“That’s true,” the old man admitted.  “You see, we’re not shy; we say right out what we think and tell each other everything.  What I’ve got is hers, and what she’s got is mine; so I’m beginning to think it is she who is my real child.”

Again the son felt embarrassed, and troubled as well.

There was something the old man wanted to force from him—­something of a personal nature; but surely he could not expect it to be forthcoming here, before all this company?

It was a great relief to the son of Ol’ Bengtsa when on looking up he saw Lars Gunnarson and his wife standing at the gate.  Not he alone, but every one was glad to see them.  Now it was as if all their gloomy misgivings had suddenly been dispelled.

Lars and his wife made profuse apologies for being so late.  Lars had been suffering from a bad headache and had feared he would not be able to come at all; but it had abated somewhat so he decided to come to the party, thinking he would forget about his aches and pains if he got out among people.

He looked a bit hollow-eyed, but he was as jolly and sociable as he had been the year before.  He had barely got down the first mouthful of food when he and the son of Ol’ Bengtsa fell to talking of the lumber business, of big profits and interest on loans.

The poor rustics round about them, aghast at the mere mention of these large figures, were afraid to open their mouths.  Ol’ Bengtsa was the only one who wanted to have his say in the matter.

“Since you’re talking of money,” he said, “I wonder, Nils, if you remember that note for 17,000 rix-dollars I got from the old ironmaster at Doveness?  It was mislaid, if you recollect, and couldn’t be found at the time when I was in such hard straits.  Just the same, I wrote to the ironmaster requesting immediate payment; but received the reply that he was dying.  Later on, after his death, the administrators of the estate declared they could find no record of my claim.  I was informed that it wasn’t possible for them to pay me unless I produced the note.  We searched high and low for it, both I and my sons, but we couldn’t find it.”

“You don’t mean to tell me that you’ve come across it at last!” the son exclaimed.

“It was the strangest thing imaginable!” the old man went on.  “Jan of Ruffluck came over here one morning and told me he knew for a certainty that the note was in the secret drawer of my cedar chest.  He had seen me take it out in a dream, he said.”

“But you must have looked there?”

“Yes, I did search through the secret drawer on the left-hand side.  But Jan said it was in the drawer on the right, and then, when I looked more carefully, I found a secret drawer that I’d never known about; and in that lay the note.”

“You probably put it there some time when you were in your cups.”

“Very likely I did.”

The son laid down his knife and fork for a moment, then took them up again.  Something in the old man’s tone made him a bit wary.  “Maybe it’s just a hoax,” he thought to himself.  Aloud he said, “it was outlawed, of course?”