"I have heard some with deep sighs lament the lost lines of Cicero; others with as many groans deplore the combustion of the library of Alexandria. For my own part, I think there be too many in the world, and could with patience behold the urn and ashes of the Vatican, could I, with a few others, recover the perished leaves of Solomon." The words chimed so appositely with my thoughts that I resolved there and then to put the theory into practice, and closing the book, I made a beginning with Sir Thomas Browne. Outside the window the birds piped happily from vernal branches; the shadows played hide-and-seek upon the grass, and the beck babbled and laughed as it raced down behind the house. I locked the door of the library, and taking the key in my hand, walked to the side of the beck. At this point the stream spouted in a fountain from a cleft of rock, and fell some twelve feet into a deep bason. A group of larches overhung the pool, and the sunlight, sprinkling between the leaves, dappled the clear green surface with an ever-shifting pattern. Into this bason I dropped the key, and watched it sink with a sparkling tail of bubbles to the bottom. 'Twas of a bright metal, so that I could still see it distinctly as it rested on the rock-bed. A large stone lay upon the bank beside me, and with a sudden, uncontrollable impulse I stripped off my clothes, picked up the stone, and diving into the cool water, set it carefully atop of the key. Many months passed before I came again to the pool, and found the key still hidden safe beneath the stone; and during those months so much that was strange occurred to me, and I wandered along such new and devious paths, that when I held it again, all rusty and corroded, in my hand, I felt as though it could not have been myself who had dropped it there, but some one whose memories had been transmitted to me and incorporated in my being by a mysterious alchemy. It was on that very afternoon that the letter was brought to me. Jack and I were sitting at dinner in the big oak dining-room about four of the clock; the great windows were open, and the sunny air streamed in laden with fresh perfumes. I can see Jim Ritson now as he rode up the drive--'twas part of his duty to meet the mail at the post-town of Cockermouth--I can almost hear his voice as he gave in the letter at the hall-door. "There's a letter for t' maister," he said. Jim is grown to middle age by this time, and owns a comfortable fat face and a brood of children. But whenever I pass him in the lanes and fields I ever experience a lively awe and respect for him as for the accredited messenger of fate. The letter came from Lord Elmscott and urged me to visit him in town.