"But what shall I do with Pastor Lindal tomorrow?" asked John Hardy.
"He will like to be left to himself, to go where he wishes," replied his mother; and she was right. As the yacht left Copenhagen a day or so after, Mrs. Hardy refused to visit the beautiful vicinity of Copenhagen. "No, John; and no, Herr Pastor," she said. "I must keep something to see for other years, and something to look forward to and wish to see. I even decline to hear the story of the soldier who shot from Kronborg Castle a cow with a cannon in Sweden, and that although he did not hurt the milkmaid. The Herr Pastor must keep something to tell me another season."
"But, mother, we can anchor at Elsinore, and you could see Kronborg Castle," urged her son.
"So I will another year, John," she replied. "Get your mud-hook up, as you call it, and let me have my way. I hope not only to visit more of Denmark, but also of Sweden and Norway, and hope not only the Herr Pastor will be with us, but his daughter."
"Thank you kindly," said the Pastor, shaking hands with her in the manner frequent in Denmark.
"Come, live with me and be my love, And we will some new pleasures prove. Of golden sands and crystal brooks. With silken lines and silver hooks." _The Complete Angler._
When Pastor Lindal arrived at his parsonage, he was received by his daughter with much affection. She saw he was benefited by the cruise in the yacht, and was in good spirits.
"Little father," she said, "you look so well. Thank you, Mrs. Hardy, for taking him with you; it will give my father so much to talk of, in the winter, to Axel; and thank you, John, too."
"I am glad there is a word for me," said Hardy, using, as he often did with her, a Danish phrase. "I was beginning to think I was not to be spoken to at all."
"I think," said Mrs. Hardy, "that the Pastor and Helga might come to us to-morrow, John, and that, as you are so impatient for a tête-à-tête interview with Helga, you can have a ramble in your woods at Rosendal, while I discuss the matters that have to be arranged with the Pastor."
John thought this a very excellent arrangement; but Pastor Lindal declined. He had much to see to in his parish, and he could not, he said, after the absence of a week, return to his parish and not visit it. He explained that he felt it to be his duty to feel the pulse of his parish, to see what changes of thought occurred and what circumstances had arisen that might influence his Sognebørn (children of his parish). This, he said, guided him in what he preached.