"A well!" cried she; "is it the well you are looking after? That has been gone these thirty years. I remember, as if it were only yesterday, many a time, when I was a young girl, how I used to amuse myself by throwing stones into it, and hearing the splash they used to make in the water." "And could you tell where that well used to be?" I asked, almost breathless with excitement. "As near as I can remember, on the very spot on which your honor is standing," said the old woman. "I could have sworn it!" thought I, springing from the place as if I had trod upon a scorpion. Need I say, that we set to work to dig up the ground. At about eighteen inches deep, we came to a layer of bricks, which, being broken up, gave to view some boards, which were easily removed; after which we beheld the mouth of the well. "I was quite sure it was here," said the woman. "What a fool the old fellow was to stop it up, and then have so far to go for water!" A sounding-line, furnished with hooks, was let down into the well; the crowd pressing around us, and breathlessly bending over the dark and fetid hole, the secrets of which seemed hidden in impenetrable obscurity. This was repeated several times without any result. At length, penetrating below the mud, the hooks caught an old chest, upon the top of which had been thrown a great many large stones; and after much effort and time, we succeeded in raising it to daylight. The sides and lid were decayed and rotten; it needed no locksmith to open it; and we found within, what I was certain we should find, and which paralyzed with horror all the spectators, who had not my pre-convictions--we found the remains of a human body. The police-officers who had accompanied me now rushed into the house, and secured the person of the old man. As to his wife, no one could at first tell what had become of her. After some search, however, she was found hidden behind a bundle of fagots. By this time, nearly the whole town had gathered around the spot; and now that this horrible fact had come to light, every body had some crime to tell, which had been laid to the charge of the old couple. The people who predict after an event, are numerous. The old couple were brought before the proper authorities, and privately and separately examined. The old man persisted in his denial, most pertinaciously; but his wife at length confessed, that, in concert with her husband, she had once--a very long time ago--murdered a peddler, whom they had met one night on the high-road, and who had been incautious enough to tell them of a considerable sum of money which he had about him, and whom, in consequence, they induced to pass the night at their house. They had taken advantage of the heavy sleep induced by fatigue, to strangle him; his body had been put into the chest, the chest thrown into the well, and the well stopped up.