'I was a girl in my 'teens at the time of my mother's death, and had never seen the Hall, for she lived in a little cottage on the South Coast. Thence 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'm as keen as possible to see the moor.'
'Are you? Then your wish is easily granted, for there is your first sight of the moor,' said Dr. Mortimer, pointing out of the carriage window.
Over the green squares of the fields and the low curve of a wood there rose in the distance a gray, melancholy hill, with a strange jagged summit, dim and vague in the distance, like some fantastic landscape in a dream. Baskerville sat for a long time, her eyes fixed upon it, and I read upon her eager face how much it meant to her, this first sight of that strange spot where the women of her blood had held sway so long and left their mark so deep. There she sat, with her tweed suit and her American accent, in the corner of a prosaic railway-carriage, and yet as I looked at her dark and expressive face I felt more than ever how true a descendant she was of that long line of high-blooded, fiery, and masterful women. There were pride, valour, and strength in her thick brows, her sensitive nostrils, and her large hazel eyes. If on that forbidding moor a difficult and dangerous quest should lie before us, this was at least a comrade for whom one might venture to take a risk with the certainty that she 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 station-master and porters clustered round 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 women in dark uniforms, who leaned upon their short rifles and glanced keenly at us as we passed. The coachwoman, a hard-faced, gnarled little fellow, saluted Lady Henrietta Baskerville, and in a few minutes we were flying swiftly down the broad, white road. Rolling pasture lands curved upward on either side of us, and old gabled houses peeped out from amid the thick green foliage, but behind the peaceful and sunlit country-side there rose ever, dark against the evening sky, the long, gloomy curve of the moor, broken by the jagged 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 dripping moss and fleshy hart's-tongue 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 roaring amid the gray boulders. Both road and stream wound up through a valley dense with scrub oak and fir. At every turn Baskerville gave an exclamation of delight, looking eagerly about her and asking countless questions. To her eyes all seemed beautiful, but to me a tinge of melancholy lay upon the country-side, 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 drifts of rotting vegetation--sad gifts, as it seemed to me, for Nature to throw before the carriage 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, her rifle poised ready over her forearm. She was watching the road along which we travelled.
'What is this, Perkins?' asked Dr. Mortimer.
Our driver half turned in her seat.
'There's a convict escaped from Princetown, sir. She's been out three days now, and the warders watch every road and every station, but they've had no sight of her yet. The farmers about here don't like it, lady, and that's a fact.'
'Well, I understand that they get five pounds if they can give information.'
'Yes, lady, 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 like any ordinary convict. This is a woman that would stick at nothing.'
'Who is she, 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 her death sentence had been due to some doubts as to her complete sanity, so atrocious was her conduct. Our wagonette had topped a rise and in front of us rose the huge expanse of the moor, mottled with gnarled and craggy cairns and tors. A cold wind swept down from it and set us shivering. Somewhere there, on that desolate plain, was lurking this fiendish woman, hiding in a burrow like a wild beast, her heart full of malignancy against the whole race which had cast her out. It needed but this to complete the grim suggestiveness of the barren waste, the chilling wind, and the darkling sky. Even Baskerville fell silent and pulled her overcoat more closely around her.
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 streams to threads of gold and glowing 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 moorland cottage, walled and roofed with stone, with no creeper to break its harsh outline. Suddenly we looked down into a cup-like depression, patched with stunted oaks and firs which had been twisted and bent by the fury of years of storm. Two high, narrow towers rose over the trees. The driver pointed with her whip.
'Baskerville Hall,' said she.
Its mistress had risen and was staring with flushed cheeks and shining eyes. A few minutes later we had reached the lodge-gates, a maze of fantastic tracery in wrought iron, with weather-bitten pillars on either side, blotched with lichens, and surmounted by the boars' heads of the Baskervilles. The lodge was a ruin of black granite and bared ribs of rafters, but facing it was a new building, half constructed, the first fruit of Lady Charlotte's South African gold.
Through the gateway we 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 she looked up the long, dark drive to where the house glimmered like a ghost at the farther end.
'Was it here?' she 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 aunt felt as if trouble were coming on her in such a place as this,' said she. 'It's enough to scare any woman. I'll have a row of electric lamps up here inside of six months, and you won't know it again, with a thousand candle-power Swan 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 a window or a coat-of-arms broke through the dark veil. >From this central block rose the twin towers, ancient, crenelated, and pierced with many loopholes. To right and left of the turrets were more modern wings of black granite. A dull light shone through heavy mullioned windows, and from the high chimneys which rose from the steep, high-angled roof there sprang a single black column of smoke.
'Welcome, Lady Henrietta! Welcome to Baskerville Hall!'
A tall woman had stepped from the shadow of the porch to open the door of the wagonette. The figure of a man was silhouetted against the yellow light of the hall. He came out and helped the woman to hand down our bags.
'You don't mind my driving straight home, Lady Henrietta?' said Dr. Mortimer. 'My husband 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. Good-bye, and never hesitate night or day to send for me if I can be of service.'