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 Haegberg’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.