Everything was in order, so the battle with Mrs. Holman had better be fought at once.  And when he laid before her his journeyman’s credentials, his seventy-five dollars, and his regular earnings, with the advance he was to have from the New Year at Haegberg’s, she would have to be so kind as to give in.

It was on one of the days between Christmas and the New Year that he went up to his mother to let her know that he must have his money out in February.  Then he would go to Mrs. Holman.

It struck him that his mother was rather confused and forgetful while she made the coffee.

She thought she was half crazy to-day, she said; but he should have his coffee, and Christmas should not pass without his having something good; it had not been the custom where she was brought up.

Oh, dear!  So Nikolai wanted his money back already.  She had grown so forgetful, that she had not remembered that it was so soon.  And just before Christmas she had had to settle a bill for coffee and sugar which, upon her word, she had not thought or known would come in until after the fair or at Midsummer!  But he need not be afraid; she knew well enough where she could get the money, if she liked to tie on her bonnet and go out after it.

“So drink, Nikolai; it’s as strong as a rock.  It isn’t Christmas more than once a year, as they say in the country.  I believe you’re afraid.  For your money?  Oh, no; never you fear!  If your mother, Barbara, has promised anything, she’ll keep it; so you may be easy.  So nice as Ludvig was to me the last time he was in here—­it was only the afternoon of Little Christmas Eve.[4] Barbara needn’t be at a loss for a few pence when I say my son wants them.  Oh, dear no!  Now, Nikolai, don’t look like that.  Don’t you hear you shall have it?  My goodness, how you do look at me!”

[Footnote 4:  The day before Christmas Eve proper.]

He said nothing, only sat still a long time, and Barbara thought it was getting oppressively quiet.  She tried first one thing and then another.

“I’ll try it directly after New Year.  I would never have borrowed your money if I’d known it would be like this.”

“No, mother.  You must pay me the money when you can; I won’t press you for it.  But if you try to beg it from Ludvig Veyergang, we are parted for this world, and as far as I get into the next, too!  So now you know, mother.  And many thanks for the wedding this time, both from me and Silla!” and he pulled open the door.

CHAPTER IX

AN IMPORTANT STEP TAKEN

If Silla had not come like a wedge between the bark and the wood, how comfortably and free from care Barbara could have lived now.  She had no one but Silla to thank that she was now deprived of all the help she might and—­it was her firm conviction—­ought to have had in her son Nikolai, with the regular earnings he might have put, every single week, into the till; which, for some reason or other, never would exhibit the amount it ought to have done.