"Father! Father!" broke from Silla, followed by a fit of violent sobbing.
"Listen, Silla!" he said, interrupted by the repressed weight on his own breast. "If you have no father, you have some one here who will take care of you, and knows what it is—I have never had any father either, nor ever seen any. And I will be a smith, as there won't be any more block-making for you now. I only wanted to tell you, so that you can remember it afterwards," he added softly—it did not look as if Silla were listening to him.
"And this evening I'll follow you right to the corner, and I'll stand there until everything is in, and I shall be outside to-night; so you know it, if anything is wanted."
"Yes, stay outside, Nikolai!" she whispered.
The public-house bear and the two bearers came in. They lifted the stretcher out through the door, and, with a little difficulty at the turn, down the steps, where a few spectators stood.
And so they went up the street—the dead with the two bearers and the public-house bear in front, and Silla and Nikolai behind.
At the place where they were to part, he pressed the basket, which she had forgotten, into her hand, and then stood looking after them.