s honest, and of
the latter, as he made no sign, how could I tell any thing?

Above all things, Mrs. Busk's position, as mistress of the letters, gave
me very great advantage both for offense and defense. For without the
smallest breach of duty or of loyal honor she could see that my letters
passed direct to me or from me, as the case might be, at the same time
that she was bound to observe all epistles addressed to strangers or
new-comers in her district, which extended throughout the valley. And
by putting my letters in the Portsmouth bag, instead of that for
Winchester, I could freely correspond with any of my friends without any
one seeing name or postmark in the neighboring villages.

It is needless to say that I had long since explored and examined with
great diligence that lonely spot where my grandfather met his terrible
and mysterious fate. Not that there seemed to be any hope now, after
almost nineteen years, of finding even any token of the crime committed
there. Only that it was natural for me, feeling great horror of this
place, to seek to know it thoroughly.

For this I had good opportunity, because the timid people of the valley,
toward the close of day, would rather trudge another half mile of the
homeward road than save brave legs at the thumping cost of hearts not
so courageous. For the planks were now called "Murder-bridge;" and
every body knew that the red spots on it, which could never be seen by
daylight, began to gleam toward the hour of the deed, and glowed (as if
they would burn the wood) when the church clock struck eleven.

This phenomenon was beyond my gifts of observation; and knowing that
my poor grandfather had scarcely set foot on the bridge, if ever he set
foot there at all--which at present was very doubtful--also that he
had fallen backward, and only bled internally, I could not reconcile
tradition (however recent) with proven truth. And sure of no disturbance
from the step of any native, here I often sat in a little bowered
shelter of my own, well established up the rise, down which the path
made zigzag, and screened from that and the bridge as well by sheaf of
twigs and lop of leaves. It was a little forward thicket, quite detached
from the upland copse, to which perhaps it had once belonged, and
crusted up from the meadow slope with sod and mould in alternate steps.
And being quite the elbow of a foreland of the meadow-reach, it yielded
almost a "bird's-eye view" of the beautiful