And while he walked beside her, and was glad too, and kind and obliging, and gave up his Saturday afternoon with half a day’s pay, he had, without exactly intending it, spent on a present—­an exceedingly large, gay, flowered silk handkerchief—­as much as it had taken him a fortnight to scrape together; and, besides that, had paid for some fine bread and a ham, which she had to take back with her, and of which she even tried a few goodly slices down in the town by way of afternoon refreshment.

She had an appetite, and she could not be very much accustomed to economising either;—­this was about the sum of the happy, filial comments that Nikolai made to himself after the meeting.  In addition to this, he felt himself unexpectedly lightened of a good deal of money; and it was in a rather dispirited mood that he went up in the evening in the hope of seeing Silla, and telling her of his new happiness.

The whole of that side of the town up under the hill already lay in shadow, and in the oppressively warm evening, labourers were walking with their coats over their shoulders, while sounds of life and noise rose here and there from the shops in the manufacturing district below.

Nikolai had traversed in vain the district surrounding the Valsets’ cottage, keeping constant watch at the same time down the broad high-road, which went past the gate, and the footpath that crept straight across the field down behind it.  Silla was not to be seen.  A girl went with a bucket from the cowshed into the pent-house.  She looked up towards him and laughed, and the consequence was that Nikolai continued his way towards the factory without once turning round.  They must be able to see through the walls in there!  And they had already begun to wonder at his coming there so often.

The waterfall was turned off, so that only a white streak ran over the dam and fell drop by drop upon the wheel.  A cart was rattling along the road in front of him.  Now it stopped to unload; the load was tumbled off with one tilt.  It was mould that they were driving to the garden outside the office building at the factory.

Within the fence were a number of women and girls busily at work.  They were raking, pulling up and planting, while a man followed with a hose; and out of the open window, with his straw hat on his head, hung young Veyergang, and talked.

There stood Mrs. Holman, with arms akimbo, beside one of the black flower-beds, inspecting some plant that she had patted down with her hand; and—­Silla! on her knees, pulling up weeds into her apron from a bed close to the house.  It was with her Veyergang was joking from the window, and she shook her head and laughed, and looked up for a moment—­she dared not answer because of Mrs. Holman.

It was as if a pair of pincers with many claws had suddenly taken hold of Nikolai’s heart, and he all at once remembered so vividly the day when he had had Ludvig Veyergang under his fists.