One can understand it was not very pleasant for Bengt to be lying there in pain and torment while the greatest moment life could have held for him passed him by.
Lieutenant Lagerlöf, on arriving at the church, told the Dean why Bengt had not come. Now there was no one the Dean so loved to honour as a faithful servant, one who had been in the same place all his life, and had shared weal and woe with his master and mistress. So, on hearing that Bengt was ill, he said he would drive down to Mårbacka immediately after the service and personally present the medal to Bengt.
The Lieutenant, though pleased, felt a trifle uneasy. He slipped out of the church as soon as he could do so with propriety, and drove home like lightning, so as to be there a little ahead of the Dean.
Bengt was quickly washed and combed and hustled into his Sunday shirt, his bed was spread with clean sheets, and a fancy quilt was substituted for the old sheepskin rug. The floor was swept, the shavings under the planing-bench were carried out, the sooty cobwebs were torn from the ceiling, fresh juniper twigs were strewn over the floor, chopped spruce-fir spread before the door, and a huge bundle of birch and lilac branches was stuck in the fireplace.
The Dean of Sunne at that time was no less a personage than the venerable Anders Fryxell, the distinguished historian and Member of Parliament. Directly he arrived he went in to see Bengt, accompanied by
