These old stories were Nikolai’s smarting wounds.  He was always thinking they were forgotten, and they were always coming up again, and now it was insupportable suffering.  He endeavoured not to betray it by a look; but he was by no means in a good temper as he stood there.

The sooner he got to know from Mrs. Ellingsen how it was to end the better; and Nikolai was soon standing with his cap in his hand in her room, to ask what he might depend upon.

It took a long time, with many “h’ms” and “ha’s” before she managed to get her spectacles off and the wires put properly into her hair again.  Then at last it came out with some hesitation.  She meant no offence; she knew he was a good smith enough; but there were so many who knew Olaves to be such an honest, good fellow, and she was an old woman who needed some one whom she could thoroughly trust—­no offence meant to Nikolai—­but she must consider the matter.

That was the answer he received, and with it his prospects, that he had counted upon and shown to Mrs. Holman when he asked for Silla’s hand, were destroyed.

The next day when he came into the smithy they all smiled and tittered.  They knew he had been to Mrs. Ellingsen and had got his answer.  But if they thought they could tease or frighten him into giving it up, they were very much mistaken.

Olaves behaved as if nothing was the matter, and even civilly offered a helping-hand in breaking the bar-iron.

Nikolai only turned his back on him.

“I never meddle with any other man’s work, and I don’t advise any one to worm himself into my affairs,” he said, “unless he wants a dressing that will make his back as hot as that red iron there!” he added, with a glance at Olaves.

There was a general silence.

But at dinner-time there was a great deal of talking and fuss about this affair.  Every one had heard how Nikolai had threatened Olaves, and Olaves, as a precaution, found witnesses for his words.

“He looked as if he could use the sledge-hammer to something besides forging bolts, that fellow, if he could do it without witnesses!”

They might talk as much as they liked for all that Nikolai cared; he did his work, and never heard that Haegberg had anything to complain of.  He was prepared for a disappointment now.

There was one thing, though, that he would do before he gave in—­go straight to Haegberg and speak out, and then the master could give his testimony as to which he wanted, if Mrs. Ellingsen asked him.

The final answer from Mrs. Ellingsen was delayed week after week:  at last it was two months.

What could the old woman mean?  The whole smithy wondered—­she must have a foreman by the autumn.

At last, one morning it appeared in the shape of a message.

* * * * *

It was drawing on towards evening one broiling hot summer day.  In both floors of the grey wooden house in which Mrs. Holman lived, the small-paned windows stood open, drinking in the slight coolness there was in the air, while the dwellers within went about their occupations more or less lightly clothed.  A faint breath only now and again stirred the half transparent curtains, or the white clothes hanging on lines across the yard.