a melancholy, throbbing murmur once again. It chilled my heart.
Stapleton said the peasants believed it was the sound of the Hound
of the Baskervilles calling for its prey, but he thought it was more
probably the mud settling or the water rising or a bittern booming,
and he changed the subject by pointing out at least a score of grey
circular rings of stone on the steep slope of a nearby hillside. He
said they were the homes of our neolithic ancestors who grazed cattle
on these slopes and learned to dig for tin when the bronze sword began
to supercede the stone axe.
Suddenly the naturalist broke off his description to chase a small fly
or moth, which he pursued in the direction of the Mire, zigzagging &
bounding agilely from tuft to tuft. While I watched, a woman came up
the path behind me. I assumed it was Miss Stapleton, of whose beauty
