that this might have something to do with the seemingly unattainable
success of his pursuit. He remembered, for the first time, the grim
doctor's emphatic injunction to search for the little iron-bound box of
which he had spoken, and which had come down with such legends attached to
it; as, for instance, that it held the Devil's bond with his
great-great-grandfather, now cancelled by the surrender of the latter's
soul; that it held the golden key of Paradise; that it was full of old
gold, or of the dry leaves of a hundred years ago; that it had a familiar
fiend in it, who would be exorcised by the turning of the lock, but would
otherwise remain a prisoner till the solid oak of the box mouldered, or
the iron rusted away; so that between fear and the loss of the key, this
curious old box had remained unopened, till itself was lost.

But now Septimius, putting together what Aunt Keziah had said in her dying
moments, and what Doctor Portsoaken had insisted upon, suddenly came to
the conclusion that the possession of the old iron box might be of the
greatest importance to him. So he set himself at once to think where he
had last seen it. Aunt Keziah, of course, had put it away in some safe
place or other, either in cellar or garret, no doubt; so Septimius, in the
intervals of his other occupations, devoted several days to the search;
and not to weary the reader with the particulars of the quest for an old
box, suffice it to say that he at last found it, amongst various other
antique rubbish, in a corner of the garret.

It was a very rusty old thing, not more than a foot in length, and half as
much in height and breadth; but most ponderously iron-bound, with bars,
and corners, and all sorts of fortification; looking very much like an
ancient alms-box, such as are to be seen in the older rural churches of
England, and which seem to intimate great distrust of those to whom the
funds are committed. Indeed, there might be a shrewd suspicion that some