One of Life's Slaves Part 2

"Good neighbours and other good things," the catechism says. But in our times we have no neighbours; you do not know who lives on the floor above you or on the floor below, or even on the other side of the pa.s.sage. And so it was that no one in the house had any ear to speak of for Nikolai's various untoward fortunes below in the cellar, although their character often a.s.serted itself with no uncertain sound during their execution.

The neighbours had become accustomed to the continual screaming and howling of that naughty boy, just as one accustoms one's self to piano practising or the din of a factory; perhaps too, they comforted themselves with the thought that it was most fortunate that such a morally depraved child had come under discipline and correction.

When Nikolai and Silla wandered as usual up and down the pavement outside the cellar, the people of the house might often in pa.s.sing give the little girl a friendly nod. To give Nikolai any encouragement in that way would have been a mistake.

Maren, the cook, who had come to the floor above last hiring-day[1], had naturally no conception of Mrs. Holman's strict, conscientious character, and was therefore to be excused in what now took place.

[Footnote 1: The days for changing servants in Norway are in the spring and autumn. In Christiania they are the second Friday after Easter, and the second Friday after Michaelmas.]

She went down into the cellar with the lantern one evening to fetch coal and wood, panting and puffing down the stairs as she used to do; she had a bend in both hips from rheumatism, and rocked from one side to the other like a boat's mast in rough weather.

From the wood-cellar she all at once heard a sound as of wailing in the darkness within. It was as though some one were crying, and now and again sobbing convulsively for some time without being able to produce a distinct sound.

The voice sounded so utterly broken-hearted that Maren stopped putting the wood into her ap.r.o.n and stood by the chopping-block listening. It seemed to come from one of the coal cellars up the dark pa.s.sage. At last she seized the lantern and groped her way in; she must come to the bottom of this.

"Is any one here?" she cried at the door whence the sobbing came.

There was a sudden complete silence.

She knocked hard with a bit of wood, but then from within there came a terrified scream, which made Maren drop the wood from her ap.r.o.n and pull open the hasp of the door which was fastened with a piece of wood.

"But who has put the poor little boy in here--in the pitch black darkness?"

By the light of the lantern she saw Nikolai staring at her in wild terror.

"I thought it was the devil, I did. Yes, for he does knock on the wall."

"Oh, you'd frighten any one out of their senses, boy, with those ugly words!"

"Mrs. Holman says so;" and with a quick, inquiring glance up at Maren he added, "but do you think she only says it so that I shan't touch her sugar?"

"Is that what you are here for?"

"I haven't taken anything from her, but I will, if she says it whether I do or not! It was only that Monday when I put my tongue down into the bag and licked when I'd gone for half a pound. But now I'll crunch it so that she'll only have the empty bag left! I'll take! I'll steal!" he added and ground his teeth. "Don't--don't go!" he sobbed, catching hold of her dress, "for when it's dark again, he'll come and take me!"

What was Maren to do? She stood hesitating and considering; she dare not let the boy out.

She might try and beg him off from Mrs. Holman.

"Only get me another beating for that, too!" was the answer.

There was nothing else for it; she could not let the poor little frightened thing stay there in the coal-hole. So, with eyes closed to the consequences of her own determination, she exclaimed: "Then you must come up into the kitchen with me, and sleep on the bench there to-night."

This time, Nikolai did not weigh the probabilities of what Mrs. Holman would say or do; he only took hold of her skirt with both hands. And with the boy close in her wake, Maren sailed up the kitchen stairs again.

While she was looking out some of her old shawls and skirts to put under him, taking some of the clothes from her own bed, and making it as comfortable and warm as she could for him on the bench, Nikolai seemed to have forgotten all his troubles.

There was so much that was new up here. There were such a number of shining tin things hanging all over the wall, and then the cat was an old friend. He had seen it many a time down in the yard, and now he had to squeeze himself together to get hold of it, it had crept so far under the bed.

There! He had knocked down the tin kettle with his back!

He fled in terror to the door. But Maren picked it up quite quietly; there was not a word of scolding, a thing he wondered more at than either the tin things or the cat.

Maren had at last fallen asleep after all the aching and pain of the rheumatism in her weary joints, with which she always had to contend at the beginning of the night. She was awakened by a wild shriek.

"What is it--what is it, Nikolai? Nikolai!"

She lighted the bit of candle. He was sitting up, fencing with his arms.

"I thought they were going to take my head off," he explained, when he at length collected himself.

When she lay down again, Maren could not help thinking how glad she was that she had no child to be responsible for. Every one has his trouble, and now she had this rheumatism.

But it was a shock to her, when, on the kitchen stairs next morning, in the presence of the servants both from the other side of the pa.s.sage and from the first floor, Mrs. Holman called her to account for having interfered in what was none of her business. She then received such full information, once for all, both as to why Mrs. Holman had shut him in, and what they had to go through daily with that boy, that Maren was completely nonplussed. For this Mrs. Holman could stake her life upon, that if there was any one in the house who could not stand disorder or unseemly behaviour, it was she. She could not imagine a worse punishment than to have it said of her that she allowed shame and depravity to flourish in her sight.

But when Maren sat down there in the evening by the lantern on the chopping-block, and could hear the boy screaming right from the Holmans'

room, she was not capable of going upstairs until the worst was over.

She thought she had never heard anything so heart-rending, even though it was in the cause of justice.

Up with Maren was a kind of harbour of refuge for the boy. He would sit there as quiet as a mouse in the corner by the wood-box, carving himself boats, which he put under his blouse when he carried Holman's dinner down to the workshop near the quay.

To represent, however, that Nikolai's existence was pa.s.sed, so to speak, in the coal-cellar, or under blows on back and ear from Mrs. Holman's warm hands, would be an exaggeration. He had also his palmy days, when Mrs. Holman overflowed with words of praise--praise, if not exactly of him, yet of everything that she had accomplished in her daily toil for his moral improvement.

Twice a year she had to call for the payment for him at the Consul-General's office in the town. Nikolai, too, often had leave to go out to the country house with the kitchen cart, which had come in to make the morning purchases.

And there he would sit, while the cart rumbled and jolted along the road, smart and clean, head and body respectively combed and scoured like a copper kettle that has been cleaned with sand and lye. He could not sit still a minute; he talked and asked questions--always about the horse, the wonderful brown horse--whether it was the best or the second best, if it could go faster than the railway train, or who and what it could beat.

Then the cart turned--so much too soon--into the yard in front of the kitchen door, and he was led through the pa.s.sage by the man-servant to the nursery.

"I hope you have rubbed your shoes? You might have had the sense, Lars, not to bring the boy in that way, with such shoes as those!" His mother took him and set him on a chair.

And then he was given bread-and-b.u.t.ter and cracknels and milk. But he must wait now until she came in again, for she was busy to-day washing Lizzie's and Ludvig's clothes.

In rushed the aforesaid children, his equals in point of age; the one was drawing a large saddled horse after him, the other was carrying two large, dressed dolls. They had been sent out by their mother to play with Nikolai. And they were soon in full gallop round the nursery.

Gee-up! gee-up!--Nikolai drew, and Ludvig rode--hi! gee-up! And at last Nikolai wanted to ride too; he had been drawing for such a long time.

But Ludvig would not get down, so Nikolai dropped the bridle and pulled him off the horse by one leg.

"You ragged boy! How dare you?"

"Ragged boy! Ragged boy yourself!" It ended with a fling up on to the bed, behind which Ludvig entrenched himself howling, while his sister took his part and joined in.

"What is the matter, what is the matter, dears?" cried Barbara, hurrying in. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Nikolai, behaving like that to the Consul's children! You'd better try it on! There Ludvig--there, there, Lizzie--he shan't hurt you! Just do what they want, do you hear, Nikolai!"

And then Barbara had to lament over Ludvig's starched collar, which had got crumpled.

"Come here, my precious boy. Come now, and then you shall play again directly."

She took him up on her knee. "It's my own precious boy, it is, who's so good! There, hold his blouse, Nikolai, and you shall see such a fine boy, and so good, so good!"