The Confabulannotated Sherlock Holmes, Chapter 2.6
Featuring portrait taxes, Letterboxd tagging and the Rolling Stones
NOTE: If you have received this via email, you may find it easier to read the confabulannotations online by clicking on the title above.
Previously on my confabulannotations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mystery, The Hound of the Baskervilles: Dr Mortimer’s story reached the brink of something horrific
And now, the story continues…
“The company had come to a halt, more sober men, as you may guess, than when they started. The most of them would by no means advance, but three of them, the boldest, or it may be the most drunken, rode forward down the goyal. Now, it opened into a broad space in which stood two of those great stones1, still to be seen there, which were set by certain forgotten peoples2 in the days of old. The moon was shining bright upon the clearing, and there in the centre lay the unhappy maid where she had fallen, dead of fear and of fatigue. But it was not the sight of her body, nor yet was it that of the body of Hugo Baskerville lying near her, which raised the hair upon the heads of these three daredevil roysterers3, but it was that, standing over Hugo, and plucking at his throat, there stood a foul thing, a great, black beast, shaped like a hound, yet larger than any hound that ever mortal eye has rested upon4. And even as they looked the thing tore the throat out of Hugo Baskerville, on which, as it turned its blazing eyes and dripping jaws5 upon them, the three shrieked with fear and rode for dear life, still screaming, across the moor. One, it is said, died that very night of what he had seen6, and the other twain were but broken men for the rest of their days.
“Such is the tale, my sons, of the coming of the hound which is said to have plagued the family7 so sorely ever since. If I have set it down it is because that which is clearly known hath less terror than that which is but hinted at and guessed. Nor can it be denied that many of the family have been unhappy in their deaths, which have been sudden, bloody, and mysterious8. Yet may we shelter ourselves in the infinite goodness of Providence, which would not forever punish the innocent beyond that third or fourth generation9 which is threatened in Holy Writ. To that Providence, my sons, I hereby commend you, and I counsel you by way of caution to forbear from crossing the moor in those dark hours when the powers of evil are exalted.
“This from Hugo Baskerville to his sons Rodger and John, with instructions that they say nothing thereof to their sister Elizabeth10.”
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
1960s music critics.
A ‘roysterer’ was one who enjoyed the collection and preserving of wildflowers. A ‘daredevil roysterer’, then, was one who did so without a net.
Many Holmes scholars believe the ‘hound’ to be clumsy symbolism for the financial debts accrued by many noblemen via the ‘portrait tax’. This unpopular tariff on painted likenesses was originally levied by King William III as a means of minimising interaction between artists and the aristocracy. “We shall levy a ruinous tax to purge this land of any notion of an 'artistocracy’,” he famously decreed, before beheading four men of his court who proved insufficiently appreciative of his wordplay.
Other Holmes scholars find that this subsequent passage leads them more to believe that the ‘hound’ is, in fact, a giant fucking wolf creature.
Although he also had smallpox, a fact Conan Doyle glosses over.
Although, again, possibly also smallpox.
Coincidentally, ‘sudden’, ‘bloody’ and ‘mysterious’ are the three most common tags employed by Letterboxd users to describe the films of Quentin Tarantino. ‘Footploitation’ is fourth.
‘Do not forever punish the innocent beyond that third or fourth generation’ is also Apple’s stated policy on iPhone models, which is good news for anybody who misses the headphone jack.
Was Hugo Baskerville protecting his daughter from a horrific burden that he knew she was ill-equipped to bear? Or was she a renowned blabbermouth who’d be spreading the family’s hound-based secrets across all of London given half the chance? Or was this belief that the sons should hear the story but not the daughter just a further example of the entrenched misogyny of the era?
Yes.