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The body was to be taken from Sandsgaard and laid in the church, where Dean Sparre was to deliver a discourse, while the chaplain was to conduct the funeral service at the cemetery. All the different guilds were to follow with their banners, and the town band was busy practising till late at night. Jacob Worse did not take any part in all this.
Pastor Martens had not had an opportunity of speaking to Madeleine by herself since his proposal. But at this time of anxiety and excitement he came very frequently to Sandsgaard. Mrs. Garman kept her bed, for what reason it was not easy to know; and so it chanced that several times, when he came, no one but Madeleine happened to be in the room.
The mind of the young clergyman seemed, as it were, softened by an influence which he did not clearly understand, and the power of which he was not willing to recognize. After a long walk, Johnsen at length arrived in the large field which lay beyond Sandsgaard. From this position he could look down into the garden and premises near the house.
He greeted them all with a friendly smile as he passed to the carriage, and there was more than one lady who felt that the glance of his bright brown eye rested smilingly on her for a moment. The carriage rolled off through the town, and away down the long avenue which led to the large family mansion of Sandsgaard. The town gossipped itself nearly crazy, but without any satisfactory result.
More than half the town had been at Sandsgaard that night, or else on the heights above the house, looking on the fire. One of the few people who had not been at the fire was our friend Woodlouse. When he and the Swede parted, after the fight between Martin and Robson, he went straight off to his home in the town.
At Sandsgaard only one large ball was given every year, and that was on the old Consul's birthday, which fell on the 15th of May. Madeleine did not go out that winter, neither did she pay any more visits to Fanny. Rachel was, as usual, quite incomprehensible.
A whole regiment of governesses had attempted to teach Madeleine, but the task was a difficult one; and when the governesses were ugly her father could not abide them, and when one came who was pretty there were other objections. Richard paid frequent visits to Sandsgaard, either on Don Juan or in the Garmans' dogcart, which was sent to fetch him.
The sun was shining over the bay of Sandsgaard, where the new ship now lay securely moored with hawsers both ahead and astern. The sounds of activity from West End could be heard far out into the fjord. In Begmand's cottage Marianne lay raving in delirium, and the neighbour who attended her said she had the fever.
Marianne took a short cut through the ship-yard, where the carpenters were busy dividing the shavings and putting them into sacks. She found her grandfather, who had finished his work in the pitch-house, and they set off homewards together. Anders Begmand lived in the last of the little red-painted cottages which lay below the steep slope on the western side of the bay of Sandsgaard.
"You are not going to ride up to Sandsgaard this morning?" "No, not exactly; it would not do. I can't very well go up there dressed for riding, and if I were to ride in these clothes I should look absurd. But I thought of riding out there this evening, somewhere about seven o'clock. Just fancy me coming in over the garden wall with a flying salute, and lighted by the last rays of the evening sun!
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