A REMARKABLE STORY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1398, 6 December 1884, Page 2

A REMARKABLE STORY.

The Cornishman publishes a •narrative of a murder adeged to have been committed in the locality, the natracor professing to have remained silent, under a fearful oath imposed on him at the time of the committal of the deed, some fifty years since. The writer, who signs himself “ G-. H 0.,” and from Penzance, declares himself willing to indicate the spot where the body of the murdered man was buried. Shortly, the story is as follows: —Toe writer, then a junior in a firm in London, of which he is now the head, came to Penzance in September, 1834, to arrange terms among local tin smelte-s. He left Penzance one evening to visit a friend in St J ust, which is some six miles from Penzance. On the way there, in a lonely part of the road, he met two men, when he heard one say, “ That’s him,” whilst the other asserted, “No, it is not.” They again faced each other, when the two men said they had taken him for another person. Almost immediately a man approached from the direction of St Just, and the writer called his attention to the suspicious character of the two men. The man, who said he was a mine agent, laughed at his fears and went on his way. He had only proceeded about a couple of hundred yards, when he was seized with nervous tremors. His legs refused to support him, and he fell in the middle of the road, but thought it better not to stay there, and so proceeded on hands and knees across the dusty road, scrambled to a small bank, and found himself on a common, which appeared to be many acres in extent. He dragged himself to a heather-covered strip between two clumps of furze, and threw himself a 1; length and closed his eyes. After a little time he looked up, and the moonlight revealed to him a newly-made mound. Hearing two shots fired he crouched and waited, and he saw the men just after coming with the body. To quote his letter, “ once more a thrill of horror ran through me. On they came towards the newiy-made grave, almost touching my feet as they moved past. Then they turned to the right and threw the body into the pit with a thud, which mads every fibre in my body vibrate. The corpse in the grave, the two men began to fill it up. Doing that disclosed me. They had not lowered the mound many inches when one of them discovered me. They pounced upon me and demanded what I was doing there. I explained, but all to no purpose. ‘ The same pit will do for him ’ ‘ Yes, shoot him.’ ‘ No, cut his throat.’ ‘ Stop, I’ll load my pistol again ; don’t leave any marks of blood about.' ‘Push him in the pit first, and cut his throat afterwards.’ These were the horrible threats, accompanied by frightful imprecations, which greeted me. Said one of the men to me again, *We have decided to bury you alive,* slip off your clothes, it’s hardly worth while burying that good suit of yours; it will do for one of us.’ I pleaded my youth, my accidental and unpremeditated presence, my newly-made wife, and only child, and this at last seemed to touch the hearts of the brute?. ‘ Well,’ said one, ‘we will spare your life on condition that you swear, as you hope for heaven and the salvation of your wife, child, and friends; you shall swear it, too, on the point of this knife and the muzzle of this pistol —that what you have seen this night you will never speak of or divulge to any human being for a space of fifty yea ■•a from this day, when we shall all be as this,’ at the same time kicking into the grave a clod of light-colored clayey soil I did swear most solemnly. I bought my life on that lonely heath of West Penwith. 1 have kept my promise. It was a little over fifty years ago. 1 was then twenty-six years of age, so you see lam an old man now. Those men were middle-aged—from forty-five to fifty—at that time.”