"John Hardy."
In little more than a week, Buffalo and Robert Garth were in Niels Jacobsen's stables.
Buffalo was a good English-bred horse, a good jumper, with a chest like a wall, and hind-quarters up to weight. Niels Jacobsen and his neighbours had collected and criticized.
"Gild bevars! sikken en Hest!" ["God preserve us, what a horse!">[ said Niels, sucking away at his pipe, with a chorus echoing the same words from his neighbours. There was no doubt of their approval, and Buffalo had a succession of visitors and admirers for days.
Hardy had communicated to Pastor Lindal that he intended to have one of his horses and a groom from England, and had great difficulty in preventing the Pastor turning out his own small stable to make room for Buffalo; but this Hardy would not allow. Robert Garth lodged at Jacobsen's, and Hardy, with that thoughtfulness he always had for those about him, arranged for his man's meals and sleeping quarters as nearly as possible to an English groom's notions.
"Well, Bob," said Hardy, "you will shake down after a bit; but what I want you to do is, to help me to pick out a pair of light carriage horses from here. I have seen a lot, and you will have plenty to choose from. They will suit my mother, and I wish to take them over as a present to her."
"I have seen some of them Danish horses," said Robert Garth, "and not half bad horses either; but it is the infernal lingo. They keep smoking them big wood pipes, and when they don't smoke they chews, and then they spits."
"Where did you see any Danish horses?" asked Hardy.
"At Sir Charles'; he had a pair, hardly up to fifteen hands, but very pretty steppers, with a thinish mane, a trifle small below the knee," said Garth.
"That's the very thing," said Hardy.