re direct
route and also a good road.

The morning was bright and very warm, scarcely a cloud in the sky,
but there was a feeling of storm in the air,--the earth was
restless.

As we neared Stafford dark clouds were gathering in the far
distant skies, but not yet near enough to cause apprehension.
Driving slowly into the village, we again visited the three-story
stone house. Here, no doubt, as elsewhere, Morgan's forthcoming
exposures were discussed and denounced, here the plot to seize
him--if plot there was--may have been formed; but then there was
probably no plot, conspiracy, or action on the part of any lodge
or body of Masons. Morgan was in their eyes a most despicable
traitor,--a man who proposed to sell--not simply disclose, but
sell--the secrets of the order he joined. There is no reason to
believe that he had the good of any one at heart; that he had
anything in view but his own material prosperity. He made a
bargain with a printer in Batavia to expose Masonry, and lost his
life in attempting to carry out that bargain. Lost his life!--who
knows? The story is a strange one, as strange as anything in the
Arabian Nights; there are men still living who faintly recollect
the excitement, the fends and controversies which lasted for
years. From Batavia to Canandaigua the name of Morgan calls forth
a flood of reminiscences. A man whose father or grandfather had
anything to do with the affair is a character in the community;
now and then a man is found who knew a man who caught a glimpse of
Morgan during that mysterious midnight ride from the Canandaigua
jail over the Rochester road, and on to the end in the magazine of
the old fort at Lewiston. One cannot spend twenty-four hours in
this country without being drawn into the vortex of this absorbing
mystery; it hangs over the entire section, lingers along the
road-sides, finds outward sign and habitation in old buildings,
monuments, and ruins; it echoes from the past in musty books,
papers, and pamphlets; it once was politics, now is history; the
years have not solved it; time is helpless.

At Le Roy we sought shelter under the friendly roof of an old, old
house. How it did storm; the Rochester papers next day said that
no such storm had ever been known in that part of the State. The
rain fell in torrents; the main street was a stream of water
emptying into the river; the flashes of lightning were followed so
quickly by crashes of thunder that we knew trees and bu