Hardy got into the boat, and put his gear in order, which had been disarranged by the boys' efforts to fish. A man accustomed to the lake rowed it, and Helga stepped into it. She remarked it was wet and dirty. "That is the boys' doing," said Hardy, as he pulled off his coat for her to sit on. They rowed on the lake, and Hardy cast his trolling-bait with the long accurate cast habitual to him, and caught four pike, and then directed the boat to be rowed ashore. As Froken Helga stepped ashore, where her father and brothers were waiting for her, she said, "I can understand the boys' enthusiasm for Herr Hardy; when Lars (the boatman) pointed out a place where a pike might be, although yards away, the bait was dropped in it and the pike caught. I wish Herr Hardy would let me see him catch fish on the Gudenaa with flies." "We can do that to-morrow evening," said Hardy, "as you cannot get up at three in the morning, as we are accustomed to do." "I cannot let little father miss his evening talk with you, Herr Hardy, and to get up at three in the morning these summer days is no hardship to me. May I go to-morrow?" asked Helga. "Certainly, if you wish it," said Hardy. As they returned home, Karl expressed no wish to ride Buffalo, and Garth rode it, and Hardy drove his Danish horses. "I should like to see how you drive; may I come up and sit beside you?" said Helga. After they had gone a little way, Hardy said to her, "Take the reins and drive. I have bought these horses for my mother, and she will drive them herself, and you can drive them. Draw the reins gently to the horses' mouths and let them go as you wish them. To slacken speed, draw the reins firmly but gently, and they will obey." Helga drove the carriage to the parsonage. "Little father," said Helga, "I have driven you all the way from the entrance gate at Rosendal." "I am glad," said the Pastor, "you did not tell me that before, as I should have been in great anxiety." "But Herr Hardy was sitting by me, little father," said Helga, "and there was no danger when he is near." CHAPTER XVI. "The trout and salmon being in season have, at their first taking out of the water, their bodies adorned with such red spots, and the other with such black spots, as give them such an addition of natural beauty as I think was never given to any woman by artificial paint or patches." --_The Complete Angler._ John Hardy had tied a couple of casting lines with the flies he usually fished with on the Gudenaa, and came down a little before three the next day. Karl and Axel yet slept, but their sister called them, and after the accustomed cup of coffee and rusks they went out to fish on the Gudenaa. Of late Hardy had hired a flat-bottomed boat, and a man called Nils Nilsen rowed or punted it with a pole, as on the Thames, or he went ashore on the towing-path and pulled it up the river with a towing rope, while a minnow was cast from the boat.