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 Bonder (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--

'Herre, Jesu Kors
Aldrig saae jeg saadan Hors.'

'By the Lord Jesu's cross,
Never saw I such a horse.'

Instantly at that holy name the horse disappeared from under them, and
the three Bonder were lying on the ground. The Danish word for horse
is 'hest,' but the Jutland people use the word 'hors,' in their
dialect."

"There is a similar legend in the Shetland Islands; but, then, it is a
little horse that jumps into the sea, with the unfortunate person it
has enticed to mount it," said Hardy.

"There is also a similar legend in France," said the Pastor. "The
horse is called 'Le Lutin.' We have another legendary horse, that is
said to abide in churchyards, and has three legs. The legend has
arisen from the practice in old times of burying a living horse at the
funeral of a man of distinction. This horse's ghost is called the
'Helhest.' If any one meets it, it is a sign to him of an e