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?

It is true that I have had only the one glance at him, and yet
there are some things to which I am ready to swear. He is no one
whom I have seen down here, and I have now met all the
neighbours. The figure was far taller than that of Stapleton, far
thinner than that of Frankland. Barrymore it might possibly have
been, but we had left him behind us, and I am certain that he
could not have followed us. A stranger then is still dogging us,
just as a stranger dogged us in London. We have never shaken him
off. If I could lay my hands upon that man, then at last we might
find ourselves at the end of all our difficulties. To this one
purpose I must now devote all my energies.

My first impulse was to tell Si