all,

if that was how it could end. One's own room with a lock on the door and

the chest, that would be something better than being dragged round a

dancing-hall, Silla, by fine fellows and sailors."

The last words, which were uttered in warm excitement, would have been

better left unsaid; for, from standing melted and overcome, with tears

in her eyes, she suddenly fired up against the accusation.

"Do you want to deny me a little pleasure, too, Nikolai? I'm not to see

any one, not to go anywhere. Oh no! I'm to be a girl who has never

danced, a regular queer bird, that's first been kept in a cage by her

mother, and then by----" her voice quivered, and she began to cry. "Is

that what you call being kind to me, Nikolai? You must be trying to make

me afraid of you, too!"

"Afraid of me?--of me, Silla?"

"Don't they all look upon me as a baby that's tied to her mother's

apron-strings? And now you come and want to help her, Nikolai. That's

right! That's right! Only keep me in! Oh yes, you and mother! It's only

a question of who gets the power over me. But you'd better take care,

Nikolai!"

She began to cry bitterly in impotent rage.

"Oh, well, cry away! I won't say anything. You've got some one else to

comfort you for a little while," he added moodily.

She suddenly sprang up, went up to him, and laid her arm confidingly on

his shoulder.

"Don't you _know_ that I'll be your wife, Nikolai?" she said, looking

full and ardently into his eyes; there were still tears on her dark,

freckled face.

"Well, if you will, Silla, you shall see who can work."

"But mother, Nikolai! Oh, I'm so frightened--so frightened only that

she'll get to know that we sometimes meet. She looks at me so hard every

time I've been an errand, and I've always been gone so long. But when

I sit darning and patching of an evening, I sometimes imagine that you

come in so fine and rich, and that you own the whole of H*****'s

smithy, so that mother has to give in."

"No, do you think about that, Silla? Then I will come. She'll have to

give in like smoke, if I come only with my credentials, and my honest

trade as well."

What was it that had happened that light, hazy, summer evening, when the

waterfall thundered out beneath the bridge, when the trees seemed to

swell with new budding leaves, and the sun glittered on the windows here

and there? Was he intoxicated, or was it the evening that had taken an

extra Midsummer carouse? The last he saw of Silla was that she hurried

homewards with her can, and that she had looked round at him, as she

turned into the road among the houses.

The world was right enough after all. When he reckoned it up properly,

it was not at all so unreasonable, even if the lock did sometimes get

out of order; and then--well, then one had to be both strong and

neat-handed to get it open again.

No, it was right enough. You only see that when you get inside, and so

there must be police and masters and order in everything, so that it can

lock.

Nikolai stood riveting and meditating down in the smithy. He had now got

his journeyman's credentials, and everything was rose-colour. The fact

that he and the world were becoming reconciled showed in shining

characters over the whole of his broad face. His short, strong figure

moved with a newly-acquired, quick confidence at his work.

He worked now for journeyman's wages, and could save up a nice little

sum each week. One fortunate circumstance in the case was that he never

dared make Silla a present of anything, neither handkerchiefs nor

anything else, because of Mrs. Holman. A penny saved is a penny gained,

and she should have it all in good time.

On Saturday evenings, as soon as he had had a little wash in the

cooling-water, he took his way up towards the manufacturing part of the

town. He carried his hammer and pincers, and an iron plate or a lock in

his hand; he must look as if he were engaged in his lawful work. And

then came the chance whether on his way up or down he caught a glimpse

of Silla.

It was quite a chance, and it sometimes happened that he just met Mrs.

Holman instead. He must put up with that; at any rate, he looked right

into the street there, in the cluster of houses where Silla walked

several times a day. But what he found more difficult to put up with

was, that on those occasions when he was fortunate, she was walking

arm-in-arm with two or three other factory-girls, so that he scarcely

got more than the one glimpse and short nod from her before they turned

in now here, now there.

What did she want to go loitering about in the evening with those

dissipated girls for? Was that the sort of thing for Silla? She was

neither old enough nor wise enough to understand what she was getting

mixed up in, and what a fine gentleman meant who nodded to her--for the

sake of her pretty eyes. Amuse themselves? Yes, go round in the mill,

until they come out crushed and ground!

No! She must come out of this.

And so he must work away with his file, and add one week's earnings to

another, until he had made the silver hook large enough to draw her to

him.

Yes, once she was with him!--he forgot himself in thoughts about

house-rent and wedding outlay.