Bound to Rise
"Sit up to the table, children, breakfast's ready." The speaker was a woman of middle age, not good-looking in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but nevertheless she looked good. She was dressed with extreme plainness, in a cheap calico; but though cheap, the dress was neat. The children she addressed were six in number, varying in age from twelve to four. The oldest, Harry, the hero of the present story, was a broad-shouldered, sturdy boy, with a frank, open face, resolute, though good-natured. "Father isn't here," said Fanny, the second child. "He'll be in directly. He went to the store, and he may stop as he comes back to milk." The table was set in the center of the room, covered with a coarse tablecloth. The breakfast provided was hardly of a kind to tempt an epicure. There was a loaf of bread cut into slices, and a dish of boiled potatoes. There was no butter and no meat, for the family were very poor.
(The arms, of walnut wood, are about 5 1/2 ft. long.)]
No doubt the cross-staff is a very primitive contrivance, but when
handled by one so skilful as Tycho it afforded results of
considerable accuracy. I would recommend any reader who may have a
taste for such pursuits to construct a cross-staff for himself, and
see what measurements he can accomplish with its aid.
To employ this little instrument Tycho had to evade the vigilance of
his conscientious tutor, who felt it his duty to interdict all such
occupations as being a frivolous waste of time. It was when Vedel
was asleep that Tycho managed to escape with his cross staff and
measure the places of the heavenly bodies. Even at this early age
Tycho used to conduct his observations on those thoroughly sound
principles which lie at the foundation of all accurate modern
astronomy. Recognising the inevitable errors of workmanship in his
little instrument, he ascertained their amount and allowed for their
influence on the results which he deduced. This principle, employed
by the boy with his cross-staff in 1564, is employed at the present
day by the Astronomer Royal at Greenwich with the most superb
instruments that the skill of modern opticians has been able to
construct.
[PLATE: TYCHO'S TRIGONIC SEXTANT.
(The arms, AB and AC, are about 5 1/2 ft. long.)]
"Sit up to the table, children, breakfast's ready." The speaker was a woman of middle age, not good-looking in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but nevertheless she looked good. She was dressed with extreme plainness, in a cheap calico; but though cheap, the dress was neat. The children she addressed were six in number, varying in age from twelve to four. The oldest, Harry, the hero of the present story, was a broad-shouldered, sturdy boy, with a frank, open face, resolute, though good-natured. "Father isn't here," said Fanny, the second child. "He'll be in directly. He went to the store, and he may stop as he comes back to milk." The table was set in the center of the room, covered with a coarse tablecloth. The breakfast provided was hardly of a kind to tempt an epicure. There was a loaf of bread cut into slices, and a dish of boiled potatoes. There was no butter and no meat, for the family were very poor.