Sandu felt a cold shiver go through him. For a second he stood still. Three years as apprentice and four years as workman he had worked for one master only, and he would have remained there all his life if he had not been taken to be a soldier, and if the master had not died he would have gone back to him the day he left the army. He felt quite nervous, and if the apprentice had not opened the gate he would not have gone in.
“They are eating,” said the apprentice, seeing the big yard was empty, and he crossed to the bottom of it where a small house stood built against the old workshop.
They were close to the window when they heard people talking in the house, and the clatter of knives.
“Look here,” said Sandu, “you go on and say I have come but that I am waiting till they have finished dinner.”
The apprentice went in and told the master that a workman was outside, but would not come in till the master had got up from the table.
“Tell him to come into the house.”
But his wife interrupted him with:
“Leave him out there. Who knows what sort of a creature he is if he does not venture to show his face inside! Let me have my dinner in peace.”
The husband, a well-built man, with a round, red face and kind blue eyes, felt if he said any more his wife would snap his head off, so he let the apprentice go.
The apprentice, who knew that one word from the mistress was worth a hundred orders from the master, withdrew to the hearth in the outer room, and waited till he should be called to dinner.