Odysseus set out along the country road with Telemachus. It led to the orchard where his father Laertes lived, and a few loyal servants came along on the way.
At the orchard an old man in worn clothes was working the soil alone. His back was bent and his face was burned dark. He looked less like the father of a king than a hired hand.
After his son left he had gone from the palace to this place. Labor was the only way he had of bearing his grief. For twenty years he had lived tending nothing but these trees.