Which brings me naturally to the good Dean of the Domkirke. Pastor Koch was my teacher in the Latin School when the blow fell that separated Denmark from her children south of the Konge-aa. His father had been the parish priest in Döstrup, one of the villages across the line, and his father before him, and so on through an unbroken chain back almost to the Reformation. When the separation came, old Gabriel Koch moved to Ribe, rather than swear allegiance to the conquerors, and died of a broken heart. There messengers from the old parish found his son, then in orders, and bade him come to them. His church, his people needed him, they said. The parish was Danish despite the German occupation and would always remain so. The change of allegiance would be a mere matter of form. Would he come? They were waiting and yearning for the son of the old house. They pleaded long and earnestly, but he stood firm. He could not take oath to serve the enemies of his country. When the men from Döstrup went back over the line, Pastor Koch stood at the South-gate, shading his eyes with his hands, and followed their retreating forms until they vanished in the sunset. He had brought the last sacrifice, forever closing the door upon his life-dream, that of filling the pulpit of his fathers. To the day of his death, I think, he never ceased to look southward with a yearning that had no words. And from below the line longing eyes were directed, are yet, toward the square tower of the Domkirke with the white cross on red waving from its top. Like him, they are men who never forget. [Illustration: THE WIFE OF THE MIDDLE-MILLER.] It is the way, I guess, of the Old Town. Last year, when I was within a day’s journey of it, travelling toward Denmark, news reached me that an old friend had gone to her long home. Mrs. Hansen was the wife of the “middle-miller,” for there were three on the three branches of the river. It was at her door I bade good-by to my mother when I went into the great world, and it was she who comforted her, Mother told me in after years, with the assurance that “Jacob will come back President of the new country, see if he doesn’t.” Nor did she ever forget the wanderer, but always hailed his return with gladness. Her boy rode with me in that post-chaise. He was going in to serve the King as a soldier. We had sat on the school bench together and fought together, to the loss of much learning, I fear, and to the loss of caste, too, with our teacher. But it befell that, when we met again under his mother’s roof, when our hair that was brown had grown grizzled and gray, she saw us both distinguished by old King Christian as the two of our class who had made it proud. And she smiled a calm “I told you so.” But that is another story, and we shall come to it. [Illustration: VENUS.]