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 cost to have been a series of facts. My theory may seem to
be wildly improbable, but at least no one can venture to say that it is
impossible. My view is--and it was formed, as is shown by my diary, before my
personal adventure--that in this part of England there is a vast
subterranean lake or sea, which is fed by the great number of streams
which pass down through the limestone. Where there is a large
collection of water there must also be some evaporation, mists or rain,
and a possibility of vegetation. This in turn suggests that there may
be animal life, arising, as the vegetable life would also do, from
those seeds and types which had been introduced at an early period of
the world's history, when communication with the outer air was more
easy. This place had then developed a fauna and flora of its own,
including such monsters as the one which I had seen, which may well
have been the old cave-bear, enormously enlarged and modified by its
new environment. For countless aeons the internal and the external
creation had kept apart, growing steadily away from each other. Then
there had come some rift in the depths of the mountain which had
enabled one creature to wander up and, by means of the Roman tunnel, to
reach the open air. Like all subterranean life, it had lost the power
of sight, but this had no doubt been compensated for by nature in other
directions. Certainly it had some means of finding its way about, and
of hunting down the sheep upon the hillside. As to its choice of dark
nights, it is part of my theory that light was painful to those great
white eyeballs, and that it was only a pitch-black world which it could
tolerate. Perhaps, indeed, it was the glare of my lantern which saved
my life at that awful moment when we were face to face. So I read the
riddle. I leave these facts behind me, and if you can explain them, do
so; or if you choose to doubt them, do so. Neither your belief nor
your incredulity can alter them, nor affect one whose task is nearly
over. So ended the strange narrative of Dr. James Hardcastle. The Brazilian Cat

It is hard luck on a young fellow to have expensive tastes, great
expectations, aristocratic connections, but no actual money in his
pocket, and no profession by which he may earn any. The fact was that
my father, a good, sanguine, easy-going man, had such confidence in the
wealth and benevolence of his bachelor elder brother, Lord Southerton,
that he took it for granted that I, his only son, would never be called
upon to earn a living for myself. He imagined that if there were not a
vacancy for me on the great Southerton Estates, at least there would be
found some post in that diplomatic service which still remains the
special preserve of our privileged classes. He died too early to
realize how false his calculations had been. Neither my uncle nor the
State took the slightest notice of me, or showed any interest in my
career. An occasional brace of pheasants, or basket of hares, was all
that ever reached me to remind me that I was heir to Otwell House and
one of the richest estates in the country. In the meantime, I found
myself a bachelor and man about town, living in a suite of apartments
in Grosvenor Mansions, with no occupation save that of pigeon-shooting
and polo-playing at Hurlingham. Month by month I realized that it was
more and more difficult to get the brokers to renew my bills, or to
cash any further post-obits upon an unentailed property. Ruin lay
right across my path, and every day I saw it clearer, nearer, and more
absolutely unavoidable. What made me feel my own poverty the more was that, apart from the
great wealth of Lord Southerton, all my other relations were fairly
well-to-do. The nearest of these was Everard King, my father's nephew
and my own first cousin, who had spent an adventurous life in Brazil,
and had now returned to this country to settle down on his fortune. We
never knew how he made his money, but he appeared to have plenty of it,
for he bought the estate of Greylands, near Clipton-on-the-Marsh, in
Suffolk. For the first year of his residence in England he took no
more notice of me than my miserly uncle; but at last one summer
morning, to my very great relief and joy, I received a letter asking me
to come down that very day and spend a short visit at Greylands Court. I was expecting a rather long visit to Bankruptcy Court at the time,
and this interruption seemed almost providential. If I could only get
on terms with this unknown relative of mine, I might pull through yet. For the family credit he could not let me go entirely to the wall. I
ordered my valet to pack my valise, and I set off the same evening for
Clipton-on-the-Marsh.