hich I had obsarved
Houseman wear (for it was a very curious handkerchief, all spotted)
many's the time, and there was blood on it, 'bout the size of a
shilling. An' afterwards I seed Houseman, an' I showed him the
handkerchief; and I said to him, 'What has come of Clarke?' An' he
frowned, and, looking at me, said, 'Hark ye, I know not what you mean;
but as sure as the devil keeps watch for souls, I will shoot you through
the head if you ever let that d---d tongue of yours let slip a single
word about Clarke or me or Mr. Aram,--so look to yourself!

"An' I was all scared, and trimbled from limb to limb; an' for two whole
yearn afterwards (long arter Aram and Houseman were both gone) I never
could so much as open my lips on the matter; and afore he went, Mr. Aram
would sometimes look at me, not sternly-like, as the villain Houseman,
but as if he would read to the bottom of my heart. Oh! I was as if you
had taken a mountain off o' me when he an' Houseman left the town; for
sure as the sun shines I believes, from what I have now said, that they
two murdered Clarke on that same February night. An' now, Mr. Summers,
I feels more easy than I has felt for many a long day; an' if I have
not told it afore, it is because I thought of Houseman's frown and his
horrid words; but summut of it would ooze out of my tongue now an' then,
for it's a hard thing, sir, to know a secret o' that sort and be quiet
and still about it; and, indeed, I was not the same cretur when I knew
it as I was afore, for it made me take to anything rather than thinking;
and that's the reason, sir, I lost the good crackter I used to have."

Such, somewhat abridged from its "says he" and "says I," its involutions
and its tautologies, was the story which Walter held his breath to hear.
But events thicken, and the maze is nearly thridden.

"Not a moment now should be lost," said the curate, as they left the
house. "Let us at once proceed to a very able magistrate, to whom I can
introduce you, and who lives a little way out of the town."

"As you will," said Walter, in an altered and hollow voice. "I am as a
man standing on an eminence, who views the whole scene he is to travel
over, stretched before him, but is dizzy and bewildered by the height
which he has reached. I know, I feel, that I am on the brink of fearful
and dread discoveries; pray God that--But heed me not, sir, heed me not;
let us on, on!"

It was now approaching towards the evening; and as they