ork,
saw the old farmer and landowner leaning over a rail in a mead near his
house, apparently engaged in contemplating the water of a brook before
him. Drawing near, the man spoke, but Uncle Benjy did not reply. His
head was hanging strangely, his body being supported in its erect
position entirely by the rail that passed under each arm. On
after-examination it was found that Uncle Benjy's poor withered heart had
cracked and stopped its beating from damages inflicted on it by the
excitements of his life, and of the previous night in particular. The
unconscious carcass was little more than a light empty husk, dry and
fleshless as that of a dead heron found on a moor in January.

But the tin box was not discovered with or near him. It was searched for
all the week, and all the month. The mill-pond was dragged, quarries
were examined, woods were threaded, rewards were offered; but in vain.

At length one day in the spring, when the mill-house was about to be
cleaned throughout, the chimney-board of Anne's bedroom, concealing a
yawning fire-place, had to be taken down. In the chasm behind it stood
the missing deed-box of Farmer Derriman.

Many were the conjectures as to how it had got there. Then Anne
remembered that on going to bed on the night of the collision between
Festus and his uncle in the room below, she had seen mud on the carpet of
her room, and the miller remembered that he had seen footprints on the
back staircase. The solution of the mystery seemed to be that the late
Uncle Benjy, instead of running off from the house with his box, had
doubled on getting out of the front door, entered at the back, deposited
his box in Anne's chamber where it was found, and then leisurely pursued
his way home at the heels of Festus, intending to tell Anne of his trick
the next day--an intention that was for ever frustrated by the stroke of
death.

Mr. Derriman's solicitor was a Casterbridge man, and Anne placed the box
in his hands. Uncle Benjy's will was discovered within; and by this
testament Anne's queer old friend appointed her sole executrix of his
said will, and, more than that, gave and bequeathed to the same young
lady all his real and personal estate, with the solitary exception of
five small freehold houses in a back street in Budmouth, which were
devised to his nephew Festus, as a sufficient property to maintain him
decently, without affording any margin for extravagances. Oxwell Hall,
with its muddy