News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1884-11-13
STRANGE CORNISH STORY.
AN INVOLUNTARY WITNESS TO A MUIR
DER MANY YEARS AGO.
Tae Oath he Took TO save his Life and How
he Kept L..

The Cornish1nan publishes a sensa-
tional narrative of murder alleged to
have been committed in the locality, the
narrator protesting to have remained Sd
lent, 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 sc. H. o." and
writes from Penzance, declares himself
willing to indicate where the body of
the murdered man was buried. The
story is as follows: The writer, then q
Junior in firm in London, of which he
is now the head, came to Penzance Sep
TENDER, 1884, to arrange terms among
local tin smelters. He left Penzance
one evening to visit friend in st. Just,
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, 'sNo, 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 suspi-
cious 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 q
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 bet
ter not to stay there and so proceeded
on hands and knees across the dusty
road, scrambled up a small bank and
fnr1n1 hIY47solF in n xrr1,sol
peared to be many acres in extent. He
dragged himself to a heather-covered
strip between two clumps of furze and
threw himself at length and closed his
eyes. After little time he looked up
and the moonlight revealed to him a
newly-made mound. Hearing two shots
fred 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 toward the newly-made
grave, almost touching my feet as they
passed. Then they turned to the right
and threw the body into the pit with
thud which made 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 loweredt the
mound many inches when one of them
discovered me. They pounced upon
me and demanded what 1 was doing
there. 1 explained, but all to no pur-
pose. 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
afterward.' These were the horrible
threats accompanied by frightful impre-
cations which greeted me. Said one of
the men to me again, we have decided
to bury you alive, slip off your clothes,
It is hardly worth while burying that
good suit of yours; it will do for one of
u.s. / pleaded my youth, my acciden-
tai and unprecedented presence, nv
wife and only child, and
this at last seemed to touch the hearts of
the brutes. WELL said one, we will
spare your life on condition that you
swear, as you hope for heaven and the
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 space of fifty years
from this day, when we shall be as this
at the same time kicking into the grave
a clod of light-colored clayey soil. I
did swear most solemnly. / bought my |
life on that lonely heath of West Pen |
nth. have kept my promise. It is a
little over fifty years ago. 1 was then
twenty-six years of age, so you see am
IN old man now. Those men were mid |
1le-aged, from forty-five to fifty, at that |
time." Of his revisit to the spot he |
writes: Gas I approached the fatal spot |
the road seemed entirely unaltered. l |
believe that 1 crept through |
the very gap in the low hedge of earth
which still imperfectly protects the croft;
that / stood between the self-same clus- |
ters of furze which formed my bed
very nearlS-Ay bed of death-and peep
iIofe, as the murderers hid the result Of
their accursed crime, and that / knelt on
the undisturbed grave where their vic
TINS bones are now mere dust. After
half a century knelt again, not to i'm
pIore mercy of man as 1 did then, but of
God, lest unwittingly I have sinned in
keeping an extorted pledge, and, to save
myself from harm, have reluctantly
heinous criminals"