CHAPTER X.
"But I am the most pleased with this little house of anything I ever saw: it stands in a kind of peninsula too, with a delicate clear river about it. I dare hardly go in, lest I should not like it so well within as without, but by your leave I will try."
—The Complete Angler.
The next day John Hardy received a letter from Prokuratør Steindal of Copenhagen.
"Your honoured instructions as to Rosendal I have attended to. The price they will sell for I have approximately arrived at, but I cannot advise you to buy. The value of Rosendal is not so great as the price asked, and it appears to me that you should hesitate before making a purchase that will pay you so little income. I feel it my duty to say that whatever your instructions may be, that I cannot act on them without a personal interview. If you wish, therefore, to pursue the matter further, you should come to Copenhagen and discuss it with me. I cannot advise a client to make a purchase to his prejudice; if I did so, I should not only acquire a bad reputation, but it would not be right for me to do so. I await, therefore, the honour of your reply."
John Hardy went to Copenhagen, and returned in a few days to Vandstrup Præstegaard.
The next day the Pastor had received the Jyllands Post, the local newspaper. When Hardy appeared at the breakfast table, he said, "Rosendal is sold to Prokuratør Steindal of Copenhagen, and it is extra-ordinary that I have received a letter from him to say that I and my family have leave to visit Rosendal when we wish to do so, and that my two sons, Karl and Axel, have leave to catch all the pike in Rosendal lake. There is the usual notice of the sale in the Jyllands Post, and from the letter from Steindal, it must be true."
"I have no doubt of its truth," said Hardy. "I would only suggest that we at once went to fish for the pike at Rosendal lake; my servant can bring the carriage, and I can ride my English horse, so that Frøken Helga can enjoy another visit to Rosendal."
"But," said the Pastor, "the permission to fish does not extend to you, Herr Hardy."
"That may be," said Hardy, "but that is no reason why my advice should not be rendered as to how to catch the pike."
Robert Garth brought the carriage and drove, and Hardy rode his horse Buffalo. The weather was pleasant, and the drive was enjoyable.