He sat all by himself on a corner bench, quite silent. Here nobody came up to chat with him about the Empress, and he seemed a bit dejected. When he left home Katrina had begged him not to come to this funeral, because the folks at this farm were of too good stock to cringe to either kings or emperors. It looked now as if she were right about it. For old peasants who have lived on the same farm from time immemorial consider themselves the superiors of the titled aristocracy. It was a slow proceeding bringing together those who were to be at the first table. The host and hostess moved about a long while seeking the highest worthies, but somehow they failed to come up to him. Not far from the Emperor sat a couple of old spinsters, chatting, who had not the least expectation of being called up then. They were speaking of Linnart, son of the late Björn Hindrickson, saying it was well that he had come home in time for a reconciliation with his father. Not that there had been any actual enmity between father and son, but it happened that some thirty years earlier, when the son was two and twenty and wanted to marry, he had asked the old man to let him take over the management of the farm, so that he could be his own master. This Björn had flatly refused to do. He wanted the son to stay at home and go on working under him and then to take over the property when the old man was no more. "No," was the son's answer. "I'll not stay at home and be your servant even though you are my father. I prefer to go out in the world and make a home for myself, for I must be as good a man as you are, or the feeling of comradeship between us will soon end." "That can end at any time, if you choose to go your own ways," Björn Hindrickson told him. Then the son had gone up into the wilderness northeast of Dove Lake, and had settled in the wildest and least populated region, where he broke ground for a farm of his own. His land lay in Bro parish, and he was never again seen in Svartsjö. Not in thirty years had his parents laid eyes on him. But a week ago, when old Björn was nearing the end, he had come home. This was good news to Jan of Ruffluck. The Sunday before, when Katrina got back from church and told him that Björn was dying, he immediately asked whether the son had been sent for. But it seems he had not. Katrina had heard that Björn's wife had begged and implored the old man to let her send for their son and that he would not hear of it. He wanted to die in peace, he said. But Jan was not satisfied to let the matter rest there. The thought of Linnart away out in the wilds, knowing nothing of his father's grave condition had caused him to disregard old Björn's wishes and go tell the son himself. He had heard nothing as to the outcome until now, and he was so interested in what the two old spinsters were saying, that he quite forgot to think about either the first or the second table.