In a remote district of country belonging to Lord Cassillis, between
Ayrshire and Galloway, about three hundred years ago, a moor of
apparently boundless extent stretched several miles along the road, and
wearied the eye of the traveller by the sameness and desolation of its
appearance; not a tree varied the prospect--not a shrub enlivened the
eye by its freshness--nor a native flower bloomed to adorn this
ungenial soil. One "lonesome desert" reached the horizon on every side,
with nothing to mark that any mortal had ever visited the scene before,
except a few rude huts that were scattered near its centre; and a road,
or rather pathway, for those whom business or necessity obliged to pass
in that direction. At length, deserted as this wild region had always
been, it became still more gloomy. Strange rumours arose, that the path
of unwary travellers had been beset on this "blasted heath," and that
treachery and murder had intercepted the solitary stranger as he
traversed its dreary extent. When several persons, who were known to
have passed that way, mysteriously disappeared, the inquiries of their
relatives led to a strict and anxious investigation; but though the
officers of justice were sent to scour the country, and examine the
inhabitants, not a trace could be obtained of the persons in question,
nor of any place of concealment which could be a refuge for the lawless
or desperate to horde in. Yet, as inquiry became stricter, and the
disappearance of individuals more frequent, the simple inhabitants of
the neighbouring hamlet were agitated by the most fearful
apprehensions. Some declared that the deathlike stillness of the night
was often interrupted by sudden and preternatural cries of more than
mortal anguish, which seemed to arise in the distance; and a shepherd
one evening, who had lost his way on the moor, declared he had
approached three mysterious figures, who seemed struggling against each
other with supernatural energy, till at length one of them, with a
frightful scream, suddenly sunk into the earth.
Gradually the inhabitants deserted their dwellings on the heath, and
settled in distant quarters, till at length but one of the cottages
continued to be inhabited by an old woman and her two sons, who loudly
lamented that poverty chained them to this solitary and mysterious
spot. Travellers who frequented this road now generally did so in
groups to protect each other; and if night overtook them, they usually
stopped at the humble cottage of the old woman and her sons, where
cleanliness compensated for the want of luxury, and where, over a
blazing fire of peat, the bolder spirits smiled at the imaginary
terrors of the road, and the more timid trembled as they listened to
the tales of terror and affright with which their hosts entertained
them.
One gloomy and tempestuous night in November, a pedlar-boy hastily
traversed the moor. Terrified to find himself involved in darkness
amidst its boundless wastes, a thousand frightful traditions, connected
with this dreary scene, darted across his mind--every blast, as it
swept in hollow gusts over the heath, seemed to teem with the sighs of
departed spirits--and the birds, as they winged their way above his
head, appeared, with loud and shrill cries, to warn him of approaching
dagger. The whistle with which he usually beguiled his weary pilgrimage
died away into silence, and he groped along with trembling and
uncertain steps, which sounded too loudly in his ears. The promise of
Scripture occurred to his memory, and revived his courage. "I will be
unto thee as a rock in the desert, and as an hiding-place in the
storm." _Surely_, thought he, _though alone, I am not forsaken;_ and a
prayer for assistance hovered on his lips.
A light now glimmered in the distance which would lead him, he
conjectured, to the cottage of the old woman; and towards that he
eagerly bent his way, remembering as he hastened along, that when he
had visited it the year before, it was in company with a large party of
travellers, who had beguiled the evening with those tales of mystery
which had so lately filled his brain with images of terror. He
recollected, too, how anxiously the old woman and her sons had
endeavoured to detain him when the other travellers were departing; and
now, therefore, he confidently anticipated a cordial and cheering
reception. His first call for admission obtained no visible marks of
attention, but instantly the greatest noise and confusion prevailed
within the cottage. They think it is one of the supernatural visitants
of whom the old lady talks so much, thought the boy, approaching a
window, where the light within showed him all the inhabitants at their
several occupations; the old woman was hastily scrubbing the stone
floor, and strewing it thickly over with sand, while her two sons
seemed with equal haste to be thrusting something large and heavy into
an immense chest, which they carefully locked. The boy in a frolicsome
mood, thoughtlessly tapped at the window, when they all instantly
started up with consternation so strongly depicted on their
countenances, that he shrunk back involuntarily with an undefined
feeling of apprehension; but before he had time to reflect a moment
longer, one of the men suddenly darted out at the door, and seizing the
boy roughly by the shoulder, dragged him violently into the cottage. "I
am not what you take me for," said the boy, attempting to laugh, "but
only the poor pedlar who visited you last year."--"Are you _alone?_"
inquired the old woman, in a harsh, deep tone, which made his heart
thrill with apprehension. "Yes," said the boy, "I am alone _here_; and
alas!" he added, with a burst of uncontrollable feeling, "I am alone in
the wide world also! Not a person exists who would assist me in
distress, or shed a single tear if I died this very night." "_Then_ you
are welcome!" said one of the men with a sneer, while he cast a glance
of peculiar expression at the other inhabitants of the cottage.
It was with a shiver of apprehension, rather than of cold, that the boy
drew towards the fire, and the looks which the old woman and her sons
exchanged, made him wish that he had preferred the shelter of any one
of the roofless cottages which were scattered near, rather than trust
himself among persons of such dubious aspect. Dreadful surmises flitted
across his brain; and terrors which he could neither combat nor examine
imperceptibly stole into his mind; but alone, and beyond the reach of
assistance, he resolved to smother his suspicions, or at least not
increase the danger by revealing them. The room to which he retired for
the night had a confused and desolate aspect; the curtains seemed to
have been violently torn down from the bed, and still hung in tatters
around it--the table seemed to have been broken by some violent
concussion, and the fragments of various pieces of furniture lay
scattered upon the floor. The boy begged that a light might burn in his
apartment till he was asleep, and anxiously examined the fastenings of
the door; but they seemed to have been wrenched asunder on some former
occasion, and were still left rusty and broken.
It was long ere the pedlar attempted to compose his agitated nerves to
rest; but at length his senses began to "steep themselves in
forgetfulness," though his imagination remained painfully active, and
presented new scenes of terror to his mind, with all the vividness of
reality. He fancied himself again wandering on the heath, which
appeared to be peopled with spectres, who all beckoned to him not to
enter the cottage, and as he approached it, they vanished with a hollow
and despairing cry. The scene then changed, and he found himself again
seated by the fire, where the countenances of the men scowled upon him
with the most terrifying malignity, and he thought the old woman
suddenly seized him by the arms, and pinioned them to his side.
Suddenly the boy was startled from these agitated slumbers, by what
sounded to him like a cry of distress; he was broad awake in a moment,
and sat up in bed,--but the noise was not repeated, and he endeavoured
to persuade himself it had only been a continuation of the fearful
images which had disturbed his rest; when, on glancing at the door, he
observed underneath it a broad, red stream of blood silently stealing
its course along the floor. Frantic with alarm, it was but the work of
a moment to spring from his bed, and rush to the door, through a chink
of which, his eye nearly dimmed with affright he could watch
unsuspected whatever might be done in the adjoining room.
His fear vanished instantly when he perceived that it was only a _goat_
that they had been slaughtering; and he was about to steal into his bed
again, ashamed of his groundless apprehensions, when his ear was
arrested by a conversation which transfixed him aghast with terror to
the spot.
"This is an easier job than you had yesterday," said the man who held
the goat. "I wish all the throats we've cut were as easily and quietly
done. Did you ever hear such a noise as the old gentleman made last
night! It was well we had no neighbour within a dozen of miles, or they
must have heard his cries for help and mercy."
"Don't speak of it," replied the other; "I was never fond of
bloodshed,"
"Ha, ha!" said the other with a sneer, "you say so, do you?"
"I do," answered the first, gloomily; "the Murder Hole is the thing for
me--_that_ tells no tales--a single scuffle--a single plunge--and the
fellow's dead and buried to your hand in a moment. I would defy all the
officers in Christendom to discover any mischief _there_."
"Ay, Nature did us a good turn when she contrived such a place as that.
Who that saw a hole in the heath, filled with clear water, and so
small that the long grass meets over the top of it, would suppose that
the depth is unfathomable, and that it conceals more than forty people
who have met their deaths there! it sucks them in like a leech!"
"How do you mean to dispatch the lad in the next room?" asked the old
woman in an under tone. The elder son made her a sign to be silent, and
pointed towards the door where their trembling auditor was concealed;
while the other, with an expression of brutal ferocity, passed his
bloody knife across his throat.
The pedlar boy possessed a bold and daring spirit, which was now roused
to desperation; but in any open resistance the odds were so completely
against him, that flight seemed his best resource. He gently stole to
the window, and having by one desperate effort broken the rusty bolt by
which the casement had been fastened, he let himself down without noise
or difficulty. This betokens good, thought he, pausing an instant in
dreadful hesitation what direction to take. This momentary deliberation
was fearfully interrupted by the hoarse voice of the men calling
aloud, "_The boy has fled--let loose the bloodhound!_" These words
sunk like a death-knell on his heart, for escape appeared now
impossible, and his nerves seemed to melt away like wax in a furnace.
Shall I perish without a struggle! thought he, rousing himself to
exertion, and, helpless and terrified as a hare pursued by its ruthless
hunters, he fled across the heath. Soon the baying of the bloodhound
broke the stillness of the night, and the voice of its masters sounded
through the moor, as they endeavoured to accelerate its speed,--panting
and breathless the boy pursued his hopeless career, but every moment
his pursuers seemed to gain upon his failing steps. The hound was
unimpeded by the darkness which was to him so impenetrable, and its
noise rung louder and deeper on his ear--while the lanterns which were
carried by the men gleamed near and distinct upon his vision.
At his fullest speed, the terrified boy fell with violence over a heap
of stones, and having nothing on but his shirt, he was severely cut in
every limb. With one wild cry to Heaven for assistance, he continued
prostrate on the earth, bleeding, and nearly insensible. The hoarse
voices of the men, and the still louder baying of the dog, were now so
near, that instant destruction seemed inevitable,--already he felt
himself in their fangs, and the bloody knife of the assassin appeared
to gleam before his eyes,--despair renewed his energy, and once more,
in an agony of affright that seemed verging towards madness, he rushed
forward so rapidly that terror seemed to have given wings to his feet.
A loud cry near the spot he had left arose on his ears without
suspending his flight. The hound had stopped at the place where the
Pedlar's wounds bled so profusely, and deeming the chase now over, it
lay down there, and could not be induced to proceed; in vain the men
beat it with frantic violence, and tried again to put the hound on the
scent,--the sight of blood had satisfied the animal that its work was
done, and with dogged resolution it resisted every inducement to pursue
the same scent a second time. The pedlar boy in the meantime paused not
in his flight till morning dawned--and still as he fled, the noise of
steps seemed to pursue him, and the cry of his assassins still sounded
in the distance. Ten miles off he reached a village, and spread instant
alarm throughout the neighbourhood--the inhabitants were aroused with
one accord into a tumult of indignation--several of them had lost sons,
brothers, or friends on the heath, and all united in proceeding
instantly to seize the old woman and her sons, who were nearly torn to
pieces by their violence. Three gibbets were immediately raised on the
moor, and the wretched culprits confessed before their execution to the
destruction of nearly fifty victims in the Murder Hole which they
pointed out, and near which they suffered the penalty of their crimes.
The bones of several murdered persons were with difficulty brought up
from the abyss into which they had been thrust; but so narrow is the
aperture, and so extraordinary the depth, that all who see it are
inclined to coincide in the tradition of the country people that it is
unfathomable. The scene of these events still continues nearly as it
was 300 years ago. The remains of the old cottage, with its blackened
walls (haunted of course by a thousand evil spirits,) and the extensive
moor, on which a more modern _inn_ (if it can be dignified with such an
epithet) resembles its predecessor in every thing but the character of
its inhabitants; the landlord is deformed, but possesses extraordinary
genius; he has himself manufactured a violin, on which he plays with
untaught skill,--and if any _discord_ be heard in the house, or any
_murder_ committed in it, this is his only instrument. His daughter
(who has never travelled beyond the heath) has inherited her father's
talent, and learnt all his tales of terror and superstition, which she
relates with infinite spirit; but when you are led by her across the
heath to drop a stone into that deep and narrow gulf to which our story
relates,--when you stand on its slippery edge, and (parting the long
grass with which it is covered) gaze into its mysterious depths,--when
she describes, with all the animation of an _eye witness_, the
struggles of the victims grasping the grass as a last hope of
preservation, and trying to drag in their assassin as an expiring
effort of vengeance,--when you are told that for 300 years the clear
waters in this diamond of the desert have remained untasted by mortal
lips, and that the solitary traveller is still pursued at night by the
howling of the bloodhound,--it is _then only_ that it is possible fully
to appreciate the terrors of THE MURDER HOLE.
_Blackwood's Magazine._
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