Old Cohen carried a Danish
bullet in his arm to remind him of his early ill-doings. But it was
not fired in defence of Ribe. That collapsed when a staff officer
of the government, who had been sent out to report upon the zeal
of the Ribe men, declared that the town could be defended only by
damming the river and flooding the meadows, which would cost two
hundred daler. The minutes of the council represent that that was
held to be too great a price to pay for the privilege of being
sacked, perhaps, as a captured town; and the citizen army disbanded.
[Illustration: Downstream where Ships sailed once]
If the coming of the invading army could have been timed to suit,
the sea, which from old was the bulwark of the nation, might have
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.
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