"If you did not reside at Rosendal, the bailiff's accounts could be checked either by me or any other person you thought proper, and the place visited twice yearly, to report the condition and the state of the property.
"I will ascertain the exact sum that will be accepted, if you desire it; but it will take time—negotiations for large properties are often much protracted in Denmark.
"I wait, therefore, the honour of your reply, and respectfully greet you.
"Obediently,
"Axel Steindal,
"Prokuratør."
CHAPTER IV.
"Many a one
Owes to his country his religion,
And in another, would as strongly grow
Had but his mother or his nurse taught him so."
The Complete Angler.
The church at Vandstrup lay on rising ground from the river. It was white-washed, covered with red tiles, and surrounded by a white-washed wall enclosing God's acre, in which so many slept the last long sleep. There were a few poplars planted close to the church-yard wall, and a few weather-beaten ash trees, with a single dwarfed weeping willow over a grave. On Sunday, John Hardy watched with interest the church-going people collecting by the church gate. The men in dark Wadmel jackets with bright buttons, and the women with red ribands bound on their caps and knitted sleeves. The women left their wooden shoes in the dry ditch by the roadside, and put on leather shoes, and waited for the Pastor's arrival. Accuracy of time was not expected, and only when the Pastor appeared did the men throng into the church on one side and the women on the other. The interior of the church was simple to a degree. John Hardy with Karl and Axel sat on the men's side, and Frøken Helga and Kirstin on the other. The service was similar to that of the English Protestant service, although relics of what would be now called Romanism remained. There were candles on the altar, and the Pastor chanted some portion of the service. John Hardy longed for the sermon. The thorough honest feeling exhibited by the Pastor's character in his home, with his evident refinement and education, had excited his curiosity as to what the sermon would be.
The text of the sermon was from the fifth chapter of St. Matthew, part of ver. 42: "Give to him that asketh thee!"
"When a man comes and asks anything of you, what should you give? The best thing is sympathy and love; material gifts he may want, but these kindliness will dictate, and kindliness is the real gold of life. If no power exists to give what is necessary to assist your neighbour in a material sense, yet to your ability give; and if you give at all, give kindly. Those of you who want not material things, yet may want kind sympathy when God smiteth with sorrow. Recollect, then, that that is the time for kindliness to be proved that is golden."