“Which way after that, sir?” asked the clerk. “Forwards to our time or backwards away from us?”

“Backwards from eighteen hundred and four.”

He opened the door of one of the presses⁠—the press from the side of which the surplices were hanging⁠—and produced a large volume bound in greasy brown leather. I was struck by the insecurity of the place in which the register was kept. The door of the press was warped and cracked with age, and the lock was of the smallest and commonest kind. I could have forced it easily with the walking-stick I carried in my hand.

“Is that considered a sufficiently secure place for the register?” I inquired. “Surely a book of such importance as this ought to be protected by a better lock, and kept carefully in an iron safe?”