"Doyle, Arthur Conan - Hound Of The Baskervilles" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doyle Arthur Conan)

those foul passions whereby our family has suffered so
grievously may not again be loosed to our undoing.
"Know then that in the time of the Great Rebellion (the
history of which by the learned Lord Clarendon I most
earnestly commend to your attention) this Manor of Basker-
ville was held by Hugo of that name, nor can it be gainsaid
that he was a most wild, profane, and godless man. This, in
truth, his neighbours might have pardoned, seeing that saints
have never flourished in those parts, but there was in him a
certain wanton and cruel humour which made his name a by-
word through the West. It chanced that this Hugo came to
love (if, indeed, so dark a passion may be known under so
bright a name) the daughter of a yeoman who held lands
near the Baskerville estate. But the young maiden, being
discreet and of good repute, would ever avoid him, for she
feared his evil name. So it came to pass that one Michaelmas
this Hugo, with five or six of his idle and wicked compan-
ions, stole down upon the farm and carried off the maiden,
her father and brothers being from home, as he well knew.
When they had brought her to the Hall the maiden was
placed in an upper chamber, while Hugo and his friends sat
down to a long carouse, as was their nightly custom. Now,
the poor lass upstairs was like to have her wits turned at the
singing and shouting and terrible oaths which came up to
her from below, for they say that the words used by Hugo
Baskerville, when he was in wine, were such as might blast
the man who said them. At last in the stress of her fear she
did that which might have daunted the bravest or most
active man, for by the aid of the growth of ivy which
covered (and still covers) the south wall she came down
from under the eaves, and so homeward across the moor,
there being three leagues betwixt the Hall and her father's
farm.
"It chanced that some little time later Hugo left his
guests to carry food and drink -- with other worse things,
perchance -- to his captive, and so found the cage empty and
the bird escaped. Then, as it would seem, he became as one
that hath a devil, for, rushing down the stairs into the
dining-hall, he sprang upon the great table, flagons and
trenchers flying before him, and he cried aloud before all
the company that he would that very night render his body
and soul to the Powers of Evil if he might but overtake the
wench. And while the revellers stood aghast at the fury of
the man, one more wicked or, it may be, more drunken than
the rest, cried out that they should put the hounds upon her
Whereat Hugo ran from the house, crying to his grooms
that they should saddle his mare and unkennel the pack, and
giving the hounds a kerchief of the maid's, he swung them
to the line, and so off full cry in the moonlight over the
moor.