"Died?" A heavier stroke this; it seemed to paralyse him.
"Yes—and two horses to the funeral, with white covers and all. And silver stars all over the coffin—like the sky it was."
The wanderer felt himself gazing helplessly into a darkness where hosts of silver stars danced before his eyes.
"You knew him, maybe?" asked the lad, watching the man's face.
"Ay, I knew him," came the answer in a stifled voice.
"And his wife's like to follow him soon," went on the boy. "She's at the last gasp now, they say."
The wanderer felt as if something were tightening about his heart.
"So there's neither man nor wife, so to speak, at Koskela now."
The wanderer would have risen, but his limbs seemed numbed.
"There was a son, they say, was to have taken over the place, but he went away somewhere long ago, and never came back."