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.