e 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.

It was not improbable that Barbara, after the fashion of country people,
forgot to take into account the articles that went towards the
nourishment of her own weighty person. On the other hand her ever ready
hospitality with the coffee-pot was not without its savour of
trade-policy--what she gave away was only to be looked upon as seed
which would bring forth a hundredfold in the shape of customers.

Barbara's room was thus becoming the meetingplace for all the gossiping
forces of the neighbourhood.

* * * * *

The posts in the fences had snow hats on, and snow-drifts lay by