One of Life's Slaves Part 7

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 s.p.a.ces he lay and looked up at the stars and thought how entertaining the world had become!

CHAPTER V

AMONG THE UNEMPLOYED

Nikolai was out of work, that was very certain.

It never entered his head to present himself at any other smithy: they all knew each other too well for that. And even at barge-builder Hansen's, where he got a lodging up in the tool-loft, and his food on the days when he got a chance of doing something useful, they wanted to know now why he had left his trade. As if that were any business of theirs!

So Nikolai suddenly disappeared.

On the quay, the harbour and the steamers, a fellow with his hands could surely get on just as well as any other.

It was with fresh and dauntless courage, though with a stomach not overladen with food during the last few days, that he went down there.

He was received with a certain appreciative admiration. He found that it was a well-known fact that he had had an encounter with the police, and had been sufficiently dexterous to get off without their being able to fix anything upon him; the news of such an exploit travels like wild-fire in that world, and spreads a halo around its subject.

And as long as he was supposed to be only an idler, or an apprentice who was airing himself and taking a day or two's holiday from the smithy, the shareholders in the different businesses down there were both agreeable and talkative. But when--and that not once only--he suddenly turned to, and darted over the landing-stage from the steamer with a large trunk on his back and a traveller at his heels, past the cabs up to the hotel, they quite changed their tone. Had he a badge? Or did he think perhaps, that it would do to take other people's business? They knew very well what sort of a fellow he was!

He was well aware that he could not get a badge, so he must get along as he best could by working and toiling and fighting for an empty stomach, and make his way by threats and with his fists, and--when it was a case of being entrusted with a burden, or getting first hold of a trunk--by being deaf, stone-deaf, to everything they might think of calling out about him.

There were ten men to every job requiring one, and, as it were, a wall or circle drawn round every road to earning something. Some small jobs he might now and then chance to be alone in--when the lock of a door had slipped, or the door came off its hinges, or some kind of smithcraft was required at a moment's notice. But he gained no more than a bare subsistence, often only a dram or two by way of thanks.

And now that it had been such a long winter, he was both hungry and cold. The nights especially were so long. He often took spirits for his supper to get them to pa.s.s. And then he had to think over what he would try his hand at the next day--cutting the ice, work on the quay, clearing away snow or carrying planks in the yard.

Thinly-clad and with no overcoat, and rather red with the cold, he clattered down in a coat that was in holes at the elbows, and his old scarf that had taken its hue from the smithy, pulled high up about his ears. It was not difficult to see in him the smith's apprentice.

Whenever he met any of Haegberg's men, he burst into a scornful laugh.

Did they think, perhaps, that he was slovenly clad? It was just as he was now, that he wanted to be. He wanted to be free and have neither master nor journeyman nor any one over him, and to care for n.o.body.

If the forge-yard was one point that he preferred to keep away from, there were also other places in the town that he made a round to avoid--namely, that part of the quay where the blockmaker's workshop lay, and the Holmans' house up in the square.

Whatever the reason might be, he had no wish to meet Silla.

The last time he had spoken to her--the day after he had left the smithy--he noticed that she was looking about in a frightened way the whole time, and wanted him to stand first in one place and then in another. It could not be fear of any one at home, and then it suddenly dawned upon him that she was ashamed that people should see her standing and talking to him, so with a "Good-bye, Silla!" he darted from her.

Afterwards he thoroughly enjoyed seeing her look so unhappy and so eager to show him that she did not care what people thought. What did she care about him, when he had nothing to treat her with? It was not fit for her to stand talking to a fellow like him.

There is a splendid friend and ally for every one who has thin, ragged clothes, and that is the sun. He distributes overcoats in the shape of warm, sunny walls, brings life and movement with him, and then there need no longer be any uncertainty about a midday-meal.

Nikolai had had work on the quay the whole morning, and was now standing, in the midday rest, baking himself against the sunny wall, and yawning.

He stopped in the middle of a yawn. That slight figure in the faded cotton dress, that was running with her body bent forwards, and a handkerchief over the little, dark head, to keep off the sun--it was no other than Silla!

She was darting along among the baskets and traffic on the fish-quay; there was a searching haste in her like that of a frightened corn-crake, that turns its head now to one side now to the other as it runs. She had caught sight of him, and now she began calling:

"Nikolai! Nikolai!

"Nikolai!"--she almost choked in her hurry to speak--"Nikolai, just think! Mother, when she was unpicking my old blue dress to-day, she found the money in the lining, inside the lining, both the notes, and the silver too. I ran down to tell you directly I had taken father's dinner to the workshop. And now I'm going to the smithy, and they shall hear what they have done to you. Could you believe it! Inside the lining! I am so awfully, awfully glad"--and her eyes did look almost wild--You can't think what a grave face mother put on!"

"Just tell them at home that it's all the same to me!" said he bitterly and unmelted. But she did not notice it; she wanted to go to the smithy, and away she went.

He had no objection. But now that Anders Berg had set up for himself in Svelvig, there was no one there he cared about, to hear it. For he was a free man now!

He stood with his hands in his trouser pockets, gazing over the edge of the quay at a sunken sugar-loaf, which a crowd of small boys, amid noise and clamour, were labouring to get up. It lay already half melted on the green bottom, on which the sun drew wavy lines.

Silla might try all she could to get him into the smithy. Since they had tacked the word thief on to him, he had got soaked through with salt water, just like the sugar-loaf. And besides, to stand there and slave, when he could be his own----

"Hi, you boys! I'll show you how to get the sugar-loaf up, but you will have to eat it yourselves."

The public-house--the one at Mrs. Selvig's, with the green door and white window frames, farthest down the street--had seen Holman's quiet, subdued, stooping figure come and go for many years. His grasp on the door-handle was just as precise, his walk up to the brown counter after having laid down his tools, exactly the same, though his face had a little more colour in it. He had a certain reputation there, which had allowed of his "chalking up" for several years past, and there was a regular proportion of his account, about which his inexorably correct wife had not the faintest idea--"for Holman had his weekly pocket-money."

And as usual on Sat.u.r.day evenings, Silla was walking about outside with the basket, waiting for him.

She was really quite nicely dressed in her cotton gown with a little white handkerchief tied round her neck; but clothes did not seem to set her off. The slight, overgrown figure seemed to show through everywhere.

She made a quick turn, when she thought she caught a glimpse of Nikolai at the bottom of the street. She had fancied the same thing last Sat.u.r.day evening. She had not really spoken to him since early in the summer, when he got so angry because she wanted him to go into the smithy again.

She went quickly down the street--she was quite certain that it was he!

She hurried on farther, down to the bridge; but it was the same as last time--he was not to be seen. So she turned back again, disappointed, keeping constant watch on Mrs. Selvig's green door. She knew her father would appear as the clock struck eight.

She went up towards it and down again: she began to grow impatient. It must be past the time. They were beginning to shut the shops here and there, and if she was to get anything bought this evening, it would be impossible to wait any longer.

She must really go up and see whether her father were sitting there still--whether he had not perhaps gone when she was down at the bridge: he never mistook the time.