 certainly making some progress. So far as the Barrymores go
we have found the motive of their actions, and that has cleared up the situation
very much. But the moor with its mysteries and its strange inhabitants remains
as inscrutable as ever. Perhaps in my next I may be able to throw some light
upon this also. Best of all would it be if you could come down to us. In any
case you will hear from me again in the course of the next few days.
 

                                   Chapter X

                      Extract from the Diary of Dr. Watson

So far I have been able to quote from the reports which I have forwarded during
these early days to Sherlock Holmes. Now, however, I have arrived at a point in
my narrative where I am compelled to abandon this method and to trust once more
to my recollections, aided by the diary which I kept at the time. A few extracts
from the latter will carry me on to those scenes which are indelibly fixed in
every detail upon my memory. I proceed, then, from the morning which followed
our abortive chase of the convict and our other strange experiences upon the
moor.
    October 16th. A dull and foggy day with a drizzle of rain. The house is
banked in with rolling clouds, which rise now and then to show the dreary curves
of the moor, with thin, silver veins upon the sides of the hills, and the
distant boulders gleaming where the light strikes upon their wet faces. It is
melancholy outside and in. The baronet is in a black reaction after the
excitements of the night. I am conscious myself of a weight at my heart and a
feeling of impending danger - ever present danger, which is the more terrible
because I am unable to define it.
    And have I not cause for such a feeling? Consider the long sequence of
incidents which have all pointed to some sinister influence which is at work
around us. There is the death of the last occupant of the Hall, fulfilling so
exactly the conditions of the family legend, and there are the repeated reports
from peasants of the appearance of a strange creature upon the moor. Twice I
have with my own ears heard the sound which resembled the distant baying of a
hound. It is incredible, impossible, that it should really be outside the
ordinary laws of nature. A spectral hound which leaves material footmarks and
fills the air with its howling is surely not to be thought of. Stapleton may
fall in with such a superstition, and Mortimer also; but if I have one quality
upon earth it is common sense, and nothing will persuade me to believe in
