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They were seated close to the open casement, facing each other across a small round table; along the window-sill there were rows of flower-pots; a pewter tankard was set between them; and out of the shadowy interior came the topaz gleam of the Normandy brasses, the huge bed, with its snowy draperies, the great chests, and the flowery chintz-frill defining the width of the yawning fireplace.
"Aye, aye, sir!" came the cheery answer, and Glory's hands, fresh from the suds, would touch the questioner's cheek. "Brasses polished, hawsers coiled, rations dealt?" "Aye, aye, cap'n!" again called the child. "Eight bells! Every man to his post!" ordered the master, and from the ceiling a bell struck out the half-hours in the only way the sailor would permit time to be told aboard his "ship."
It seemed to him, as he looked up at the tall windows with their graceful tracery, that he was the representative of all who had worked out their belief in God within these beautiful walls, and of all the perpetual worshippers who had knelt among the old brasses of the early founders upon the worn floor. The other stood beside him with a half envy in his mind.
I never said good-by to Helena von Ritz. I did not catch that last look of her eye. I remember her as she stood there that night, grave, sweet and sad. I turned to Elisabeth. There in the crash of the reeds and brasses, the rise and fall of the sweet and bitter conversation all around us, was the comedy and the tragedy of life. "Elisabeth," I said to her, "are you not ashamed?"
The corporation of Hungerford is peculiar, the head official being termed the constable, who corresponded with the mayor in less original boroughs. At Kingston-upon-Thames in 1572 the accounts show the expenditure: "The making of the cucking-stool . 8s. 0d. Iron work for the same . . . 3s. 0d. Timber for the same . . . 7s. 6d. Three brasses for the same and three wheels 4s. 10d. £1 3s. 4d."
A convenient introduction to the study of monumental brasses, with illustrations and a list of all the surviving brasses in England, arranged according to counties, is W. Macklin, Monumental Brasses . See also H. Druitt, Costume on Brasses . These books also give details as to the famous early writers on the subject, such as Weaver, Holman, and A.J. Dunkin.
For in this world the continued absence of one's carriage may well shake one's credit. The trumpeting motor-cars whirred by with gleaming brasses. Of the beautiful women in them, little could be seen in the swift gleams. It was the haste of a new age that does not even find time to display its vanity. Upon the windows of the villas and palaces opposite lay the iridescent glow of the evening sun.
The blasts of the Wagnerian brasses, galloping in the mad ride of the Valkyries, made the marble columns shake and seemed to give life to the four golden horses that reared over space with silent whinnies on the cornice of St. Mark's. The dark-feathered doves of Venice scattered in playful spirals, somewhat frightened at the music, finally settled, like rain, on the tables of the café.
The windows, heavily shaded by trees, admitted a subdued light that made the faces around me pale, and darkened the old brasses in the pavement and the time and damp-worn monuments, and rendered the sunshine in the little porch, where a monotonous ringer was working at the bell, inestimably bright.
Galen Albret had chosen to interrogate his recaptured prisoner alone. He sat again in the arm-chair of the Council Room. The place was flooded with sun. It touched the high-lights of the time-darkened, rough furniture, it picked out the brasses, it glorified the whitewashed walls.
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