The train pulled up at a small wayside station and we alldescended. Outside, beyond the low, white fence, a wagonettewith a pair of cobs was waiting. Our coming was evidently a greatevent, for station-master and porters clustered round us to carryout our luggage. It was a sweet, simple country spot, but I wassurprised to observe that by the gate there stood two soldierlymen in dark uniforms who leaned upon their short rifles andglanced keenly at us as we passed. The coachman, a hard-faced,gnarled little fellow, saluted Sir Henry Baskerville, and in a fewminutes we were flying swiftly down the broad, white road. Rollingpasture lands curved upward on either side of us, and old gabledhouses peeped out from amid the thick green foliage, but behindthe peaceful and sunlit country-side there rose ever, dark againstthe evening sky, the long, gloomy curve of the moor, broken by thejagged and sinister hills.
The wagonette swung round into a side road, and we curvedupward through deep lanes worn by centuries of wheels, highbanks on either side, heavy with dripping moss and fleshy hart’stongueferns. Bronzing bracken and mottled bramble gleamed inthe light of the sinking sun. Still steadily rising, we passed over anarrow granite bridge, and skirted a noisy stream which gushedswiftly down, foaming and roaring amid the gray boulders. Bothroad and stream wound up through a valley dense with scrub oakand fir. At every turn Baskerville gave an exclamation of delight,looking eagerly about him and asking countless questions. To hiseyes all seemed beautiful, but to me a tinge of melancholy lay uponthe countryside, which bore so clearly the mark of the waningyear. Yellow leaves carpeted the lanes and fluttered down uponus as we passed. The rattle of our wheels died away as we drovethrough drifts of rotting vegetation—sad gifts, as it seemed to me,for Nature to throw before the carriage of the returning heir ofthe Baskervilles.
“Halloa!” cried Dr. Mortimer, “what is this?”
A steep curve of heath-clad land, an outlying spur of the moor,lay in front of us. On the summit, hard and clear like an equestrianstatue upon its pedestal, was a mounted soldier, dark and stern,his rifle poised ready over his forearm. He was watching the roadalong which we travelled.
“What is this, Perkins?” asked Dr. Mortimer.
Our driver half turned in his seat.
“There’s a convict escaped from Princetown, sir. He’s beenout three days now, and the warders watch every road and everystation, but they’ve had no sight of him yet. The farmers abouthere don’t like it, sir, and that’s a fact.”
“Well, I understand that they get five pounds if they can giveinformation.”
“Yes, sir, but the chance of five pounds is but a poor thingcompared to the chance of having your throat cut. You see, itisn’t like any ordinary convict. This is a man that would stick atnothing.”
“Who is he, then?”
“It is Selden, the Notting Hill murderer.”
I remembered the case well, for it was one in which Holmeshad taken an interest on account of the peculiar ferocity of thecrime and the wanton brutality which had marked all the actionsof the assassin. The commutation of his death sentence hadbeen due to some doubts as to his complete sanity, so atrociouswas his conduct. Our wagonette had topped a rise and in frontof us rose the huge expanse of the moor, mottled with gnarledand craggy cairns and tors. A cold wind swept down from it andset us shivering. Somewhere there, on that desolate plain, waslurking this fiendish man, hiding in a burrow like a wild beast, hisheart full of malignancy against the whole race which had casthim out. It needed but this to complete the grim suggestivenessof the barren waste, the chilling wind, and the darkling sky. EvenBaskerville fell silent and pulled his overcoat more closely aroundhim.
We had left the fertile country behind and beneath us. Welooked back on it now, the slanting rays of a low sun turning thestreams to threads of gold and glowing on the red earth newturned by the plough and the broad tangle of the woodlands.
The road in front of us grew bleaker and wilder over huge russetand olive slopes, sprinkled with giant boulders. Now and then wepassed a moorland cottage, walled and roofed with stone, with nocreeper to break its harsh outline. Suddenly we looked down intoa cuplike depression, patched with stunted oaks and firs whichhad been twisted and bent by the fury of years of storm. Two high,narrow towers rose over the trees. The driver pointed with hiswhip.
“Baskerville Hall,” said he.
Its master had risen and was staring with flushed cheeks andshining eyes. A few minutes later we had reached the lodgegates,a maze of fantastic tracery in wrought iron, with weather-bittenpillars on either side, blotched with lichens, and surmounted bythe boars’ heads of the Baskervilles. The lodge was a ruin of blackgranite and bared ribs of rafters, but facing it was a new building,half constructed, the first fruit of Sir Charles’s South African gold.
Through the gateway we passed into the avenue, where thewheels were again hushed amid the leaves, and the old trees shottheir branches in a sombre tunnel over our heads. Baskervilleshuddered as he looked up the long, dark drive to where the houseglimmered like a ghost at the farther end.
“Was it here?” he asked in a low voice.
“No, no, the yew alley is on the other side.”
The young heir glanced round with a gloomy face.
“It’s no wonder my uncle felt as if trouble were coming on himin such a place as this,” said he. “It’s enough to scare any man.
I’ll have a row of electric lamps up here inside of six months, andyou won’t know it again, with a thousand candle-power Swan andEdison right here in front of the hall door.”
