Part 14 (2/2)

”Do let me ride, father, just once up and down,” begged Frken Mathilde; and before her father could object, she had slipped the skirt that Garth had just untied from his waist over her dress and mounted, with Garth's a.s.sistance.

It was a pretty sight to see the handsome girl's enjoyment of riding the well-trained horse, as she rode up to where her father and mother and Hardy were standing.

”Oh, father!” she exclaimed, ”you must get me a horse like this, or I shall die, I know I shall;” and she went up and kissed her father in a coaxing manner.

”What nonsense!” said the prudent Fru Jensen. ”One horse is as good as another for you.”

”Well, well, we'll see,” growled the proprietor, but pleased, nevertheless, to see his daughter, like himself, fond of horses.

At dinner the conversation turned on Rosendal, which the Jensens had heard Hardy had purchased.

”It is a pretty place,” said the proprietor, ”but the farm is not much. But why did you buy it? It cannot be as a speculation, as the price is excessive.”

”He intends to marry Helga Lindal and live there so that she will not be too far from her father, to whom she is so much attached,” said Mathilde Jensen, laughing. ”I can explain it all for him.”

”Thank you, for disposing of my affairs so nicely,” said Hardy; ”you have saved me a good deal of explanation.”

”Yes, but Pastor Lindal's daughter is going to marry the Kapellan (curate) he once had, a Kapellan Holm. She refused him, but her father wishes it, as Holm is a good man,” said Fru Jensen.

”In Denmark, you must know,” said the proprietor, ”that it is the custom for a Pastor's daughter always to marry the Kapellan.”

Hardy understood now the secret of Frken Helga Lindal's manner. She was attached to this Kapellan Holm.

”But what are you going to do with Rosendal?” asked Herr Jensen. ”It is a matter of interest to us; it is not far, and we should like such a neighbour as Herr Hardy.”

”The first thing I intend to do is to improve the grounds and repair the house, but I do not contemplate making much alteration.”

”I should so like to see Rosendal!” said Mathilde Jensen; and her younger sister, Marie Jensen, expressed the same wish.

”Why, you have seen it again and again,” said their mother. ”You want Herr Hardy to take you.”

”So we do, little mother,” said both the girls, ”and we want him to let us ride his horses.”

”Snak!” said their father. The Danish word ”snak” has its peculiar expressive force, its meaning in English being that nonsense is being talked.

”Garth shall bring over both horses to-morrow,” said Hardy, ”and I will ride over; and I dare say Herr Jensen will accompany us, and lend my man a horse, as we should want him at Rosendal. If you a.s.sent, I will send a message to the bailiff, as you might like a little refreshment there.”

”A most excellent plan, Herr Hardy!” exclaimed Frken Mathilde; ”but it leaves little mother home alone, which is the only fault in it. But you will drive, won't you, little father, and take mother and Herr Hardy's groom?”

Of course everything was ordered as Frken Mathilde Jensen wished. She had made her father make many a sacrifice of his money and own wishes, but she repaid him with her real affection for him.

As the evening drew on, Hardy and the two boys left, and tried the proprietor's little stream with a fly. The trout rose freely, and Hardy caught about a dozen. The fish rose best to a gray-winged sedge fly, when thrown high over the water and falling slowly and softly near the reeds. Karl and Axel had little success, the perfect stillness of the water to them was a difficulty.

When they arrived at the parsonage, the Pastor was smoking in his accustomed chair, and his daughter was singing to him. She stopped as soon as she heard the carriage wheels. And after speaking a few words to the Pastor, Hardy went to his room. Karl and Axel remained, and, like other boys who go about very little, were very full of the day's experiences. The trying the horses was described, and Frken Mathilde Jensen's explanation of why Hardy had bought Rosendal was given in full, with Fru Jensen's statement as to Kapellan Holm; so that when John Hardy came from his room, he saw that something had pa.s.sed which had disturbed both the Pastor and his daughter. He at once judged correctly what had occurred. The boys were in the habit of saying what was uppermost.

It was clear, then, that what Proprietor Jensen had said about Frken Helga was correct.

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