"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 assent, I will send a message to the bailiff, as you might like a little refreshment there."
"A most excellent plan, Herr Hardy!" exclaimed Frøken 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 Frøken 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 Frøken 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 passed 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 Frøken Helga was correct.
"We have caught a few trout," said Hardy, "and taken a few to the Jensens, who were so good as to make us stay to dinner, with the kind hospitality so conspicuous in Denmark."
"They are hospitable people," said the Pastor.
"But great gossips," added the daughter, who had scarcely noticed Hardy since his return. She got up and left the room.