"It's yon' as hurts her," said Kate, calling the matron's attention to

something on the child's shoulders. They both stooped and saw a long

blue-and-red mark--a bruise all across her back. Nor was this the only

evidence of ill-treatment: other bruises, and even scars, were to be

seen on the lean little body.

"Puir thing!" said the matron in a low tone, sympathizingly.

"Baubie, who gave you that bruise?" asked Miss Mackenzie.

No answer from Baubie, who seemed to be absorbed in watching the drops

running off the end of her little red nose, which played the part of a

gargoyle to the rest of her face.

Miss Mackenzie repeated the question, sternly almost: "Bauble Wishart, I

insist upon knowing who gave you that bruise."

"A didna gie't to mysel', mem." was the answer from the figure in the

soapsuds. There was a half sob in the voice as of terror, and her manner

had all the appearance of ingenuousness.

The matron and Miss Mackenzie looked at each other significantly, and

agreed tacitly that there was no use in pushing the question.

"Od!" said Kate, who had paused in the act of taking a warm towel from

the fireplace to listen, "a'body kens ye didna gie it till yoursel',

lassie."

"Where are her clothes?" said the matron. "Oh, here. Yon frock's good

enough if it was washed; but, losh me! just look at these for clothes!"

She was exhibiting some indescribable rags as she spoke.

"Kate," said Miss Mackenzie, "dress her in the lassie Grant's clothes:

they are the most likely to fit her. Don't lose time: I want to see her

again before I go."

Kate fished up her charge, all smoking, from the soapsuds and rubbed her

down before the fire. Then the tangled wet hair was parted evenly and

smoothed into dark locks on either side of her face. Raiment clean, but

the coarsest of the coarse, was found for her. A brown wincey dress

surmounted all. Shoes and stockings came last of all, probably in the

order of importance assigned to them by Kate.

From the arm-chair of the matron's sitting-room Miss Mackenzie surveyed

her charge with satisfaction. Baubie looked subdued, contented, perhaps

grateful, and was decidedly uncomfortable. Every vestige of the

picturesque was gone, obliterated clean by soap and water, and Kate's

hair-comb, a broken-toothed weapon that had come off second best in its

periodic conflicts with her own barley-mow, had disposed for ever of the

wild, curly tangle of hair. Her eyes had red rims to them, caused by

superfluous soap and water, and in its present barked condition, when

all the dirt was gone, Baubie's face had rather an interesting, wistful

expression. She seemed not to stand very steadily in her boots, which

were much too big for her.

Miss Mackenzie surveyed her with great satisfaction. The brown wincey

and the coarse apron seemed to her the neophyte's robe, betokening

Baubie's conversion from arab nomadism to respectability and from a

vagabond trade to decorous industry.

"Now, Baubie, you can knit: I mean to give you needles and worsted to

knit yourself stockings. Won't that be nice? I am sure you never knitted

stockings for yourself before."

"Yes, mem," replied Baubie, shuffling her feet.

"Now, what bed is she to get, Mrs. Duncan? Let us go up stairs and see

the dormitory."

"I thought I would put her in the room with Kate: I changed the small

bed in there. If you will just step up stairs, Miss Mackenzie?"

The party reached the dormitory by a narrow wooden staircase, the

whiteness of which testified to the scrubbing powers of Kate's red arms

and those of her compeers. All the windows were open, and the east wind

came in at its will, nippingly cold if airy. They passed through a

large, low-ceilinged room into a smaller one, in which were only four

beds: a small iron stretcher beside the window was pointed out as

Baubie's. Miss Mackenzie turned down the red-knitted coverlet and looked

at the blankets. They were perfectly clean, like everything else, and,

like everything else too, very coarse and very well worn.

"This will do very nicely.--Baubie, this is to be your bed."

Baubie, fresh from the lock-up and Kennedy's Lodgings, might have been

expected to show some trace of her sense of comparison, but not a

vestige of expression crossed her face: she looked up in civil

acknowledgment of having heard: that was all.

"I shall look in again in the course of a week," announced Miss

Mackenzie.--"Good-bye, Baubie: do everything Mrs. Duncan tells you."

With this valedictory Miss Mackenzie left the matron, and Kate attended

her down stairs; and Baubie was at last alone.

She remained standing stock-still when they left her by the

bedside--when the door, shut by Kate, who went out last, hid them from

her view. She listened in a stupid kind of way to the feet tramping on

the bare boards of the outer dormitory and down the stairs: then all was

still, and Baubie Wishart, clean, clothed and separated from her father

for the first time in her life, was left alone to consider how she liked

"school." She felt cold and strange and lonely, and for about three

minutes' space she abandoned herself without reserve to the sensation.

Then the heavy shoes troubled her, and in a fit of anger and impatience

she suddenly began to unlace one. Some far-off sound startled her, and

with a furtive, timorous look at the door she fastened it up again. No

one came, but instead of returning to the boot she sprang to the window,

and, mounting the narrow sill, prepared to survey the domain that lay

below it. There was not much to see. The window looked out on the back

green, which was very much like the front, save that there was no

flagged walk. A few stunted poplars ran round the walls: the grass was

trodden nearly all off, and from wall to wall were stretched cords from

which fluttered a motley collection of linen hung out to dry. There was

no looking out of it. Baubie craned her adventurous small neck in all

directions. One side of the back green was overlooked by a

tenement-house; the other was guarded by the poplars and a low stone

wall; at the bottom was a dilapidated outhouse. The sky overhead was all

dull gray: a formless gray sea-mist hurried across it, driven by the

east wind, which found time as well to fill, as it passed, all the

fluttering garments on the line and swell them into ridiculous

travesties of the bodies they belonged to, tossing them the while with

high mockery into all manner of weird contortions.

Baubie looked at them curiously, and wondered to herself how much they

would all pawn for--considerably more than three shillings no doubt.

She established that fact to her own satisfaction ere long, although she

was no great arithmetician, and she sighed as she built and demolished

an air-castle in her own mind. Though there was but little attraction

for her in the room, she was about to leave the window when her eye fell

on a large black cat crouched on the wall, employed in surveillance of

the linen or stalking sparrows or in deadly ambush for a hated rival.

Meeting Baubie's glance, he sat up and stared at her suspiciously with a

pair of round yellow, unwinking orbs.

"Ki! ki! ki!" breathed Baubie discreetly. She felt lonely, and the cat

looked a comfortable big creature, and belonged to the house doubtless,

for he stared at her with an interested, questioning look. Presently he

moved. She repeated her invitation, whereon the cat slowly rose to his

feet, humped his back and yawned, then deliberately turned quite round,

facing the other way, and resumed his watchful attitude, his tail tucked

in and his ears folded back close, as if to give the cold wind as little

purchase as possible. Baubie felt snubbed and lonely, and drawing back

from the window she sat down on the edge of her bed to wait events.

Accustomed as she was to excitement, the experiences of the last few

days were of a nature to affect even stronger nerves than hers, and the

unwonted bodily sensations caused by the bath and change of garments

seemed to intensify her consciousness of novelty and restraint. There

was another not very pleasant sensation too, of which she herself had

not taken account, although it was present and made itself felt keenly

enough. It was her strange sense of desolation and grief at the parting

from her father. Baubie herself would have been greatly puzzled had any

person designated her feelings by these names. There were many things in

that philosophy of the gutter in which Baubie Wishart was steeped to the

lips undreamt of by her. What she knew she knew thoroughly, but there

was much with which most children, even of her age and class in life,

are, it is to be hoped, familiar, of which Baubie Wishart was utterly

ignorant. Her circumstances were different from theirs--fortunately for

them; and amongst the poor, as with their betters, various conditions

breed various dispositions. Baubie was an outer barbarian and savage in

comparison with some children, although they perhaps went barefooted

also; but, like a savage too, she would have grown fat where they would

have starved. And this she knew well.

Kate's yellow head, appearing at the door to summon her to dinner, put

an end to her gloomy reverie. And with this, her first meal, began

Baubie's acquaintance with the household of which she was to form an

integral portion from that hour.

They gave her no housework to do. Mrs. Duncan, whom a very cursory

examination satisfied as to the benighted ignorance of this latest

addition to her flock, determined that Baubie should learn to read,

write and sew as expeditiously as might be. In order that she might

benefit by example, she was made to sit by the lassie Grant, the child

whose clothes had been lent to her, and her education began forthwith.

It was tame work to Baubie, who did not love sitting still: "white seam"

was a vexation of spirit, and her knitting, in which she had beforehand

believed herself an adept, was found fault with. The lassie Grant, as

was pointed out to her, could knit more evenly and possessed a superior

method of "turning the heel."

Baubie Wishart listened with outward calmness and seeming acquiescence

to the comparison instituted between herself and her neighbor. Inwardly,

however, she raged. What about knitting? Anybody could knit. She would

like to see the lassie Grant earn two shillings of a Saturday night

singing in the High street or the Lawnmarket. Baubie forgot in her flush

of triumphant recollection that there had always been somebody to take

the two shillings from her, and beat her and accuse her of malversation

and embezzlement into the bargain. Artist-like, she remembered her

triumphs only: she could earn two shillings by her braced of songs, and

for a minute, as she revelled in this proud consciousness, her face lost

its demure, watchful expression, and the old independent, confident

bearing reappeared. Baubie forgot also in her present well-nourished

condition the never-failing sensation of hunger that had gone hand in

hand with these departed glories. But even if she had remembered every

circumstance of her former life, and the privations and sufferings, she

would still have pined for its freedom.

The consequence of her being well fed was simply that her mind was freed

from what is, after all, the besetting occupation of creatures like her,

and was therefore at liberty to bestow its undivided attention upon the

restraints and irksomeness of this new order of things. Her gypsy blood

began to stir in her: the charm of her old vagabond habits asserted

itself under the wincey frock and clean apron. To be commended for

knitting and sewing was no distinction worth talking about. What was it

compared with standing where the full glare of the blazing windows of

some public-house fell upon the Rob Roy tartan, with an admiring

audience gathered round and bawbees and commendations flying thick? She

never thought then, any more than now, of the cold wind or the day-long

hunger. It was no wonder that under the influence of these cherished

recollections "white seam" did not progress and the knitting never

attained to the finished evenness of the lassie Grant's performance.

None the less, although she made no honest effort to equal this model

proposed for her example, did Baubie feel jealous and aggrieved. Her

nature recognized other possibilities of expression and other fields of

excellence beyond those afforded by the above-mentioned useful arts, and

she brooded over her arbitrary and forcedly inferior position with all

the intensity of a naturally masterful and passionate nature. It was all

the more unbearable because she had no real cause of complaint: had she

been oppressed or ill-treated in the slightest degree, or had anybody

else been unduly favored, there would have been a pretext for an

outbreak or a shadow of a reason for her discontent. But it was not so.

The matron dispensed even-handed justice and motherly kindness

impartially all round. And if the lassie Grant's excellences were

somewhat obtrusively contrasted with Baubie's shortcomings, it was

because, the two children being of the same age, Mrs. Duncan hoped to

rouse thereby a spark of emulation in Baubie. Neither was there any

pharisaical self-exaltation on the part of the rival. She was a

sandy-haired little girl, an orphan who had been three years in the

refuge, and who in her own mind rather deprecated as unfair any

comparison drawn between herself and the newly-caught Baubie.

Day followed day quietly, and Baubie had been just a week in the refuge,

when Miss Mackenzie, faithful to her promise, called to inquire how her

_protégée_ was getting on.

The matron gave her rather a good character of Baubie. "She's just no

trouble--a quiet-like child. She knows just nothing, but I've set her

beside the lassie Grant, and I don't doubt but she'll do well yet; but

she is some dull," she added.

"Are you happy, Baubie?" asked Miss Mackenzie. "Will you try and learn

everything like 'Lisbeth Grant? See how well she sews, and she is no

older than you."

"Ay, mem," responded Baubie, meekly and without looking up. She was

still wearing 'Lisbeth Grant's frock and apron, and the garments gave

her that odd look of their real owner which clothes so often have the

power of conveying. Baubie's slim figure had caught the flat-backed,

square-shoulder form of her little neighbor, and her face, between the

smooth-laid bands of her hair, seemed to have assumed the same

gravely-respectable air. The disingenuous roving eye was there all the

time, could they but have noted it, and gave the lie to her compressed

lips and studied pose.

That same day the Rob Roy tartan frock made its appearance from the

wash, brighter as to hue, but somewhat smaller and shrunken in size, as

was the nature of its material for one reason, and for another because

it had parted, in common with its owner when subjected to the same

process, with a great deal of extraneous matter. Baubie saw her familiar

garb again with joy, and put it on with keen satisfaction.

That same night, when the girls were going to bed--whether the

inspiration still lingered, in spite of soapsuds, about the red frock,

and was by it imparted to its owner, or whether it was merely the

prompting of that demon of self-assertion that had been tormenting her

of late--Baubie Wishart volunteered a song, and, heedless of

consequences, struck up one of the two which formed her stock in trade.

The unfamiliar sounds had not long disturbed the quiet of the house when

the matron and Kate, open-eyed with wonder, hastened up to know what was

the meaning of this departure from the regular order of things. Baubie

heard their approach, and only sang the louder. She had a good and by no

means unmusical voice, which the rest had rather improved; and by the

time the authorities arrived on the scene there was an audience gathered

round the daring Baubie, who, with shoes and stockings off and the Rob

Roy tartan half unfastened, was standing by her bed, singing at the

pitch of her voice. The words could be heard down the stairs:

Hark! I hear the bugles sounding: 'tis the signal for the fight.

Now, may God protect us, mother, as He ever does the right.

"Baubie Wishart," cried the astonished mistress, "what do you mean?"

The singer was just at the close of a verse:

Hear the battle-cry of Freedom! how it swells upon the air!

Yes, we'll rally round the standard or we'll perish nobly there.

She finished it off deliberately, and turned her bright eyes and flushed

face toward the speaker.

"Who gave you leave, Baubie Wishart," went on the angry matron, "to make

yon noise? You ought to think shame of such conduct, singing your

good-for-nothing street-songs like a tinkler. One would think ye would

feel glad never to hear of such things again. Let me have no more of

this, do ye hear? I just wonder what Miss Mackenzie would say to

ye!--Kate, stop here till they are all bedded and turn off yon gas."

Long before the gas was extinguished Baubie had retired into darkness

beneath the bed-clothes, rage and mortification swelling her small

heart. Good-for-nothing street-songs! Tinkler! Mrs. Duncan's scornful

epithets rang in her ears and cut her to the quick. She lay awake,

trembling with anger and indignation, until long after Kate had followed

the younger fry to rest, and their regular breathing, which her ears

listened for till they caught it from every bed, warned her that the

weary occupants were safely asleep: then she sat up in bed. The

moonlight was streaming into the room through the uncurtained window,

and lit up her tumbled head and hot face. After a cautious pause she

stepped out on the floor and went round the foot of her bed to the

window. She knelt down on the floor, as if she were in search of

something, and began feeling with her hand on the lower part of the

shutter. Then, close to the floor, and in a place where they were likely

to escape detection, she marked clearly and distinctly eight deep, short

scratches in an even line on the yellow-painted woodwork. She ran her

fingers over them until she could feel each scratch distinctly. Eight!

She counted them thrice to make sure, then jumped back into bed, and in

a few minutes was as fast asleep as her neighbors.

The days wore into weeks, and the weeks had soon made a month, and time,

as it went, left Baubie more demure, quieter and more diligent--diligent

apparently at least, for the knitting, though it advanced, showed no

sign of corresponding improvement, and the rest of her work was simply

scamped. March had given way to April, and the late Edinburgh spring at

last began to give signs of its approach. The chestnuts showed brown

glistening tips to their branch-ends, and their black trunks became

covered with an emerald-colored mildew; the rod-like branches of the

poplars turned a pale whitish-green and began to knot and swell; the

Water of Leith overflowed, and ran bubbling and mud-colored under the

bridge; and the grass by its banks, and even that in the front green of

the refuge, showed here and there a red-eyed daisy. The days grew longer

and longer, and of a mild evening the thrush's note was to be heard

above the brawling of the stream from the thickets of Dean Terrace

Gardens.

Baubie Wishart waited passively. Every day saw her more docile and

demure, and every day saw a new scratch added to her tally on the

window-shutter behind her bed.

May came, and the days climbed with longer strides to their goal, now

close; on reaching which they return slowly and unwillingly, but just as

surely; and to her joy, about, the third week in May, Baubie Wishart

counted one warm, clear night fifty-nine scratches on the shutter.

Fifty-nine! She knew the number well without counting them.

Whether she slept or watched that night is not known, but the next

morning at four saw Baubie make a hasty and rather more simple toilette

than usual, insomuch as she forgot to wash herself, brush her hair or

put on her shoes and stockings. Barefooted and bareheaded, much as she

had come, she went. She stole noiselessly as a shadow through the outer

dormitory, passing the rows of sleepers with bated breath, and not

without a parting glance of triumph at the bed where her rival,

Elizabeth Grant, was curled up. Down the wooden stair, her bare feet

waking no echoes, glided Baubie, and into the school-room, which looked

out on the front green. She opened the window easily, hoisted herself on

the sill, crept through and let herself drop on the grass below. To

scramble up the trunk of one of the chestnuts and swing herself over the

wall was quickly done, and then she was once more on the flagged path of

the street, and the world lay before her.

As she stood for one moment, breathless with her haste and excitement,

she was startled by the sudden apparition of the house cat, who was on

his way home as surreptitiously as she was on hers abroad. He had one

bloody ear and a scratched nose, and stared at her as he passed: then,

probably in the hope of finding an open door after her, he jumped over

the wall hurriedly. Baubie was seized with a sudden panic lest the cat

should waken some one in the house, and she took to her heels and ran

until she reached the bridge. The morning sun was just beginning to

touch the tall tops of the houses, and the little valley through which

the Water of Leith ran lay still in a kind of clear grayish light, in

which the pale tender hues of the young leaves and the flowering trees

were all the more vividly beautiful. The stream was low, and it hurried

along over its stony bed, as if it too were running away, and in as

great a hurry to be free of all restraints as truant Baubie Wishart,

whose red frock was now climbing the hilly gray street beyond.

She could hear, as she strained herself to listen for pursuing voices,

the rustle and murmur of the water with an odd distinctness as it rose

upon the still air of the summer morning.

Not a creature was to be seen as she made her way eastward, shaping her

course for Princes street, and peering, with a gruesome fear of the

school-board officer, round every corner. That early bird, however, was

not so keenly on the alert as she gave him the credit of being, and she

reached her goal unchallenged after coasting along in parallel lines

with it for some time.

The long beautiful line of Princes street was untenanted as the Rob Roy

tartan tacked cautiously round the corner of St. David street and took a

hasty look up and down before venturing forth.

The far-reaching pale red beams of the morning sun had just touched and

kindled as with a flame the summit of the Rock, and the windows of the

Castle caught and flashed back the greeting in a dozen ruddy

reflections. The gardens below lay partly veiled in a clear transparent

mist, faintly blue, that hovered above the trees and crept up the banks,

and over which the grand outlines of the Rock towered as it lifted its

head majestically into the gold halo that lay beyond.

Not a sound or stir, even the sparrows were barely awake, as Baubie

darted along. Fixing her eye on that portion of the High School which is

visible from Princes street, she pushed along at a pace that was almost

a run, and a brief space saw her draw up and fall exhausted on the steps

that lead up to the Calton Hill.

Right before her was the jail-gate.

The child's feet, unused now for some time to such hardships, were hot

and bruised, for she had not stopped to pick her footing in her hasty

course, and she was so out of breath and heated that it seemed to her as

if she would never get cool or her heart cease fluttering as if it would

choke her. She shrank discreetly against the stone wall at her side, and

there for three long hours she remained crouched, watching and waiting

for the hour to chime when the grim black gate opposite would open.

The last tinge of crimson and purple had faded before the golden glories

of the day as the sun climbed higher and higher in the serene blue sky.

The red cliffs of Salisbury Crags glared with a hot lustre above the

green slopes of the hill, and in the white dust of the high-road a

million tiny stars seemed to sparkle and twinkle most invitingly to

Baubie's eyes. The birds had long been awake and busy in the bushes

above her head, and from where she sat she could see, in the distant

glitter of Princes street, all the stir of the newly-raised day.

It was a long vigil, and her fear and impatience made it seem doubly

longer. At last the clock began to chime eight, and before it was half

done the wicket in the great door opened with a noisy clang after a

preliminary rattle.

First came a boy, who cast an anxious look round him, then set off at a

run; next a young woman, for whom another was waiting just out of sight

down the road; last of all (there were only three released), Baubie,

whose heart was beginning to beat fast again with anxiety, saw the

familiar, well-known figure shamble forth and look up and down the road

in a helpless, undecided way. The next moment the wicket had clapped to

again. Wishart glanced back at it, sighed once or twice, and blinked his

eyes as though the sunlight were too strong for them.

Baubie, scarce breathing, watched him as a cat watches just before she

springs.

After a second of hesitation he began to move cityward, obeying some

sheep-like instinct which impelled him to follow those who had gone on

before. Baubie saw this, and, just waiting to let him get well under way

and settle into his gait, she gathered herself up and sprang across the

road upon him with the suddenness and rapidity of a flash.

He fairly staggered with surprise. There she was, exactly as he had left

her, dusty, barefooted and bareheaded. The wind had tossed up her hair,

which indeed was only too obedient to its will, and it clustered all the

more wildly about her face because of having been cropped to the

regulation length of the refuge.

"Lassie, is't you?" he ejaculated, lost in astonishment. Then, realizing

the fact, he gave expression to his feeling by grinning in a convulsive

kind of way and clapping her once or twice on the shoulder next him.

"Od! I niver! Didna the leddy--"

Baubie cut him short. "Sed I widna bide," she observed curtly and

significantly.

Gestures and looks convey, among people like the Wisharts, far more

meaning than words, and Baubie's father perfectly understood from the

manner and tone of her pregnant remark that she had run away from

school, and had severed the connection between herself and the "kind

leddy," and that in consequence the situation was highly risky for both.

They remained standing still for a moment, looking at each other. The

boy and the woman were already out of sight, and the white, dusty

high-road seemed all their own domain.

Wishart shuffled with his feet once more, and looked in the direction

of Princes street, and then at Baubie inquiringly. It was for her, as

usual, to decide. Baubie had been his Providence for as long as he had

memory for--no great length of time. He was conjecturing in his own mind

vaguely whether his Providence had, by any chance, got the desiderated

three shillings necessary for the redemption of the banjo hidden away in

the Rob Roy tartan. He would not have been surprised had it been so, and

he would have asked no questions.

Seeing that her eyes followed the direction of his with a forbidding

frown, he said tentatively, "Ye didn'--didna--"

"What?" snapped Baubie crossly: she divined his meaning exactly. "Come

awa' wi' ye!" she ordered, facing right round countryward.

"We'll gae awa' til Glasgae, Baubie, eh? I'm thinkin' to yer auntie's.

_She_"--with a gesture of his head backward at the prison--"will no' be

oot this month; sae she'll niver need to ken, eh?"

Baubie nodded. He only spoke her own thoughts, and he knew it.

The first turn to the right past the High School brought them out on the

road before Holyrood, which lay grim and black under the sun-bathed

steeps of Arthur's Seat. On by the Grange and all round the

south-eastern portion of the city this odd couple took their way. It was

a long round, but safety made it necessary. At last, between

Corstorphine's wooded slopes and the steeper rise of the Pentlands, they

struck into the Glasgow road. In the same order as before they pursued

their journey, Baubie leading as of old, now and again vouchsafing a

word over her shoulder to her obedient follower, until the dim haze of

the horizon received into itself the two quaint figures, and Baubie

Wishart and the Rob Roy tartan faded together out of sight.

_The Author of "Flitters, Tatters and the Counsellor_."

GAS-BURNING, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

"It is remarkable what attention has been attracted all over the country

by the recent experiments with Edison's inventions," observed my friend

the traveller as our host turned a fuller flow of gas in the chandelier.

"Even in the little villages out West, of only one bank and _not_ one

good hotel, the topics which last spring generally excited most interest

in all circles were Edison's electric light and Bell's telephone."

"Very likely," replied our host, an elderly gentleman of fortune. "If we

had such impure gas as is found in many of the villages and small cities

not so very far West, I'd never light a burner in my library again. As

it is, I do so very rarely. The products of gas combustion act on the

bindings until firm calf drops in pieces, and even law-sheep loses its

coherency, as the argument of the opposing counsel does when your own

lawyer begins to talk."

"The effect on the upholstery and metallic ornaments is as bad as upon

the books," added our hostess. "This room will have to be refurnished in

the spring--all on account of the changes in color both of the paper and

the silk and cotton fabrics; and the bronze dressing on those statuettes

is softening, so that there are lines and spots of rust all over them."

"Perhaps, my dear, they would have suffered equally from the atmosphere

without gas," replied the old gentleman, looking at his wife over his

glasses.

"Our friend here has a hundred thousand more in gas stock than he had a

year ago, and I suspect that he is still a bear in the market," said his

neighbor a chemist, who had just dropped in.

"If I lose I shall lay it to your advice."

"You did well to buy--if you sell at once," said the traveller, who was

interested in the electric light to some unknown extent: "gas stock will

finally have to go down."

"When the sun shines in the night, not before," asserted a young

accountant from the gas-works who had been holding a private talk with

the daughter of the house at the other corner of the room.

"Gas companies can manufacture at less cost than formerly," said the

chemist.

"But yet gas has gone up again lately. You may thank the electric-light

boom for the temporary respite you have had from poor gas at high

prices."

"Yes; some of the companies put gas down lower than they could

manufacture it, in order to hold their customers at a time when people

almost believed that Edison's light would prove a success."

"But it _was_ a success. It proved an excellent light, displayed a neat

lamp, and gave no ill effects upon either the atmosphere or the eyes;

and the perfect carbons showed a surprising endurance. The only

difficulty is that the invention is not yet perfected so as to go

immediately into use."

"But the lower part of the glasses becomes dark with deposited carbon,"

returned the chemist. "If carbons could be made to last long enough to

render the lamps cheap, this smoking of the globes would set a limit at

which the lamps would cease to be presentable; and the cleaning, and the

exhausting of air again, are difficult and expensive."

"That remains to be proved. But coal is sure to grow dearer."

"That isn't likely within a century. Besides, by the fault of the

consumer gas-light costs now one-third more than it should for the same

light. The best English authorities state this to be the case in Great

Britain, and I have no question that such is the fact here."

"How would you remedy the evil of waste?"

"By the use of economical burners and of governors to regulate the flow

of gas."

"That is very easily said. What is the name of your economical burner?"

"I am not an advocate of any special burner, but of all that are

constructed on right principles."

"There are many kinds of burners. Do you not have some classification

for them?" inquired the young lady, who was fresh from Wellesley.

"The usual forms of the burner," replied the chemist "--or, more

properly, the forms of the tip--are the fishtail, the batwing and the

argand. In the first the gas issues through two holes which come

together at the top, so that the two jets of gas impinge and form a flat

flame; in the batwing the gas issues in a thin sheet through a slit in a

hollow knob; while in the argand the gas enters a short cylinder or

broad ring, escaping thence through numerous holes at the upper edge.

There are many varieties of each of these, differing in the construction

of the part below the tip. The argand has long been the favorite burner

for the table and desk. Its advantages are a strong, steady light, but,

as you know, it is apt to smoke at every slight increase in the pressure

of the gas, though there are recent improved forms in which this fault

is in a measure corrected. A properly-made argand burner will give a

light equal to three whole candles (spermaceti, of the standard size and

quality) for every foot of gas burned. Of the argand burners, Guise's

shadowless argand has been considered the best, but of late years Sugg's

Letheby burner has carried off the palm. Wood's burner has been a

favorite, as, being a fishtail, it could be used with a short chimney,

which gives the flame steadiness. By the arms on the chimney-frame the

flame is broadened at the bottom, with a smaller dark space at the base

than in any other flat-flame burner. It is so constructed that the

quantity of gas passing is regulated by turning a tap in the lower part

of the burner, which changes the size of the orifice in the tube. Ten

years ago this burner, with a regulator at the meter, was generally

thought to be the most economical contrivance possible. It is now little

used. Yet either the batwing or the fishtail tip can be used in any

common burner except the argand. The old brass and iron tips are mostly

superseded by those of "lava," being liable to an early change of the

orifice from incrustation and rust. In the flat-flame burners there are

differences in the internal arrangement. Perhaps our young

gas-manufacturer here can tell us what is now the most approved burner."

The young man confessed that he had specimens of the best kinds of

flat-flame burners in his pocket. He quickly brought from his overcoat

in the hall a small paper parcel from which he produced several bright

little brass tubes, explaining that he carried them because somebody was

always inquiring about the best kind of burner. "These save talk," said

he.

With a small wrench he removed one of the old burners, and the several

kinds were successively tested in its place. Some gave a better light,

but it was objected that they might consume more gas. Whereupon the

chemist tore a strip from his well-worn handkerchief, and, having damped

it, wound the ribbon several times around the top of the old burner

(which had been replaced), leaving the orifice uncovered. The new burner

was screwed down over this, making a gas-tight connection. "There," said

he, "we have a gauge. The new burner will receive the same amount of gas

that the old one consumed--no more, no less--but the current is slightly

checked."

The burner gave the same amount of light as before, so far as the eye

could perceive.

"In the combustion of gas for heating purposes," continued the chemist,

"seek the burner with free, rapid delivery through small holes. For

light you want something different. Suppose you send a current of gas up

into this sewing-thimble: it can find an exit only by turning backward.

Then suppose it escapes from the thimble only to enter a larger cavity

above it, whence it must issue through a burner-tip with an orifice of

the usual size. The current, you perceive, is twice completely broken.

It will be seen that only the expansive force of the gas, together with

its buoyancy, acts upon the jets, instead of a direct current. Now, it

will always be found that the burner which best carries out the

principles just illustrated--other points being equal--will give more

light with a less quantity of gas than any other. This also exhibits

the chief principle of most of the governors or regulators.

"You will observe that this checking of the current is attained in

various ways in different burners," continued the chemist as he

unscrewed and dissected the samples before him. "In some it is done by a

perforated metal disk in the orifice; in others, by a bit of wool, which

checks slightly a slow current, and by the pressure of a strong one

becomes compacted and forms a more effective obstacle. In most cases,

however, it soon becomes solid with condensed matters from the gas.

Another form of check is a small cap having perpendicular slits at the

sides. The cylinder of the cap, being smaller than the orifice of the

burner, screws down into it; the openings being shortened or lengthened

according as the cylinder is screwed up or down. One objection to this

is the trouble required in regulating. Here is another burner, in which

the orifice ends in a cap whose sides, near the bottom, are pierced with

four pin-holes directed downward. This reverses the direction of the

current of gas, which then escapes through the pin-holes downward into a

chamber, then turns upward along its sides to the tip, on entering which

it again turns. Each burner is able to consume economically a flow of

gas peculiar to itself, which can be ascertained by a minute's

experiment, and then regulated by the tap in the pipe. But this requires

much care, and is apt to be neglected. A very small tap in the burner

(as in the Wood and Ellis burners), which can be adjusted so as to

require no further attention, seems the best method of effecting this

graduation."

The chemist now pulled a manuscript from his pocket and read from it as

follows: "The quantity of light decreases with disproportionate rapidity

by reduced consumption; for, as experiments have shown, when consuming

only two feet per hour, eighty-five per cent. of the gas is lost; with

two and a half feet the loss is sixty per cent.; and with three and a

half feet it is thirty-four per cent. of that derived from the gas when

burning the full quantity for which the burner is constructed. In some

experiments made upon this matter under the direction of referees

appointed by the London Board of Trade the loss at the other extreme is

given. They report: 'Instead of the gas giving increased light as the

rate of consumption is increased, it will be seen that _in every case_

there is a point beyond which the _light decreases_ relatively to the

proportion of gas consumed. In every case, too, this point lies far

below the maximum of gas-consumption, observing the turning-points in

the case of the different burners.' Again, every burner has a certain

amount of gas which it will consume to the greatest advantage as to both

light and economy; which in a completely-regulated burner is quickly

found, and the delivery fixed by the small tap. When the gas is issuing

from the burner at so low a pressure that the flame is just on the point

of smoking, the maximum effect for the quantity of gas consumed in that

particular burner is attained, because in that case the quantity and

intensity of the light are most advantageously balanced. For the same

reason, the burner best suited for light is one in which the

jet-openings are proportionately large, so as to prevent as much as

possible too great contact with the air in the lower part of the flame.

In case the air-currents disturb the light, it is necessary to turn on a

stronger flow, which secures steadiness, but sets economy at naught."

"It would be a good thing," said the young fellow, interrupting him, "if

some person would invent a burner that should heat the gas before its

discharge. We could then get a perfect combustion of the carbon, and so

greater brilliancy and economy."

"That is a very common error. Mr. Leslie's burner was designed on that

very theory: the result was contrary to expectation."

"What was the form of the burner?" inquired our host.

"Leslie's burner is a form of the argand. The gas, instead of issuing

from holes pierced in a solid ring, is conducted to the flame in

separate small tubes upward of an inch long. Twenty-eight of these tubes

are inserted in a ring two inches in diameter, and converge to one inch

at the ends, where the gas escapes. These tubes become hot very quickly

when the gas is lighted, and it issues at a high temperature. Here is

the result of a test made by Mr. Clegg, and given on page 344 of his

valuable work on coal gas:

COMMON ARGAND, FIFTEEN HOLES.

Consumption per hour in cubic feet:

6 feet, light = 17.4 standard candles.

5 feet, light = 13.64 standard candles

LESLIE'S BURNER, TWENTY-EIGHT HOLES.

6 feet, light = 14.73 standard candles.

5 feet, light = 11.28 standard candles.

"In experimenting with common burners, argand and others, it is found

that, if the aperture in the tip is too small for the orifice in the

body of the burner, the escaping gas is too highly heated and is

consumed too quickly. So with Leslie's burner in an increased degree.

Theories brought to the test of experiment are often disappointing."

The chemist now proceeded to illustrate his harangue with the argand

upon the table, which he lighted and turned on full, without replacing

the chimney. The dull-red flame streamed up to a height of eight inches

or more, waving and smoking slightly. He now turned down the gas and

replaced the chimney, then set the tap at the same angle as before.

"Here," said he, "we have a flame barely four inches high--of brilliant

white--which gives more light than the taller flame did. The cause of

the shortening of the flame is the more rapid combustion of the gas,

owing to the increased draught or air-supply in the chimney. From the

greater intensity of this flame a much larger quantity of light is

produced than by the longer flame. If too tall a chimney is used, the

flame is shortened still more and its brilliancy increased, but not to a

degree sufficient to compensate for the diminished surface. The light,

you are doubtless aware, comes from the incandescence of the carbon,

heated by the union of the hydrogen of the gas with a portion of the

oxygen of the air."

The chemist now read from his manuscript again: "Carburetted hydrogen of

a passably good quality requires two volumes of pure oxygen for its

complete combustion and conversion into carbonic acid and water.

Atmospheric air contains, in its pure state, about twenty per cent. of

oxygen; therefore, one cubic foot of gas requires for its perfect

combustion ten cubic feet of air. If less be admitted to the flame, a

quantity of free carbon will escape, and be deposited in the form of

black smoke. If an excess of air be admitted, we shall find that the

quantity of nitrogen accompanying this excess has a tendency to

extinguish the flame, while it takes no part in the elective affinity

constantly going on between the other elements--namely, hydrogen, oxygen

and the vapor of carbon.

"Again," said he, turning down the gas, "if the flame be reduced to a

consumption of two feet per hour, its light will be equal to that of one

candle only; but on raising the chimney, thus, about half an inch from

the gallery or support the light is greatly increased, or by simply

placing a disk on top of the chimney the light is increased ninefold;

both of which effects seem to result from a diminished current of air,

while at the same time there is an ample supply. Lastly, with the

ordinary glass moon-globe so generally used in dwellings with the

fishtail burner little difference can be perceived between the light

given from the flame by four feet and that from six feet of gas per

hour, in consequence of the strong current of air passing up through the

globe; but if the top of the glass be enclosed by a talc cover having an

orifice in the centre about an inch in diameter, then the conditions of

the burner are completely changed. The light is greatly increased,

because the highest economical advantage is then approached."[2]

"Smoke from the aperture and lamp-black on the cover must result from

such an arrangement," objected the old gentleman.

"There need be very little of either," responded the chemist. "From some

burners there is little light without smoke. A smoky flame may arise

from too much carbon, but the gas companies in this part of the country

are not apt to make their product too rich; and such a condition is not

likely to occur except with vapor-gas when warm weather quickly succeeds

to a cold spell in the winter season. The consumer's immediate remedy in

any case is to use a smaller tip with the fishtail and batwing burners,

and a taller chimney with the argand; which devices will give a quicker

movement to the gas in one case and to the air in the other. The

smoking, however, may be caused by carbonic acid, which checks

combustion. There is always more or less of this in gas, arising from a

partial combustion in the retorts when charging them with coal or while

withdrawing the exhausted charge. But it is only by excessively slow and

careless work that this can happen to a serious extent. Only an expert

can tell when this condition exists, though if the symptoms do not yield

to manipulations of the chimney and tap, it may be suspected. There is

no effective remedy for this adulteration which can be applied by the

consumer except a vigorous complaint against the company which supplies

the stuff.

"There remains one burner or lamp to be mentioned, contrived with

special reference to health," he continued--"the ventilating standard

lamp of Doctor Faraday, used in the House of Lords. In this there is an

outer glass by which the vitiated air passes away through the pipe

communicating with the external air. The lamp is interesting, but there

is a question whether there is any practical advantage in its use.

Rutter's ventilating lamp is of different form, having a globe instead

of an outer cylinder, the gas and air coming in from above. Some of the

best dwellings now being erected in the vicinity of New York are

provided with tin pipes leading from the burners to the open air. In

some the pipe receives the foul air from an open metallic or mineral

shade over the burner; others have a larger pipe enclosing the gas-pipe

for ventilation, the tops of the two pipes (including the burner) being

enclosed by a globe pierced with holes for fresh air. There is said to

result a good ventilation, with economy of gas, an increased steadiness

of the flame and power of light. A better arrangement is a third pipe

enclosing the gas-pipe and enclosed in the ventilating-pipe, opening to

the air, instead of the holes in the globe, which in this case should be

air-tight. This plan is said to have reached its perfection when the

three pipes are filled with wire gauze to some extent. This, being

heated by the escape of hot gases in the ventilating-pipe, sends both

the air and the gas to the flame already highly heated. The result is

said to be admirable as regards ventilation, steadiness and power of the

light and economy of gas.

"With these lamps the pressure of the gas-current is of great

importance; and I now turn to that subject. It is a general complaint in

buildings whose rooms are high that the flow of gas on the lower floor

is deficient, while on the upper floors there is a greater supply than

is necessary. This inconvenience arises from the upper stories being

subjected to less atmospheric pressure than the lower, every rise of ten

feet making a difference in the pressure of about one-tenth of an inch

of water; and, consequently, a column of gas acquires that amount of

pressure additional. The following table, recording an experiment of Mr.

Richards, will show the result in respect to light:

Gas issuing from the burner at a pressure of--

1/10 inch of water gave the light of 12 candles,

5/10 " " " " " " " 6 "

10/10 " " " " " " " 2 "

40/10 " " " " no appreciable light.

Suppose a building of six floors is supplied from the gas-mains at a

pressure of six-tenths, and that the difference of altitude between the

highest and lowest light is equal to fifty feet: the gas in the highest

or sixth floor will issue from the burners at a pressure of

eleven-tenths; the fifth floor, at ten-tenths; and so on. In order to

secure an entirely equable flow and economical light a regulator is

necessary on each floor above the first. The gas companies are

frequently obliged to supply mills at a much greater pressure than is

stated above as necessary, in order that the ground floors may have

sufficient light."

"How about incorrect meters?" asked the traveller.

"Little need be said of them, as they fall within the domain of the

companies and the public inspector of gas. Under favorable conditions

gas-meters will remain in order for ten years or more; and when they

become defective they as often favor the consumer, probably, as they do

the gas company. Their defects do not often occasion inconvenience; and

when they once get out of order they run so wild that their condition is

soon detected, when the errors in previous bills should be corrected by

estimate of other seasons."

"You haven't mentioned the apparatus (carburetters) for increasing the

richness of the gas, which can be applied by the consumer upon his own

premises," said the old gentleman.

"There is little need. The burners should be adjusted to the quality of

gas furnished. If there were any real gain in this method of enrichment,

the gas companies are the parties who could make the most of it: indeed,

many of them do to such an extent as can be made profitable. But

whenever the temperature of the atmosphere falls, the matter added to

the gas is deposited in the pipes, sometimes choking them entirely at

the angles. No: arrange your burners and regulators to suit the gas that

is furnished, demand of the company that it fulfil the law and the

contract in regard to the quality of the gas, and give all gas-improving

machines the go-by.[3]

"Light having, perhaps, been sufficiently considered for the present

needs, we have now to note the effects of the combustion of gas upon the

atmosphere, and through this upon the furnishing of rooms and the health

of the persons living therein," said the chemist, again taking up his

manuscript. "The usual products from the combustion of common

illuminating gas are carbonic acid, sulphuric acid, ammonia and

water-vapor. Every burner consuming five cubic feet of gas per hour

spoils as much air as two full-grown men: it is therefore evident that

the air of a room thus lighted would soon become vitiated if an ample

supply of fresh air were not frequently admitted.

"Remember," said he, looking up from the paper, "that nearly the same

effects proceed from the combustion of candles and lamps of every kind

when a sufficient number of these are burned to give an equal amount of

light. Carbonic acid is easily got rid of, for the rooms where gas is

burned usually have sufficient ventilation near the floor by means of a

register, or even the slight apertures under the doors--together with

their frequent opening--to carry off the small quantity emitted by one

or two burners. But there are other gases which must have vent at the

upper part of the room, while fresh air should be admitted to supply the

place of that which is chemically changed."

Returning to his manuscript, he continued: "The burners which give the

least light, burning instead with a low, blue flame, form the most

carbonic acid and free the most nitrogen. Such are all the burners for

heat rather than light. But the formation of sulphuric acid gas may be

the same in each. In the yellow flame the carbon particles escape to

darken the light colors of the room, not being heated sufficiently to

combine with the oxygen. This product of the combustion of gas (free

carbon) might be regarded as rather wholesome than otherwise (as its

nature is that of an absorbent) were it not the worst kind of dust to

breathe--in fact, clogging the lungs to suffocation. In vapor gas--made

at low heat--the carbon is in a large degree only mechanically mixed

with the hydrogen, and is liable, especially in cold weather, to be

deposited in the pipes. This leaves only a very poor, thin gas, mainly

hydrogen, which burns with a pale blue flame, as seen in cold spells in

winter. High heats and short charges in the retorts of the manufactory

give a purer gas and a larger production. Gas made at high heat will

reach the consumer in any weather very nearly as rich as when it leaves

the gas-holder; for, thus made, the hydrogen and carbon are chemically

combined, instead of the hydrogen merely bearing a quantity of

carbon-vapor mechanically mixed and liable to deposit with every

reduction of temperature. To relieve the atmosphere of the gases and

vapors proceeding from combustion is, of course, the purpose of

ventilation. The sulphuric acid gas and ammonia will be largely in

combination with the water-vapor, which also proceeds from combustion,

so that all will be got rid of together. The vaporization of libraries

to counteract the excessive dryness (or drying, rather) which causes

leather bindings to shrink and to break at the joints, would be of

doubtful utility, since it might only serve to carry into the porous

leather still more of the gases just mentioned. The action of both

sulphuric acid and ammonia is, undoubtedly, to destroy the fibre of

leather, so that it crumbles to meal or falls apart in flakes.

"In a very interesting paper read by Professor William R. Nichols of the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology before the American Association of

Science at its Saratoga meeting in 1879, the results of many analyses of

leather bindings were given, showing the presence of the above-named

substances in old bindings in many times greater quantity than in new.

Still, their presence did not prove them to be the cause of the decay;

and Professor Nichols proposes to ascertain the fact by experiments

requiring some years for demonstration.

"In the hope of deciding the question with reasonable certainty at once,

I have made careful examinations of the books in the three largest

libraries of Boston and Cambridge, each differing from the others in age

and atmosphere. The bindings of the volumes examined bore their own

record in dates and ownership, by which the conditions of their

atmosphere in respect to gas and (approximately) to heat were made

known for periods varying from current time to over two hundred years.

In the Public Library the combined influences of gas, heat and effluvium

have wrought upon the leather until many covers were ready to drop to

pieces at a touch. The binding showed no more shrinkage than in the

other libraries, but in proportion to the time the books had been upon

the shelves the decay of the leather was about the same as in the

Athenæum. I am informed that many of the most decayed have from time to

time been rebound, so that a full comparison cannot be made between this

and the others. In the Athenæum less gas has been used, and there is

very little effluvium, but the mealy texture of the leather is general

among the older tenants of the shelves. Numbers of volumes in the

galleries were losing their backs, which were more or less broken off at

the joints from the shrinkage and brittleness of the leather. The plan

has been proposed of introducing the vapor of water to counteract the

effects of dryness upon the bindings. In this library the atmosphere has

the usual humidity of that out of doors, being warmed by bringing the

outer air in over pipes conveying hot water, while the other libraries

have the higher heat of steam-pipes. If, therefore, its atmosphere

differs from that of the other libraries in respect to moisture, the

variation is in the direction of greater humidity, without any

corresponding effect on the preservation of bindings. In fact, proper

ventilation and low shelves seem to be the true remedies for these

evils, or, rather, the best means of amelioration, since there is no

complete antidote to the decay common to all material things. The last

condition involves the disuse of galleries and of rooms upon more than

one flat, unless the atmosphere in the upper portions of the lower rooms

be shut off from the higher, as it should be. Another precaution which

might be taken with advantage is to use the higher shelves for cloth

bindings.

"In the Harvard College Library no gas has ever been used, nor any other

artificial illuminator to much extent. Neither had any large number of

the volumes been exposed to the products of gas-combustion, except for

a brief time before they were placed here. The bindings in this library

showed very little crumbling, but many covers were breaking at the

joints from the shrinking which arises from excessive dryness. In common

with many other substances, leather yields moisture to the air much more

readily than it receives it from that medium. Cloth bindings showed no

decay at all here--very little in any of the libraries, except in the

loss of color. It should be stated that the volumes which I examined at

Harvard College were generally older than those inspected in the other

libraries. There are parchment bindings in each of the libraries

hundreds of years old, apparently just as perfect in texture as when

first placed upon the shelves of the original owner. The parchment was

often worn through at the angles, but there was no breakage from

shrinking, the material having been shrunken as much as possible when

prepared from the skin. At Harvard College I examined an embossed calf

binding stretched on wooden sides which was above a hundred years old.

It was in almost perfect preservation, and not much shrunken. This

volume, being very large, was on a shelf next the ground floor--a

position which it had probably held ever since the erection of the

building.

"Professor Nichols does not mention morocco in his tables of analyses.

Indeed, morocco was so little used for bookbindings until within about

thirty years that it affords a less ample field for investigation than

any other of the leathers now in common use. My attention was therefore

directed specially to this material, of which I found some specimens

having a record of nearly fifty years. My observation was, that in all

the libraries these were less affected by decay, in proportion to their

age, than other leathers. In Harvard College Library the best Turkey

morocco, with forty years of exposure, showed no injury except from

chafing. The outer integument was often worn away, exposing the texture

of the skin, which was still of strong fibre. In the Athenæum, on the

contrary, many of the moroccos showed the same decay as the calf,

russia and sheep. There was, however, a wide difference in the condition

of moroccos of the same age--some showing as much decay as the calf,

while others had scarcely any of the disintegration common to the older

calf bindings. The same might, indeed, be said of all leathers, those

tanned by the quick modern methods, with much more acid than is used in

old processes, in which time is a large factor, showing always a more

rapid deterioration. But, the methods being the same, morocco, the

oiliest of the common leathers and the one having the firmest cuticle,

endures the best.

"The order of endurance of leather (as observed by librarians) against

atmospheric effects is as follows, descending from the first to the last

in order: Parchment, light-colored morocco, sheep, russia, calf. Cloth

wears out quickly by use, but appears--the linen especially--to be

affected by the atmosphere only in loss of color. These observations all

refer to the ordinary humidity of the air in frequented rooms.

"This, then, is the result of my inquiries: I found the shrinking and

breaking resulting from heat much the same in all the libraries, but

most in that where the heating is from the outer air brought in over

hot-water pipes, the two other libraries examined being warmed by

steam-pipes having a higher temperature. I found the mealy structure--or

instead thereof flakiness--to prevail most in the Athenæum, next in the

Public Library: in the latter, however, many volumes have been rebound,

thus raising the average of condition. In the Harvard College Library no

gas--in fact, little if any artificial light--is used, and here, too,

the mealy structure and disintegration are mostly absent. I conclude,

therefore, from these limited observations, that heat is responsible for

a large part of the damage to leather bindings, its effects being

evidently supplemented and hastened by gas-combustion.

"The ventilating lamps before described, though rather cumbrous to eyes

accustomed to the small and simple apparatus commonly used, might prove

valuable in rooms containing fabrics liable; to be injured by the gases

from open burners."

As the chemist concluded his reading the traveller remarked to the

somewhat weary listeners, "You now see the vast amount of study and care

required to use gas with economy and safety. I could not have argued the

cause of a new, clean, gasless and vaporless light like electricity any

better myself."

"It will be found," responded the chemist, "that there are more troubles

and dangers connected with the electric light--besides the larger

expense--than are thought of now."

"That is so!" ejaculated the young fellow.

"At any rate," said the old gentleman, "gas stock won't go lower for

twenty years than it has been this winter."

"You are all wedded to your idols," was the final protest of the

traveller.

"I wish I was," murmured the young fellow, with a side-glance at his

fair neighbor, who immediately removed to another part of the room.

GEORGE J. VARNEY.

THE "_???? ??G?????_ IN SHAKESPEARE.

When we examine the vocabulary of Shakespeare, what first strikes us is

its copiousness. His characters are countless, and each one speaks his

own dialect. His little fishes never talk like whales, nor do his whales

talk like little fishes. Those curious in such matters have detected in

his works quotations from seven foreign tongues, and those from Latin

alone amount to one hundred and thirty-two.

Our first impression, that the Shakespearian variety of words is

multitudinous, is confirmed by statistics. Mrs. Cowden Clarke has

counted those words one by one, and ascertained their sum to be not less

than fifteen thousand. The total vocabulary of Milton's poetical remains

is no more than eight thousand, and that of Homer, including the _Hymns_

as well as both _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, is about nine thousand. In the

English Bible the different words are reckoned by Mr. G.P. Marsh in his

lectures on the English language at rather fewer than six thousand.

Those in the Greek Testament I have learned by actual count to be not

far from five thousand five hundred.

Some German writers on Greek grammar maintain that they could teach

Plato and Demosthenes useful lessons concerning Greek moods and tenses,

even as the ancient Athenians, according to the fable of Phædrus,

contended that they understood squealing better than a pig. However this

may be, any one of us to-day, thanks to the Concordance of Mrs. Clarke

and the Lexicon of Alexander Schmidt, may know much in regard to

Shakespeare's use of language which Shakespeare himself cannot have

known. One particular as to which he must have been ignorant, while we

may have knowledge, is concerning his employment of terms denominated

_apa? ?e??µe?a_.

The phrase _apa? ?e??µe?a_--literally, _once spoken_--may be traced

back, I think, to the Alexandrian grammarians, centuries before our era,

who invented it to describe those words which they observed to occur

once, and _only once_, in any author or literature. It is so convenient

an expression for statistical commentators on the Bible, and on the

classics as well, that they will not willingly let it die.

The list of _apa? ?e??µe?a_--that is, words used once and _only

once_--in Shakespeare is surprisingly long. It embraces a greater

multitude than any man can easily number. Nevertheless, I have counted

those beginning with two letters. The result is that the apa? ?e??µe?a

with initial _a_ are 364, and those with initial _m_ are 310. There is

no reason, that I know of, to suppose the census with these initials to

be proportionally larger than that with other letters. If it is not,

then the words occurring only once in all Shakespeare cannot be less

than five thousand, and they are probably a still greater legion.

The number I have culled from one hundred and forty-six pages of Schmidt

is 674. At this rate the total on the fourteen hundred and nine pages of

the entire Lexicon would foot up 6504. It is possible, then, that

Shakespeare discarded, after once trying them, more different words than

fill and enrich the whole English Bible. The old grammarians tell us

that a certain part of speech was called _supine_, because it was very

seldom needed, and therefore almost always lying _on its back_--i.e.

in Latin, _supinus_. The supines of Shakespeare outnumber the employés

of most authors.

The array of Shakespearian _apa? ?e??µe?a_ appears still vaster if we

compare it with expressions of the same nature in the Scriptures and in

Homer. In the English Bible words with the initials _a_ and _m_ used

once only are 132 to 674 with the same initials in Shakespeare. The

scriptural _once-onlys_ would be more than twice as many as we find them

were they as frequent in proportion to their total vocabulary as his

are.

The Homeric _apa? ?e??µe?a_ with initial _m_ are 78, but were they as

numerous in proportion to Homer's whole world of words as Shakespeare's

are, they would run up to 186; that is, to more than twice as many as

their actual number.

In the Greek New Testament I have enumerated 63 _apa? ?e??µe?a_

beginning with the letter _m_--a larger number than you would expect,

for it is as large as that in both English Testaments beginning with

that same letter, which is also exactly 63. It indicates a wider range

of expression in the authors of the Greek original than in their English

translators.

The 310 Shakespearian words with initial _m_ used _once only_ I have

also compared with the whole verbal inventory of our language so far as

it begins with that letter. They make up one-fifth almost of that

entire stock, which musters in Webster only 1641 words. You will at once

inquire, "What is the _nature_ of these rejected Shakespearian vocables,

which he seems to have viewed as milk that would bear no more than one

skimming?"

The percentage of _classical_ words among them is great--greater indeed

than in the body of Shakespeare's writings. According to the analysis of

Weisse, in an average hundred of Shakespearian words one-third are

classical and two-thirds Saxon. But then all the classical elements have

inherent meaning, while half of the Saxon have none. We may hence infer

that of the significant words in Shakespeare one-half are of classical

derivation. Now, of the apa? ?e??µe?a with initial _a_, I call 262 words

out of 364 classical, and with initial _m_, 152 out of 310; that is, 414

out of 674, or about four-sevenths of the whole Shakespearian host

beginning with those two letters. In doubtful cases I have considered

those words only as classical the first etymology of which in Webster is

from a classical or Romance root. In the biblical words used once only

the classical portion is enormous--namely, not less than sixty-nine per

cent.--while the classical percentage in Shakespearian words of the same

class is no more than sixty-one.

Among the 674 _a_ and _m_ Shakespearian words occurring once only the

proportion of words now _obsolete_ is unexpectedly small. Of 310 such

words with initial _m_, only one-sixth, or 51 at the utmost, are now

disused, either in sense or even in form. Of this half-hundred a few are

used in Shakespeare, but not at present, as verbs; thus, to _maculate_,

to _miracle_, to _mud_, to _mist_, to _mischief_, to _moral_--also

_merchandized_ and _musicked_. Another class now wellnigh unknown are

_misproud, misdread, mappery, mansionry, marybuds, masterdom,

mistership, mistressship._

Then there are slight variants from our modern orthography or meanings,

as _mained_ for maimed, _markman_ for marksman, _make_ for mate,

_makeless_ for mateless, _mirable, mervaillous, mess_ for mass,

_manakin, minikin, meyny_ for many, _momentarry_ for momentary,

_moraler, mountainer, misgraffing, misanthropos, mott_ for motto, to

_mutine, mi'nutely_ for every minute.

None seem wholly dead words except the following eighteen: To _mammock_,

tear; _mell_, meddle; _mose_, mourn; _micher_, truant; _mome_, fool;

_mallecho_, mischief; _maund_, basket; _marcantant_, merchant; _mun_,

sound of wind; _mure_, wall; _meacock_, henpecked; _mop_, grin;

_militarist_, soldier; _murrion_, affected with murrain; _mammering_,

hesitating; _mountant_, raised up; _mered_, only; _man-entered_, grown

up.

About one-tenth of the remaining _apa? ?e??µe?a_ with initial _m_ are

descriptive compounds. Among them are the following adjectives:

_Maiden-tongued, maiden-widowed, man-entered_ (before noted as

obsolete), _many-headed, marble-breasted, marble-constant,

marble-hearted, marrow-eating, mean-apparelled, merchant-marring,

mercy-lacking, mirth-moving, moving-delicate, mock-water, more-having,

mortal-breathing, mortal-living, mortal-staring, motley-minded,

mouse-eaten, moss-grown, mouth-filling, mouth-made, muddy-mettled,

momentary-swift, maid-pale_. From this list, which is nearly complete,

it is evident that such compounds as may be multiplied at will form but

a small fraction of the words that are used _once only_ by Shakespeare.

The words used _once only_ by Shakespeare are often so beautiful and

poetical that we wonder how they could fail to be his favorites again

and again. They are jewels that might hang twenty years before our eyes,

yet never lose their lustre. Why were they never shown but once? They

remind me of the exquisite crystal bowl from which I saw a Jewess and

her bridegroom drink in Prague, and which was then dashed in pieces on

the floor of the synagogue, or of the Chigi porcelain painted by

Raphael, which as soon as it had been once removed from the Farnesina

table was thrown into the Tiber. To what purpose was this waste? Why

should they be used up with once using? Specimens of this sort, which

all poets but Shakespeare would have paraded as pets many a time, are

multifarious. Among a hundred others never used but once, we have

_magical, mirthful, mightful, mirth-moving, moonbeams, moss-grown,

mundane, motto, matin, mural, multipotent, mourningly, majestically,

marbled, martyred, mellifluous, mountainous, meander, magnificence,

magnanimity, mockable, merriness, masterdom, masterpiece, monarchize,

menaces, marrowless_.

Again, a majority of Shakespearian _apa? ?e??µe?a_ being familiar to us

as household words, it seems impossible that he who had tried them once

should have need of them no more. Instances--all with initial _m_--are

as follows: _mechanics, machine, maxim, mission, mode, monastic, marsh,

magnify, malcontent, majority, manly, malleable, malignancy, maritime,

manna, manslaughter, masterly, market-day-folks, maid-price, mealy,

meekly, mercifully, merchant-like, memorial, mercenary, mention,

memorandums, mercurial, metropolis, miserably, mindful, meridian, medal,

metaphysics, ministration, mimic, misapply, misgovernment, misquote,

misconstruction, monstrously, monster-like, monstrosity, mutable,

moneyed, monopoly, mortise, mortised, muniments_, to _moderate_, and

_mother-wit_ These words, and five thousand more equally excellent,

which have remained part of the language of the English-speaking world

for three centuries since Shakespeare, and will no doubt continue to

belong to it for ever, we are apt to declare he should have worn in

their newest gloss, not cast aside so soon. Why was he as shy of

repeating any one of them even once as Hudibras was of showing his

wit?--

Who bore it about,

As if afraid to wear it out

Except on holidays or so,

As men their best apparel do.

This question, why a full third of Shakespeare's verbal riches was never

brought to light more than once, is probably one which nobody can at

present answer even to his own satisfaction. Yet the phenomenon is so

remarkable that every one will try after his own fashion to account for

it. My own attempt at a provisional explanation I will present in the

latter part of this paper.

Let us first, however, notice another question concerning the _apa?

?e??µe?a_--namely, that which respects their _origin_. Where did they

come from? how far did Shakespeare make them? and how far were they

ready to his hand? No approach to answering this inquiry can be made for

some years. Yet as to this matter let us rejoice that the unique

dictionary of the British Philological Society is now near publication.

This work, slowly elaborated by thousands of co-workers in many devious

walks of study on both sides of the Atlantic, aims to exhibit the first

appearance in a book of every English word. In regard to the great bulk

of Shakespeare's diction it will enable us ten years hence to determine

how much of it was known to literature before him, and how much of it he

himself gathered or gleaned in highways and byways, or caused to ramify

and effloresce from Saxon or classical roots and trunks, thus "endowing

his purposes with words to make them known." Meantime, we are left to

conjectures. As of his own coinage I should set down such vocables as

_motley-minded, mirth-moving, mockable, marbled, martyred, merriness,

marrowless, mightful, multipotent, masterdom, monarchize_, etc. etc.

But, however much of his linguistic treasury Shakespeare shall be proved

to have inherited ready-made--whatever scraps he may have stolen at the

feast of languages--it is clear that he was an imperial creator of

language, and lived while his mother-tongue was still plastic. Having a

mint of phrases in his own brain, well might he speak with the contempt

he does of those "fools who for a tricksy word defy the matter;" that

is, slight or disregard it. He never needed to do that. Words were

"correspondent to his command, and, Ariel-like, did his spiriting

gently."

In a thousand cases, however, Shakespeare cannot have rejected words

through fear lest he should repeat them. It has taken three centuries

for the world to ferret out his _apa? ?e??µe?a_: can we believe that he

knew them all himself? Unless he were the Providence which numbers all

hairs of the head, he had not got the start of the majestic world so far

as that, however myriad-minded we may consider him. An instinct which

would have rendered him aware of each and every individual of five

thousand that he had employed once only would be as inconceivable as

that of Falstaff, which made him discern the heir-apparent in Prince Hal

when disguised as a highwayman. In short, Shakespeare could not be

conscious of all the words he had once used, more than Brigham Young

could recognize all the wives he had once wedded.

In the absence of other theories concerning the reasons for

Shakespeare's _apa? ?e??µe?a_ being so abundant, I throw out a

suggestion of my own till a better one shall supplant it.

Shakespeare's forte lay in characterization, and that endlessly

diversified. But when he sketched each several character it seems that

he was never content till he had either found or fabricated the aptest

words possible for representing its form and pressure most true to life.

No two characters being identical in any particular more than two faces

are, no two descriptions, as drawn by his genius, could repeat many of

the selfsame characterizing words. Each of his vocables thus became like

each of the seven thousand constituents of a locomotive, which fits the

one niche it was ordained to fill, but everywhere else is out of place,

and even _dislocated_. The more numerous his ethical differentiations,

the more his language was differentiated.

His personages were as multifarious as have been portrayed by the whole

band of Italian painters; but, as a wizard in words, he resembled the

magician in mosaic, who can delineate in stone every feature of those

portraits because he can discriminate and imitate shades of color more

numberless than even Shakespeare's words.

It is hard to believe that the Shakespearian characters were born, like

Athene from the brain of Zeus, in panoplied perfection. They grew. The

play of _Troilus_ was a dozen years in growth. According to the best

commentators, "Shakespeare, after having sketched out a play on the

fashion of his youthful taste and skill, returned in after years to

enlarge it, remodel it, and enrich it with the matured fruits of years

of observation and reflection. _Love's Labor Lost_ first appeared in

print with the annunciation that it was 'newly corrected and augmented,'

and _Cymbeline_ was an entire _rifacimento_ of an early dramatic

attempt, showing not only matured fulness of thought, but laboring

intensity of compressed expression." So speaks Verplanck, and his

utterance is endorsed by Richard Grant White.

Such being the facts, it is clear that Shakespeare treated his dramas as

Guido did the _Cleopatra_, which he would not let leave his studio till

ten years after the non-artistic world deemed that portrait fully

finished. Meantime, the painter in moments of inspiration was pencilling

his canvas with curious touches, each approximating nearer his ideal. So

the poet sought to find out acceptable words, or what he terms "an army

of good words." He poured his new wine into new bottles, and never was

at rest till he had arrayed his ideas in that fitness of phrase which

comes only by fits.

Had he survived fifty years longer, I suppose he would to the last have

been perfecting his phrases, as we read in Dionysius of Halicarnassus

that Plato up to the age of eighty-one was "combing and curling, and

weaving and unweaving, his writings after a variety of fashions."

Possibly, the great dramatist would at last have corrected one of his

couplets as a modern commentator has done for him, so that it would

stand,

Find _leaves_ on trees, _stones_ in the running brooks,

Sermons in _books_, and _all_ in everything.

To speak seriously with a writer in the _Encyclopædia Britannica:_ "His

manner in diction was progressive, and this progress has been deemed so

clearly traceable in his plays that it can enable us to determine their

chronological sequence." The result is, that while other authors satiate

and soon tire us, Shakespeare's speech for ever "breathes an

indescribable freshness."

Age cannot wither

Nor custom stale his infinite variety.

In the last line I have quoted there is a apa? ?e??µe?a but it is a word

which I think you would hardly guess. It is the last word--_variety_.

On every average page of Shakespeare you are greeted and gladdened by at

least five words that you never saw before in his writings, and that you

never will see again, speaking once and then for ever holding their

peace--each not only rare, but a nonsuch--five gems just shown, then

snatched away. Each page is studded with five stars, each as unique as

the century-flower, and, like the night-blooming cereus, "the perfume

and suppliance of a minute"--_ipsa varietate variora_. The mind of

Shakespeare was bodied forth as Montezuma was apparelled, whose costume,

however gorgeous, was never twice the same. Hence the Shakespearian

style is fresh as morning dew and changeful as evening clouds, so that

we remain for ever doubtful in relation to his manner and his matter,

which of them owes the greater debt to the other. The Shakespearian

plots are analogous to the grouping of Raphael, the characters to the

drawing of Michael Angelo, but the word-painting superadds the coloring

of Titian. Accordingly, in studying Shakespeare's diction I should long

ago have said, if I could, what I read in Arthur Helps, where he treats

of a perfect style--that "there is a sense of felicity about it,

declaring it to be the product of a happy moment, so that you feel it

will not happen again to that man who writes the sentence, nor to any

other of the sons of men, to say the like thing so choicely, tersely,

mellifluously and completely."

In the central court of the Neapolitan Museum I saw grape-clusters,

mouldings, volutes, fingers and antique fragments of all sorts wrought

in rarest marble, lying scattered on the pavement, exposed to sun and

rain, cast down the wrong side up, and as it were thrown away, as when

the stones of the Jewish sanctuary were poured out in every street.

Nothing reveals the sculptural opulence of Italy like this apparent

wastefulness. It seems to proclaim that Italy can afford to make

nothing of what would elsewhere be judged worthy of shrines. We say to

ourselves, "If such be the things she throws away, what must be her

jewels?" A similar feeling rises in me while exploring Shakespeare's

prodigality in apa? ?e??µe?a. His exchequer appears more exhaustless

than the Bank of England.

James D. Butler.

AN EPISODE OF SPANISH CHIVALRY.

Don Quijote's readers are aware of the enormous popularity of the

romances of chivalry, but they are apt to imagine that these represent a

purely ideal state of things. This is undoubtedly the case as far as

knight-errantry is concerned, but certain distinctive habits and customs

of chivalry prevailed in Spain and elsewhere long after the feudal

system and the earlier and original form of chivalry had passed away.

One of the most curious instances of this survival of chivalry occurred

in Spain in the first half of the fifteenth century, and after

commanding the admiration of Europe furnished Don Quijote with an

admirable argument for the existence of Amadis of Gaul and his long line

of successors. The worthy knight had been temporarily released from his

confinement in the Enchanted Cage, and had begun his celebrated reply to

the canon's statement that there had never been such persons as Amadis

and the other knights-errant, nor the absurd adventures with which the

romances of chivalry abound. Don Quijote's answer is a marvellous

mixture of sense and nonsense: the creations of the romancer's brain are

placed side by side with the Cid, Juan de Merlo and Gutierre Ouijada,

whose names were household words in Spain: "Let them deny also that Don

Fernando de Guerara went to seek adventures in Germany, where he did

combat with Messer George, knight of the household of the duke of

Austria. Let them say that the jousts of Sucro de Quiñones, him of the

Pass, were a jest."

It is to these jousts, as one of the most characteristic episodes of the

reign of John II. and of the times, that we wish to call attention.[4]

On the evening of Friday, the 1st of January, 1434, while the king and

his court were at Medina del Campo and engaged in the rejoicings

customary on the first day of the New Year, Suero de Quiñones and nine

knights clad in white entered the saloon, and, coming before the throne,

kissed the hands and feet of the king, and presented him through their

herald with a petition of which the following is the substance:

"It is just and reasonable for those who are in confinement or deprived

of their freedom to desire liberty; and since I, your vassal and

subject, have long been in durance to a certain lady--in witness whereof

I bear this chain about my neck every Thursday--now, therefore, mighty

sovereign, I have agreed upon my ransom, which is three hundred lances

broken by myself and these knights, as shall more clearly hereafter

appear--three with every knight or gentleman (counting as broken the

lance which draws blood) who shall come to a certain place this year; to

wit, fifteen days before and fifteen days after the festival of the

apostle St. James, unless my ransom shall be completed before the day

last mentioned. The place shall be on the highway to Santiago, and I

hereby testify to all strange knights and gentlemen that they will

there be provided with armor, horses and weapons. And be it known to

every honorable lady who may pass the aforesaid way that if she do not

provide a knight or gentleman to do combat for her, she shall lose her

right-hand glove. All the above saving two things--that neither Your

Majesty nor the constable Don Alvaro de Luna is to enter the lists."

After the reading of this petition the king took counsel with his court

and granted it, for which Quiñones humbly thanked him, and then he and

his companions retired to disarm themselves, returning shortly after in

dresses more befitting a festal occasion.

After the dancing the regulations for the jousts, consisting of

twenty-two chapters, were publicly read. In addition to the declarations

in the petition, it is provided that in case two or more knights should

come to ransom the glove of any lady, the first knight only will be

received, and no one can ransom more than one glove. In the seventh

chapter Quiñones offers a diamond to the first knight who appears to do

combat for one of three ladies to be named by him, among whom shall not

be the one whose captive he is. No knight coming to the Pass of Honor

shall select the defender with whom to joust, nor shall he know the name

of his adversary until the combat is finished; but any one after

breaking three lances may challenge by name any one of the defenders,

who, if time permits, will break another lance with him. If any knight

desires to joust without some portion of his armor named by Quiñones,

his request shall be granted if reason and time permit. No knight will

be admitted to the lists until he declare his name and country. If any

one is injured, "as is wont to happen in jousts," he shall be treated as

though he were Quiñones himself, and no one in the future shall ever be

held responsible for any advantage or victory he may have gained over

any of the defenders of the Pass. No one going as a pilgrim to Santiago

by the direct road shall be hindered by Quiñones unless he approach the

aforesaid bridge of Orbigo (which was somewhat distant from the

highway). In case, however, any knight, having left the main road,

shall come to the Pass, he shall not be permitted to depart until he has

entered the lists or left in pledge a piece of his armor or right spur,

with the promise never to wear that piece or spur until he shall have

been in some deed of arms as dangerous as the Pass of Honor. Quiñones

further pledges himself to pay all expenses incurred by those who shall

come to the Pass.

Any knight who, after having broken one or two lances, shall refuse to

continue, shall lose his armor or right spur as though he had declined

to enter the lists. No defender shall be obliged to joust a second time

with any one who had been disabled for a day in any previous encounter.

The twenty-first chapter provides for the appointment of two knights,

"_caballeros anliguos è probados en annas è dignas de fè_," and two

heralds, all of whom shall swear solemnly to do justice to all who come

to the Pass, and who shall decide all questions which may arise.

The last chapter provides "that if the lady whose I [Quiñones] am shall

pass that way, she shall not lose her glove, and no one but myself shall

do combat for her, for no one in the world could do it so truly as I."

When the preceding provisions had been read, Quiñones gave to the

king-at-arms a letter signed and sealed, which invited to the Pass all

knights so disposed, granting safe conduct to those of other kingdoms,

and declaring the cause of said trial of arms. Copies of the above

letter were also given to other heralds, who were provided with

everything necessary for long journeys, and in the six months that

intervened before the day fixed for the jousts the matter had been

proclaimed throughout all Christendom. Meanwhile, Quiñones provided

horses and arms and everything necessary for "such an important

enterprise."

In the kingdom of Leon, about ten miles east of Astorga and on the

highway from that city to the capital, is the bridge of Orbigo. Suero de

Quiñones did not select Orbigo with reference to convenience of access

from the Castiles, but because it must be passed by pilgrims to

Santiago; and that year (1434) was especially sacred to the saint, whose

festival, on the 25th of July, has always been celebrated with great

pomp. The Spaniards having been forbidden to go to Jerusalem as

crusaders, and being too much occupied at home with the Moors to make

such a long pilgrimage, wisely substituted Santiago, where the remains

of St. James, the patron of Spain, is supposed to rest. His body is said

to have floated in a stone coffin from Joppa to Padron (thirteen miles

below Santiago) in seven days, and for nearly eight centuries lay

forgotten in a cave, but was at length miraculously brought to light by

mysterious flames hovering over its resting-place, and in 829 was

removed to Santiago. In 846 the saint made his appearance at the

celebrated battle of Clavijo, where he slew sixty thousand Moors, and

was rewarded by a grant of a bushel of grain from every acre in Spain.

His shrine was a favorite resort for pilgrims from all Christendom until

after the Reformation, and the saint retained his bushel of grain (the

annual value of which had reached the large sum of one million dollars)

until 1835.

It was near the highway, in a pleasant grove, that Quiñones erected the

lists, a hundred and forty-six paces long and surrounded by a palisade

of the height of a lance, with various stands for the judges and

spectators. At the opposite ends of the lists were entrances--one for

the defenders of the Pass--and there were hung the arms and banners of

Quiñones, as well as at the other entrance, which was reserved for the

knights who should come to make trial of their arms. In order that no

one might mistake the way, a marble king-at-arms was erected near the

bridge, with the right arm extended and the inscription, "To the Pass."

The final arrangements were not concluded until the 10th of July, the

first day of the jousts. Twenty-two tents had been erected for the

accommodation of those engaged in the enterprise as well as for mere

spectators, and Quiñones had provided all necessary servants and

artisans, among whom are mentioned kings-at-arms, heralds, trumpeters

and other musicians, notaries, armorers, blacksmiths, surgeons,

physicians, carpenters, lance-makers, tailors, embroiderers, etc. In the

midst of the tents was erected a wooden dining--hall, hung with rich

French cloth and provided with two tables--one for Quiñones and the

knights who came to the Pass, and the other for those who honored the

jousts with their presence. A curious fact not to be omitted is that the

king sent one of his private secretaries to prepare daily accounts of

what happened at the Pass, which were transmitted by relays to Segovia

(where he was engaged in hunting), so that he should receive them within

twenty-four hours.

On Saturday, the 10th of July, 1434, all the arrangements having been

completed, the heralds proceeded to the entrance of the lists and

announced to Quiñones that three knights were at the bridge of Orbigo

who had come to make trial of their arms--one a German, Messer Arnoldo

de la Floresta Bermeja of the marquisate of Brandenburg, "about

twenty-seven years old, blond and well-dressed;" the others two brothers

from Valencia, by name Juan and Per Fabla. Quiñones was greatly

delighted at their coming, and sent the heralds to invite them to take

up their quarters with him, which they did, and were received with honor

at the entrance of the lists in the presence of the judges. It being

Saturday, the jousting was deferred until the following Monday, and the

spurs of the three knights were hung up in the judges' stand as a sort

of pledge, to be restored to their owners when they were ready to enter

the lists.

The next morning the trumpets sounded, and Quiñones and his nine

companions heard mass in the church of St. John at Orbigo, and took

possession of the lists in the following fashion: First came the

musicians with drums and Moorish fifes, preceded by the judge, Pero

Barba. Then followed two large and beautiful horses drawing a cart

filled with lances of various sizes pointed with Milan steel. The cart

was covered with blue and green trappings embroidered with bay trees and

flowers, and on every tree was the figure of a parrot. The driver of

this singular conveyance was a dwarf. Next came Quiñones on a powerful

horse with blue trappings, on which were worked his device and a chain,

with the motto _Il faut deliberer_[5] He was dressed in a quilted jacket

of olive velvet brocade embroidered in green, with a cloak of blue

velvet, breeches of scarlet cloth and a tall cap of the same color. He

wore wheel-spurs of the Italian fashion richly gilt, and carried a drawn

sword, also gilt. On his right arm, near the shoulder, was richly

embroidered his device in gold two fingers broad, and around it in blue

letters,

Si a vous ne plait de avoyr me sure,

Certes ie clis,

Que ie suis,

Sans venture.[6]

With Quiñones were his nine companions in scarlet velvet and blue cloaks

bearing Quiñones' device and chain, and the trappings of their horses

blue, with the same device and motto. Near Quiñones were many knights on

foot, some of whom led his horse to do him honor. Three pages

magnificently attired and mounted closed the procession, which entered

the lists, and after passing around it twice halted before the judges'

stand, and Quiñones exhorted the judges to decide impartially all that

should happen, giving equal justice to all, and especially to defend the

strangers in case they should be attacked on account of having wounded

any of the defenders of the Pass.

The next day, Monday, at dawn the drums beat the reveille, and the

judges, with the heralds, notaries and kings-at-arms, took their places

in their stands. The nine defenders meanwhile heard mass in a large tent

which served as a private chapel for Quiñones, and where mass was said

thrice daily at his expense by some Dominicans. After the defenders were

armed they sent for the judges to inspect their weapons and armor. The

German knight, Arnoldo, had a disabled hand, but he declared he would

rather die than refrain from jousting. His arms and horse were approved,

although the latter was superior to that of Quiñones. The judges had

provided a body of armed soldiers whose duty it was to see that all had

fair play in the field, and had a pile of lances of various sizes placed

where each knight could select one to suit him.

Quiñones and the German now entered the lists, accompanied by their

friends and with "much music." The judges commanded that no one should

dare to speak aloud or give advice or make any sign to any one in the

lists, no matter what happened, under penalty of having the tongue cut

out for speaking and a hand cut off for making signs; and they also

forbade any knight to enter the lists with more than two servants, one

mounted and the other on foot. The spur taken from the German the

previous Saturday was now restored to him, and the trumpets sounded a

charge, while the heralds and kings-at-arms cried _Legeres allér!

legeres allér! é fair son deber_.

The two knights charged instantly, lance in rest, and Quiñones

encountered his antagonist in the guard of his lance, and his weapon

glanced off and touched him in the armor of his right hand and tore it

off, and his lance broke in the middle. The German encountered him in

the armor of the left arm, tore it off and carried a piece of the border

without breaking his lance. In the second course Quiñones encountered

the German in the top of his plastron, without piercing it, and the

lance came out under his arm-pit, whereupon all thought he was wounded,

for on receiving the shock he exclaimed _Olas!_ and his right vantbrace

was torn off, but the lance was not broken. The German encountered

Quiñones in the front of his helmet, breaking his lance two palms from

the iron. In the third course Quiñones encountered the German in the

guard of his left gauntlet, and passed through it, and the head of the

lance stuck in the rim without breaking, and the German failed to

encounter. In the fourth course Quiñones encountered the German in the

armor of his left arm without breaking his lance, and the German failed

to encounter. In the next course both failed to encounter, but in the

sixth Quiñones encountered the German in the joint of his left

vantbrace, and the iron passed half through without breaking, while the

shaft broke in the middle, and the German failed to encounter. After

this last course they went to the judges' stand, where their jousting

was pronounced finished, since they had broken three lances between

them. Quiñones invited the German to supper, and both were accompanied

to their quarters by music, and Quiñones disarmed himself in public.

The two Valencian knights did not delay to challenge Quiñones, since he

had remained uninjured; and, as they had the right to demand horses and

arms, they chose those which Quiñones had used in the last joust. The

chronicler adds: "It seems to me that they did not ask it so much for

their honor as for the safety of their skins." The judges decided that

Quiñones was not bound to give his own armor, as there were other suits

as good: nevertheless, he complied, and sent in addition four horses to

choose from. He was also anxious to joust with them, but Lope de

Estuñiga refused to yield his place, and cited the chapter of the

regulations which provided that no one should single out his adversary.

Quiñones offered him a very fine horse and a gold chain worth three

hundred doubloons, but Estuñiga answered that he would not yield his

turn although he were offered a city.

At vespers Estuñiga and Juan Fabla were armed and the judges examined

their arms, and although Fabla had the better horse, they let it pass.

At the sound of the trumpet Estuñiga entered the lists magnificently

attired, and attended by two pages in armor bearing a drawn sword and a

lance. Juan Fabla followed immediately, and at the given signal they

attacked each other lance in rest. Fabla encountered Estuñiga in the

left arm, tearing off his armor, but neither of them broke his lance. In

the four following courses they failed to encounter. In the sixth Fabla

encountered his adversary in the breastplate, breaking his lance in the

middle, and the head remained sticking in the armor. They encountered in

the seventh course, and Estuñiga's servant, who was in the lists, cried

out, "At him! at him!" The judges commanded his tongue to be cut out,

but at the intercession of those present the sentence was commuted to

thirty blows and imprisonment. They failed to encounter in the eighth

course, but in the ninth Estuñiga broke his lance on Fabla's left arm:

the latter failed to encounter, and received a great reverse. After this

they ran nine courses without encountering, but in the nineteenth

Estuñiga met Fabla in the plastron, and his lance slipped off on to his

helmet, but did not break, although it pierced the plastron and the iron

remained sticking in it. By this time it had grown so dark that the

judges could not distinguish the good from the bad encounters, and for

this reason they decided that the combat was finished the same as though

three lances had been broken. Estuñiga invited Fabla to sup with

Quiñones, "and at table there were many knights, and after supper they

danced."

That same day there arrived at the Pass nine knights from Aragon, who

swore that they were gentlemen without reproach. Their spurs were taken

from them, according to the established custom, and hung up in the

judges' stand until they should enter the lists.

The succeeding combats were but repetitions, with trifling variations,

of those just described. From dawn, when the trumpet sounded for battle,

until the evening grew so dark that the judges could not distinguish the

combatants, the defenders maintained the Pass against all comers with

bravery and honor.