completed the defences of Ribe without other expense to it than
that of repairing damages. Two or three times a year, usually in
the fall, when it blew long and hard from the northwest, it broke
in over the low meadows and flooded the country as far as the eye
could reach. Then the high causeways were the refuge of everything
that lived in the fields; hares, mice, foxes, and partridges huddled
there, shivering in the shower of spray that shot over the road,
and making such stand as they could against the fierce blast. If the
"storm flood" came early in the season, before the cattle had been
housed, there was a worse story to tell. Then the town butcher went
upon the causeway at daybreak with the implements of his trade to
save if possible, by letting the blood, at least the meat of drowned
cattle and sheep that were cast up by the sea. When it rose higher
and washed over the road, the mail-coach picked its way warily
between white posts set on both sides to guide it safe. We boys
caught fish in the streets of the town, while red tiles flew from
the roofs all about us, and we enjoyed ourselves hugely. It was part
of the duty of the watchmen who cried the hours to give warning if
the sea came in suddenly during the night. And when we heard it we
shivered in our beds with gruesome delight.

The people of Ribe were of three classes: the officials, the
tradesmen, and the working people. The bishop, the burgomaster,
and the rector of the Latin School headed the first class, to which
my father belonged as the senior master in the school. Elizabeth's
father easily led the second class. For the third, it had no
leaders and nothing to say at that time. On state occasions lines
were quite sharply drawn between the classes, but the general
kindliness of the people caused them at ordinary times to be so
relaxed that the difference was hardly to be noticed. Theirs was a