The Hound of the Baskervilles: From Watson's Diary

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 such a thing. To do so would be to descend to
the level of these poor peasants, who are not content with a mere
fiend dog but must needs describe him with hell-fire shooting
from his mouth and eyes. Holmes would not listen to such fancies,
and I am his agent. But facts are facts, and I have twice heard
this crying upon the moor. Suppose that there were really some
huge hound loose upon it; that would go far to explain
everything. But where could such a hound lie concealed, where did
it get its food, where did it come from, how was it that no one
saw it by day? It must be confessed that the natural explanation
offers almost as many difficulties as the other. And always,
apart from the hound, there is the fact of the human agency in
London, the man in the cab, and the letter which warned Sir Henry
against the moor. This at least was real, but it might have been
the work of a protecting friend as easily as of an enemy. Where
is that friend or enemy now? Has he remained in London, or has he
followed us down here? Could he—could he be the stranger whom I
saw upon the tor?