Henry Baskerville arrives at Baskerville Hall

Henry Baskerville arrives at Baskerville Hall as its newly inherited master, determined not to be kept from his family home by either supernatural fears or human danger. The journey brings the American-raised heir face to face with the landscape and house he has never known, while the reception by Barrymore and his wife makes clear that the household still bears the shock of Sir Charles Baskerville’s death. The arrival establishes both Henry’s attachment to his inheritance and the unease that will shape his first days there.

Decision and Stakes

Before setting out, Henry rejects the suggestion that danger might prevent him from going to the home of his own people. His temper shows in his flushed face and knitted brows, but he also asks for time alone to consider what he has been told. He proposes that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson meet him for lunch later, so he can explain his decision more fully. The exchange presents the journey not as an unthinking rush into danger but as a choice made after confronting the warning and its implications.

The inheritance gives that choice substantial material stakes. James Mortimer explains that Sir Charles’s estate was worth close to a million pounds. If Henry were to die, the property would pass to the Desmonds, distant cousins; their representative, James Desmond, is an elderly clergyman in Westmoreland. Mortimer recalls him as saintly and notes that he refused a settlement Sir Charles had pressed upon him. Holmes recognizes that the fortune could make a desperate crime worth attempting, though the inheritance question does not establish who, if anyone, intends to claim it unlawfully.

Holmes asks Dr. Watson to accompany Henry to Baskerville Hall. The request surprises Watson, but Henry immediately takes his hand and asks him to see him through the visit, emphasizing that Watson knows as much about the matter as he does. Watson accepts, drawn by the promise of adventure and by the warmth of Henry’s appeal. Holmes remains behind when the two men depart, warning them to avoid the moor during the hours of darkness. His still figure watching from the platform marks a change in the investigation: Henry is going to the place where the danger is rooted, while Holmes is absent from the journey itself.

The Road to the Hall

The train carries the party through a countryside that changes visibly as they approach their destination. Brown earth gives way to ruddy ground and granite; red cattle graze among hedged fields, and the richer vegetation suggests a damper climate. Henry watches the scenery with delight, recognizing Devon and praising it after years spent travelling elsewhere. Mortimer interprets his attachment as characteristic of a Devon man, while Henry explains that the country is new to him: after his father’s death, he had gone from the South Coast to a friend in America and had never seen Baskerville Hall.

Mortimer points out Henry’s first sight of the moor from the carriage window. Beyond the green fields and a low wood, a gray, melancholy hill rises with a jagged summit, distant and indistinct. Henry fixes his gaze on it. For him, the landscape is bound to the family line that once held sway there; Watson, watching his pride and eagerness, sees a forceful descendant of the Baskervilles despite the tweed suit and American accent. The moor’s first appearance thus joins ancestry to place before Henry has reached the house itself.

At a small wayside station, a wagonette and a pair of cobs wait for the travellers. The station staff gather to handle their luggage, and two men in dark uniforms stand by the gate with short rifles. Their presence is conspicuous, although the arrival scene gives no explanation for it. The coachman salutes Henry, and the party sets off along a white road between pastureland and old houses. Behind the settled countryside, the long, gloomy sweep of the moor remains visible, its hills jagged against the evening sky.

The road climbs through old lanes banked with moss and ferns, past a granite bridge and a stream running among gray boulders. Henry responds to each turn with questions and exclamations of pleasure. Watson, by contrast, feels the melancholy of the waning year in the yellow leaves and fading light. As the wagonette rises onto the barren slopes, the fertile landscape falls behind; huge boulders and isolated stone cottages give the country a harsher aspect. Watson recalls that the escaped Notting Hill murderer is hiding somewhere on the desolate moor, and even Henry falls silent, drawing his overcoat close against the cold wind.

Arrival at Baskerville Hall

From a rise, the travellers look down into a hollow of twisted trees, where two narrow towers appear above the branches. The coachman identifies the house, and Henry stares at it with flushed cheeks and shining eyes. At the lodge gates, wrought iron and weathered pillars bear the Baskerville boars’ heads. The old lodge is ruined, its granite shell showing bare rafters; opposite it stands a partly built new structure, described as the first fruit of Sir Charles’s South African gold. The estate therefore presents inheritance in two forms at once: an ancient family seat marked by age and a visible sign of recently acquired wealth.

The wagonette enters the avenue, where the wheels fall quiet beneath the old trees. Their branches form a dark tunnel, and the house glimmers at the far end. Henry shudders at the view and asks whether this was the place connected with the death. Mortimer clarifies that the Yew Alley lies on the other side. Henry immediately imagines modern electric lamps transforming the drive, a practical response that contrasts with the oppressive darkness of the ancestral setting.

The house stands beyond a broad lawn. Its central block is heavy and ivy-covered, with ancient crenellated towers, while more modern wings of black granite extend to either side. A dull light shows through the mullioned windows; smoke rises from the chimneys. A tall man steps from the porch to welcome Henry, and a woman appears in the lit doorway to help with the luggage. Mortimer, whose wife is expecting him, declines Henry’s invitation to stay for dinner and leaves the new master in Barrymore’s care, offering to be summoned whenever his help is needed.

The Household and the First Night

Inside, Henry and Watson enter a lofty hall of age-blackened oak, with a large fireplace, stained glass, oak panelling, stags’ heads, and coats of arms. The log fire gives them warmth after the drive, but the subdued light leaves the room sombre. Henry recognizes it as the old family home he had imagined and reflects on the centuries his people have lived there. His boyish enthusiasm makes the inheritance intimate: he is not merely taking possession of an estate but entering a history he had known only at a distance.

Barrymore, the tall, distinguished butler, explains that he and his wife would be willing to stay until Henry has made fresh arrangements, though the household will need a larger staff under the new master. Sir Charles had lived a retired life, and the couple had been able to meet his needs; Henry, they assume, will want more company and a changed household. When Henry asks whether they wish to leave, Barrymore answers that they will do so only when convenient. Henry says he would be sorry to break a family connection that has lasted for generations. Barrymore’s expression betrays emotion before he explains that both he and his wife were deeply attached to Sir Charles. His death has made the surroundings painful, and they fear they will never again feel at ease at Baskerville Hall. Sir Charles’s generosity has left them able to establish themselves in a business, but their wish to leave is presented as grief rather than dissatisfaction with Henry.

The new master nevertheless finds the house cheerless and admits that he feels out of place. He wonders whether Sir Charles’s solitary life in such a building made him nervous, then proposes an early night in the hope that the rooms will seem more cheerful in the morning. Watson’s last view before bed is of the grassy space, trees moving in the rising wind, and the low curve of the moor under a cold half-moon. That landscape seems to complete the house’s oppressive impression, but the first night adds a more intimate disturbance: Watson lies awake and hears a woman sobbing somewhere inside the house, a muffled sound of intense sorrow. He listens for half an hour, but hears nothing further beyond the clock and ivy.

The unexplained crying becomes the first sign that the household’s unease is not only architectural or ancestral. Watson later observes tears on Eliza Barrymore’s face and hears a stealthy nighttime journey through the corridors. In an empty room, Barrymore holds a candle against a window and watches the dark moor; he then extinguishes it and returns down the passage. The arrival has placed Watson and Henry inside a house whose servants possess private knowledge and whose nocturnal signals are not yet understood. Only later does Eliza explain that the light was used to check whether her brother, the escaped prisoner Selden, remained hidden on the moor, with Barrymore taking him food. In retrospect, the first night’s sobbing and the candle at the window transform the apparent welcome into the opening of a domestic mystery.