The Murder Hole by Anonymous

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<pre>The Murder Hole
By Anonymous
About three hundred years ago, on the estate of Lord Cassilus between Ayrshire and
Galloway,
lay a great moor, unrelieved by any trees or vegetation.
It was rumored that unwary travelers had been intercepted and murdered there, and
that no
investigation ever revealed what had happened to them. People living in a nearby
hamlet
believed that in the dead of night they sometimes heard a sudden cry of anguish;
and a shepherd
who had lost his way once declared that he had seen three mysterious figures
struggling together,
until one of them, with a frightful scream, sank suddenly into the earth. So
terrifying was this
place that at last no one remained there, except one old woman and her two sons,
who were too
poor to flee, as their neighbors had done. Travelers occasionally begged a night's
lodging at their
cottage, rather than continue their journey across the moor in the darkness, and
even by day no
one traveled that way except in companies of at least two or three people.
One stormy November night, a peddler boy was overtaken by darkness on the moor.
Terrified
by the solitude, he repeated to himself the promises of Scripture, and so struggled
toward the old
cottage, which he had visited the year before in a large company of travelers, and
where he felt
assured of a welcome. Its light guided him from afar, and he knocked at the door,
but at first
received no answer. He then peered through a window and saw that the occupants were
all at
their accustomed occupations: the old woman was scrubbing the floor and strewing it
with sand;
her two sons seemed to be thrusting something large and heavy into a great chest,
which they
then hastily locked. There was an air of haste about all this which puzzled the
waiting boy
outside.
He tapped lightly on the window, and they all started up, with consternation on
their faces, and
one of the men suddenly darted out at the door, seized the boy roughly by the
shoulder and
dragged him inside. He said, trying to laugh, "1 am only the poor peddler who
visited you last
year." "Are you alone?" cried the old woman in a harsh, deep voice. "Alone here —
and alone in
the whole world," replied the boy sadly. "Then you are welcome," said one of the
men with a
sneer. Their words filled the boy with alarm, and the confusion and desolation of
the formerly
neat and orderly cottage seemed to show signs of recent violence.
The curtains had been torn down from the bed to which he was shown, and though he
begged
for a light to burn until he fell asleep, his terror kept him long awake.
In the middle of the night he was awakened by a single cry of distress. He sat up
and listened,
but it was not repeated, and he would have lain down to sleep again, but suddenly
his eye fell on
a stream of blood slowly trickling under the door of his room. In terror he sprang
to the door, and
through a chink he saw that the victim outside was only a goat. But just then he
overheard the
voices of the two men, and their words transfixed him with horror. "I wish all the
throats we cut
were as easy," said one. "Did you ever hear such a noise as the old gentleman made
last night?"
"Ah, the Murder Hole's the thing for me," said the other. "One plunge and the
fellow's dead and
buried in a moment." "How do you mean to dispatch the lad in there?" asked the old
woman in a
harsh whisper, and one of the men silently drew his bloody knife across his throat
to answer.
The terrified boy crept to his window and managed to let himself down without a
sound. But
as he stood wondering which way to turn, a dreadful cry rang out: "The boy has
escaed — let
loose the bloodhound." He ran for his life, blindly, but all too soon he heard the
dreadful baying
of the hound and the voices of the men in pursuit. Suddenly he stumbled and fell on
a heap of
rough stones which cut him in every limb, so that his blood poured over the stones.
He staggered
to his feet and ran on; the hound was so near that he could almost feel its breath
on his back. But
suddenly it smelled the blood on the stones, and, thinking the chase at an end, it
lay down and
refused to go farther after the same scent. The boy fled on and on till morning,
and when at last
he reached a village, his pitiable state and his fearful story roused such wrath
that three gibbets
were at once set upon the moor, and before night the three villain had been
captured and had
confessed their guilt. The bones of their victims were later discovered, and with
great difficulty
brought up from the dreadful hole with its narrow aperture into which they had been
thrust.
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