The Hound of the Baskervilles Part 12 (1/2)
Over the green squares of the fields and the low curve of a wood there rose in the distance a gray, ue in the distance, like so tier face how e spot where theand left their mark so deep There he sat, with his tweed suit and his Ae, and yet as I looked at his dark and expressive face I feltline of high-blooded, fiery, and th in his thick brows, his sensitive nostrils, and his large hazel eyes If on that forbidding erous quest should lie before us, this was at least a coht 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 lohite fence, a wagonette with a pair of cobs aiting Our coreat event, for station-age It was a sweet, simple country spot, but I was surprised to observe that by the gate there stood two soldierly lanced keenly at us as we passed The coachnarled little fellow, saluted Sir Henry Baskerville, and in a fewswiftly down the broad, white road Rolling pasture lands curved upward on either side of us, and old gabled houses peeped out froe, but behind the peaceful and sunlit countryside there rose ever, dark against the evening sky, the long, glooed and sinister hills
The wagonette swung round into a side road, and we curved upward through deep lanes worn by centuries of wheels, high banks on either side, heavy with drippingbracken andsun Still steadily rising, we passed over a narrow granite bridge and skirted a noisy strearay boulders Both road and streah a valley dense with scrub oak and fir At every turn Baskerville gave an excla countless questions To his eyes all seee of melancholy lay upon the countryside, which bore so clearly theyear
Yellow leaves carpeted the lanes and fluttered down upon us as we passed The rattle of our wheels died away as we drove through drifts of rotting vegetation--sad gifts, as it seee of the returning heir of the 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 equestrian statue upon its pedestal, was a mounted soldier, dark and stern, his rifle poised ready over his forear 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 been out three days now, and the warders watch every road and every station, but they've had no sight of him yet The farmers about here don't like it, sir, and that's a fact”
”Well, I understand that they get five pounds if they can give information”
”Yes, sir, but the chance of five pounds is but a poor thing co your throat cut You see, it isn't like any ordinary convict This is a ”
”Who is he, then?”
”It is Selden, the Notting Hill murderer”
I remembered the case well, for it was one in which Holmes had taken an interest on account of the peculiar ferocity of the crime and the wanton 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 coonette had topped a rise and in front of us rose the huge expanse of the y cairns and tors A cold wind swept down fro So this fiendishin a burrow like a wild beast, his heart full of ainst the whole race which had cast hiestiveness of the barren waste, the chilling wind, and the darkling sky Even Baskerville fell silent and pulled his overcoat more closely around him
We had left the fertile country behind and beneath us We looked back on it now, the slanting rays of a low sun turning the strea on the red earth new turned by the plough 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 e, walled and roofed with stone, with no creeper to break its harsh outline Suddenly we looked down into a cuplike depression, patched with stunted oaks and firs which had been twisted and bent by the fury of years of storh, narroers rose over the trees The driver pointed with his whip
”Baskerville Hall,” said he
Itswith flushed cheeks and shi+ning eyes A few ates, a ht iron, eather-bitten pillars on either side, blotched with lichens, and sure was a ruin of black granite 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 gatee passed into the avenue, where the wheels were again hushed amid the leaves, and the old trees shot their branches in a sombre tunnel over our heads Baskerville shuddered as he looked up the long, dark drive to where the house glihost 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 wonderon hih to scare any man I'll have a row of electric laain, with a thousand candle-poan and 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 that the centre was a heavy block of building from which a porch projected The whole front was draped in ivy, with a patch clipped bare here and there where aor a coat of arh the dark veil From this central block rose the twin towers, ancient, crenelated, and pierced with ht and left of the turrets were ht shone through heavy h chi a single black column of smoke