The wagonette swung upward through deep lanes worn by centuries of
wheels, high banks on either side, heavy with dripping moss &
fleshy heart's-tongue ferns. Bronzing bracken & mottled brambles
gleamed in the light of the sinking sun. Still steadily rising, we
passed over a narrow granite bridge and skirted a noisy stream,
foaming & roaring amid the grey boulders, as we wound up through a
valley dense with scrub oak & fir. To Sir Henry's eyes all seemed
beautiful, but the yellow leaves carpeting the lanes & the rotting
vegetation seemed to me sad gifts for Nature to throw before the
carriage of the returning heir of the Baskervilles.
At one point, on the summit of a steep curve of heath-clad land, we
saw a mounted soldier, his rifle poised over his forearm, watching the
road. Perkins, the coachman, said that a convict had escaped
