And as long as he was supposed to be only an idler, or an apprentice who was airing himself and taking a day or two’s holiday from the smithy, the shareholders in the different businesses down there were both agreeable and talkative.  But when—­and that not once only—­he suddenly turned to, and darted over the landing-stage from the steamer with a large trunk on his back and a traveller at his heels, past the cabs up to the hotel, they quite changed their tone.  Had he a badge?  Or did he think perhaps, that it would do to take other people’s business?  They knew very well what sort of a fellow he was!

He was well aware that he could not get a badge, so he must get along as he best could by working and toiling and fighting for an empty stomach, and make his way by threats and with his fists, and—­when it was a case of being entrusted with a burden, or getting first hold of a trunk—­by being deaf, stone-deaf, to everything they might think of calling out about him.

There were ten men to every job requiring one, and, as it were, a wall or circle drawn round every road to earning something.  Some small jobs he might now and then chance to be alone in—­when the lock of a door had slipped, or the door came off its hinges, or some kind of smithcraft was required at a moment’s notice.  But he gained no more than a bare subsistence, often only a dram or two by way of thanks.

And now that it had been such a long winter, he was both hungry and cold.  The nights especially were so long.  He often took spirits for his supper to get them to pass.  And then he had to think over what he would try his hand at the next day—­cutting the ice, work on the quay, clearing away snow or carrying planks in the yard.

Thinly-clad and with no overcoat, and rather red with the cold, he clattered down in a coat that was in holes at the elbows, and his old scarf that had taken its hue from the smithy, pulled high up about his ears.  It was not difficult to see in him the smith’s apprentice.  Whenever he met any of Haegberg’s men, he burst into a scornful laugh.  Did they think, perhaps, that he was slovenly clad?  It was just as he was now, that he wanted to be.  He wanted to be free and have neither master nor journeyman nor any one over him, and to care for nobody.

If the forge-yard was one point that he preferred to keep away from, there were also other places in the town that he made a round to avoid—­namely, that part of the quay where the blockmaker’s workshop lay, and the Holmans’ house up in the square.

Whatever the reason might be, he had no wish to meet Silla.

The last time he had spoken to her—­the day after he had left the smithy—­he noticed that she was looking about in a frightened way the whole time, and wanted him to stand first in one place and then in another.  It could not be fear of any one at home, and then it suddenly dawned upon him that she was ashamed that people should see her standing and talking to him, so with a “Good-bye, Silla!” he darted from her.