Two neighbours
of the Hindricksons, who acted as host and hostess, then invited
the more prominent persons among the guests to step upstairs, where
dinner was served.

It was a difficult task having to single out those who were to sit
at the first table. For at so large a funeral gathering it was
impossible to make room for all the guests at one sitting. The
table had to be cleared and set three or four times.

Some people would have regarded it as an inexcusable oversight had
they not been asked to sit at the first table. As for him who had
risen to the exalted station of Emperor, he could be exceedingly
obliging in many ways, but to be allowed to sit at the first table
was a right which he must not forgo; otherwise folks might think he
did not know it was his prerogative to come before all others. It
did not matter so much his not being among the very first to be
requested to step upstairs. It was self-evident that he should dine
with the pastor and the gentry; so he felt no uneasiness on that
score.

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 Bjoern 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 Bjoern 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
answe