, 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
neglected in the houses of other nobles. Most of these were of extreme
antiquity, for when the ancients departed, the modern books which they
had composed being left in the decaying houses at the mercy of the
weather, rotted, or were destroyed by the frequent grass fires. But
those that had been preserved by the ancients in museums escaped for a
while, and some of these yet remained in lumber-rooms and corners,
whence they were occasionally dragged forth by the servants for greater
convenience in lighting the fires. The young nobles, entirely devoted to
the chase, to love intrigues, and war, overwhelmed Felix Aquila with
ridicule when they found him poring over these relics, and being of a
proud and susceptible spirit, they so far succeeded that he abandoned
the open pursuit of such studies, and stole his knowledge by fitful
glances when there was no one near. As among the ancients learning was
esteemed above all things, so now, by a species of contrast, it