"'Not if you spell it with one "n" as he did,' says my father.
"The parson spelt it out—'B-A-Y-O-N-E.' 'Whew!' says he, for the lock had fallen open in his hand.
"He stood considering it a moment, and then he says: 'I tell you what. I shouldn't blab this all round the parish, if I was you. You won't get no credit for truth-telling, and a miracle's wasted on a set of fools. But if you like, I'll shut down the lock again upon a holy word that no one but me shall know, and neither drummer nor trumpeter, dead or alive, shall frighten the secret out of me.'
"'I wish to heaven you would, parson,' said my father.
"The parson chose the holy word there and then, and shut the lock back upon it, and hung the drum and trumpet back in their place. He is gone long since, taking the word with him. And till the lock is broken by force, nobody will ever separate those two."
THE HOUSE AND THE BRAIN
BY LORD EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer, Baron Lytton (born 1803, died 1873), was an extremely accomplished and versatile man. He was a statesman, orator, social reformer, playwright, poet, novelist (he wrote more than fifty volumes of fiction), and short story writer. In the latter capacity he produced a number of imaginative tales that in their weird fantasy have been favorably compared with the work of Edgar Allan Poe. Of these the present story is the most noted.
THE HOUSE AND THE BRAIN