When the government undertook to replace the deadly slow old hymns that were sung in church on Sunday with some of more modern cast, and to that end introduced a new hymnbook, it came to a characteristic fight between the conservative countryfolk, who wanted no change, and their clergy carrying out the orders from headquarters. The peasants flatly refused to sing the new tunes. When the preceptor struck up one, they calmly sang the old and drowned him and the parson out. The battle raged for years before the new prevailed, just how I do not know. The government tried to seize the old books and burn them, but it only made matters worse. Some compromise was made, without doubt, or they would be singing the old tunes to this day. The “stalwart Jutes” they called the countryfolk round about the Old Town, and stalwart they are, as Germany is finding out trying to bend those south of the Konge-aa to her will. She may do it in Alsace and Lorraine perhaps,--I don’t know,--but not with them. They will be Danes four hundred years hence, as they have been these forty under daily persecution. They will do nothing rash, but give in they never will. It is their way. Let me end this battlesome chapter, when I yearned only for peace, with the characteristic tale of my old friend Rosenvinge, who was set to guard a prisoner in the war of ’49. The man was a disloyal burgomaster or sheriff or something from one of the Schleswig towns, brought in by order of the government, to be kept and guarded in Ribe. Rosenvinge--may his shadow never grow less! he lives yet, near the nineties if not in them, and goes his daily rounds in the old cloister of which he is the keeper--Rosenvinge was the sentinel. The call for breakfast came after a night on the road, for suspects had to be taken by stealth and under cover of darkness. The sentinel was hungry. Never was man a hero without his porridge. No guard relief was in sight. There was but one way, and he took it. He put his gun in the corner with the prisoner, and went calmly across the street to the tavern, whence came the compelling savors of fried herring and hot Tvebak. Nor did he hurry himself over his coffee, but took his time. A soldier must have a good digestion, or he will have no stomach for the stern duties of war. Let it be recorded that he found his prisoner faithfully guarding the gun when he came back and awaiting his turn at the herring. To disturb a man’s breakfast by running away--if, indeed, it would have disturbed it--would have been dishonorable; not to mention that thereby he would have lost his own. A square deal and nothing in haste was the good working plan of the Old Town. [Illustration: “HE FOUND HIS PRISONER FAITHFULLY GUARDING THE GUN WHEN HE CAME BACK.”] CHAPTER III [Illustration: “EYES THAT SPOKE OF THINGS UNSEEN BY THE CROWD.”]