ARGUMENT.
The Viking, tenax propositi, if he planned an expedition, carried it out, through all obstacles, or died in the attempt.
The descendants, softened in manner and cast of thought by centuries of time, retain the same singleness of purpose.
There is no other thought of the duty of life except to do it. If self has to be sacrificed, it is done without reserve.
The result is that there are men and women who are the reflection of duty, and although this occurs in all lands, yet nowhere does it exist in greater purity than in the descendants of the Viking.
A DANISH PARSONAGE.
CHAPTER I.
"Piscator. Oh, sir! doubt not but that Angling is an art. Is it not an art to deceive a Trout with an artificial fly?—a Trout that is more sharp-sighted than any Hawk you have named, and more watchful and timorous than your high-mettled Merlin is bold. And yet I doubt not to catch a brace or two to-morrow for a friend's breakfast."—The Complete Angler.
John Hardy had lived with his mother at Hardy Place. His father had died when he was six years of age, and there was consequently a long minority of fifteen years. The greatest influence in John Hardy's life was a trout stream that ran winding through an English landscape for four miles in the Hardys' property. John Hardy fished it as a schoolboy, and it was the greatest triumph he experienced as a lad, to catch more trout in it with a fly than the numerous fly-fishers to whom Mrs. Hardy's kindness gave permission. When college days came, John Hardy, ever intent on fishing, went to Norway in the vacation with the checkered result of getting an occasional salmon, and in the smaller streams on the fjelds a quantity of small trout. The grand scenery in the fjords, and the kindly nature of the people, led John Hardy to more remote districts, where sport was better, the fare and quarters worse, but some acquisition of Scandinavian language a necessity.
Thus John Hardy not only gradually acquired a knowledge of many dialects in Scandinavia, but the ability to read and understand the simpler books in the language. He travelled and fished through Norway and Sweden, and by degrees learnt, from the necessity of speaking it, more and more of the Danish language, the language of Scandinavia, as English relatively is to broad Scotch. This naturally led to his going to Denmark, and his travelling through Jutland and the Danish islands. In Jutland he accidentally fished in a West Jutland river, and to his surprise found the difficult but good fishing that his heart longed for.
John Hardy returned home, and was at Hardy Place with his mother the whole winter, and then, as April came round with the fishing season, John became restless, and told his mother of his Danish fishing experiences, and left for Copenhagen. His mother said, "Write me once a week, John, and bring me home a Scandinavian princess for your wife." John Hardy promised to write, but said he thought Scandinavian princesses did not rise to a fly. His mother's face grew grave, and she said, "You should marry soon, John; you are twenty-eight, and I want to see you married to a wife to whom you can trust Hardy Place and the care of your mother in her old age."