"Oh, they're over good and holy for this earth," said Mor Elversson bitterly, when she came home. "Full to the brim with faith and righteousness, till there's no room for a drop of mercy in them." Joel himself met with no better success. Of late, when people came to ask his help in this or that, he had taken to hinting that he was getting too old for the work, and that his son Sven ought soon to take over in his father's stead. But the suggestion passed unheeded everywhere. Fisher or farmer, whoever it might be, all were as deaf on that one subject as the sternly righteous housewives of Knapefiord. On Christmas Eve, Joel and his wife and their son sat in the little dwelling at Grimön, talking of the future. "Look here. Mother," said Sven, who seemed in particularly good humour this evening, "don't you think this kitchen place is dark and uncomfortable? What do you say to moving into the house itself?" "Heavens!" cried his mother. "What's the boy thinking of! Why, there's neither roof nor floor to the place." "That's no worse than can be mended," answered Sven. "I've been looking at the walls; they're sound enough. There's fine big rooms there, with plenty of light, and looking out over the sea. It's a shame to let the old captains' house go to rack and ruin." Both father and mother agreed in this. But there was the question of money. Sven explained that he had money of his own--not from his foster-parents, but money he had fairly earned. Before starting out on the expedition he had been promised a thousand pounds to be paid on his return. And this he had now received. But Joel, for all that he had felt no qualms himself, suddenly saw how the old sea-captains who had lived there before would turn in their graves. "Not with that money!" he cried. "I'd be glad to see the old house set to rights--but not with that money--no!" Mother and son looked up at him in surprise. But both of them realized in a moment what was in his mind, and no more was said. Joel sat thinking of the old sea-captains with their weather-beaten faces, their tarry fists and thirsty throats, good-natured, cheery men, not over-careful of their speech, nor dainty in their choice of company. His fathers, no doubt, had been of the same breed--and now he had told his son he was not good enough to live in the house that had been theirs. Told him that the money he had earned at the risk of his life on those same waters where they had voyaged and won their own was not good enough to be spent in mending their home. There was a strange smile on Sven Elversson's face that evening--a gentle, patient, and forgiving smile. It had been there many a time before, when he had felt how his fellow men shunned him. But now, now that his father had shown a trace of the same feeling as all others had toward him, the smile of resignation seemed to settle on his face as if for good.