Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/19



tourist on the Rhine, looking down from the deck of his steamer as it breasts the tawny stream, will frequently pass in his course a slow procession of barges deeply laden with coal. If of an inquiring turn of mind, he will learn that these hail from the Ruhr, a tributary that enters the great river near Düsseldorf, the valley through which it flows enjoying a brisk trade in coal-mining and its allied industries. Three centuries ago, in an obscure monastery of this side-valley, in the little town of Werden, an inquisitive German—one Arnold Mercator—rummaging among the dusty tomes of its library, perhaps in search of plunder for his master, the Landgraf of Hesse, discovered a manuscript of rare beauty. As the Lutheran Reformation was then making havoc of monastic stores, the prize was removed for greater security to Prague. It had been written by some careful scribe in characters of silver on a purple or mulberry-tinted parchment. The letters of a few words at the beginning of each paragraph were in gold. How it had come to Werden no one could tell, but experts are agreed Rh