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Far away a chiming clock struck out the quarters of the hours, but otherwise a deathly silence lay upon the old house. And then suddenly, in the very dead of the night, there came a sound to my ears, clear, resonant and unmistakable. It was the sob of a woman, the muffled, strangling gasp of one who is torn by an uncontrollable sorrow. I sat up in bed and listened intently. The noise could not have been far away and was certainly in the house. For half an hour I waited with every nerve on the alert, but there came no other sound save the chiming clock and the rustle of the ivy on the wall.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles, from The Complete Sherlock Holmes, v.II, Doubleday & Co., Inc., N.Y., 1953, p. 823.
TIME: late 19th century
PLACE: the home of the Baskervilles on the moors.
CIRCUMSTANCE: sounds at night in the cold manor on the moor
Something brown was rolling and tossing among the green sedges. Then a long, agonized, writhing neck shot upward and a dreadful cry echoed over the moor. It turned me cold with horror, but my companion's nerves seemed to be stronger than mine.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles, from The Complete Sherlock Holmes, v.II, Doubleday & Co., Inc., N.Y., 1953, p. 828.
TIME: late 19th century
PLACE: the moors
CIRCUMSTANCE: a pony is sucked up by the swamp.
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