it was a large and fine room in which we found ourselves, with high ceilings supported by huge beams of dark wood.A log fire crackled and snapped in the great old fireplace.

The dining-room where we ate was a dark and gloomy place.It was a long room with a step in the middle, which separated the raised area where the family ate their meals from the lower area where the servants ate.The ceiling was stained black from the fire of the torches which had once been used to light the place, but now the only light came from a single electric lamp above the table.

In the dim light I could barely make out a row of paintings along the top of the wall, each one a picture of one of the Baskerville ancestors who had lived here over the last five hundred years.

I opened my curtains before I went to bed and looked out from my window.Out on the moor, a half-moon broke through the clouds. In its cold light I saw a broken line of rocks out beyond the trees, and the long curve of the melancholy moor.