The Hound of the Baskervilles - Chapter 6

Books of Bedtime by Calming Anxiety The Hounds of the Baskervilles, Chapter 6 Baskerville Hall Sir Henry Baskerville and Dr Mortimer were ready upon the appointed day and we started as arranged for Devonshire. Mr Sherlock Holmes drove with me to the station and gave me his last parting injunctions and advice. I will not bias your mind by suggesting theories and suspicions, what's him said he. I wish you simply to report facts in the fullest possible manner to me and you can leave me to do the theorising.

What sorts of facts I are? Anything which may seem to have a bearing, however indirect upon the case and especially the relations between young Baskerville and his neighbours or any fresh particulars concerning the death of Sir Charles. I have made some inquiries myself in the last few days but the results have, I fear, been negative. One thing only appears to be certain and that is that Mr James Desmond, who is the next heir, is an elderly gentleman of a very amiable disposition so that his persecution does not arise from him.

I rarely think that we may eliminate him entirely from our calculations. There remain the people who will actually surround Sir Henry Baskerville upon them all. Would it not be well in the first place to get rid of this barren more couple? By no means.

We could not make a greater mistake. If they are innocent, it would be a cruel injustice and if they are guilty, we should be giving up all chance of bringing it home to them. No. No, we will preserve them upon our list of suspects.

Then there is the groom at the hall. If I remember right, there are two more than farmers. There is our friend, Dr Mortimer, who I believe to be entirely honest and there is his wife of whom we know nothing. There is the naturalist Stapleton and there is his sister who is said to be a young lady of attractions.

There is Mr Franklin, the laughter hall, who is also an unknown factor and there are one or two other neighbours. There are the folk who must be your very special study. I will do my best. You have arms, I suppose?

Yes, I thought it is well to take them. Most certainly. Keep your revolver near you night and day and never relax your precautions. Our friends had already secured a first-class carriage and were waiting for us upon the platform.

Now we have no news of any kind, said Dr Mortimer, in answer to my friend's questions. I can swear to one thing and that is that we have not been shadowed during the last two days. We have never gone art without keeping a sharp watch and no one could have escaped our notice. You have always kept together, I presume, except yesterday afternoon.

I usually give up one day to pure amusement when I come to town, so I spent it at the museum of the College of Surgeons. And I went to look at the folk in the park, said Baskerville, but we had no trouble of any kind. It was in prudent, all the same, said Holmes, shaking his head and looking very grave. I beg Sir Henry, that you will not go about alone.

Some great misfortune will before you if you do. Did you get your other boot? No sir, it is gone forever. Indeed, that is very interesting.

Well, goodbye, he said, as the train began to glide down the platform. Bear in mind Sir Henry, one of the phrases in that queer old legend which Dr Mortimer has read to us, and avoid them more in those hours of darkness when the powers of evil are exalted. I looked back at the platform, when we had left it far behind and saw the tall or steered figure of Holmes, standing motionless, and gazing after us. The journey was a swift and pleasant one, and I spent it in making the more intimate acquaintance of my two companions, and in playing with Dr Mortimer's Spaniel.

In a very few hours, the brown earth had become ruddy, the brick had changed to granite, and red cows grazed in the well-hidged fields, where the lush grasses and more luxuriant vegetation spoke of a richer, if a damper climate. Young Baskerville stared eagerly out of the window, and cried aloud with delight as he recognised the familiar features of the Devon scenery. "I have been over a good part of the world since I left it, Dr Watson," said he, "but I have never seen a place to compare with it." I never saw a Devon-chermann who did not swear by his county, I remarked.

It depends upon the breed of man, quite as much as the county, said Dr Mortimer. A glance at our friend, here reveals the rounded head of the selt, which carries inside it the Celtic enthusiasm of power and attachment. Poor Sir Charles's head was of a very rare type, half Celtic, half Ivernian, in its characteristics.

But you were very young when you last saw Baskerville Hall, were you not? I was a boy in my teens at the time of my father's death, and had never seen the hall, that he lived in a little cottage on the south coast. Then I went straight to a friend in America. I tell you, it is all as new to me as it is to Dr Watson, and I am as keen as possible to see them all.

"Are you?" "Then your wish is easily granted." "For there is your first sight of them all," said Dr Mortimer, pointing out of the carriage window. "Over the green squares of the fields, and the low curve of a wood, their rows in the distance, a grey, melancholy hill.

With a strange jagged summit, dim and vey, vast in the distance, like some fantastic landscape in a dream." Baskerville sat for a long time, his eyes fixed upon it, and I read upon his eager face how much it meant to him, this first sight of that strange spot, where the men of his blood had held sway so long and left their marks so deep. There he sat, with his tweed suit and his American accent, in the corner of a prosaic railway carriage. And yet, as I looked at his dark and expressive face, I felt more than ever how true a descendant he was of that long line of high-blooded, fiery and masterful men.

They were pride, valor, and strength in his thick brows. His senseed of nostrils and his large hazel eyes. If, on that foreboding more, a difficult and treacherous quest should lie before us. This was at least a comrade for whom one might venture to take a risk, with the certainty that he would bravely share it.

The train pulled up at a small wayside station and we all descended. Outside, beyond the low white fence, a wagonette with a pair of cobs was waiting. Our coming was evidently a great event for this station master and ported clustered around us to carry out our luggage. It was a sweet, simple country spot, but I was surprised to observe that by the gate there stood two soldierly men in dark uniforms who leaned upon their short rifles and glanced keenly at us as we passed.

The coachmen, a hard-faced, gnarled little fellow, saluted Sehenry Basqueville. And in a few minutes we were flying swiftly down the broad, white road. Filling past your lands, curved upwards on either side of us, and old gabled houses peaked out from amid the thick green foliage. But behind the peaceful and sunlit countryside, there rose ever dark against the evening sky, the long gloomy curve of the moor, broken by the jagged and sinister hills.

The wagonettes swung around into the side road, and we curved upwards through the deep lanes worn by centuries of wheels, high banks on either side, heavy, with dripping moss and fleshy heart-tongued ferns. Bronzing bracken and mottled bramble gleamed in the light of the sinking sun. Still steadily rising, we passed over a narrow granite bridge and skirted a noisy stream, which gushed swiftly down, foaming and warming, amid the grey boulders. Both road and stream wound up through a valley dense with scrub oak and fur.

At every turn, Basqueville gave an exclamation of delight, looking eagerly about him and asking helpless questions. To his eyes all seemed beautiful, but to me a tinge of melancholy lay upon the countryside, which bore so clearly the mark of the waning year. Yellow leaves carpeted the lanes and fluttered down upon us as we passed. The rattle of our wheels died away as we drove through rifts of rotting vegetation.

Sad gifts as it seemed to me for nature to throw before the carriage of the returning air at the Basqueville. A lower, credoctum-automer, what is this? A steep curve of heath clad land, an outlying spur of the more lay in front of us. On the summit, hard and clear, like in a questrian statue upon its pedestal, was a mounted soldier, dark and stern.

His rifle poised ready over his forearm. He was watching the road along which we had travelled. What is it, Perkins? Asked octum-automer.

Our driver half turned in his seat. There's a convict escaped from Princeton, sir. He's been out three days now, and the warders watch every road and every station, but they've had no sight of him yet. The farm is about here don't like it, sir, and that's a fact.

Well, I understand that they get five pounds if they give you information. Yes, sir, but the chance of five pounds is but a poor thing compared to the chance of having your throat cut. You see, it isn't any ordinary convict. This is a man that would stick at nothing.

Who is he then? It is Selden, the notting Hill murderer. I remembered the case well. For it was one in which homes had taken in interest on account of the peculiar ferocity of the crime and the want and brutality which had marked all the actions of the assassin.

The commutation of his death sentence had been due to some doubts as to his complete sanity, so atrocious was his conduct. Your wagonette had topped a rise and in front of us rose the huge expanse of the mall, mottled with gnarled and craggie cans and tours. A cold wind swept down from it and set a shivering. Somewhere there on the desolate plain was lurking this beondish man, hiding in a burrow like a wild beast.

His heart full of malignancy against the whole race which had cast him out. It needed but this to complete the grim suggestiveness of the barren waste, the chilling wind and a darkling sky. Even basketball fell silent and pulled his overcoat more closely around him. We had left the fertile country behind it and beneath us.

We looked back on it now. The slanting rays of a low sun turning the streams to threads of gold and glowing on the red earth, new turned by the plow and the broad tangle of the woodlands. The road in front of us grew bleaker and wilder over huge russet and olive slopes sprinkled with giant boulders. Now and then we passed a moorland cottage, walled and roofed with stone.

There was no creeper to break its harsh outline. Suddenly we looked down into a cut-like depression, patched with stunted oaks and furs which had been twisted and bent by the fury of years of storm. Too high narrow towers rose above the trees. The driver pointed with his whip, "Bask Vahul," said he.

His master had risen and was staring with flush cheeks and shining eyes. A few minutes later we had reached the lodge gates that amaze a fantastic tracery in Rautayan, with weather-beaten pillars on either side, blotched with lightens and surmounted by the boar's head of the basketballs. The lodge was a ruin of black granite and bareed ribs of rafters, but facing it was in a new building half constructed, the first fruit of Sir Charles's South African gold. Through the gateway we passed into the avenue where the wheels were again hushed in the leaves and the old trees shot their branches in a somber tunnel over our heads.

Baskerville shuddered as he looked up at the long, dark drive to where the house glimmed like a ghost at the father end. Was it here? He asked in a low voice. No.

No, the U-ally is on the other side. The young air glanced around with a gloomy face. It's no wonder my uncle felt as if trouble were coming on him in such a place as this city. It's enough to scare any man.

I'll have a row of electric lamps up here inside six months and you won't notice it again. With a thousand candle-powers, one in Edison right here in front of the hall door. The avenue opened into a broad expanse of turf and the house lay before us. In the fading light I could see the centre was a heavy block of building from which a porch predicted.

The whole front was draped in ivy, with a patch clipped bare here and there where a window or a coat of arms broke through the dark veil. From this central block rose the twin towers, ancient, crannulated and pierced with many loopholes. To right and left of the turrets were more modern wings of black crannet. A dull light shone through a heavy mullionned window and from the high chimneys which rose from the steep, high-angle roof, there sprang a single black column of smoke.

Welcome Sir Henry. Welcome to Baskerville Hall. A tall man had stepped from the shadow of the porch to open the door of the wagonette. The figure of a woman was silhouetted against the yellow light of the hall.

She came out and helped the man to land down our bags. You don't mind my driving straight home Sir Henry, said Dr Mortimer, my wife is expecting me. Surely you will stay and have some dinner. No, I must go.

I shall probably find some work awaiting me. I would stay to show you over the house but Barrymore will have a better guide than I. Goodbye and never hesitate night or day to send for me if I can be of service. The wheels died away down the drive while Sir Henry and I turned into the hall and the doors clanged heavily behind us.

It was a fine apartment in which we found ourselves, large, lofty and heavily rafted with huge borks of h blackened oak. In the great old fashioned fireplace behind the high iron dogs, a log fire crackles and snapped. Sir Henry and I held out our hands to it for we were numb from the long drive. Then we gazed around us at the high thin windows of old stained glass, the oak paneling, the stag's heads, the coat of arms upon the walls, all dim and somber in the subdued light of the central lamp.

"It's just as I imagined it," said Sir Henry. "It is not the very picture of an old family home to think that this should be the same hall in which for five hundred years my people have lived. It strikes me solemn to think of it." I saw his dark face lit up with a boyish enthusiasm as he gazed about him.

The light beat upon him where he stood, but long shadows trailed down the walls and hung like a black canopy above him. Barrymore had returned from taking our luggage to our rooms. He stood in front of us now with subdued manner of a well-trained servant. He was a remarkable looking man, tall, handsome, with a square black beard and pale, distinguished features.

"Would you wish dinner to be served at once, sir?" "Is it ready?" "In a very few minutes, sir. You will find hot water in your rooms.

My wife and I will be happy," said Henry, "to stay with you until you have made your fresh arrangements. But you will understand that under the new conditions this house will require a considerable staff. What new conditions? I only meant, sir.

That's the child's lead, a very retired life, and we were able to look after his wants. You would, naturally, wish to have more company, and so you only need changes in your household. Do you mean that your wife and you wish to leave? Only when it is quite convenient to you, sir."

But your family have been with us for several generations, have they not? I should be sorry to begin the life here by breaking an old family connection. I seem to discern some signs of emotion upon the butler's white face. I feel that also, sir, and so does my wife.

But tell the truth, sir. We were both very much attached to the chiles, and his death gave us a shook and made these surroundings very painful to us. I feel that we shall never begin again to feel easy in our minds at Baskerville Hall. But what do you intend to do?

I have no doubt, sir, that we shall succeed in establishing ourselves in some business. So Charles' generosity has given us the means to do so. And now, sir, perhaps I'd best show you to your rooms. A square, bellustrated gallery ran around the top of the old hall, approached by a double stair.

From this point, two long corridors extended the whole length of the building, from which all the bedrooms opened. My own was in the same wing as Baskerville's, and almost next door to it. These rooms appear to be much more modern than the central part of the house, and the bright paper and numerous candles did something to remove somber impression, with which our rival had left upon my mind. At the dining room, which opened out of the hall, was a place of shadow and gleam.

It was a long chamber, with a step separating the dius where the family sat from the lower portion reserved for their dependents. At one end, of a minstrel's gallery overlooked it. Black beams shot across above our heads, with a smoked darkened ceiling beyond them. With rows of flaring torches, to light it up, and the colour of rude hilarity of an old time banquet, it might have softened, but now.

When two black clothed gentlemen sat in the little circle of light, thrown by a shaded lamp, one's voice became hushed and one's spirit subdued. A dim line of ancestors, in every variety of dress, from the Alitha-Beathon Knights to the buck of the regency, stared down upon us and daunted us by their silent company. We talked little, and I for one was glad when the meal was over, and we were able to retire into the modern, billiard room and smoker cigarette. My word, it isn't a very cheerful place, at Henry.

I suppose one can tone down to it, but I feel a bit out of the picture at present. I don't wonder that my angle got a little jumpy if you ever lived all alone in such a house as this. However, if it suits you, we will retire early tonight, and perhaps things may seem more cheerful in the morning. I drew aside my curtains, before I went to bed, and looked out of my window.

It opened upon the grassy space, which lay in front of the hall. Beyond, two corpses of trees moaned and swung in a rising wind. A half moon broke through the rifts of racing clouds. In its cold light, I saw beyond the trees a broken fringe of rocks, and a long, low curve of the melancholy more.

I closed the curtain, feeling that my last impression wasn't keeping with the rest. And yet, it was not quite the last. I found myself weary and yet waked from, tossing restlessly from side to side, seeking for the sleep which would not come. Far away, a chiming clock struck out the quarters of the hour, but otherwise a deathly silence lay upon the old house.

And then suddenly, in the very dead of the night, they came a sound to my ears, clear, resonant, and unmistakable. It was the sob of a woman, the muffled, strangle gasp of one who is torn by the uncontrollable sorrow. I sat up in bed and listened intently. The noise could not have been far away, and was certainly in the house.

Half an hour I waited, with every nerve on the alert. But there came no other sound, saved the chiming clock, and the rustle of the ivy on the wall.