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 apron and stood by the chopping-block listening. It seemed to come from one of the coal cellars up the dark passage. 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 apron 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.