Thus I speculated before I looked at the pile of parchments so evidently
prepared from sheep skins by one who had only a very rudimentary
knowledge of how to work such stuff, not knowing that in those
parchments was hid the answer to many of my questions. To these I turned
last of all, for we all shrink from parchments; their contents are
generally so dull. There was a great bundle of them that had been lashed
together with a kind of straw rope, fine straw that reminded me of that
used to make Panama hats. But this had rotted underneath together with
all the bottom part of the parchments, many sheets of them, of which
only fragments remained, covered with dry mould and crumbling. Therefore
the rope was easy to remove and beneath it, holding the sheets in place,
was only some stout and comparatively modern string--it had a red thread
in it that marked it as navy cord of an old pattern.

I slipped these fastenings off and lifted a blank piece of skin set upon
the top. Beneath appeared the first sheet of parchment, closely, very
closely covered with small "black-letter" writing, so faint and faded
that even if I were able to read black-letter, which I cannot, of it
I could have made nothing at all. The thing was hopeless. Doubtless
in that writing lay the key to the mystery, but it could never be
deciphered by me or any one else. The lady with the eyes like a deer had
appeared to old Potts in vain; in vain had she bidden him to hand over
this manuscript to me.

So I thought at the time, not knowing the resources of science.
Afterwards, however, I took that huge bundle to a friend, a learned
friend whose business in life it was and is, to deal with and to
decipher old manuscripts.