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 Frontiers in the History of Science

Eduardo Noble

The Rise and Fall

of the German
Combinatorial
Analysis
Frontiers in the History of Science
Frontiers in the History of Science is designed for publications of up-to-date research
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Series Editor:
Vincenzo De Risi, Université Paris-Diderot − CNRS, PARIS CEDEX 13, Paris, France

Associate Editors:
Karine Chemla, Paris, France
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Dana Jalobeanu, Bucharest, Romania
Henrique Leitão, Lisboa, Portugal
David Marshal Miller, Ames, Iowa, USA
Aurélien Robert, Tours, France
Eric Schliesser, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Eduardo Noble

The Rise and Fall of the

German Combinatorial
Analysis
Eduardo Noble
Mexico City, Mexico

ISSN 2662-2564 ISSN 2662-2572 (electronic)

Frontiers in the History of Science
ISBN 978-3-030-93819-2 ISBN 978-3-030-93820-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93820-8

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Acknowledgements

I would like to express my deep gratitude to Marco Panza, who shared with me his
knowledge of the history of mathematics and encouraged me to undertake this research.
His constant advice and indefatigable support helped me in many ways, more than I could
enumerate here. He also encouraged me to rework the first French draft of what would
become this book and persuaded me to publish it. This book would not have existed
without him.
I am also indebted to Carlos Álvarez, Maarten Bullynck, Christian Gilain, Hans Niels
Jahnke, and David Rabouin who carefully read my first French draft and made helpful
suggestions for improving it.
I want to thank the whole SPHERE research team at CNRS for the opportunity to work
in its group when writing the French draft that was the first version of this book. Special
thanks go to Karine Chemla, director of SPHERE at that time, for her cordial reception in
the team.
Special thanks are given to the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript. Their
comments helped me to identify some errors and obscurities, whose correction led, I hope,
to improve the argument of the book.
Many thanks also go to Vincenzo De Risi for his interest in including my work in this
series, and for his support through the publishing process. His advice and suggestions also
enabled me to enhance the quality of the book.

v
Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Historiography on the Combinatorial Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 An Alternative Historical Interpretation of the German Combinatorial
Analysis . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.3 Content of the Book.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

2 A History of the Binomial and Multinomial Theorems . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

2.1 The Binomial Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1.1 Newton’s Theorem.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.1.2 Newton’s Theorem and the Method of Fluxions . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.1.3 Newton’s Theorem in Germany .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.2 The Multinomial Theorem.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
2.2.1 Moivre’s Multinomial Theorem .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
2.2.2 The Reception of the Multinomial Theorem . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
2.2.3 The Reception of the Multinomial Theorem in Germany . . . . . . . . . . . 61

3 The Emergence of the German Combinatorial Analysis . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

3.1 Hindenburg on Mathematical Tables .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.2 Hindenburg and the Theory of Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.2.1 Hindenburg’s First Approach to the Multinomial Theorem . . . . . . . . . 73
3.2.2 The Second Infinitinomii, and the Sudden Apparition of Leibniz . . . 87
3.3 The German Combinatorial Analysis as a Research Project ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
3.3.1 In Search of a Conceptual Background for the New System . . . . . . . . 99
3.3.2 The Combinatorial Operations of the New System . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
3.3.3 Creation of a New Mathematical Symbolism . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
3.3.4 Hindenburg’s Scientific Work Program .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

vii
viii Contents

4 The Consolidation of the German Combinatorial Analysis . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

4.1 The Reversion of Series and the Rise of the German Combinatorial
School . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
4.1.1 Hindenburg, Science Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
4.1.2 Lagrange’s Inversion Formula and the Reversion of Series . . . . . . . . . 122
4.1.3 The Rise of the German Combinatorial School:
An Interpretation .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
4.2 The Most Important Theorem in the Whole of Analysis . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
4.2.1 Back to Moivre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
4.2.2 Independence, Primacy, and the Multinomial Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
4.2.3 Hindenburg’s Project Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

5 The Decline of the German Combinatorial Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

5.1 Second Thoughts About the Foundation of Analysis . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
5.1.1 The Foundation of Analysis Crumbles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
5.1.2 First Textbooks.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
5.1.3 A Last Combinatorial Proof of the Binomial Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
5.2 Against the Current . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
5.2.1 A Non-Combinatorial Approach to the Multinomial Theorem .. . . . . 266
5.2.2 The Exponent Calculus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
5.2.3 The Combinatorial Characteristic .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

6 A Combinatorial Current of Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

6.1 Isolated Research.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
6.2 Combinatorics and Mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
6.2.1 Foundationalist Current . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
6.2.2 Countercurrent: Algebraic Purity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
6.2.3 Syntactic Current . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
6.2.4 Non-Foundationalist Current .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
6.3 Vicissitudes Abroad .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373

7 Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
References .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
Introduction
1

At the end of the eighteenth century, the mathematical landscapes of German-speaking

territories in Europe were dominated by the ideas of a particular group of mathematicians
known as the “German combinatorial school”. This book deals with those ideas. But
before moving on to them, it is necessary to consider the existing historiography on the
topic, around which a specific historical interpretation of the group and of its scientific
work has taken decisive form. Getting acquainted with this traditional interpretation,
which concerns the factors involved in the formation of the combinatorial school, its
longevity in the context of German mathematics, the distinctive features of its scientific
theory, and the relation of this latter to other scientific theories, opens the possibility of
better understanding the motivations and goals of this research subject.

1.1 Historiography on the Combinatorial Analysis

Despite the limited number of studies devoted to the combinatorial school, it is not that
easy finding your way around their historical narratives. A sort of intellectual struggle
begins as soon as our curiosity on the subject leads us to the natural question of just what
the combinatorial school is. Carl Immanuel Gerhardt was one of the first historians of
mathematics to answer this question (Gerhardt 1877, 201–206). In 1877, he affirms that
this school was founded by Carl Friedrich Hindenburg (1739–1808) and adds that Johann
Friedrich Pfaff (1765–1825) enjoyed a prominent position in this academic organization.
In 2003, Laurence Brockliss writes, in a volume centered on the history of science during
the eighteenth century and published by the University of Cambridge, that Pfaff and
Hindenburg were the founders of the combinatorial school (Brockliss 2003, 57). Although
the vast majority of studies agrees with Gerhardt’s opinion, Brockliss’s remark affords an
instance of the basic inaccuracies that still prevail in our knowledge of this school.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 1

E. Noble, The Rise and Fall of the German Combinatorial Analysis, Frontiers
in the History of Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93820-8_1
2 1 Introduction

This kind of inaccuracies does not only concern the question of who founded the
combinatorial school, but also the question of who joined this group as an active member.
Gerhardt claims that, besides Pfaff and the founder Hindenburg, Georg Simon Klügel
(1739–1812), Hieronymus Christoph Wilhelm Eschenbach (1764–1797), and Heinrich
August Rothe (1773–1842) were members of the combinatorial school. In his paper on
combinatorics, which is about twenty pages long and which remains the most detailed and
the most comprehensive study on our research subject to date, Eugen Netto adds another
three names to the list established by Gerhardt: Heinrich August Töpfer (1758–1833),
Christian Kramp (1760–1826), and Johann Karl Burckhardt (1773–1825) (Netto 1908,
201–221). However, while Gerhardt and Netto included these names in their respective
lists of members of the combinatorial school on the basis of their partial analysis of some
texts of these authors, other historians arbitrarily inflate the list by adding names without
justifying their choices, often not even a brief description of any writing of the chosen
author is provided. In Bell’s account of the combinatorial analysis, one can read that Josef
Hoëné Wronski (1776–1853) was linked to this group, but this claim is not supported
by any kind of primary source analysis (Bell 1940, 290–291). As time passes, the list
of the members of the combinatorial school increases and differs from one historian to
another according to the needs of their respective narratives. For instance, Martin suggests
that Heinrich Bürmann (?–1817) was an active collaborator in the construction of the
combinatorial school’s theory, but he does not discuss any of Bürmann’s ideas, merely
quoting the title of one of Bürmann’s works (Martin 1996b, 83–84). Pradier analyzes
the work of Johann Nicolaus Tetens (1736–1807) but he does not justify the assertion
that Tetens was a member of this school (Pradier 2003, 146). Ferraro includes Bürmann,
Tetens, and Moritz von Prasse (1769–1814) in the group (Ferraro 2007, 479–480), and
instead of elaborating on his reasons for doing so he directs the reader to (Jahnke 1993)
and (Panza 1992, vol. 2, 651–659) for further information, but Jahnke does not address
the works of any of those authors in his paper and Panza deals with Prasse’s thought
exclusively. Admittedly, it is just not reasonable to expect historians to draw up a single
and definitive inventory of the mathematicians belonging to the combinatorial school, for
the discovery of new historical data is a constituent part of historical research. On the
contrary, since the inclusion of a given mathematician in the combinatorial school must
be based on methodological decisions as far as historical narratives are concerned, it is
reasonable to ask what criteria they used to make those decisions. Given the recurrent
lack of primary source analysis in many studies, as those referred to above, it must be
recognized that, in most cases, those criteria become indiscernible and hard to assess.
Gerhardt suggests that the combinatorial school has headed the mathematical research
carried out in Germany during the “last decades” (den letzten Jahrzehnten) (Gerhardt 1877,
201). Considering that his book was published in 1877 and that he thought that Hindenburg
was the founder of the combinatorial school, his remark implies that the existence of
this school extends over a period of seventy or eighty years. Georg Faber and Alfred
Pringsheim seem to agree with Gerhardt’s estimation when they say that the influence of
the combinatorial school can be perceived in German textbooks until the middle of the
1.1 Historiography on the Combinatorial Analysis 3

nineteenth century (Pringsheim and Faber 1909, 3–4). In his French version of Faber’s
and Pringsheim’s work, Jules Molk goes beyond a simple translation and transforms
one statement of Faber and Pringsheim into an entire paragraph about the combinatorial
school, in which Molk claims that the combinatorial school continues to be active between
1825 and 1850, and even later (Molk et al. 1911, 3). Similarly, Wilhelm Lorey states
that Hindenburg founded the combinatorial school and that university professors of
mathematics emerged from this school up to the mid-nineteenth century (Lorey 1916, 27,
29). However, views on this matter are far from unanimous. According to Ferraro, it is
possible to put a precise date to the emergence and dissolution of the combinatorial school,
which was formed in 1780 and dissolved in 1810 (Ferraro 2007, 479–480). Therefore, its
existence corresponds to a shorter period of just thirty years. The foundation year of
1780 comes again and again in the writings of different historians. This date is used by
Schubring too, though he is not as categorical as Ferraro, nuancing that this school was “in
vigour in Germany since about 1780” (Schubring 2007, 110). He disagrees with respect
to the second date. For him, the textbooks related to the combinatorial school’s ideas that
appeared between 1800 and 1825 prove that this school did not cease its activities before
1825 (Schubring 2005, 562). In fact, in his lecture presented at a Satellite Symposium of
the first European Congress of Mathematics held in Paris from April 3 to April 6, 1992,
Schubring dated the beginning of the combinatorial school around 1780 and its end around
1820 (Schubring 1996a, 370). Thus, for him, the existence of this school varies between
forty and forty-five years. Jahnke, for his part, proposes to distinguish two periods in
the history of the combinatorial school (Jahnke 1990, 171). The first took place from
1780 to 1808, where the starting year was probably chosen because of the publication
of Hindenburg’s book entitled Infinitinomii dignitatum exponentis indeterminati historia
leges ac formulae, appeared in 1779, and the period ends when Hindenburg dies. The
second took place from 1808 to 1840, and it is characterized by the combinatorial school’s
loss of hegemony in the German academic world, as well as by the lack of innovative
mathematical research, which was replaced by the production of textbooks. Thus the
temporal situation of the combinatorial school fluctuates within relatively wide limits,
which range from thirty to eighty years, with an average of fifty years. There is what
seems to be a tacit agreement on the year of the combinatorial school’s emergence or
foundation, located around 1780. However, a historical reconstruction based on the
assumption that this school lasted thirty years necessarily bears little relation to another
that attributes a lifetime of fifty or eighty years to the group. The difficulty is clear:
given the deep differences between the historical and cultural contexts of a period of three
decades and a period of almost a century, the composition, nature, and characteristics of
the combinatorial school cannot be the same in both cases. In other words, each of these
historical reconstructions deals with a different object of study, ambiguously referred to by
the same term of “combinatorial school”, and this ambiguity necessarily brings confusion
to our comprehension of the subject.
The theory elaborated by the combinatorial school goes under the name of “combi-
natorial analysis”. In this case, there is absolute unanimity among scholars as to the
4 1 Introduction

nature of this theory, which focuses on studying the elementary operations of permutations
and combinations in order to then apply them to solve problems belonging to the field of
mathematical analysis. Three different terms are currently used to make reference to the
combinatorial school’s theory in the literature: “combinatorial analysis” (kominatorische
Analysis), “theory of combinations” (Kombinationslehre), and “combinatorics” (Kombi-
natorik). Gerhardt and Netto employ all of them indistinctly (Gerhardt 1877; Netto 1908).
When German is not the original language of the historical study, there is a predominant
use of the first two terms. For instance, Eric Temple Bell adopts the term “combinatorial
analysis”, while Schubring and Heuser prefer “theory of combinations” or “combination
theory” (Bell 1940, 290–291; Schubring 1996a, 370; Heuser 1996, 48–49). Schubring also
uses “combinatorial analysis” when he writes in French (Schubring 1990, 98). Indeed, it
seems clear that these terms are taken as synonyms in the relevant literature. Let’s now
examine in more detail what is involved in the combinatorial analysis according to the
relevant literature.
According to a consensus reached by most of the scholars, the combinatorial school
advanced the idea that the multinomial theorem is the ultimate principle of mathematical
analysis. The most common explanation for this conviction of the combinatorial school is
the increasing importance of the binomial theorem in mathematics during the eighteenth
century (Gerhardt 1877; Netto 1908). In this sense, the conviction of the combinatorial
school is regarded as an attempt to reach more general mathematical results by enlarging
the domain of objects subject to the theorem from binomials to any polynomial. However,
it is possible to find more adventurous explanations. For Séguin, there is no mathematical
motivation behind the combinatorial school’s choice of postulating the multinomial
theorem as the foundation of analysis, but a philosophical and cultural contextualized
motivation (Séguin 2005). Séguin claims that the cultural atmosphere of the time
dominated by German philosophers that began to build systems of knowledge based on
a single, ultimate principle influenced Hindenburg and lured him to believe that a similar
principle should exist within the realm of mathematics. Séguin even dares to affirm without
any kind of historical evidence that it was Fichte’s philosophy that directly influenced
Hindenburg.
However, there have been some dissenting voices, too, about which mathematical
proposition played the role of the ultimate principle of analysis for the combinatorial
school. At the end of the nineteenth century, Karl Fink seems to suggest that the members
of the combinatorial school, except for Hindenburg, considered the binomial theorem as
the most important mathematical proposition in analysis, but it is true that Fink’s text
remains somehow ambiguous on this question (Fink 1890, 115). On the contrary, Sebestik
explicitly says that, for the combinatorial school, the “key element” of the entire field
of analysis was Taylor’s theorem (Sebestik 1992, 84–85). Although Sebestik does not
elaborate on this assertion at all, his idea could be argued in two different ways. One could
say that Taylor’s theorem was considered as the most fundamental theorem in analysis by
the combinatorial school because of its interest in problems of reversing series, in which
Taylor’s theorem plays a central role. Or one could simply say that this assertion was
1.1 Historiography on the Combinatorial Analysis 5

explicitly formulated by Bürmann. Anyway, what is really important at this point is to

emphasize the fact that one can find incompatible historical interpretations about one of
the crucial issues that deeply impinges on the understanding and explanation of what the
German combinatorial analysis was.
An elementary theory of combinations, its application to mathematical analysis, and a
fundamental principle represent the constitutive elements of the German combinatorial
analysis developed by the combinatorial school, according to the existing historical
reconstructions. This general picture, shared, as far as we know, by all researchers
that work on the subject, sets the stage for a more general interpretation about the
intellectual commitments made by the members of the combinatoiral school regarding
the way in which they understood mathematical knowledge. The general conception of
mathematics attributed to this school has been associated with some kind of “formalism”,
as already noted by Gerhardt and Netto (Gerhardt 1877, 205; Netto 1908, 201). But it is
possible to distinguish between two different interpretative variants of what this formalism
means. The first rests on Gerhardt’s and Netto’s works and affirms that the combinatorial
school conceived mathematics as a general science of formulae, in which every problem
can be reduce to the problem of transforming a given formula into another by formal
manipulations. In this sense, mathematical analysis, which depends on the theory of
series for the members of the combinatorial school, can be seen as a theory focused on the
formal transformations of finite and infinite series by means of combinations, as pointed
out by Ferreirós Domínguez 1993, 37–38, 1999, 11–13. On the other hand, the second
interpretative variant does not originate from a historical narration, either that of Gerhardt
and Netto or any other one. It rests instead on some texts written during the first half
of the nineteenth century in which the topics discussed and their treatment are close to
the combinatorial school’s ideas, but in which the theory of combinations is presented
as a sort of syntax. From this point of view, the combinatorial analysis can be regarded
as a formal syntax that provides the rules for manipulating the symbols of mathematical
theories. In this second interpretation, the formalism of the combinatorial school points
to the formulation of a common symbolic grammar for mathematical analysis, while in
the first interpretation there is no common grammar, but local manipulations of symbols
according to algorithms formulated for a given specific case. The syntactic interpretation
can be found in (Martin 1996b, 83–84, 1996a, 201; Schubring 1996b, 66). In particular,
Schubring claims that, under the influence of the combinatorial school, Jacob Friedrich
Fries (1773–1843) called “Syntaktik” the most fundamental branch of mathematics. Later,
Pulte reproduces Schubring’s interpretation about Fries and adds that Fries’s conception
also results from the influence of Kant’s philosophy (Pulte 2006, 117).
In the literature, the combinatorial school’s theory has been associated with two
different scientific programs, one dating from the seventeenth century and the other
from the eighteenth century. This latter program is now known under the name of
“algebraic analysis”, and the idea that there exists a theoretical relation between this
program and the combinatorial school’s work had not been formulated until recently.
No historical reconstruction carried out in the nineteenth century or in the first half
6 1 Introduction

of the twentieth century proposes such an interpretation of the combinatorial school’s

work. It is worth saying that this school has always been associated with Joseph-Louis
Lagrange (1736–1813), who is considered to be the first proponent of the algebraic
analysis, but this association was traditionally based on the belief that certain aspects of
the combinatorial school’s manipulations of infinite series have their roots in Lagrange’s
thought, in particular those concerned with reversion of series, as can be seen for example
in (Reiff 1889, 148–149). On the contrary, during the two last decades of the twentieth
century, some historians have advanced the hypothesis that the most general objective
of the German combinatorial analysis coincides with that of the algebraic analysis (see,
for example, Friedelmeyer 1997, 17; Jahnke 1990, 169–232; Laugwitz 1996, 57–63;
Schubring 2005, 562). In these historical narratives, the algebraic analysis is characterized
as the Lagrangian project of founding differential and integral calculus on algebraic
bases, thus excluding all problematic metaphysical assumptions inherent in questionable
concepts, as the concept of “infinitesimal”. In this order of ideas, under the influence
of the Lagrangian project, the German combinatorial school pursued, according to these
narratives, the goal of founding calculus on algebra, with the difference being that algebra
was supposed to obey combinatorial laws.
On the other hand, the second program is that of the “universal characteristic” or
the “ars combinatoria” suggested by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) during the
second half of the seventeenth century. In this case, practically every single historian
that has worked on the subject is convinced that the German combinatorial analysis is
closely related to Leibniz’s program (see, for example, Friedelmeyer 1997, 17; Gerhardt
1877, 203; Netto 1908, 201; Peckhaus 1997, 238–240; Schubring 1990, 98; Séguin 2005;
Thiel 1995, 20). According to these historical reconstructions, the Leibnizian project
consisted in developing a symbolic calculus on the basis of the theory of combinations and
whose scope extends to all human knowledge. The influence exerted by Leibniz’s thought
on Hindenburg and his colleagues was so important that, according to these historians,
the German combinatorial analysis can be seen essentially as an attempt to finally bring
Leibniz’s project into existence. Nevertheless, these scholars recognize that the plan of
the German combinatorial analysis is less ambitious than that of the Leibnizian universal
characteristic inasmuch as its scope is restricted to mathematics.
In fact, the German combinatorial analysis has also been related to a major cultural
movement of the time by one of the scholars mentioned above. Séguin ventures
the hypothesis that the early German Romanticism impacted the shape and compo-
sition of Hindenburg’s mathematical work, principally through Fichte’s philosophical
thought (Séguin 2006, 64–72). Thus, the nature and characteristics of Hindenburg’s
mathematics were determined by the nascent romantic ideals, and, at the same time, his
mathematics transmitted these ideals to other exponents of the German culture, notably to
Friedrich von Hardenberg, Novalis (1772–1801). However, although Novalis’s fascination
with the German combinatorial analysis is well established (Dyck 1960; Hannah 1981;
Jahnke 1991; Margantin 1999; Schefer 2005), Séguin’s hypothesis does not seem to be
supported by any kind of confirming evidence. It is well known that Novalis wrote some
1.1 Historiography on the Combinatorial Analysis 7

lines about Hindenburg’s theory (Novalis 1993), but it cannot be inferred from that that
Hindenburg was a Romantic. In fact, it is well known that Novalis was fascinated with
new scientific discoveries in general, but this does not mean that such discoveries belong
to the Romantic movement. Besides the fact that Séguin does not provide any textual
documentation supporting his hypothesis about Hindenburg’s Romanticism, it should be
noted that this hypothesis depends on another questionable hypothesis, namely, that about
Fichte’s influence on Hindenburg’s work which also rests on nothing more than vague
assumptions. In sum, these hypotheses should be considered with caution.
Besides these general interpretations about the combinatorial school and its theory,
the historians of the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth
expressed negative opinions of this period in the history of German mathematics. Gerhardt
characterized it as “stagnant” (stehend) and Netto as “strange” (merkwürdig) (Gerhardt
1877, 201; Netto 1908, 201). Elaborating on Gerhardt’s remark, Gino Loria described
the mathematical works of the combinatorial school’s members as “soporific” (soporiferi
lavori) and placed on them the entire responsibility for the “lethargy” that had supposedly
paralyzed German mathematics for half a century (Loria 1888, 335). It should be noted,
however, that Loria provided a rather neutral description of this school in his capital
work on the history of mathematics (Loria 1933, 349–351). In 1916, Lorey describes
the theory of the combinatorial school as “an old combinatorics” (alte Kombinatorik)
forgotten because of its “sterile subtleties” (unfruchtbaren Spitzfindigkeiten) that distorted
the spirit of the “original and very interesting and important combinatorial problems”
(ursprünglich mathematisch gewiß sehr interessanten und wichtigen kombinatorischen
Probleme) of Leibniz, Moivre, Bernoulli, and Euler (Lorey 1916, 29–30). And he talks
about Hindenburg as a “narrow-minded” (Engherzigkeit) man blinded by his obsession
with combinatorics, and thus unable to see beyond his own mathematical horizon (Lorey
1916, 28, footnote 5). According to Bell, this historical episode was nothing but a
“ridiculous interlude” in which the “patriotic disciples” of Leibniz (i.e., the members of the
combinatorial school), lacking the talent for mathematical sciences, failed to understand
the deep insights of the Leibnizian universal characteristic (Bell 1940, 290–291). Florian
Cajori was convinced that the combinatorial school produced nothing worthy of esteem
and History rewards it with deserved oblivion (Cajori 1919a, 231, 373, 1892, 1). He went
as far as to mock their manipulations of divergent series as though the members of the
combinatorial school had had the obligation to know beforehand Cauchy’s results (Cajori
1890, 362–363). In a more moderated tone, Felix Klein refused to devote any part
of his acclaimed lectures on the state of mathematics in the nineteenth century to the
combinatorial school under the pretext that its ideas can rather be seen as a “ramification
of old scientific trends” than the “beginning of a new scientific development” (Klein 1967,
113). Perhaps this recurrent stigmatization has played a dissuasive role as a deterring factor
for scholars to pursue more detailed studies of this historical period. In any case, it was
not until the end of the twentieth century that a fresh wave of historical studies appeared,
in which the combinatorial school’s ideas have been reevaluated by placing them in the
mathematical contexts to which they belong. For instance, Hans Niels Jahnke analyzes
Other documents randomly have
different content
struck the little boy. She looked at him and he at her silently; her sad
eyes lingered on his face for a moment, and he felt that he liked her.
She took a chair very softly and sat down without saying a word.
In a little while the Sergeant laid down his paper and looked at her.
Her large eyes were raised toward him with timid expectation, but
she did not speak.
“Not well just now?”
“No, sir.”
“You take the bottle regularly?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ll be better in the morning belike.”
“I’m sure I shall, sir.”
He lighted a candle that stood on a side-table, and his dog Bion
got up to attend him. It was a large pug-dog, gambouge-coloured,
with a black nose. The boy often afterwards wished to play with Bion,
and make his acquaintance. But he did not know how the attempt
would be taken either by the dog or his master, and so he did not
venture.
No caresses passed between the dog and the Sergeant. Each did
his duty by the other, and they understood one another, I suppose,
but no further signs of love appeared.
The Sergeant went out and shut the door, and the girl smiled very
sweetly on the little guest, and put out her hand to welcome him.
“I’m very glad you are come here. I was very lonely. My father is
gone to the work-room; he’s making an organ there, and he won’t
come back till a quarter to nine. That’s an hour and three-quarters.
Do you hear—listen.”
She raised her finger and looked toward the partition as she
spoke, and he heard a booming of an organ through the wall.
“Tony blows the organ for him.”
Tony was a little boy from the workhouse, who cleaned knives,
forks, shoes, and made himself generally useful, being the second
servant, the only male one in their modest establishment.
“I wish I was better, I’m so out of breath talking. We’ll be very
happy now. That’s tuning the pipes—that one’s wolving. I used to
blow the bellows for him, but the doctor says I must not, and indeed I
couldn’t now. You must eat something and drink more tea, and we’ll
be great friends, shan’t we?”
So they talked a great deal, she being obliged to stop often for
breath, and he could see that she was very weak, and also that she
stood in indescribable awe of her father. But she said, “He’s a very
good man, and he works very hard to earn his money, but he does
not talk, and that makes people afraid of him. He won’t be back here
until he comes here to read the Bible and prayers at a quarter to
nine.”
So she talked on, but all the time in an undertone, and listening
every now and then for the boom of the pipes, and the little boy
opened his heart to her and wept bitterly, and she cried too, silently,
as he went on, and they became very near friends. She looked as if
she understood his griefs. Perhaps her own resembled them.
The old woman came in and took away the tea things, and shortly
after the Sergeant entered and read the chapter and the prayers.
 CHAPTER LXIII.
A SILENT FAREWELL.

At Noulton Farm each day was like its brother. Inflexible hours,
inflexible duties, all proceeded with a regimental punctuality. At
meals not a word was spoken, and while the master of the house
was in it, all conversation was carried on, even in remote rooms, in
an undertone.
Our little friend used to see the workhouse boy at prayers, morning
and evening, and occasionally to pass his pale disquieted face on
the stairs or lobbies when his duties brought him there. They eyed
one another wistfully, but dared not speak. Mr. Archdale had so
ordained it.
That workhouse boy—perhaps he was inefficient, perhaps too
much was expected from him—but he had the misfortune perpetually
to incur—I can hardly say his master’s displeasure, for the word
implies something emotional, whereas nothing could be at all times
more tranquil and cold than that master—but his correction.
These awful proceedings occurred almost daily, and were
conducted with the absolute uniformity which characterised the
system of Noulton Farm. At eleven o’clock the cold voice of the
Sergeant-Major called “Tony!” and Tony appeared, writhing and
whimpering by anticipation.
“My cane,” said the master, stepping into the room which he called
the workshop, where the organ, half finished, stood, stop-diapason,
dulciana, and the rest in deal rows, with white chips, chisels, lead,
saws, and glue-pots, in industrious disorder, round. Then Tony’s
pale, miserable face was seen in the “parlour,” and Miss Mary would
look down on the floor in pale silence, and our little friend’s heart
would flutter over his lesson-book as he saw the lank boy steal over
to the chimney-piece, and take down the cane, and lingeringly
disappear.
Then was heard the door of the workshop close, and then very
faint the cold clear voice of the master. Then faint and slow the
measured cut of the cane, and the whine of the boy rising to a long
hideous yell, and, “Oh, sir, dear—oh, sir, dear; oh, Mr. Archdale, oh,
master, dear, oh, master, dear!” And this sometimes so protracted
that Mary used to get up and walk round the room in a kind of agony
whispering—“Oh, poor boy. Oh, poor Tony. Oh mercy—oh goodness.
Oh! my good Lord, when will it be over!” And, sitting apart, the little
boy’s eyes as they followed her would fill with tears of horror.
The little fellow said lessons to Mr. Archdale. There was nothing
unreasonable in their length, and his friend Mary helped him. It was
well for him, however, that he was a bright little fellow, with a good
memory, for the Sergeant was not a teacher to discriminate between
idleness and dulness.
No one ever heard Mr. Archdale use a violent expression, or utter
a curse. He was a silent, cold, orderly person, and I think the most
cruel man I ever saw in my life.
He had a small active horse, and a gig, in which he drove upon his
outdoor business. He had fixed days and hours for everything,
except where he meditated a surprise.
One day the Sergeant-Major entered the room where the boy was
reading at his lessons, and, tapping him on the shoulder, put the
county newspaper into his hand; and, pointing to a paragraph,
desired him to read it, and left the room.
It was a report of the proceedings against Tom Orange, and gave
a rather disreputable character of that amusing person. There was a
great pain at the boy’s affectionate heart as he read the hard words
dealt to his old friend, and worse still, the sentence. He was crying
silently when the Sergeant returned. That stern man took the paper,
and said in his cold, terrible tones—
“You’ve read that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And understand it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“If I find you speaking to Thomas Orange, I’ll tie you up in the
workshop, and give you five dozen.” And with this promise he
serenely left him.
Children are unsuspicious of death, and our little friend, who every
night used to cry in his bed silently, with a bursting heart, thinking of
his mammy and old happy times, till he fell asleep in the dark, never
dreamed that his poor friend Mary was dying—she, perhaps, herself
did not think so any more than he, but every one else said it.
They two grew to be great friends. Each had a secret, and she
trusted hers to the little friend whom God had sent her.
It was the old story—the troubled course of true love. Willie
Fairlace was the hero. The Sergeant-Major had found it all out, and
locked up his daughter, and treated her, it was darkly rumoured, with
cruel severity.
He was proud of his daughter’s beauty, and had ambitious plans, I
dare say; and he got up Willie’s farm, and Willie was ruined, and had
enlisted and was gone.
The Sergeant-Major knew the post-office people in the village, and
the lovers dared not correspond directly. But Willie’s cousin, Mrs.
Page, heard from him regularly, and there were long messages to
Mary. His letters were little else. And now at last had come a friend
to bear her messages to trusty Mrs. Page, and to carry his back
again to Noulton Farm.
After her father had gone out, or in the evening when he was at
the organ in the “workshop,” and sometimes as, wrapped in her
cloak, on a genial evening, she sat on the rustic seat under the great
ash tree, and the solemn and plaintive tones of the distant organ
floated in old church music from the open window through the trees
and down the fragrant field toward the sunset sky, filling the air with
grand and melancholy harmony, she would listen to that whispered
message of the boy’s, looking far away, and weeping, and holding
the little fellow’s hand, and asking him to say it over again, and
telling him she felt better, and thanking him, and smiling and crying
bitterly.
One evening the Sergeant was at his organ-pipes as usual. The
boy as he stood in the garden at his task, watering the parched
beds, heard a familiar laugh at the hedge, and the well-known refrain
—
“Tag-rag-merry-derry-perrywig and hatband-hic-hoc-horum-
genetivo!”
It was Tom Orange himself!
 In spite of his danger the boy was delighted. He ran to the hedge,
and he and Tom, in a moment more, were actually talking.
It became soon a very serious conversation. The distant booming
of the organ-pipes assured him that the light grey eye and sharp ear
of the Sergeant were occupied still elsewhere.
Tom Orange was broaching a dreadful conspiracy.
It was no less than that the boy should meet him at the foot of the
field where the two oziers grow, at eleven o’clock, on the night
following, and run away with him, and see mammy again, and come
to a nice place where he should be as happy as the day is long, and
mammy live with him always, and Tom look in as often as his own
more important business would permit.
“I will, Tom,” said the boy, wildly and very pale.
“And oh! Tom, I was so sorry about the trial, and what lies they
told,” said the boy, after they had talked a little longer; “and saying
that you had been with gipsies, and were a poacher; and oh! Tom, is
mammy quite well?”
“Yes.”
“And all my ships were lost on the moor; and how is little Toozie
the cat?”
“Very well; blooming—blushing.”
“And, Tom, you are quite well?”
“Never better, as I lately told Squire Harry Fairfield; and mind ye,
I’ll be even yet with the old boy in there,” and he indicated the house
with a jerk of his thumb.
“I don’t hear the organ, Tom. Good-bye.”
And Tom was off in a moment, and the boy had resumed his
watering-pot. And that evening he sat down with, for the first time, a
tremendous secret at his heart.
There was one grief even in the hope of his liberation. When he
looked at poor Mary, and thought how lonely she would be. Oh! if
poor Mary could come with him! But some time or other he and Tom
would come and take her away, and she would live with him and
mammy, and be one of that happy family.
She did not know what thoughts were in the boy’s mind as his sad
earnest eyes were fixed on her, and she smiled with a little languid
nod.
 But he need not have grieved his gentle heart on this account.
There was not to be a seeming desertion of his friend; nor anything
she could mistake for a treacherous slight.
That morning, at two o’clock, Mary died.
About ten minutes before, an alarm from the old servant, who slept
in the room, called up her father.
Her faithful little friend was on his knees sobbing beside the bed,
with her wasted hand in his, as the Sergeant-Major, hastily dressed,
walked in, and stood by the curtain looking down into those large,
deep eyes. She was conscious, though she could not speak. She
saw, as she looked up her last look, a few sullen drops gather in
those proud eyes, and roll down his cheeks. Perhaps the sad,
wondering look with which she returned these signs of tenderness,
smote him, and haunted him afterwards. There was a little motion in
her right hand as if she would have liked him to take it—in sign of
reconciliation—and with those faint tokens of the love that might
have been, the change of death came, and the troubled little heart
was still, and the image of Willie Fairlace was lost in the great
darkness.
Then the little boy cried aloud wildly—
“Oh! Mary, pretty Mary. Oh! Mary, are you dead? Oh! isn’t it a pity;
isn’t it a pity! Oh! is she dead?”
The Sergeant dried his eyes hastily. He hoped, I dare say, that no
one had seen his momentary weakness. He drew a long breath.
With a stern face he closed the pretty eyes that Willie Fairlace, far
away now, will never forget; and closed the little mouth that never will
complain, or sigh, or confess its sad tale more.
“You had better get to your room, boy. Get to your bed,” said the
Sergeant, not ungently laying his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You’ll
take cold. Give him a candle.”
 CHAPTER LXIV.
THE MARCH BY NIGHT.

The next day the Sergeant was away in his gig to Wyvern, a long
journey, to report to the Squire, and obtain leave of absence from his
duties for a day or two. He was to spend that night at Hatherton,
there to make arrangements about the funeral.
It was a relief to all at Noulton Farm, I need hardly say, when the
master of the house was away.
A very sad day it was for the boy; a day whose gloom was every
now and then crossed by the thrill and fear of a great excitement.
As evening darkened he went out again to the garden in the hope
of seeing Tom Orange. He would have liked that cheer at the eve of
his great venture. But Tom was not there. Neither counsel nor
encouragement to be heard; nothing but the song of the small birds
among the leaves, and the late flowers, soon to close, peeping from
among the garden plants, and the long quiet shadows of the poplars
that stood so tall and still against the western sky.
The boy came in and had his lonely cup of tea in the “parlour,” and
a little talk with the somewhat sour and sad old servant. He was
longing for the night. Yearning to see Tom’s friendly face and to end
his suspense.
At last the twilight was gone. The night had indeed come, and the
moon shone serenely over the old gray roof and the solemn trees;
over the dead and the living.
The boy lay down in his bed at the accustomed early hour. The old
woman had taken away his candle and shut the door. He lay with his
eyes wide open listening with a palpitating heart for every sound.
The inflexible regularity which the absent master had established
in his household was in the boy’s favour. He heard the servant shut
and bar the outer door at the wonted hour. He saw the boy’s candle
in his window for a while and then put out. Tony was in his bed, and
for tired Tony to lie down was generally to be asleep.
 Peeping stealthily from his lattice he saw the old servant’s candle
glimmering redly through the window on the juniper that stood near
the wall in the shadow; and soon that light also disappeared, and he
knew that the old woman had gone into her room. It was half-past
ten. She would be asleep in a quarter of an hour, and in another
fifteen minutes his critical adventure would have commenced.
Stealthily, breathlessly, he dressed. His window looked toward the
ozier trees, where Tom was to await him. It opened, lattice fashion,
with a hinge.
Happily the night was still, and the process of preparing to
descend perfectly noiseless. The piece of old rope that lay in the
corner he had early fixed on as his instrument of escape. He made it
fast to the bed-post, and began to let himself down the wall. The
rope was too short, and he dangled in air from the end of it for a
second or two, and then dropped to the ground. The distance of the
fall, though not much, was enough to throw him from his feet, and
the dog in the lock-up yard at the other side of the house began to
bark angrily. For a minute the boy gave himself up.
He lay, however, perfectly still, and the barking subsided. There
was no other alarm, and he stole very softly away under cover of the
trees, and then faster down the slope toward the appointed oziers.
There indeed was Tom Orange in that faint light, more solemn
than he ever remembered to have seen him before. Tom was
thinking that the stealing away this boy might possibly turn out the
most serious enterprise he had yet engaged in.
He had no notion, however, of receding, and merely telling the boy
to follow him, he got into a swinging trot that tried the little fellow’s
endurance rather severely. I think they ran full three miles before
Tom came to a halt.
Then, more like himself, he inquired how he was, and whether he
thought he could go on fifteen miles more that night.
“Oh, yes, he could do anything that night. Quite well.”
“Well, walk a bit that you may get breath, and then we’ll run again,”
said Tom, and so they set forward once more.
They had now accomplished about four miles more. The little
fellow was not so fresh as at starting. A drizzling rain, too, had
commenced, with a cold change of wind, and altogether the mere
adventure of running away was not quite so pleasant, nor even
Tom’s society quite so agreeable on the occasion, as he had fancied.
“You have done four out of the fifteen; you have only eleven of the
fifteen before you now. You have got over seven altogether up to
this. Not so bad. You’re not tired, youngster?”
“Not the least.”
“That’s right. You’re a good soldier. Now come, we’ll stand close
under this hedge and eat a bit.”
They supped very heartily on great slices of bread and corned
beef, which bore ample traces of the greens in which it had been
served when hot.
“And now, boy, you must get on to Hatherton by yourself, for I’m
known about here, and there’s a fair there in the morning, and there
will be people on the way before light. You must go a mile beyond
the town, to the George public. Mrs. Gumford keeps it, and there I’ll
meet you.” Then he detailed the route and the landmarks for the
boy’s guidance. “Take a drink of this,” said he, pulling a soda-water
bottle full of milk out of his coat pocket.
And when he had done—
“Take a mouthful of this, my hero, it will keep you warm.”
And he placed a flask of brandy to the boy’s lips, and made him
swallow a little.
“And here’s a bit more bread, if you should be hungry. Good-night,
and remember.”
After about an hour’s solitary walking, the boy began to grow
alarmed. Tom’s landmarks failed him, and he began to fear that he
had lost his way. In half an hour more he was sure that he was quite
out of his reckoning, and as his spirits sank he began to feel the cold
wind and drenching rain more and more.
And now he found himself entering a town not at all answering
Tom’s description of Hatherton.
The little town was silent, its doors and windows shut, and all
except a few old-fashioned oil-lamps dark.
After walking listlessly about—afraid to knock and ask anywhere
for shelter—worn out, he sat down on a door-step. He leaned back
and soon fell fast asleep.
 A shake by the shoulder roused him. A policeman was stooping
over him.
“I say, get up out o’ that,” said the imperious voice of the
policeman.
The boy was not half awake; he stared at him, his big face and
leather-bound chimney-pot looked like a dream.
“I say,” he continued, shaking him, but not violently, “you must get
up out o’ that. You’re not to be making yourself comfortable there all
night. Come, be lively.”
Comfortable! Lively!—all comparative—all a question of degrees.
The boy got up as quickly as the cold and stiffness of his joints
would let him.
Very dutifully he got up, and stood drenched, pale, and shivering in
the moonlight.
The policeman looked down not unkindly now, at the little
wayfarer. There was something piteous, I dare say. He looked a
grave, thoughtful man, of more than fifty, and he put his hand on the
child’s shoulder.
“Ye see, boy, that was no place to sleep in.”
“No, sir, I’ll never do it again, sir, please.”
“You’re cold; you’d get pains in your bones.”
“I’ll not any more, sir, please.”
“Come with me, my boy, it’s only a step.”
He brought the boy into his house down the lane close by.
“There’s a fire. You warm yourself. There’s my little one in fever, so
you can’t stop long. Sit down, child, and warm yourself.”
He gave him a drink of hot milk and a piece of bread.
“You don’t get up, you know; there’s no need,” he added.
I think he was afraid of his pewter spoons. He kept the little fellow
nearly half an hour, and he lent him an old bottomless sack to wrap
about his shoulders, and charged him to bring it back in the morning.
I think the man thought he might be a thief. He was a kind man—
there was a balancing of great pity and suspicion.
The boy returned the sack with many thanks, in the first faint
twilight of morning, and set forth again for Hatherton. It was, the
fellow who directed him said, still five miles on.
 At about a mile from Hatherton, cold and wet, and fearing to be too
early at the George Inn, the rendezvous agreed on, the tired little
fellow crept in, cold and wet, to a road-side pot-house.
At the fire of the ale-house three fellows were drinking beer. Says
one who had now and then had his eye on the boy—
“That boy there has run away from school.”
I cannot describe the terror with which the little fellow heard those
words. The other two looked at him. One was a fat fellow in
breeches and top boots, and a red cloth waistcoat, and a ruddy
good-humoured face; and after a look they returned to their talk; and
in a little while the lean man, who seemed to find it hard to take his
eyes off him, said, “That’s a runaway, that chap; we ought to tell the
police and send him back to school.”
“Well, that’s no business of ours; can’t you let him be?” said the
red waistcoat.
“Come here,” said the lean man, beckoning him over with his hard
eye on him.
He rose and slowly approached under that dreadful command.
I can’t say that there was anything malevolent in that man’s face.
Somewhat sharp and stern, with a lean inflexibility of duty. To the boy
at this moment no face could have been imagined more terrific; his
only hope was in his fat companion. He turned, I am sure, an
imploring look upon him.
“Come, Irons, let the boy alone, unless ye mean to quarrel wi’ me;
d—— me ye shall let him alone! And get him his breakfast of
something hot, and be lively,” he called to the people; “and score it
up to me.”
So, thanks to the good Samaritan in top boots and red waistcoat,
the dejected little man pursued his way comforted.
As he walked through Hatherton he was looking into a shop
window listlessly, when he distinctly saw, reflected in the plate glass,
that which appalled him so that he thought he should have fainted.
It was the marble, blue-chinned face of the Sergeant-Major looking
over his shoulder, with his icy gray eyes, into the same window.
He was utterly powerless to move. His great eyes were fixed on
that dreadful shadow. He was actually touching his shoulder as he
leaned over. Happily the Sergeant did not examine the reflection,
which he would have been sure to recognise. The bird fascinated by
the cold eye of a snake, and expecting momentarily, with palpitating
heart, the spring of the reptile, may feel, when, withdrawing the spell,
it glides harmlessly away, as the boy did when he saw that dreaded
man turn away and walk with measured tread up the street. For a
moment his terror was renewed, for Bion, that yellow namesake of
the philosopher, recognising him, stood against the boy’s leg, and
scratched repeatedly, and gave him a shove with his nose, and
whimpered. The boy turned quickly, and walking away the dog left
him, and ran after his master, and took his place at his side.
 CONCLUSION.
At the George Inn, a little way out of Hatherton, the boy, to his
inexpressible delight, at last found Tom Orange.
He told Tom at once of his adventure at the shop window, and the
occurrence darkened Tom’s countenance. He peeped out and took a
long look toward Hatherton.
“Put the horse to the fly and bring it round at once,” said Tom, who
put his hand in his pocket and drew forth a rather showy handful of
silver.
I don’t pretend to say, when Tom was out of regular employment,
from what pursuits exactly he drew his revenue. They had rather
improved than otherwise; but I dare say there were anxious
compensations.
The boy had eaten his breakfast before he reached Hatherton. So
much the better; for the apparition of the Sergeant-Major would have
left him totally without appetite. As it was, he was in an agony to be
gone, every moment expecting to see him approach the little inn to
arrest him and Tom.
Tom Orange was uneasy, I am sure, and very fidgety till the fly
came round.
“You know Squire Fairfield of Wyvern?” said the hostess, while
they were waiting.
“Ay,” said Tom.
“Did you hear the news?”
“What is it?”
“Shot the night before last in a row with poachers. Gentlemen
should leave that sort o’ work to their keepers; but they was always a
fightin’ wild lot, them Fairfields; and he’s lyin’ now a dead man—all
the same—gave over by Doctor Willett and another—wi’ a whole
charge o’ duck-shot lodged under his shoulder.”
“And that’s the news?” said Tom, raising his eyes and looking
through the door. He had been looking down on the ground as Mrs.
Gumford of the George told her story.
 “There’s sharp fellows poachers round there, I’m told,” he said,
“next time he’d a’ been out himself with the keepers to take ’em dead
or alive. I suppose that wouldn’t answer them.”
“’Tis a wicked world,” said the lady.
“D——d wicked,” said Tom. “Here’s the fly.”
In they got and drove off.
Tom was gloomy, and very silent.
“Tom, where are we going to?” asked the boy at last.
“All right,” said Tom. “All right, my young master. You’ll find it’s to
none but good friends. And, say now—Haven’t I been a good friend
to you, Master Harry, all your days, sir? Many a mile that you know
nothing about has Tom Orange walked on your business, and down
to the cottage and back again; and where would you or her have
been if it wasn’t for poor Tom Orange?”
“Yes, indeed, Tom, and I love you, Tom.”
“And now, I’ve took you away from that fellow, and I’m told I’m
likely to be hanged for it. Well, no matter.”
“Oh, Tom; poor Tom! Oh! no, no, no!” and he threw his arms round
Tom’s neck in a paroxysm of agonised affection, and, in spite of the
jolting, kissed Tom; sometimes on the cheek, on the eyebrow, on the
chin, and in a great jolt violently on the rim of his hat, and it rolled
over his shoulder under their feet.
“Well, that is gratifyin’,” said Tom, drying his eyes. “There is some
reward for prenciple after all, and if you come to be a great man
some o’ these days, you’ll not forget poor Tom Orange, that would
have spent his last bob and spilt his heart’s blood, without fee or
reward, in your service.”
Another explosion of friendship from the boy assured Tom of his
eternal gratitude.
“Do you know this place, sir?” asked Tom, with a return of his old
manner, as making a sudden turn the little carriage drove through an
open gate, and up to a large old-fashioned house. A carriage was
waiting at the door.
There could be no mistake. How delightful! and who was that?
Mammy! at the hall door, and in an instant they were locked in one
another’s arms, and “Oh! the darlin’,” and “Mammy, mammy,
mammy!” were the only words audible, half stifled in sobs and
kisses.
In a minute more there came into the hall—smiling, weeping, and
with hands extended toward him, the pretty lady dressed in black,
and her weeping grew into a wild cry, as coming quickly she caught
him to her heart. “My darling, my child, my blessed boy, you’re the
image—Oh! darling, I loved you the moment I saw you, and now I
know it all.”
The boy was worn out. His march, including his divergence from
his intended route, had not been much less than thirty miles, and all
in chill and wet.
They got him to his bed and made him thoroughly comfortable,
and with mammy at his bedside, and her hand, to make quite sure of
her, fast in his, he fell into a deep sleep.
Alice had already heard enough to convince her of the boy’s
identity, but an urgent message from Harry, who was dying,
determined her to go at once to Wyvern to see him, as he desired.
So, leaving the boy in charge of “mammy,” she was soon on her way
to the old seat of the Fairfields.
If Harry had not known that he was dying, no power could ever
have made him confess the story he had to tell.
There were two points on which he greatly insisted.
The first was, that believing that his brother was really married to
Bertha Velderkaust, he was justified in holding that his nephew had
no legal right to succeed.
The second was, that he had resolved, although he might have
wavered lately a little, never to marry, and to educate the boy better
than ever he was educated himself, and finally to make him heir to
Wyvern, pretending him to be an illegitimate son of his own.
Whether the Sergeant-Major knew more than he was ordered or
undertook to know, he never gave the smallest ground to conjecture.
He stated exactly what had passed between him and Harry Fairfield.
By him he was told that the child which was conveyed to Marjory
Trevellian’s care was his own unacknowledged son.
On the very same evening, and when old Mildred Tarnley was in
the house at Twyford, was a child taken, with the seeds of
consumption already active in it, from a workhouse in another part of
England and placed there as the son of Charles Fairfield and Alice. It
was when, contrary to all assurances, this child appeared for a few
days to rally, and the situation consequent on its growing up the
reputed heir to Wyvern alarmed Harry, that he went over, in his
panic, to the Grange, and there opened his case, that the child at
Twyford was a changeling, and not his brother’s son.
When, however, the child began to sink, and its approaching death
could no longer be doubtful, he became, as we have seen, once
more quite clear that the baby was the same which he had taken
away from Carwell Grange.
Dr. Willett’s seeing the child so often at Twyford, also prevented
suspicion, though illogically enough, for had they reflected they might
easily have remembered that the doctor had hardly seen the child
twice after its birth while at the Grange, and that, like every one else,
he took its identity for granted when he saw it at Twyford.
Alice returned greatly agitated late that evening. No difficulty any
longer remained, and the boy, with ample proof to sustain his claim,
was accepted as the undoubted heir to Wyvern, and the
representative of the ancient family of Fairfield.
The boy, Henry Fairfield, was as happy as mortal can be,
henceforward. His little playmate, the pretty little girl whom Alice had
adopted, who called her “mamma,” and yet was the daughter of a
distant cousin only, has now grown up, and is as a girl even more
beautiful than she was as a child. Henry will be of age in a few
months, and they are then to be married. They now reside at
Wyvern. The estate, which has long been at nurse, is now clear, and
has funded money beside.
Everything promises a happy and a prosperous reign for the
young Fairfield.
Mildred Tarnley, very old, is made comfortable at Carwell Grange.
Good old Dulcibella is still living, very happy, and very kind, but
grown a little huffy, being perhaps a little over petted. In all other
respects, the effect of years being allowed for, she is just what she
always was.
Tom Orange, with a very handsome sum presented by those
whom he had served, preferred Australia to the old country.
 Harry Fairfield had asserted, in his vehement way, while lying in
his last hours at Wyvern, that the fellow with the handkerchief over
his face who shot him was, he could all but swear, his old friend Tom
Orange.
Tom swore that had he lived he would have prosecuted him for
slander. As it is, that eccentric genius has prospered as the
proprietor of a monster tavern at Melbourne, where there is comic
and sentimental singing, and some dramatic buffooneries, and
excellent devilled kidneys and brandy.
Marjory Trevellian lives with the family at Wyvern, and I think if
kind old Lady Wyndale were still living the consolations of Alice
would be nearly full.

[The End]
 TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES.
The three volume edition published by Tinsley Brothers (London,
1869) was referenced for many of the fixes listed below.
Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g. Alley/Allie/Ally, tea-things/tea
things, etc.) have been preserved.
Alterations to the text:
Assorted punctuation corrections.
Some images were relocated nearer the scene they depict.
[Chapter V]
Change “the old fellow with a mulberry coloured face” to mulberry-
coloured.
[Chapter VI]
(which he still called the “harpischord.”) to harpsichord.
“I’ll gi’e ye the jewellery—dy’e hear?” to d’ye.
[Chapter VIII]
“of a a saturnine and sulky sort” delete one a.
[Chapter IX]
“no use in parting at worse odds that we need” to than.
[Chapter XIV]
(by-and-by,” he laaghed; “you shall) to laughed.
[Chapter XV]
“was supposed to cover a gread deal of” to great.
“but somtimes the thunder and flame” sometimes.
“let me see how long his stick his—his stick and his...” add an m-
dash after first instance of stick.
[Chapter XVI]
“A good house-wife, is she, that’s something,” delete first comma.
[Chapter XVII]
“nothin’ but old ’oman’stales and fribble-frabble” to ’oman’s tales.
[Chapter XXI]
“but that’s nothing to do wi’it” to wi’ it.
[Chapter XXIV]
“swear that he meant no villany” to villainy.
“suprised lean, straight Mrs. Tarnley” to surprised.
[Chapter XXVI]
“Give it me. Ha, yes, my bibe” add to after it.
[Chapter XXVIII]
“thought that occured more than once” to occurred.
“was not concilitated, but disgusted” to conciliated.
[Chapter XXXV]
“I’m thinkin,’ as sound before if ye” attach the apostrophe to thinkin
to form thinkin’.
“she heard the click-clack of Mildred’s shoe grow fainter” to shoes.
[Chapter XXXVIII]
“that nervous tremor which is so pleasant to see” to unpleasant.
[Chapter XL]
“and there’s two stout lad’s wi’ him” to lads.
[Chapter XLII]
“I am tired, I but won’t mind the wine” to but I.
[Chapter XLVIII]
“Dead men, ’tis an old sayin,’ is kin” attach second appostrophe to
sayin to form sayin’.
[Chapter XLIX]
“Mildred had made him—a promise write often” add to after
promise.
[Chapter L]
“mud—too high: o put your foot on” to high to.
[Chapter LI]
“and if try to manage for him I’ll want the best...” add I after if.
“and ye look out some decent poor body” to ye’ll.
“three stops, sir—diapason, principal, dulciana.” add and to the
list.
[Chapter LIII]
(“That wouldn’t do nohow,” you know, said Harry) move the right
quotation mark to after know.
“but one and ’tother, both together.” to t’other.
[Chapter LIV]
“Doctor’s Willett says he’ll have it well” to Doctor.