beauty,--chivalrous desire to pursue it and catch it and call it your
own,--I understand it all, my dear boy! But my prophetic soul tells me
you will have to strangle the excellent Olaf Gueldmar--heavens! what a
name!--before you will be allowed to make love to his fair _chee-ild_.
Then don't forget the madman with the torch,--he may turn up in the most
unexpected fashion and give you no end of trouble. But, by Jove, it _is_
a romantic affair, positively quite stagey! Something will come of it,
serious or comic. I wonder which?"

Errington laughed, but said nothing in reply, as their two companions
ascended from the cabin at that moment, in full attire for the fishing
expedition, followed by the steward bearing a large basket of provisions
for luncheon,--and all private conversation came to an end. Hastening
the rest of their preparations, within twenty minutes they were skimming
across the Fjord in a long boat manned by four sailors, who rowed with a
will and sent the light craft scudding through the water with the
swiftness of an arrow. Landing, they climbed the dewy hills spangled
thick with forget-me-nots and late violets, till they reached a shady
and secluded part of the river, where, surrounded by the songs of
hundreds of sweet-throated birds, they commenced their sport, which kept
them, well employed till a late hour in the afternoon.

CHAPTER IV.

"Thou art violently carried away from grace; there is a devil
haunts thee in the likeness of a fat old man,--a tun of man is
thy companion."
SHAKESPEARE.

The Reverend Charles Dyceworthy sat alone in the small dining-room of
his house at Bosekop, finishing a late tea, and disposing of round after
round of hot buttered toast with that suave alacrity he always displayed
in the consumption of succulent eatables. He was a largely made man,
very much on the wrong side of fifty, with accumulations of unwholesome
fat on every available portion of his body. His round face was cleanly
shaven and shiny, as though its flabby surface were frequently polished
with some sort of luminous grease instead of the customary soap. His
mouth was absurdly small and pursy for so broad a countenance,--his nose
seemed endeavoring to retreat behind his puffy cheeks as though
painfully aware of its own insignificance,--and he had little, sharp,
ferret-like eyes of a dull mahogany brown, which were utterly destitute
of ev