y with shaly
rock, and yonder on its flank is the dark cleft which marks the opening
of the Blue John Gap. But it is no longer a source of terror. Never
again through that ill-omened tunnel shall any strange shape flit out
into the world of men. The educated and the scientific, the Dr.
Johnsons and the like, may smile at my narrative, but the poorer folk
of the countryside had never a doubt as to its truth. On the day after
my recovering consciousness they assembled in their hundreds round the
Blue John Gap. As the Castleton Courier said:

"It was useless for our correspondent, or for any of the adventurous
gentlemen who had come from Matlock, Buxton, and other parts, to offer
to descend, to explore the cave to the end, and to finally test the
extraordinary narrative of Dr. James Hardcastle. The country people had
taken the matter into their own hands, and from an early hour of the
morning they had worked hard in stopping up the entrance of the tunnel.
There is a sharp slope where the shaft begins, and great boulders,
rolled along by many willing hands, were thrust down it until the Gap
was absolutely sealed. So ends the episode which has caused such
excitement throughout the country. Local opinion is fiercely divided
upon the subject. On the one hand are those who point to Dr.
Hardcastle's impaired health, and to the possibility of cerebral
lesions of tubercular origin giving rise to strange hallucinations.
Some idee fixe, according to these gentlemen, caused the doctor to
wander down the tunnel, and a fall among the rocks was sufficient to
account for his injuries. On the other hand, a legend of a strange
creature in the Gap has existed for some months back, and the farmers
look upon Dr. Hardcastle's narrative and his personal injuries as a
final corroboration. So the matter stands, and so the matter will
continue to stand, for no definite solution seems to us to be now
possible. It transcends human wit to give any scientific explanation
which could cover the alleged facts."

Perhaps before the Courier published these words they would have been
wise to send their representative to me. I have thought the matter
out, as no one else has occasion to do, and it is possible that I might
have removed some of the more obvious difficulties of the narrative and
brought it one degree nearer to scientific acceptance. Let me then
write down the only explanation which seems to me to elucidate what I
know to my co