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was it here ?

no no the yew alley is on the other side .

its no wonder my uncle felt as if trouble were coming on him in such a place as this its enough to scare any man . ill have a row of electric lamps up here inside of six months and you wont know it again with a thousand candlepower swan and edison right here in front of the hall door .

you dont mind my driving straight home sir henry ? 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 be a better guide than i . goodbye and never hesitate night or day to send for me if i can be of service .

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 sir 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 sir charles led a very retired life and we were able to look after his wants . you would naturally wish to have more company and so you will 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 my life here by breaking an old family connection .

i feel that also sir and so does my wife . but to tell the truth sir we were both very much attached to sir charles and his death gave us a shock and made these surroundings very painful to us . i fear that we shall never again be 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 . sir charless generosity has given us the means to do so . and now sir perhaps i had best show you to your rooms .

i guess it is ourselves and not the house that we have to blame ! we were tired with our journey and chilled by our drive so we took a grey view of the place . now we are fresh and well so it is all cheerful once more .

and yet it was not entirely a question of imagination did you for example happen to hear someone a woman i think sobbing in the night ?

that is curious for i did when i was half asleep fancy that i heard something of the sort . i waited quite a time but there was no more of it so i concluded that it was all a dream .

i heard it distinctly and i am sure that it was really the sob of a woman .

we must ask about this right away .

certainly sir i had the telegram delivered to mr . barrymore exactly as directed .

who delivered it ?

my boy here . james you delivered that telegram to mr . barrymore at the hall last week did you not ?

yes father i delivered it .

into his own hands ?

well he was up in the loft at the time so that i could not put it into his own hands but i gave it into mrs . barrymores hands and she promised to deliver it at once .

did you see mr . barrymore ?

no sir i tell you he was in the loft .

if you didnt see him how do you know he was in the loft ?

well surely his own wife ought to know where he is didnt he get the telegram ? if there is any mistake it is for mr . barrymore himself to complain .

you will i am sure excuse my presumption dr . watson here on the moor we are homely folk and do not wait for formal introductions . you may possibly have heard my name from our mutual friend mortimer . i am stapleton of merripit house .

your net and box would have told me as much for i knew that mr . stapleton was a naturalist . but how did you know me ?

i have been calling on mortimer and he pointed you out to me from the window of his surgery as you passed . as our road lay the same way i thought that i would overtake you and introduce myself . i trust that sir henry is none the worse for his journey ?

he is very well thank you .

we were all rather afraid that after the sad death of sir charles the new baronet might refuse to live here . it is asking much of a wealthy man to come down and bury himself in a place of this kind but i need not tell you that it means a very great deal to the countryside . sir henry has i suppose no superstitious fears in the matter ?

i do not think that it is likely .

of course you know the legend of the fiend dog which haunts the family ?

i have heard it .

it is extraordinary how credulous the peasants are about here ! any number of them are ready to swear that they have seen such a creature upon the moor . the story took a great hold upon the imagination of sir charles and i have no doubt that it led to his tragic end .

but how ?

his nerves were so worked up that the appearance of any dog might have had a fatal effect upon his diseased heart . i fancy that he really did see something of the kind upon that last night in the yew alley . i feared that some disaster might occur for i was very fond of the old man and i knew that his heart was weak .

how did you know that ?

my friend mortimer told me .

you think then that some dog pursued sir charles and that he died of fright in consequence ?

have you any better explanation ?

i have not come to any conclusion .

has mr . sherlock holmes ?

it is useless for us to pretend that we do not know you dr . watson the records of your detective have reached us here and you could not celebrate him without being known yourself . when mortimer told me your name he could not deny your identity . if you are here then it follows that mr . sherlock holmes is interesting himself in the matter and i am naturally curious to know what view he may take .

i am afraid that i can not answer that question .

may i ask if he is going to honour us with a visit himself ?

he can not leave town at present . he has other cases which engage his attention .

what a pity ! he might throw some light on that which is so dark to us . but as to your own researches if there is any possible way in which i can be of service to you i trust that you will command me . if i had any indication of the nature of your suspicions or how you propose to investigate the case i might perhaps even now give you some aid or advice .

i assure you that i am simply here upon a visit to my friend sir henry and that i need no help of any kind .

excellent ! you are perfectly right to be wary and discreet . i am justly reproved for what i feel was an unjustifiable intrusion and i promise you that i will not mention the matter again .

it is a wonderful place the moor you never tire of the moor . you can not think the wonderful secrets which it contains . it is so vast and so barren and so mysterious .

you know it well then ?

i have only been here two years . the residents would call me a newcomer . we came shortly after sir charles settled . but my tastes led me to explore every part of the country round and i should think that there are few men who know it better than i do .

is it hard to know ?

very hard . you see for example this great plain to the north here with the queer hills breaking out of it . do you observe anything remarkable about that ?

it would be a rare place for a gallop .

you would naturally think so and the thought has cost several their lives before now . you notice those bright green spots scattered thickly over it ?

yes they seem more fertile than the rest .

that is the great grimpen mire a false step yonder means death to man or beast . only yesterday i saw one of the moor ponies wander into it . he never came out . i saw his head for quite a long time craning out of the boghole but it sucked him down at last . even in dry seasons it is a danger to cross it but after these autumn rains it is an awful place . and yet i can find my way to the very heart of it and return alive . by george there is another of those miserable ponies !

its gone ! the mire has him . two in two days and many more perhaps for they get in the way of going there in the dry weather and never know the difference until the mire has them in its clutches . its a bad place the great grimpen mire .

and you say you can penetrate it ?

yes there are one or two paths which a very active man can take . i have found them out .

but why should you wish to go into so horrible a place ?

well you see the hills beyond ? they are really islands cut off on all sides by the impassable mire which has crawled round them in the course of years . that is where the rare plants and the butterflies are if you have the wit to reach them .

i shall try my luck some day .

for gods sake put such an idea out of your mind your blood would be upon my head . i assure you that there would not be the least chance of your coming back alive . it is only by remembering certain complex landmarks that i am able to do it .

halloa ! what is that ?

queer place the moor !

but what is it ?

the peasants say it is the hound of the baskervilles calling for its prey . ive heard it once or twice before but never quite so loud .

you are an educated man . you dont believe such nonsense as that ? what do you think is the cause of so strange a sound ?

bogs make queer noises sometimes . its the mud settling or the water rising or something .

no no that was a living voice .

well perhaps it was . did you ever hear a bittern booming ?

no i never did .

its a very rare birdpractically extinctin england now but all things are possible upon the moor . yes i should not be surprised to learn that what we have heard is the cry of the last of the bitterns .

its the weirdest strangest thing that ever i heard in my life .

yes its rather an uncanny place altogether . look at the hillside yonder . what do you make of those ?

what are they ? sheeppens ?

but it is quite a town . when was it inhabited ?

neolithic manno date .

what did he do ?