nd to do
everything in his power to deserve the confidence which made his life
so rich and happy. Though, as I have said, Captain Carstens lacked the
acuteness to discover how much he owed to Lady Clare, he acknowledged
himself in quite a different way her debtor. He had never really been
aware what a splendid specimen of a boy his son was until he saw him
on the back of that spirited mare, which cut up with him like the Old
Harry, and yet never succeeded in flurrying, far less in unseating him.
The captain felt a glow of affection warming his breast at the sight of
this, and his pride in Erik's horsemanship proved a consolation to him
when the boy's less distinguished performances at school caused him fret
and worry.

"A boy so full of pluck must amount to something, even if he does not
take kindly to Latin," he reflected many a time. "I am afraid I have
made a mistake in having him prepared for college. In the army now,
and particularly in the cavalry, he would make a reputation in twenty
minutes."

And a cavalryman Erik might, perhaps, have become if his father had not
been transferred to another post, and compelled to take up his residence
in the country. It was nominally a promotion, but Captain Carstens was
ill pleased with it, and even had some thought of resigning rather than
give up his delightful city life, and move far northward into the region
of cod and herring. However, he was too young a man to retire on a
pension, as yet, and so he gradually reconciled himself to the thought,
and sailed northward in the month of April with his son and his entire
household. It had long been a question whether Lady Clare should make
the journey with them; for Captain Carstens maintained that so high-bred
an animal would be very sensitive to climatic changes and might even die
on the way. Again, he argued that it was an absurdity to bring so fine
a horse into a rough country, where the roads are poor and where nature,
in mercy, provides all beasts with rough, shaggy coats to protect them
from the cold. How would Lady Clare, with her glossy satin coat, her
slender legs that pirouetted so daintily over the ground, and her
exquisite head, which she carried so proudly--how would she look
and what kind of figure would she cut among the shaggy, stunted,
sedate-looking nags of the Sognefiord district? But the captain, though
what he said was irrefutable, had to suspend all argument when he saw
how utterly wretched Erik became at