It was very shallow in places, but it never dried up, and was said to have deep holes in it.

The boys told darkly braggart stories about this pond.

They had stood on this rock and that rock with poles of fabulous length; they had probed the still water of the pond, and "never once hit the bottom, sir." They had flung stones with all their might, and, listening sharply forward like foxes, had not heard them "strike bottom, sir." One end of this pond, reaching up well among the pine-trees, had the worst repute, and was called indeed a darkly significant name--the "Dead Hole." It was confidently believed by all the village children to have no bottom at all.

There was a belief current among them that once, before they were born, a man had been drowned there, and his body never found.
They would stand on the shore and look with horror, which yet gave somehow a pleasant titillation to their youthful spirits, at this water which bore such an evil name.

Their elders did not need to caution them; even the most venturesome had an awe of the Dead Hole, and would not meddle with it unduly.
Jerome climbed over the stone wall.