"Bob," said Hardy, "they are no use for saddle horses, except for ladies; but they will do well for what we bought them."
"Right you are, master!" said Garth, as Hardy remounted Buffalo, and went for a ride.
CHAPTER VI.
"Next, note that the eel seldom stirs in the day, but then hides himself; and therefore is usually caught by night, with one of those baits of which I have spoken."
—The Complete Angler.
The two Danish horses were driven by Garth, and, in his hands, soon grew accustomed to harness and the light carriage John Hardy had purchased at Horsens. Longer expeditions were made to fish the smaller Danish streams, and, to the great gratification of Karl and Axel, to Silkeborg. The lakes at Silkeborg, with their idyllic picturesqueness, interested Hardy, while the pike and the perch fishing yielded good sport. Hardy was skilful in spinning a heavy minnow deep in the water, casting it from a boat, and thus attracting the heaviest perch. A paternoster also in his hands caught a quantity of perch. Pike were caught by casting a dead roach, with a rod with upright rings, and Hardy threw his bait with a length and certainty that the Danish fishermen were not accustomed to. The bait would fall into a little spot of water amongst the reeds. A jerk and pull made the dead fish appear like a wounded live one; when out would rush Herr Esox lucius from his lair, and, after expostulating in the usual manner, would come into the boat with the sullen look of how-I-should-like-to-bite-the-calf-of-your-leg, peculiar to Herr Esox's genus.
The Danish fishermen at Silkeborg began to entertain the notion that John Hardy, if his stay was prolonged, would depopulate the lakes of both pike and perch; and they hugged the idea with affection that at least he could not catch eels, with which the lakes abound.
"Can you catch eels, Herr Hardy?" said Karl. "The fishermen say you may be able to catch pike and perch, but you do not know how to catch eels with a line in the lakes."
"Yes," replied Hardy, "if you and Axel will undertake to take them off the hooks when caught; it is not an agreeable bit of work."
"Yes, that will we," said Karl and Axel at once.