One of Life's Slaves Part 10

To every one comes a time when he is surrounded by a l.u.s.tre, and that blockmaker Holman had existed was something which was really properly understood--perhaps by his wife too--only after he had disappeared from the scene.

The fact is, that it makes a great difference to a household whether it has the husband's work and weekly wages to subsist upon or not, and as a further aggravation of the situation, her dead husband's bill at Mrs.

Selvig's thrust its extremely unexpected, unwelcome face into Mrs.

Holman's room. Mrs. Holman could never get into her head that that bill was correct--why, Holman had had his fixed, regular pocket-money!

Mrs. Holman's bitter observations were numerous when she found herself compelled to choose between want and seeking work.

She had known to a pin's point how she would employ her husband's earnings in her own room, and occupied herself also with the way in which others might have things in theirs. During all these years, she had, so to speak, sat comfortably on the top of the load and driven; but now, unfortunately, the day had come when she herself must get down and draw--and that she felt herself less fitted for.

It was when brought into this critical situation that Mrs. Holman thought that if an exertion was ever to be made, it must be made now--by whom, she left unsaid. To this end she availed herself of her acquaintance with Consul Veyergang to get her daughter Silla taken into his factory. Unemployed hands must have something to do, and it would, at any rate, yield some small compensation for the weekly money lost with her husband. If she then stayed at home and kept house well, and in addition mended and took in was.h.i.+ng when it came in her way, no one would venture to charge Mrs. Holman with not knowing how to do her duty during these hard days.

And she still discharged this duty of hers by strictly keeping Silla from pa.s.sing her leisure time in idleness, which was dangerous for young people. Sewing and darning and patching all the evening--there could be no better way of being trained in steadiness.

But it was just while Silla sat and sewed and darned and patched in the evening by the low oil-lamp that the dancing and gaiety were best carried on in her head, and that all Kristofa's and her friends'

word-pictures transformed themselves into actual experiences. Bubble after bubble, the one more wonderful than the other, floated up or burst right in front of Mrs. Holman's nose, while she sat knitting. She saw nothing, only wondered a little sometimes what there could be to smile and laugh at in the heel of a stocking.

CHAPTER VII

"THE WORLD IS RIGHT ENOUGH AFTER ALL"

Down in Haegberg'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."]

Haegberg was going about with his leather ap.r.o.n 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 Haegberg!

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 Haegberg's smithy again to complete his years of apprentices.h.i.+p.

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

Haegberg 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 hoa.r.s.e, 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 Haegberg 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."