Then he darted back like an arrow, and sat staring in mortal fear into the corner.
From being made useful beside the cradle, Nikolai was advanced in course of time to mind the Holman's daughter Ursula, outside the cellar steps.
To move farther, only as far as the trees over on the other side of the street, was a capital offence.

The idea of what overstepping the bounds meant, was impressed upon him with full force.

How could Mrs.Holman be sure otherwise that he did not take Silla right up to the basin round the fountain, where all the naughty boys played with their ships, and shouted and made a noise?
His poor little body had received so many black and blue marks every time he had fallen into temptation that at last the limits stood instinctively before his frightened perception like an invisible iron grating.

A foot's breadth beyond was, in his imagination, the blackest crime, an enormity which would draw down the fiercest retribution upon him.
That Silla was an uncommon and remarkable being of a higher order, so to speak, than himself, had been driven into him in so many ways ever since she came into the world, that he looked upon the assertion as raised above all doubt.
Notwithstanding everything that he had endured for her sake, or perhaps, by a strange contradiction, just because of these sufferings, the feeling that she was under his care was most highly developed.

His admiration of her was unqualified; he thought her more than remarkable in her blue bow and an old red stuff rose in her hat, and he submitted to a wilfulness which was quite as despotic as even Mrs.Holman's.