"What! Not fail!"
"No! Have I not told you that Gösta must be either king or peasant? Either. I do not care. If he wishes to remain a peasant, so be it."
"But if he will not remain a peasant? Supposing he wishes to fight for a coat of arms, and becomes a nobleman? Remember, you have started him on the right road for that end; as an officer he is already an equal of the nobility."
Bertila seemed to be cogitating.
"No!" he cried, "it is impossible. His blood ... his education ... my will."
"His blood! Then you no longer remember that nobility is in it from both sides? His education! and you sent him to Stockholm at twelve, and allowed him to grow up amongst young aristocrats, whom he has constantly heard express themselves with contempt about the peasantry. Your will! foolish father to think that you can bend a youth's desires from the direction given to them by such powerful influences."
The old man remained silent for a time, then he said, coldly,
"Larsson, you are a credulous fool; I joke, and you take it seriously. I will answer for the youth. Let us say no more about it; but take care, not a word of what has passed! Do you understand?"
"I am your old friend, Bertila. Since the time when I, a horseman with Svidje Klas, helped you to escape from Ilmola, you have repaid me the service many times over; I shall never betray you. But, you see, I love your children as my own, and cannot bear to see you make the boy unhappy; and Meri ... are you a father, Bertila? How do you treat your child, your only daughter, who attends to your lightest wish, and does everything to atone for the fault of her youth? You treat her worse than any of your servants; you allow her frail and weak body to perform the hardest work; she sinks to the ground, and you do not raise her. You are cruel, Bertila; you are an inhuman father."
"You do not understand the matter," answered the morose old man. "You are too tender-hearted to comprehend what it means to go straight ahead without compunction. Meri, like her mother, has the fine lady in her, and that must be uprooted. She cannot become a queen; well, then, she shall be a thorough peasant. I have said what I think about the intermediate class, and now you know the reason for my actions. Come, let us return to the labourers."