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The autograph manuscript of “The Terror of Blue John Gap” reproduced above is courtesy of Dartmouth College Library, Rauner Special Collections, MS-93: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Transcription
all overgrwon with bushes. It is a goodly passage which the Roman miners
have cut, and it intersects some of the great waterworn caves , so that if
you enter Blue John Gap you would do well to mark your steps and to
to have a good store of candles or you may never make your way back to
the daylight again. I have note yet gone deeply into it, but this very day
I stood at the mouth of the arched tunnel and peering down into the
black recesses beyond I vowed that when my health returned I would
devote some holiday to exploring those mysterious depths, and finding
out for myself how far the Roman had penetrated into the Derbyshire
hills.
Strange how supersitious these country men are! I
should have thought better of young [deleted: Aldridge / inserted: Armitage] for he is a man of some
education and character, and a very fine fellow for his station in
life. I was standing at the Blue John Gap when he came across the
field to me
"Well, Doctor" said he "you're not afraid
anyhow"
"Afraid!" I answered "Afraid of what?"
"Of It" said he, with a jerk of his thumb towards
the black vault "Of the terror that live in the Blue [deleted: Gap / inserted: John Cave"]
How absurdly easy it is for a legend to arise in a [deleted: -illegible- / inserted: lonely]
countryside. I examined him as to the reasons for his weird belief.
It seems that from time to time sheep have been missing from the
fields, carried bodily away according to [deleted: Aldridge. / inserted: Armitage.] That they could
have wandered away of their own accord and disappeared among
the mountains was an explanation to which he would not listen. On
one occasion a pool of blood had been found and some tufts of wool.
That also I pointed out could be explained in a perfectly natural
way. [deleted: Finally / inserted: Further] the nights upon which sheep disappeared were
invariably very dark cloudy nights with no moon. This I met
with the obvious retort that those were the nights which a
common place sheep stealer would [inserted: naturally] choose for his work. On one
occasion a gap had been made in [deleted: stone dyke / inserted: wall], and some of the
The full story as it was printed in The Strand is available at
The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia.