When Meri in her reading came to the place in Luke, where it speaks of the Prodigal Son, old Bertila's eyes began to glitter with a sinister light.
"The reprobate!" he muttered to himself. "To waste one's inheritance, that is nothing! But to forget one's old father ... by God, that is shameful!"
Meri read until she came to the Prodigal Son's repentance: "And he arose and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him."
"What a fool of a father!" again muttered Aron Bertila to himself. "He ought to have bound him with cords, beaten him with rods, and then driven him away from his house back to the riotous living and the empty wine-cups!"
"Father!" whispered Meri reproachfully. "Be merciful, as our Heavenly Father is merciful, and takes the lost children to His arms."
"And if your son ever returns..." began Larsson in the same tone. But Bertila stopped him.
"Hold your tongues, and don't trouble yourselves about me. I have no longer any son ... who falls repentant at my feet," he added directly, when he saw two large, clear pearls glistening in Meri's eyelashes.
She continued: "And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son."
"Stop reading that!" burst out the old man, in a bad temper. "See that my bed is in order, and let the folks go to sleep; it is now late."
At this moment horses' hoofs were heard outside on the creaking snow. This unusual occurrence on the evening of a sacred day made Larsson go to the low window, and breathe on the frost-covered pane, so as to look out into the storm. A sleigh, drawn by two horses, worked its way through the snow-drifts and drove into the yard. Two men in sheep-skin cloaks jumped out.