“Been there!” he cried. “What would I be doin' at the Hole o' Cree? No, I've never been there, nor any other man in his senses.”
“How do you know about it, then?”
“My great-grandfeyther had been there, and that's how I ken,” Fullarton answered. “He was fou' one Saturday nicht and he went for a bet. He didna like tae talk aboot it afterwards, and he wouldna tell a' what befell him, but he was aye feared o' the very name. He's the first Fullarton that's been at the Hole o' Cree, and he'll be the last for me. If ye'll tak' my advice ye'll just gie the matter up and gang hame again, for there's na guid tae be got oot o' this place.”
“We shall go on with you or without you,” Mordaunt answered. “Let us have your dog and we can pick you up on our way back.”
“Na, na,” he cried, “I'll no' hae my dog scaret wi' bogles, and running down Auld Nick as if he were a hare. The dog shall bide wi' me.”
“The dog shall go with us,” said my companion, with his eyes blazing. “We have no time to argue with you. Here's a five-pound note. Let us have the dog, or, by Heaven, I shall take it by force and throw you in the bog if you hinder us.”
I could realise the Heatherstone of forty years ago when I saw the fierce and sudden wrath which lit up the features of his son.
Either the bribe or the threat had the desired effect, for the fellow grabbed at the money with one hand while with the other he surrendered the leash which held the lurcher. Leaving him to retrace his steps, we continued to make our way into the utmost recesses of the great swamp.
The tortuous path grew less and less defined as we proceeded, and was even covered in places with water, but the increasing excitement of the hound and the sight of the deep footmarks in the mud stimulated us to push on. At last, after struggling through a grove of high bulrushes, we came on a spot the gloomy horror of which might have furnished Dante with a fresh terror for his “Inferno.”
The whole bog in this part appeared to have sunk in, forming a great, funnel-shaped depression, which terminated in the centre in a circular rift or opening about forty feet in diameter. It was a whirlpool—a perfect maelstrom of mud, sloping down on every side to this silent and awful chasm.