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

that saints have never flourished in those parts, but there
was in him a certain wanton and cruel humour which made his
name a byword 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 companions, 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.

"Now, for some space the revellers stood agape, unable to
understand all that had been done in such haste. But anon
their bemused wits awoke to the nature of the deed which was
like to be done upon the moorlands. Everything was now in
an uproar, some calling for their pistols, some for their
horses, and some for another flask of wine. But at length
some sense came back to their crazed minds, and the whole of
them, thirteen in number, took horse and started in pursuit.