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Page 35
April 25.--I was laid up in bed for two days after my
incredible adventure in the cavern. I use the adjective with a
very definite meaning, for I have had an experience since which has
shocked me almost as much as the other. I have said that I was
looking round for someone who could advise me. There is a Dr. Mark
Johnson who practices some few miles away, to whom I had a note of
recommendation from Professor Saunderson. To him I drove,
when I was strong enough to get about, and I recounted to him my
whole strange experience. He listened intently, and then carefully
examined me, paying special attention to my reflexes and to the
pupils of my eyes. When he had finished, he refused to discuss my
adventure, saying that it was entirely beyond him, but he gave me
the card of a Mr. Picton at Castleton, with the advice that I
should instantly go to him and tell him the story exactly as I had
done to himself. He was, according to my adviser, the very man who
was pre-eminently suited to help me. I went on to the station,
therefore, and made my way to the little town, which is some ten
miles away. Mr. Picton appeared to be a man of importance, as his
brass plate was displayed upon the door of a considerable building
on the outskirts of the town. I was about to ring his bell, when
some misgiving came into my mind, and, crossing to a neighbouring
shop, I asked the man behind the counter if he could tell me
anything of Mr. Picton. "Why," said he, "he is the best mad doctor
in Derbyshire, and yonder is his asylum." You can imagine that it
was not long before I had shaken the dust of Castleton from my feet
and returned to the farm, cursing all unimaginative pedants who
cannot conceive that there may be things in creation which have
never yet chanced to come across their mole's vision. After all,
now that I am cooler, I can afford to admit that I have been no
more sympathetic to Armitage than Dr. Johnson has been to me.
April 27. When I was a student I had the reputation of
being a man of courage and enterprise. I remember that when there
was a ghost-hunt at Coltbridge it was I who sat up in the
haunted house. Is it advancing years (after all, I am only thirty-
five), or is it this physical malady which has caused degeneration?
Certainly my heart quails when I think of that horrible cavern in
the hill, and the certainty that it has some monstrous occupant.
What shall I do? There is not an hour in the day that I do not
debate the question. If I say nothing, then the mystery remains
unsolved. If I do say anything, then I have the alternative of mad
alarm over the whole countryside, or of absolute incredulity which
may end in consigning me to an asylum. On the whole, I think that
my best course is to wait, and to prepare for some expedition which
shall be more deliberate and better thought out than the last. As
a first step I have been to Castleton and obtained a few
essentials--a large acetylene lantern for one thing, and a good
double-barrelled sporting rifle for another. The latter I have
hired, but I have bought a dozen heavy game cartridges, which would
bring down a rhinoceros. Now I am ready for my troglodyte friend.
Give me better health and a little spate of energy, and I shall try
conclusions with him yet. But who and what is he? Ah! there is
the question which stands between me and my sleep. How many
theories do I form, only to discard each in turn! It is all so
utterly unthinkable. And yet the cry, the footmark, the tread in
the cavern--no reasoning can get past these I think of the old-
world legends of dragons and of other monsters. Were they,
perhaps, not such fairy-tales as we have thought? Can it be that
there is some fact which underlies them, and am I, of all mortals,
the one who is chosen to expose it?
May 3.--For several days I have been laid up by the
vagaries of an English spring, and during those days there have
been developments, the true and sinister meaning of which no one
can appreciate save myself. I may say that we have had cloudy and
moonless nights of late, which according to my information were the
seasons upon which sheep disappeared. Well, sheep have
disappeared. Two of Miss Allerton's, one of old Pearson's of the
Cat Walk, and one of Mrs. Moulton's. Four in all during three
nights. No trace is left of them at all, and the countryside is
buzzing with rumours of gipsies and of sheep-stealers.
But there is something more serious than that. Young Armitage
has disappeared also. He left his moorland cottage early on
Wednesday night and has never been heard of since. He was an
unattached man, so there is less sensation than would otherwise be
the case. The popular explanation is that he owes money, and has
found a situation in some other part of the country, whence he will
presently write for his belongings. But I have grave misgivings.
Is it not much more likely that the recent tragedy of the sheep has
caused him to take some steps which may have ended in his own
destruction? He may, for example, have lain in wait for the
creature and been carried off by it into the recesses of the
mountains. What an inconceivable fate for a civilized Englishman
of the twentieth century! And yet I feel that it is possible and
even probable. But in that case, how far am I answerable both for
his death and for any other mishap which may occur? Surely with
the knowledge I already possess it must be my duty to see that
something is done, or if necessary to do it myself. It must be the
latter, for this morning I went down to the local police-station
and told my story. The inspector entered it all in a large book
and bowed me out with commendable gravity, but I heard a burst of
laughter before I had got down his garden path. No doubt he was
recounting my adventure to his family.
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