Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places. For them are the
catacombs
of Ptolemais, and the carven mausolea of the nightmare countries. They
climb to the moonlit towers of ruined Rhine castles, and falter down
black cobwebbed steps beneath the scattered stones of forgotten cities
in Asia. The haunted wood and the desolate mountain are their shrines,
and they linger around the sinister monoliths on uninhabited islands.
But the true epicure in the terrible, to whom a new thrill of
unutterable ghastliness is the chief end and justification of existence,
esteems most of all the ancient, lonely farmhouses of backwoods New
England; for there the dark elements of strength, solitude,
grotesqueness and ignorance combine to form the perfection of the
hideous.
Most horrible of all sights are the little unpainted wooden houses
remote
from travelled ways, usually squatted upon some damp grassy slope or
leaning against some gigantic outcropping of rock. Two hundred years and
more they have leaned or squatted there, while the vines have crawled
and the trees have swelled and spread. They are almost hidden now in
lawless luxuriances of green and guardian shrouds of shadow; but the
small-paned windows still stare shockingly, as if blinking through a
lethal stupor which wards off madness by dulling the memory of
unutterable things.
In such houses have dwelt generations of strange people, whose like the
world has never seen. Seized with a gloomy and fanatical belief which
exiled
them from their kind, their ancestors sought the wilderness for freedom.
There
the scions of a conquering race indeed flourished free from the
restrictions of
their fellows, but cowered in an appalling slavery to the dismal
phantasms of
their own minds. Divorced from the enlightenment of civilization, the
strength
of these Puritans turned into singular channels; and in their isolation,
morbid
self-repression, and struggle for life with relentless Nature, there
came to
them dark furtive traits from the prehistoric depths of their cold
Northern
heritage. By necessity practical and by philosophy stern, these folks
were not
beautiful in their sins. Erring as all mortals must, they were forced by
their
rigid code to seek concealment above all else; so that they came to use
less and less taste in what they concealed. Only the silent, sleepy,
staring houses in
the backwoods can tell all that has lain hidden since the early days,
and they
are not communicative, being loath to shake off the drowsiness which
helps them forget. Sometimes one feels that it would be merciful to tear
down these houses, for they must often dream.
It was to a time-battered edifice of this description that I was driven
one
afternoon in November, 1896, by a rain of such chilling copiousness that
any
shelter was preferable to exposure. I had been travelling for some time
amongst the people of the Miskatonic Valley in quest of certain
genealogical data; and from the remote, devious, and problematical
nature of my course, had deemed it convenient to employ a bicycle
despite the lateness of the season. Now I found myself upon an
apparently abandoned road which I had chosen as the shortest cut to
Arkham, overtaken by the storm at a point far from any town, and
confronted with no refuge save the antique and repellent wooden building
which blinked with bleared windows from between two huge leafless elms
near the foot of a rocky hill. Distant though it is from the remnant of
a road, this house none the less impressed me unfavorably the very
moment I espied it. Honest, wholesome structures do not stare at
travelers so slyly and hauntingly, and in my genealogical researches I
had encountered legends of a century before which biased me against
places of this kind. Yet the force of the elements was such as to
overcome my scruples, and I did not hesitate to wheel my machine up the
weedy rise to the closed door which seemed at once so suggestive and
secretive.
I had somehow taken it for granted that the house was abandoned, yet as
I
approached it I was not so sure, for though the walks were indeed
overgrown with weeds, they seemed to retain their nature a little too
well to argue complete desertion. Therefore instead of trying the door I
knocked, feeling as I did so a trepidation I could scarcely explain. As
I waited on the rough, mossy rock which served as a door-step, I glanced
at the neighboring windows and the panes of the transom above me, and
noticed that although old, rattling, and almost opaque with dirt, they
were not broken. The building, then, must still be inhabited, despite
its isolation and general neglect. However, my rapping evoked no
response, so after repeating the summons I tried the rusty latch and
found the door unfastened. Inside was a little vestibule with walls from
which the plaster was falling, and through the doorway came a faint but
peculiarly hateful odor. I entered, carrying my bicycle, and closed the
door behind me. Ahead rose a narrow staircase, flanked by a small door
probably leading to the cellar, while to the left and right were closed
doors leading to rooms on the ground floor.
Leaning my cycle against the wall I opened the door at the left, and
crossed
into a small low-ceiled chamber but dimly lighted by its two dusty
windows and
furnished in the barest and most primitive possible way. It appeared to
be a
kind of sitting-room, for it had a table and several chairs, and an
immense
fireplace above which ticked an antique clock on a mantel. Books and
papers were very few, and in the prevailing gloom I could not readily
discern the titles.
What interested me was the uniform air of archaism as displayed in every
visible detail. Most of the houses in this region I had found rich in
relics of the
past, but here the antiquity was curiously complete; for in all the room
I could
not discover a single article of definitely post-revolutionary date. Had
the
furnishings been less humble, the place would have been a collector's
paradise.
As I surveyed this quaint apartment, I felt an increase in that aversion
first excited by the bleak exterior of the house. Just what it was that
I feared
or loathed, I could by no means define; but something in the whole
atmosphere
seemed redolent of unhallowed age, of unpleasant crudeness, and of
secrets which should be forgotten. I felt disinclined to sit down, and
wandered about
examining the various articles which I had noticed. The first object of
my
curiosity was a book of medium size lying upon the table and presenting
such an antediluvian aspect that I marveled at beholding it outside a
museum or
library. It was bound in leather with metal fittings, and was in an
excellent
state of preservation; being altogether an unusual sort of volume to
encounter
in an abode so lowly. When I opened it to the title page my wonder grew
even
greater, for it proved to be nothing less rare than Pigafetta's account
of the
Congo region, written in Latin from the notes of the sailor Lopex and
printed at
Frankfurt in 1598. I had often heard of this work, with its curious
illustrations by the brothers De Bry, hence for a moment forgot my
uneasiness in my desire to turn the pages before me. The engravings were
indeed interesting, drawn wholly from imagination and careless
descriptions, and represented negroes
with white skins and Caucasian features; nor would I soon have closed
the book had not an exceedingly trivial circumstance upset my tired
nerves and revived my sensation of disquiet. What annoyed me was merely
the persistent way in which the volume tended to fall open of itself at
Plate XII, which represented in gruesome detail a butcher's shop of the
cannibal Anziques. I experienced some shame at my susceptibility to so
slight a thing, but the drawing nevertheless disturbed me, especially in
connection with some adjacent passages descriptive of Anzique
gastronomy.
I had turned to a neighboring shelf and was examining its meager
literary
contents - an eighteenth century Bible, a "Pilgrim's Progress" of like
period,
illustrated with grotesque woodcuts and printed by the almanack-maker
Isaiah
Thomas, the rotting bulk of Cotton Mather's "Magnalia Christi
Americana," and a few other books of evidently equal age - when my
attention was aroused by the unmistakable sound of walking in the room
overhead. At first astonished and startled, considering the lack of
response to my recent knocking at the door, I immediately afterward
concluded that the walker had just awakened from a sound sleep, and
listened with less surprise as the footsteps sounded on the creaking
stairs. The tread was heavy, yet seemed to contain a curious quality of
cautiousness; a quality which I disliked the more because the tread was
heavy. When I had entered the room I had shut the door behind me. Now,
after a moment of silence during which the walker may have been
inspecting my bicycle in the hall, I heard a fumbling at the latch and
saw the paneled portal swing open
again.
In the doorway stood a person of such singular appearance that I should
have
exclaimed aloud but for the restraints of good breeding. Old,
white-bearded, and ragged, my host possessed a countenance and physique
which inspired equal wonder and respect. His height could not have been
less than six feet, and despite a general air of age and poverty he was
stout and powerful in proportion. His face, almost hidden by a long
beard which grew high on the cheeks, seemed abnormally ruddy and less
wrinkled than one might expect; while over a high forehead fell a shock
of white hair little thinned by the years. His blue eyes, though a
trifle bloodshot, seemed inexplicably keen and burning. But for his
horrible unkemptness the man would have been as distinguished-looking as
he was impressive. This unkemptness, however, made him offensive despite
his face and figure. Of what his clothing consisted I could hardly tell,
for it seemed to me no more than a mass of tatters surmounting a pair of
high, heavy boots; and his lack of cleanliness surpassed description.
The appearance of this man, and the instinctive fear he inspired,
prepared
me for something like enmity; so that I almost shuddered through
surprise and a sense of uncanny incongruity when he motioned me to a
chair and addressed me in a thin, weak voice full of fawning respect and
ingratiating hospitality. His speech was very curious, an extreme form
of Yankee dialect I had thought long extinct; and I studied it closely
as he sat down opposite me for conversation.
"Ketched in the rain, be ye?" he greeted. "Glad ye was nigh the haouse
en'
hed the sense ta come right in. I calc'late I was alseep, else I'd a
heerd ye-I
ain't as young as I uster be, an' I need a paowerful sight o' naps
naowadays.
Trav'lin fur? I hain't seed many folks 'long this rud sence they tuk off
the
Arkham stage."
I replied that I was going to Arkham, and apologized for my rude entry
into
his domicile, whereupon he continued.
"Glad ta see ye, young Sir - new faces is source arount here, an' I
hain't
got much ta cheer me up these days. Guess yew hail from Bosting, don't
ye? I
never ben thar, but I kin tell a taown man when I see 'im - we hed one
fer
deestrick schoolmaster in 'eighty-four, but he quit suddent an' no one
never
heerd on 'im sence - " here the old man lapsed into a kind of chuckle,
and made no explanation when I questioned him. He seemed to be in an
aboundingly good humor, yet to possess those eccentricities which one
might guess from his grooming. For some time he rambled on with an
almost feverish geniality, when it struck me to ask him how he came by
so rare a book as Pigafetta's "Regnum Congo." The effect of this volume
had not left me, and I felt a certain hesitancy in speaking of it, but
curiosity overmastered all the vague fears which had steadily
accumulated since my first glimpse of the house. To my relief, the
question did not seem an awkward one, for the old man answered freely
and volubly.
"Oh, that Afriky book? Cap'n Ebenezer Holt traded me thet in
'sixty-eight -
him as was kilt in the war." Something about the name of Ebenezer Holt
caused me to look up sharply. I had encountered it in my genealogical
work, but not in any record since the Revolution. I wondered if my host
could help me in the task at which I was laboring, and resolved to ask
him about it later on. He continued.
"Ebenezer was on a Salem merchantman for years, an' picked up a sight o'
queer stuff in every port. He got this in London, I guess - he uster
like ter
buy things at the shops. I was up ta his haouse onct, on the hill,
tradin'
hosses, when I see this book. I relished the picters, so he give it in
on a
swap. 'Tis a queer book - here, leave me git on my spectacles-" The old
man
fumbled among his rags, producing a pair of dirty and amazingly antique
glasses with small octagonal lenses and steel bows. Donning these, he
reached for the volume on the table and turned the pages lovingly.
"Ebenezer cud read a leetle o' this-'tis Latin - but I can't. I had two
er
three schoolmasters read me a bit, and Passon Clark, him they say got
draownded in the pond - kin yew make anything outen it?" I told him that
I could, and translated for his benefit a paragraph near the beginning.
If I erred, he was not scholar enough to correct me; for he seemed
childishly pleased at my English version. His proximity was becoming
rather obnoxious, yet I saw no way to escape without offending him. I
was amused at the childish fondness of this ignorant old man for the
pictures in a book he could not read, and wondered how much better he
could read the few books in English which adorned the room. This
revelation of simplicity removed much of the ill-defined apprehension I
had felt, and I smiled as my host rambled on:
"Queer haow picters kin set a body thinkin'. Take this un here near the
front. Hey yew ever seed trees like thet, with big leaves a floppin'
over an'
daown? And them men - them can't be niggers - they dew beat all. Kinder
like
Injuns, I guess, even ef they be in Afriky. Some o' these here critters
looks
like monkeys, or half monkeys an' half men, but I never heerd o' nothin'
like
this un." Here he pointed to a fabulous creature of the artist, which
one might
describe as a sort of dragon with the head of an alligator.
"But naow I'll show ye the best un - over here nigh the middle - "The
old
man's speech grew a trifle thicker and his eyes assumed a brighter glow;
but his fumbling hands, though seemingly clumsier than before, were
entirely adequate to their mission. The book fell open, almost of its
own accord and as if from frequent consultation at this place, to the
repellent twelfth plate showing a butcher's shop amongst the Anzique
cannibals. My sense of restlessness returned, though I did not exhibit
it. The especially bizarre thing was that the artist had made his
Africans look like white men - the limbs and quarters hanging about the
walls of the shop were ghastly, while the butcher with his axe was
hideously incongruous. But my host seemed to relish the view as much as
I disliked it.
"What d'ye think o' this - ain't never see the like hereabouts, eh? When
I
see this I telled Eb Holt, 'That's suthin' ta stir ye up an' make yer
blood
tickle.' When I read in Scripter about slayin' - like them Midianites
was slew -
I kinder think things, but I ain't got no picter of it. Here a body kin
see all
they is to it - I s'pose 'tis sinful, but ain't we all born an' livin'
in sin? -
Thet feller bein' chopped up gives me a tickle every time I look at 'im
- I hey
ta keep lookin' at 'im - see whar the butcher cut off his feet? Thar's
his head
on thet bench, with one arm side of it, an' t'other arm's on the other
side o'
the meat block."
As the man mumbled on in his shocking ecstasy the expression on his
hairy,
spectacled face became indescribable, but his voice sank rather than
mounted. My own sensations can scarcely be recorded. All the terror I
had dimly felt before rushed upon me actively and vividly, and I knew
that I loathed the ancient and abhorrent creature so near me with an
infinite intensity. His madness, or at least his partial perversion,
seemed beyond dispute. He was almost whispering now, with a huskiness
more terrible than a scream, and I trembled as I listened.
"As I says, 'tis queer haow picters sets ye thinkin'. D'ye know, young
Sir,
I'm right sot on this un here. Arter I got the book off Eb I uster look
at it a
lot, especial when I'd heerd Passon Clark rant o' Sundays in his big
wig. Onct I
tried suthin' funny - here, young Sir, don't git skeert - all I done was
ter
look at the picter afore I kilt the sheep for market - killin' sheep was
kinder
more fun arter lookin' at it - " The tone of the old man now sank very
low,
sometimes becoming so faint that his words were hardly audible. I
listened to
the rain, and to the rattling of the bleared, small-paned windows, and
marked a
rumbling of approaching thunder quite unusual for the season. Once a
terrific
flash and peal shook the frail house to its foundations, but the
whisperer
seemed not to notice it.
"Killin' sheep was kinder more fun - but d'ye know, 'twan't quite
satisfyin'. Queer haow a cravin' gits a holt on ye - As ye love the
Almighty,
young man, don't tell nobody, but I swar ter Gawd thet picter begun to
make me hungry fer victuals I couldn't raise nor buy - here, set still,
what's ailin'
ye? - I didn't do nothin', only I wondered haow 'twud be ef I did - They
say
meat makes blood an' flesh, an' gives ye new life, so I wondered ef 'twudn't
make a man live longer an' longer ef 'twas more the same - " But the
whisperer
never continued. The interruption was not produced by my fright, nor by
the
rapidly increasing storm amidst whose fury I was presently to open my
eyes on a smoky solitude of blackened ruins. It was produced by a very
simple though
somewhat unusual happening.
The open book lay flat between us, with the picture staring repulsively
upward. As the old man whispered the words "more the same" a tiny
splattering impact was heard, and something showed on the yellowed paper
of the upturned volume. I thought of the rain and of a leaky roof, but
rain is not red. On the butcher's shop of the Anzique cannibals a small
red spattering glistened picturesquely, lending vividness to the horror
of the engraving. The old man saw it, and stopped whispering even before
my expression of horror made it necessary; saw it and glanced quickly
toward the floor of the room he had left an hour before. I followed his
glance, and beheld just above us on the loose plaster of the ancient
ceiling a large irregular spot of wet crimson which
seemed to spread even as I viewed it. I did not shriek or move, but
merely shut
my eyes. A moment later came the titanic thunderbolt of thunderbolts;
blasting
that accursed house of unutterable secrets and bringing the oblivion
which alone saved my mind.
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