"Herr Hardy despises nothing," replied her father. "He sees and appreciates what is good in us, and sympathizes with the stability of the Danish character, but he naturally values the broader thought in everyday life of the English people."
"That is because he is an Englishman," retorted Helga.
"You forget, Helga, that Herr Hardy is present," said her father, "and what you have said would pain him. If he be an Englishman he cannot help it, and if he should be English in thought and character it is not what you should condemn. He is only true to himself. Since he has been with us, what has his conduct been?"
Helga knitted in silence; she felt the justice of her father's reproof and her injustice to Hardy.
Hardy, to change the conversation, said to Karl, "Well, Karl, you have not told us how soft you found the ditch that you went to the bottom of."
"I do not know how I fell off," said Karl. "I was suddenly under water in the ditch."
"You fell off as Buffalo was about to jump. He checked his stride before he jumped, and then you tumbled off," said Hardy.
"What should I have done?" asked Karl.
"Stuck on," replied Hardy. "You have to learn the motion of the horse when jumping, which only practise gives."
"It was like the Damhest," said the Pastor, "which is a legendary horse that comes out of mill-dams, ponds, or lakes, at night, and entices people to ride it, when it jumps into the water. The best story of it is from Thisted, a little to the north-west of this. Three tipsy Bønder (farmers) were going home, when one of them wished for a horse, that they might ride home, when, lo! there appeared a long-backed black horse, on whose back they all clambered, and there appeared room for many more. As the last man got up he exclaimed—