He went back with a weight like lead upon his breast, and sat down on the edge of a ditch in the field, whence he could, unseen, keep an eye upon all who came down the road.

She had looked so much too pretty when she raised her head with that suppressed merriment in her glance.  This was what his thoughts would return to, and he only saw before him what he suffered from.

An hour had passed.  Almost stupidly he had watched one after another come down the road; but all at once his face changed colour.  Ludvig Veyergang was sauntering past, dashing and easy, with his stick held loosely in his hand.  He had red cheeks like a girl, and fine black whiskers beneath the straw hat, and he half closed his grey eyes to look about him, while he hummed softly.

Nikolai gazed despondently after him, as he disappeared down the road.

Again this same old hopelessness before a superior force, this feeling for which he could never find words and vent, unless it some day happened that—­he closed his eyes, and there was a compressed, violent expression about his mouth and chin.

There came Silla by Mrs. Holman’s side, with bent head, like a willow that is bowed by its growth.  Sometimes she stole a glance around, like a school-girl who avoids her teacher’s eye.

They separated at the Valsets’ cottage; Silla went in after the evening’s milk.

She came out again with the can, and took the path over the meadow.  She went quickly, smiling to herself, and an almost frightened expression came into her face when Nikolai rose out of the bush by the ditch.

“Do you start when you see me, Silla?”

“How fierce you look!” she answered jestingly.

“You did say you’d be my wife, didn’t you, Silla?”

“What makes you say that now, Nikolai?  It’s such a long time to then.”

“I may need to hear it once more.  When you aren’t more sure than I am, you like to feel twice whether the strap you are holding on to is firmly fastened, or if it will give way.  You have got so much into your head since you came up here to the factory.”

“Take care!  Just you take care, Nikolai.  You have become so dreadfully afraid for me lately,” she said, laughing saucily; “but I’ve become a little grown-up too.  It’s only you who don’t see it, and stand there like a post!  But you can’t think how awfully busy I am now.  As soon as ever I’ve swallowed my supper, I go up to the factory again.  I and Kristofa and Kalla and Josefa have got the whole of the weeding and tidying up in the office garden, down all the peas and carrots, and cabbage-beds as well; and when it grows over in the autumn, we shall have that too.”

Nikolai only stood reckoning.  Twenty-seven dollars, subtracting what he had spent on his mother to-day—­the ham, too, for he would not get that back—­that was what he owned, and he needed at least twice as much again before he could get the most necessary things for his room.  Only to get her out of this, even if he had to work day and night.