47899    CHAPTER 10 : Extract from the Diary of Dr Watson

47900    So far I have been able to quote from the reports which I have forwarded during these early days to Sherlock Holmes.

47901    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.

47902    A few extracts from the latter will carry me on to those scenes which are indelibly fixed in every detail upon my memory.

47903    I proceed, then, from the morning which followed our abortive chase of the convict and our other strange experiences upon the moor.

47904    October 16th - A dull and foggy day, with a drizzle of rain.

47905    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.

47906    It is melancholy outside and in.

47907    The baronet is in a black reaction after the excitements of the night.

47908    I am conscious myself of a weight at my heart and a feeling of impending danger - ever-present, which is the more terrible because I am unable to define it.

47909    And have I not cause for such a feeling?

47910    Consider the long sequence of incidents which have all pointed to some sinister influence which is at work around us.

47911    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.

47912    Twice I have with my own ears heard the sound which resembled the distant, baying of a hound.

47913    It is incredible, impossible, that it should really be outside the ordinary laws of Nature.