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 passed, 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 passage by the man-servant to