He opened the dingy volume aforementioned, and proceeded to read, translate, and comment, with infinite zest. "_Ingen kommer i Skaden, uden han selv hielper til_, 'No man gets into trouble without his own help'--(a moral which no one can point better than your humble servant); _Naar det regner Voelling, saa har Stodderen ingen Skee_, 'When it rains porridge, the beggar has no spoon'--(there's no contenting discontented people); _Ingen Ko kaldes broget uden hun haver en Flek_, 'A cow is not called dappled unless she has a spot'--(most gossip has some small foundation); _Hvo som vil gjöre et stort Spring, skal gaae vel tilbage_, 'He that would leap high must take a long run'--(else we should have bishops and judges without gray hairs); _Det kommer igien, sagde Manden, han gav sin So Floesk_, 'It will come back again, said the man, when he gave his sow pork:'--don't you see how the patient, shrewd, humorous character of the Danes peeps through them all? "Yet, if some proverbs are national, others are cosmopolitan, and fit all generations, and all countries. For instance, there's the Greek saw, Archè êmisu pantós,--see how it comes down through every language under the sun, till, at last, it settles into terse English rhyme, 'Well begun Is half done.' Or, take that common saying, 'To carry coals to Newcastle,' which seems to have originated in the East. At least, we find it first in the Persian of Saadi, 'To carry pepper to Hindostan;' then the Hebrews have it, 'To carry oil to the City of Olives;' the Greeks, 'owls to Athens;' the Latins, 'wood to the forest;' the French, 'water to the river;' the Dutch, 'firs to Norway;' the Danish--Hallo! Pegasus! what are you about?" The horse, being left to his own guidance while his master was riding his favorite hobby, had taken occasion to shoot off from the main road into an apparently little-used track, cut through a thick pine-barren at the left. He had made several lengths before his driver, taken at a disadvantage, could pull him up. "Pegasus is of the opinion that 'the longest way round is the surest way home,'" remarked the old man, apologetically, as he scanned the narrow, tree-lined track, with a view to the possibility of turning safely around. "Or," he added, with a glance of sly humor at the traveller, "perhaps he thinks, as I did just now, that Bergan Hall is your natural destination." "Bergan Hall," repeated the young man, in a tone of extreme surprise,--"is this the way to Bergan Hall? I thought you came to the village first, from Savalla."