The gibbous moon sailed through a sky of thin cloud, and light fell dimly upon the open spaces, but sparkled in the great darkness of evergreen things about the garden. Earth rolled night-hidden to the southern hills, and its breast was touched with sparks of flame, where glimmered those few habitations visible from this place. A lattice of naked boughs meshed the moonlight under the slope of the hill, and from beneath their shadows ascended a moving thread of men and boys. They broke the stillness with speech and laughter, and their red lantern-light struck to right and left and killed the wan moonshine as they came. "What's toward now?" asked Mr. Baskerville, staring blankly before him. "Why," cried Susan, "'tis the carol-singers without a doubt! They'll want an ocean of beer presently, and where shall us get it from?" "Coming to me--coming to sing to _me_!" he mumbled. "Good God, a thing far beyond my utmost thought is this!" The crowd rolled clattering up, and the woman stayed to welcome them; but the man ran back into his house, sat down in his chair, bent forward to listen and clasped his hands tightly between his knees. Acute emotion marked his countenance; but this painful tension passed when out of the night there rolled the melodious thunder of an ancient tune. "Singing for me!" he murmured many times while the old song throbbed.