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.”

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