real use of the thong was to assure the owner that his treasures had not
been interfered with in his absence. Such locks as were made were of the
clumsiest construction. They were not so difficult to pick as the thong
to untie, and their expense, or rather the difficulty of getting a
workman who could manufacture them, confined their use to the heads of
great houses. The Baron's chest was locked, and his alone, in the
dwelling.

Besides the parchments which were nearest the top, as most in use, there
were three books, much worn and decayed, which had been preserved, more
by accident than by care, from the libraries of the ancients. One was an
abridged history of Rome, the other a similar account of English
history, the third a primer of science or knowledge; all three, indeed,
being books which, among the ancients, were used for teaching children,
and which, by the men of those days, would have been cast aside with
contempt.

Exposed for years in decaying houses, rain and mildew had spotted and
stained their pages; the covers had rotted away these hundred years, and
were now supplied by a broad sheet of limp leather with wide margins far
overlapping the edges; many of the pages were quite gone, and others
torn by careless handling. The abridgment of Roman history had been
scorched by a forest fire, and the charred edges of the leaves had
dropped away in semicircular holes. Yet, by pondering over these, Felix
had, as it were, reconstructed much of the knowledge which was the
common (and therefore unvalued) possession of all when they were
printed.

The parchments contained his annotations, and the result of his thought;
they were also full of extracts from decaying volumes lying totally