In this benumbed horror I durst not even peep at the doings of my enemy; but presently I became aware that he had moved from the end of the planks (where he stood for some time as calmly as if he had done nothing there), and had passed round the back of the hawthorn-tree, and gone down to the place where the body was found, and was making most narrow and minute search there.

And now I could watch him without much danger, standing as I did well above him, while his eyes were steadfastly bent downward.

And, not content with eyesight only, he seemed to be feeling every blade of grass or weed, every single stick or stone, craning into each cranny of the ground, and probing every clod with his hands.

Then, after vainly searching with the very utmost care all the space from the hawthorn trunk to the meadow-leet (which was dry as usual), he ran, in a fury of impatience, to his rod, which he had stuck into the bank, as now I saw, and drew off the butt end, and removed the wheel, or whatever it is that holds the fishing line; and this butt had a long spike to it, shining like a halberd in a picture.
This made me shudder; but my spirit was returning, and therewith my power of reasoning, and a deep stir of curiosity.

After so many years and such a quantity of searching, what could there still be left to seek for in this haunted and horrible place?
And who was the man that was looking for it?
The latter question partly solved itself.