After the burial service, when he accompanied the funeral party to the church and seated himself on the mourners’ bench, they appeared to be slightly embarrassed.  However, there was no time to comment upon his having placed himself among them instead of occupying his usual high seat, in the gentry’s gallery—­as the opening hymn had just begun.

At the close of the service, when the conveyances belonging to the funeral party drove up onto the knoll, Jan went out and climbed into the hearse, where he sat down upon the dais on which the coffin rested on the drive to the churchyard.  As the big wagon would now be going back empty, he knew that here he would not be taking up some other person’s place.  The daughter and son-in-law of the late Bjoern Hindrickson walked back and forth at the side of the hearse and looked at him.  They regretted no doubt that they could not ask him to ride in one of the first carriages.  Nor did he wish to incommode any one.  He was what he was in any case.

During the drive to Loby he could not help thinking of the time when he and Glory Goldie had called upon their rich relatives.  This time, however, it was all so different!  Who was great and respected now? and who was conferring an honour upon his kinsfolk by seeking them out?

As the carriages drew up in turn before the house of mourning, the occupants stepped out and were conducted into the large waiting-room on the ground floor where they removed their wraps.  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.