Montanus.  I sit here speculating about important questions, and this importunissimus and audacissimus juvenis comes and hinders me.  It is no child’s play to have to deal with these transcendentalibus.  I wouldn’t have had it happen for two marks.

Jeppe.  Oh, don’t be angry, my dear son!  This shall never happen again.  I am so much afraid that my honored son has allowed himself to get over-excited.  Learned folk can’t stand many shocks.  I know that Peer the deacon got excited once and didn’t recover for three days.

Montanus.  Peer the deacon!  Is he learned?

Jeppe.  I should say he was!  As far back as I can remember, we have never had a deacon here in the village who could sing as well as he can.

Montanus.  For all that, he may have no learning at all.

Jeppe.  He preaches beautifully, too.

Montanus.  For all that, too, he might have no learning at all.

Nille.  Oh, honored son!  How can a man lack learning if he preaches well?

Montanus.  Surely, mother!  All the ignorant folk preach well, for inasmuch as they can’t compose anything out of their own heads, they use borrowed sermons, and learn good men’s compositions by heart, though sometimes they don’t understand them themselves.  A learned man, on the other hand, won’t use such methods; he composes out of his own head.  Believe me, it is a common mistake in this country to judge a student’s learning altogether too much from his sermons.  But let the fellow dispute as I do—­there’s the touchstone of learning.  If any one says this table is a candlestick, I will justify the statement.  If any one says that meat or bread is straw, I will justify that, too; that has been done many a time.  Listen, father!  Will you admit that the man who drinks well is blessed?

Jeppe.  I think rather that he is accursed, for a man can drink himself out of both reason and money.

Montanus.  I will prove that he is blessed.  Quicunque bene bibit, bene dormit.  But, no,—­you don’t understand Latin; I must say it in Danish.  Whoever drinks well, sleeps well.  Isn’t that so?

Jeppe.  That’s true enough, for when I am half-drunk I sleep like a horse.

Montanus.  He who sleeps well does not sin.  Isn’t that true, too?

Jeppe.  True, too; so long as a man’s asleep he doesn’t sin.

Montanus.  He who does not sin is blessed.

Jeppe.  That is also true.

Montanus.  Ergo:  he who drinks well is blessed.—­Little mother, I will turn you into a stone.

Nille.  Oh, nonsense!  That is more than even learning can do.

Montanus.  You shall hear whether it is or not.  A stone cannot fly.

Nille.  No, indeed it can’t, unless it is thrown.

Montanus.  You cannot fly.