The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1912-04-25
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A Adv
OF Till
DEVILS FOOT

DEVILS FOOT
In recording from time to time some
Of the curious experiences and inter
esting ~recollections which | associate
with my long and intimate friendship
with Mr.. Sherlock Holmes, l have con.
tinually been faced by difficulties
caused by his own aversion to pub.
licity. To his somber and cynical
spirit all popular applause was always
abhorrent, and nothing amused him
more at the end Of a successful case
than to hand over the actual exposure
to some orthodox official, and to listen
with a hooking smile to the general
chorus Of misplaced congratulation.
1t was indeed this attitude upon the
part Of my friend, and certainly not
any lack of interesting material, which
has caused me of late years to lay
very few of my records before the
public. My participation in some Of
his adventures was always a privilege
which entailed discretion and reti-
cence upon me.
1t was, then, with considerable sur
prise that / received a telegram from
Holmes last Tuesday-he has never
been known to write where a telegram
would serve-in the following terms:
why not tell them of the Cornish
horr 'r-strangost case | have hand
led" l have no idea what backward
sweep of memory had brought the
matter fresh to his mind, or what
freak had caused him to desire that I
should recount it; but l hasten, before
another ~cancelling telegram may ar
rive, to hunt out the notes which give
me the exact details of the case, and
to lay the narrative before my read
ers.
1t was, then, in the spring of the
year 1897 that Holmes iron constitu-
ton showed some symptoms of giving
way in the face of constant hard work
of a most exacting kind, aggravated,
perhaps, by occasional indiscretions OF
his own. In March Of that year Dr.
Moore Agar, of Harley street, whose
dramatic Introduction to Holmes l
may some day recount, gave positive
injunctions that the famous private
agent should lay aside all his cases
and surrender himself to complete
rest If he wished to avert an absolute
breakdown. The state of his health
was not a matter in which he himself
took the faintest interest, for his men
tai detachment was absolute, but he
was induced at last, on the threat Of
being permanently disqualified from
work, to give himself a complete
change Of scene and air. Thus it was
that in the early spring of that year
we found ourselves together in a small
cottage near Poldhu bay, at the
farther extremity of the Cornish pen
insula.
1t was q singular spot, and n pc
c~uliarly we'll suited to the grim hui
NOR Of my patient. From the windows
Of our little whitewashed house,
which stood high upon a grassy head
land, We looked down upon the whole
sinister semicircle Of Mounts bay, that
old dClth-trap of sailing vessels, with
its fringe Of black cliffs and surge
swept reefs on which innumerable sea-
men have met their end.
On the land side our surroundings
we're as somber as on the sea. 1t was
a country of rolling moors, lonely and
dun-colored, with an occasional church
tower 10 mark the site Of some DID
world village. In every direction upon
these moors there were traces of some
vanished race which had passed ut
terly away, and left as its sole record
strange monuments of stone, irregu-
lar mounds, WHICH contained the
burned ashes of the dead, and curious
earthworks which limited at prehis-
toric strife. The glamour and mys-
terry of the place, with it's sinister at
mosphere of forgotten nations, APP
pealed to the imagination of my friend,
and he spent much of his time in long
walks and solitary meditations upon
the moor. The ancient Cornish Ian
guage had also arrested his attention,
and IL had, | remember. conceived
the IDEA that it was akin to the Chal-
uOdh' ouI SlHlplc ne anu pcdCt-
full, healthy routine were violent.
ly interrupted, and we were precipi-
tated into the midst of a series
of events which caused the utmost
excitement not only in Cornwall,
but throughout the whole west or
England. Many of my readers may re-
tain some recollection Of what was
called at the time THE Cornish Hor-
ror," though a most imperfect account
OF the matter reached the London
press. Now, after thirteen years, |
will give the true details of this incon-
ceivable affair to the public.
/ have said that scattered towers
marked the villages which dotted this
part of Cornwall. The nearest of these
was the hamlet of T%redannick Wollas,
where the cottages of a couple CT hun
dred inhabitants clustered round an
ancient, mOss-grOWn church. The