Above this little world of men the old Domkirke reared its gray head, a splendid vision of the great things that were. Travellers approaching the town saw it from afar, a majestic pile against whose strong walls the town leaned with its time-worn old houses and crooked streets as if seeking strength and comfort against the assault of the gathering years. Its square red tower was a landmark for skippers far out at sea. The Dom itself was, and always had been, the heart and soul of the Old Town. It was so when the early Christian bishops built it in the twelfth century, for though kings abode in its shadow, they were their advisers and the real masters of the city. It was even more so after the Reformation had clipped the wings of the clergy. With their power went the commerce and the prestige of the Old Town; there remained little but the Domkirke and the Latin School that had been part of it from the beginning, and about these centred its life and all its normal interest. There were those, it is true, who dreamed of a return of the great days by wedding Ribe once more to the sea through a ship canal to deep water, but it was a dream that ended when they built a harbor at Esbjerg, a scant dozen miles away. After that the Old Town slept on, undisturbed by the world without. [Illustration: “THE OLD DOMKIRKE REARED ITS GRAY HEAD.”] They were mighty men who built the Domkirke, and went far afield for the stone of which they reared it. There is none in Denmark, so they sent their ships over the North Sea and up the river Rhine for the gray stone of which they built the walls, and in quarries on the Weser they found granite for the great pillars and sandstone for the lighter ones. They wrought in the fashion of their day, but those that came after them and raised the great tower of burned brick had learned another that suited their purpose better; and so while the gentler Roman curve was that of the church, the tower stood forth in the massive strength of the Goth, as it had need, for it was the strong place of the burghers as the castle was the King’s stronghold. Watchmen kept a constant lookout from it in times of war for an approaching enemy, and the great bell hung there, the “storm bell,” that called the people to arms. It had long been dumb in my day, for it was feared that to ring it would imperil the tower. But when the autumn storms bellowed about the gables of the Dom, sometimes we heard at dead of night a deep singing note above the crash of falling tiles, and then we hugged our pillows close and held our breath to listen; for when the bell sang, it was warning that the sea was coming in.