as does the gloomy grandeur of Baskerville Hall itself. Conan Doyle describes the house as dark and covered in ivy. There are two towers, "ancient, crenelated, and pierced with many loopholes," high chimneys and mullioned windows.

Sir Henry Baskerville observes: “It’s no wonder my uncle felt as if trouble were coming on him in such a place as this ... It’s enough to scare any man." The moors that surround the house are similarly described as dark, brooding and melancholy.

Sherlock Holmes had an unromantic view of the countryside at the best of times. In "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches," when Watson remarks on the beauty of the country through which they are travelling, Holmes replies that it fills him with horror, remarking:

The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.

In The Hound of the Baskervilles, the grim setting makes the atmosphere of hidden wickedness explicit long before Holmes uncovers the crime.

As Watson approaches the Devonshire setting of Baskerville Hall, Doyle's imagery--which is description using the five senses--helps set the scene and the mood. The description using the five senses is mixed with abstract words like "melancholy" that help us understand the emotional mood evoked by the landscape.

Some words or phrases that tell us about the countryside as the train draws nearer are as follows: "a gray, melancholy hill" and "a strange jagged summit." Watson sees the setting as follows:

dim and vague in the distance, like some fantastic landscape in a dream.

Words such as "gray," "melancholy," "strange," "jagged, and "dim" might give us an uneasy feeling about this particular setting. It sounds anything but bright, light, and cheerful.

We also learn of the "gloomy curve of the moor" and "the jagged and sinister hills," which reinforces the mood of foreboding. As the travelers approach Baskerville Hall, autumn is depicted as a grim and unpleasant, rather than a lovely season. One example is the image of the "rotting vegetation" on the ground. A "cold wind" sweeps down from the moor. The moor is described as a "desolate plain," and "barren waste," both inhospitable images. Other negative imagery includes "stunted oaks and firs."

When Watson first sees Baskerville Hall, it is describes as a creepy, unsettling, Gothic place. The lodge they pass is "a ruin of black granite," and the trees that tower overhead leading the main house create a "sombre tunnel." Baskerville "shudder[s]" as he views the house, which looks like a "ghost."

With all this description of an inhospitable locale, we can expect a scary, eery story to unfold.