"There comes Mathis with the boat," exclaimed old Lars.
The boat, which was to carry them over to the shelter, crept like an insect far below them on the green mirror of the lake.
The going down was real recreation for the captain's rather stout body, short of breath as he was, and the prospect of being able to indulge in his favorite sport, fishing, contributed greatly to enlivening his temper.
"We are coming here just at the right time: they will bite," he suggested.
When they embarked in the square trough, which was waiting for them down by the fishing-hut, he had the line ready. He had already, with great activity, taken care of the bait, carried in a goat's horn.
Those of the train who could not be accommodated in the boat went around the lake with the horses. They saw them now and then on the crags, while they rowed out.
"What do you say to a trial along the shore there in the shade, Mathis? Don't you think they will take the hook there?—We are not rowing so straight over at once, I think," said the captain slyly.
Under the thwarts Mathis's own line was lying; and Inger-Johanna also wanted to try her hand at it.
The captain put the bait on for her. But she would not sit and wait till they reached the fishing place; she threw the line out at once and let it trail behind the boat, while, as they rowed, she, off and on, gave a strong pull at it.
"See how handy she is," exclaimed the captain; "it is inborn—you come from a race of fishermen, for I was brought up in the Bergen district, and my father before me. If I had a dollar for every codfish I have pulled out of Alverströmmen, there would be something worth inheriting from me—What! what!"