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diff --git a/79055-0.txt b/79055-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a8358ce --- /dev/null +++ b/79055-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8130 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79055 *** + + + + + THE PLACE CALLED DAGON + + Herbert Gorman + + + + +BOOKS BY HERBERT GORMAN + + + GOLD BY GOLD + THE FOOL OF LOVE + THE TWO VIRGINITIES + THE PLACE CALLED DAGON + THE PROCESSION OF MASKS + NOTATIONS FOR A CHIMAERA + THE PETERBOROUGH ANTHOLOGY + THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH + HAWTHORNE: A STUDY IN SOLITUDE + JAMES JOYCE: HIS FIRST FORTY YEARS + A VICTORIAN AMERICAN: HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW + + + + + The Place Called + Dagon + + By Herbert Gorman + + + NEW YORK + + George H. Doran Company + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1927, + BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + + + THE PLACE CALLED DAGON + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + + TO + MARTHA + a mystery among + mysteries + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + CHAPTER ONE + CHAPTER TWO + CHAPTER THREE + CHAPTER FOUR + CHAPTER FIVE + CHAPTER SIX + CHAPTER SEVEN + CHAPTER EIGHT + CHAPTER NINE + CHAPTER TEN + CHAPTER ELEVEN + + + + +THE PLACE CALLED DAGON + + + + +Chapter One + + +I + +Doctor Dreeme, turning sleepily on his pillow, heard the clatter of a +horse’s hoofs coming down the steep Leeminster Road. The steely clash +on the rock-path tore abruptly through his semi-trance and he opened +his eyes, scowling vaguely at the milky blur of ceiling. The horse +stopped with a rough grating of hoofs below the window and the doctor +sighed. Marlborough was like that. It was undoubtedly another farmer +with a pain in his back who might just as well wait until morning. +It was at night that his taciturn neighbors were most obsessed with +the somber consequences of their lonely ailments. In daylight they +would bear them with the dumb equanimity of animals, sitting behind +drawn curtains or plodding painfully over their stony fields. But they +were horribly afraid of dying at night. The bell clanked feebly. The +doctor threw back his quilted coverlet of great square patches, rose +in the darkness of the room, and strode over to the window. He leaned +out, straining his eyes to see who stood in the gray mist of the moon +outside his door. + +“Who is it?” he called sharply. “Who, in the name of Heaven ... at this +time of night....” + +A boyish treble answered him. + +“Doctor Dreeme? I’m Miles, Jeffrey Westcott’s hired boy. Mr. Westcott’s +taken something awful. He wants for you to come and help him right +away. He’s shot himself and....” + +“I’ll be right down,” snapped the doctor. + +He fumbled about the room, lit a kerosene oil-lamp, and hastily dressed +himself, drawing his trousers on over his rumpled pyjamas. Pausing an +instant before the cracked mirror he smoothed back his tousled hair and +dashed some cold water from the china bowl upon his sleep-warm face. +It was a square-cut visage, young, thin-lipped, and with long narrow +eyes that stared back briefly at him. Two years’ arduous practice in +Marlborough, a relentless precision of deaths and births and ailments, +had etched tiny lines about his mouth and eyes and forehead, lines of +watchfulness and concentration, but he was still surprisingly youthful +in appearance and alert in action. He grasped his black bag and hurried +down the stairs, slipping the bolt and stepping into the dim lane where +the huge farm-horse pawed impatiently at the ground. The blank windows +of the Slater house stared down at him gloomily as he turned to the +boy, Miles, who perched like a small monkey on his mount. + +“Are you sure that Jeffrey Westcott wants me to come?” asked Dreeme as +he climbed to a seat on the blanket that served for a saddle. There was +a minor note of amazement in his voice. + +The boy said nothing but chirped to his horse and the huge beast swung +in the lane and mounted the hill, slowly at first and then at a smart +canter as the ascent eased its sharp angle. The blurred moon flew +with them, trailing long bat-like wings of milky opacity across the +crumbling stone walls and the buildings with their lurching outhouses. +Beside them swept their broad shadow, a two-torsoed centaur, indistinct +and formidable in outline. Looking back Dreeme could see the little +town of Marlborough stretched out like a conglomeration of dark tombs. +A cool air tingling with the freshness of impending rain flowed by his +face. Low trees flung chunky green arms across the twisting fences +at him. They were black in the dimmed moonlight. The shaggy hoofs of +the horse thudded heavily on the sand-road. Suddenly the boy answered +Dreeme’s question. + +“He told me to fetch you, anyway,” he remarked to the darkness before +him. + +The doctor said nothing and the boy, turning his head, observed him +fleetingly. Dreeme caught the flash of a small, dark, imp-like face and +two dull-green eyes. + +So far as the doctor knew nobody ever called at the Westcott farm. It +was avoided territory, forbidden to children wandering through the +byways between Marlborough and Leeminster and skirted hastily by +the taciturn farmers who dwelt in its vicinity. Dreeme had observed +the rambling white-washed buildings from the road often enough as +he had passed on his way to various patients and occasionally he +had seen Jeffrey Westcott ride into town for supplies, but that was +all. The Westcotts took no part in the life of Marlborough. Indeed, +they seemed frankly to court an ostracism that had long ago been +willingly granted them by the unusual breed of natives who dwelt in +this part of New England. Dreeme, curious and observant when he first +arrived in Marlborough and took up the practice of his father’s old +friend, Humphrey Lathrop, had asked questions about the Westcotts, +as, indeed, he had about all the farmers in the neighbourhood, for +he believed in mixing as much psychological insight as possible with +his medicinal treatments, but he soon discovered that questions were +not welcome in the town. An excessive reticence possessed these +leather-skinned delvers in the soil, these small-shopkeepers, and even +the brief scattering of professional men who conducted the affairs +of Marlborough. Therefore, as Dreeme was an astute and adaptable +young man, he speedily learned to keep his mouth shut and, at least +outwardly, to suppress his curiosity. It was enough to serve as well as +he could when he was called upon and to expend whatever mental energies +he might have in the study of various profound books on medicine +and psychology. Although time passed slowly it passed agreeably for +loneliness did not obsess Dreeme. He was New England enough himself to +slip naturally into a rut of reticence and to occupy himself with his +own thoughts. Still there were many times when of all the curious folk +in his environment he let his cogitations wander to the Westcotts. + +They were unusual in their abandonment of the common intercourse of +daily life. Apparently they had no friends, not even those cursory +friends who met in the Post Office and General Store and discussed in +brief bursts of monosyllables the politics and phenomena of the day. +They were decidedly sufficient unto themselves. Dreeme always thought +of the Westcotts as a plural number although he had never laid eyes +on Mrs. Westcott. He knew that she existed and that was all. This, +of course, was extraordinary in a small New England town where every +individual might be supposed to know intimately the smallest details of +a neighbor’s life; where, as a rule, the women, at least, maintained a +sharp and malicious watch on one another. But this, after all, was an +unusual New England town as Humphrey Lathrop had insisted to the young +man when Dreeme first ventured upon Marlborough. + +“You have seen New Englanders all your life,” the older doctor had +said, “and you know their usual characteristics, reticence tinged with +curiosity, religious fervor jaundiced with personal hypocrisy, an old +pride bolstered by a stony soil, a nasal twang possibly induced by +generations of psalm-singing through the nose, a stubborn zeal in labor +and an inborn stinginess. You have seen that type of New Englander +and I do not go so far as to say that you will not find it here; but +there is a type of New Englander in this place that you have never seen +before and of which I knew nothing until I came here. Marlborough and, +to a lesser degree, Leeminster are cul-de-sacs into which an ancient +backwash of old blood has flowed. It has been unrelieved by any new +influx for two hundred years or more. It is not easy to get up here, +you know, and once here there is little to hold an ambitious man. That +is why you will go away some day. These people have dwelt here in this +valley so opportunely surrounded by the Florida mountains and have +intermarried for generations. Some day, perhaps the day when you leave +for ever, I will tell you what curious breed of Puritan drifted into +this valley and established these communities. You will be amazed, for +they are a breed of which you catch but furtive glances and hints in +Pilgrim and Puritan chronicles. A curious intermixture of ethical and +Dionysiac madness produced the forefathers of these people to whom +you must administer as wisely as you can and with a minimum of words +and questions.” The old doctor cleared his throat with a tremendous +harrumph, his elephantine body quivering like a great jelly-fish, and +Dreeme decided that he had been told nothing at all. If he was to solve +the mystery of Marlborough--and there _was_ a mystery, for he +felt it like two huge dark wings hovering over the entire community--he +must do it all by himself. + +For two years now the mystery had stood just outside his door, a +dark and disquieting impalpability that teased him into fruitless +suppositions, that revealed itself fleetingly in the swift side-long +glitter of cautious eyes, that threaded the valley and the town with +a dim muffled sense of something unearthly. And yet the sun shone +brightly enough, the farmers went about their business with the usual +grim doggedness of men who scrape a difficult living from miserly soil, +and the thin-faced women, scrawny-armed and bowed in the shoulders, +existed as women do in a small world of ceaseless irritating tasks. +There were moments when Dreeme decided that there was no mystery at +all, that his imagination was playing tricks with him, and that his +intuitions were the idle outgrowths of a mind too much concerned with +itself and revolving inwardly and creating vague bogies for lack of +other occupations. But after such moments of doubt would come still +days when the lurching houses seemed to watch him maliciously and when +the still trees, flinging their black shadows across the yellow glitter +of deserted roads, would stand as symbols of some invisible prowling +specter that patrolled the valley and observed him with blank lidless +eyes. His flesh crawled on his bones and it was only by an effort that +he put the obsession from him. He would say to himself that it was +ennui, that it was a morbid reaction to his existence in a small world +where, in spite of his ministrations, he was an outsider, that it was +nerves, but, considering the matter deliberately, he knew that it was +none of these likely causes. He possessed no nerves; he was not weary +of his loneliness; his mind was not too idle. It was something outside +of him pushing gently against his mind. + + +II + +The horse thudded ponderously up the road. + +“How did Westcott shoot himself?” asked Dreeme suddenly. + +The boy turned his thin face and green eyes over his small hunched +shoulder, opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it firmly. + +“I calculate that he’ll tell you that,” he finally answered. He kicked +ferociously at the horse’s ribs with his small bare feet. + +A few drops of rain dashed against Dreeme’s face. It was +extraordinarily dark now for the moon had disappeared, swallowed up in +the soundless rain-cloud that stretched across the sky like a monstrous +sable circus-tent. More by sense than anything else the young doctor +knew that he had passed the old burned mill and an instant later the +horse clattered across the small wooden bridge which spanned the narrow +Saccarac River. He was now on the final stretch of dirt-road leading +to the Westcott farm. This route was exceedingly familiar to Dreeme +for he traversed it often, going either to some farm or to the larger +town of Leeminster where there was a bank, a stone school-house, a +deserted gin-distillery crumbling to ruin, and a small court-house. The +road turned in a great slow arc and was bordered by low stone fences, +dejected and wrecked by weather into wide breaches at intervals. +Between the roadway and the feeble barriers grew occasional clumps of +birch trees and beneath them in season bloomed the dusty black-eyed +Susans and asthma-compelling golden-rod. Behind the fences stretched +the ploughed fields and grass meadows of the various small farms, all +of them sloping downward for the Marlborough-Leeminster road progressed +along a ridge. A faint mingled smell of piled dung, rotting hay and +skinny poultry permeated the air. Dreeme knew the territory well enough +by day. The white-washed houses, set well back from the road and a +story more in the rear than they were in front because of the ground +slope, lifted tilted smoking chimneys. Dogs, cursed with legions of +perpetually active fleas, barked from sagging porches and blear-eyed +cocks crowed in the wire-enclosures behind the long lurching kitchens +that seemed to have been added as afterthoughts to the dispirited +houses. Some of these dwellings were astonishingly old and even the +white-wash failed to conceal their dejected venerability. The doors +and windows, sunken by the years as though Time had leaned on the +lintels and sills with a heavy elbow, leered like the features of a +twisted face. All this was in the daytime. At night a profound darkness +enveloped these staggering structures. There were no lights in the +small opaque windows, nothing but the blank glow of the moon and stars. +The farmers of Marlborough sought their beds at an early hour, and the +candles and kerosene oil which still sufficed for illumination cost +money. Only when the moon was at its brightest did the houses step +somewhat out of their brooding night shadow and turn the incurious +eyes of their windows toward the curving road. Then they seemed to +squat like an unfriendly array of old crones in soiled white wrappers, +watching the highway along which so many strange figures had passed +since the first mysterious settlers arrived in the valley and found +it a likely place wherein to raise their hewn log-houses and their +solitary mill. + +The horse stopped suddenly and Dreeme, surmising that he had reached +his journey’s end, slipped to the ground, his feet clattering on +loose pebbles as he maintained his balance. A long ominous growl +immediately before him greeted his footsteps and he drew back with some +trepidation. He knew all about the half-savage dogs that patrolled +the farm-yards at night. The boy hurried by him and there was a sound +of poles being pulled out of their sockets at a gateway. A cold damp +snout thrust itself against Dreeme’s hand just as the boy hissed an +unintelligible phrase and an instant later there was the sound of +a heavy body forcing its way through the bushes which lined the +road. Dreeme knew that the dog was watching him from a distance with +savage curiosity. The boy came back and grasped the rope that served +for bridle on the horse. “This is the way, doctor,” he said. “Don’t +be afraid of the dog.” They stumbled through what was apparently an +aperture in the fence and followed a twisted and hummocky path. Dreeme +tripped over unsuspected hollows and small jutting boulders until they +circled the dark bulk of the house and were at a rear door. A few +drops of rain pattered against his face as he looked up at the rear +windows. It was curious that he could perceive no least vestige of +light emanating from the blank panes. The building stood morosely in +a pool of high trees and this intensified the darkness about it. At +the door the boy knocked delicately, his thin knuckles playing upon +the splintered woodwork, and, after a moment, while Dreeme felt very +foolish and slightly startled, there were a few whispered words with +some invisible personage who had shot back a series of bolts. The brief +beam of a candle leaped across the doctor’s face and he felt himself +urged forward and into a room where the shadows fled sluggishly before +the feeble whiplash of light from the cylinder of wax. There was a +rattling sound as the bolts were shot and Dreeme knew that he was +locked in the Westcott farm-house. + +Clutching his black bag, he stared curiously about him but all that he +could perceive was a simply furnished room, the usual “sitting room” +of a farm-house with its few stuffed chairs, its wax flowers under +glass on a side table, its faded family pictures, a framed silver +plate from a coffin, and an antiquated spinning wheel that squatted +forlornly in a corner. Before him stood a stocky figure holding a fat +candle in one hand and directing him toward an opposite door with the +other. The meager flame from the candle slanted back and illuminated +a deep red beard and two glassy eyes. Dreeme, his vision clearing in +the feeble glow, noted that his companion was evidently the hired man, +a burly figure absurdly short for his girth and garmented in dejected +looking blue overalls and a faded woolen shirt. This apparition was in +his stocking feet and he made no sound as he padded across the floor. +The hired man said nothing but cleared his throat with a choking sound +as though he were endeavoring to loosen unused vocal chords, and then, +apparently giving it up as something beyond his powers, proceeded +toward the door which he had indicated with an awkward flourish of a +square hairy hand. He rapped timidly at the door. + +“Wagner?” cried a sharp voice from within. + +Wagner opened the door a trifle, thrust in his shaggy red head, and +seemed to croak hoarsely. + +“All right! All right!” the voice snapped immediately, and Wagner stood +back and motioned Doctor Dreeme toward the patch of yellow light that +poured through the half-opened door. + + +III + +It was a small room into which Dreeme ventured and one in which the +walls seemed to push forward, an aspect intensified, perhaps, by the +tall lurching cases of books which surrounded the square table at +which Jeffrey Westcott sat. There were books everywhere, in the cases, +scattered over the table, and piled in slumping heaps on the floor. +The greater portion of them were huge tomes, bound in old buckrams, +in worm-eaten moroccos, or in yellow vellum. The dull gold lettering, +subdued in the glow of Westcott’s kerosene-lamp, seemed like the sleepy +half-shut eyes of somnolent beasts waiting patiently for the word of +the master who should bring them to life. But there was no word now. +They rested, these mysterious beasts of ancient knowledge, holding +their secrets close to their muted hearts. Dreeme paused just inside +the door staring about him in amazement. + +An impatient exclamation roused him to his professional duties and he +turned toward Jeffrey Westcott, observing him closely for the first +time. + +“Good evening or good morning,” remarked the man seated by the table. +“I have lost count of the hours, doctor.” + +Westcott was a heavily-built man, smooth-faced, and with a shaven +head. This round skull, blue with an incipient growth of dark hair, +reminded Dreeme irresistibly of the tonsured cranium of some medieval +friar. It was curiously ridged in the center, as though the two sides +of the skull had been pressed together while molten and so joined, +leaving a cloven line where the bone had bulged upward on either side. +The ears were long and rose thin and prominent on either side of this +curious head. The broad brow slanted back at an obvious angle and the +chin, blue also with incipient hair, thrust forward aggressively, +the ensemble giving the impression of semi-malignant imperiousness. +Westcott’s nose was broken and this accident accentuated the curious +profile which he presented when he turned his head, a profile almost +ape-like but redeemed by a certain vitality of knowledge. His eyes, +large, coal-black and motionless, glittered dully, but it was not the +dull glitter of stupidity. Rather was it a repressed but unceasing +watchfulness that was somehow mocking in its semblance of indifference. +Dreeme was reminded of the eyes of a cat when it permits a bird to +flutter within a few feet of its curved claws. + +“It is a very fine library, I assure you,” continued the farmer with a +casual flutter of one sun-burned hand toward the lurching cases. Dreeme +sensed a purring irony in the man’s voice. “I should like to show it +to you but just now I am somewhat inconvenienced by this cursed bullet +wound.” + +Dreeme with a muttered apology, hurried forward fumbling at the catch +to his black bag. + +“It is not often--at least in this part of the world--that one sees so +many books,” he said. “You must excuse me.” + +His amazement was frank and he made no attempt to conceal it. + +“You are freely pardoned,” replied the ironic voice. + +The doctor knelt and began to remove the bloodstained bandage that +swathed the plump calf of the farmer. + +“How did this happen?” he inquired as the wrapping slipped away and he +saw the black bullet-hole surrounded by a crusted clot of blood. + +“Experiment,” returned Westcott shortly. + +“Experiment?” echoed Dreeme questioningly, glancing up into the still +black eyes. Westcott reached deliberately for a cigar, drawing one from +the large box that stood on the table at his elbow. He said nothing but +stared blandly at the doctor as he lighted the long dark weed. Dreeme, +flushed and feeling foolish, turned back to his labor. He decided that +Westcott was an offensive brute. + +“I want a pan of hot water,” he said, after inspecting the wound. “I +shall have to probe for the bullet. It may pain you a bit.” + +He felt a moment’s elation at the idea of giving Westcott pain. + +The farmer turned his head and shouted toward the door. + +“Wagner!” he cried. “Wagner!” + +In the short pause that ensued, Dreeme, still kneeling before the +stocky Westcott, studied the worn backs of the books in the case +opposite him. They seemed to emanate an atmosphere that was ominous. +There was something dark and forbidding about them, an intangible +suggestion of an evil culture. The crowding walls advanced stealthily, +bringing an aura of suffocation with them. + +The farmer cursed softly and pleasantly to himself. + +“My dear doctor,” he began, “I am afraid you will have to....” + +“What is it, Jeff?” inquired a feminine voice, low and husky, behind +them. + +Both men turned at this unexpected sound. Westcott was plainly put out +and for a moment his large eyes glittered angrily. Dreeme gazed upward +at the woman who had so quietly entered the room with a curiosity +which almost instantly merged into amazement. There are women who at a +first glance arrest the attention not so much by any ulterior beauty +or unique qualities of bearing as by an inward spirit which seems to +beat fiercely against the thin walls of flesh and strive vehemently +to liberate itself from its entangling disguises. These women may +not be beautiful in the fleshy sense of the word, but somehow they +achieve more than the semblance of beauty in the eyes of the sensitive +observer. Dreeme saw such a woman before him and knew instantly and +instinctively that it was not alone the comeliness of her features that +so casually and indifferently subdued and betrayed the deliberate +impartiality of his reason. He saw immediately an extraordinary +inward impulse that climbed in her bosom and all but trembled on her +blood-red mouth. It was her eyes and mouth that first seized his +imagination. These eyes were dark and they glowed beneath large white +lids that drooped somewhat as with the ennui of identical days. They +seemed endless in depth like half-concealed forest springs and yet a +quickening spark glimmered in these unfathomable lakes of hushed amber +fire. The mouth was full with curling lips almost archaic in their +contour, and Dreeme was vaguely reminded of his adolescent ideas of the +snaky-haired Medusa. There was a subtle cruelty in this mouth. + +“I told you to stay in your own room, my dear helpful Martha,” said +Westcott, his chin thrusting forward, “but since you are here, permit +me to present my invaluable friend, Doctor--er--Dreeme, I think. This +is my wife, doctor.” + +She did not glance toward Dreeme. + +“Wagner has gone to the----” She left the sentence unfinished. “I +thought you would need hot water.” + +“Your mind is always acute, Martha,” remarked Westcott, giving her a +malicious look. “And who sent Wagner to the----” + +“I did,” she responded coolly, placing the basin of hot water on the +floor close by Dreeme who still remained on one knee gazing at her. +Westcott smiled sourly and turned to the doctor. + +“Come, doctor,” he said. “You must be wanting to get back to your +comfortable bed.” + +Dreeme flushed and turned confusedly to his labors. + +For a moment there was silence. + +“The age of amazement,” said Westcott softly to the air, “is worthy of +a study in itself. There are so many ways of considering it.” + +He winced as the probe touched the raw flesh. + +“Softly, doctor, softly,” he begged. “Now take the age of amazement as +it affects the individual. Is it not true, my dear doctor, that if we +knew why a man was amazed and each time that he was amazed we should +know a great deal about him?” + +Dreeme, intent on his work, said nothing. + +“The question is merely theoretical,” proceeded Westcott. “I do not +expect an answer. I, for my own part, mingle so seldom in the world of +men that I have but small opportunity to put my theory in practice but +whenever I do see a man I strive to observe his surprised reactions to +things. It tells me something about him.” + +The bullet slipped from the wound and Dreeme busied himself for a +moment in washing the torn flesh. At length he looked up for the +silence seemed to invite him to speak, to carry on a conversation that +was rather meaningless. He stared into Westcott’s dark expressionless +eyes. + +“And me?” he said, smiling. “What have you learned about me in the few +minutes that I have been here?” + +Westcott was obviously waiting for the question. + +“Your reactions of surprise were obvious,” he answered, cocking his +head on one side. He began to count the points off on his fingers. + +“Number one. You were amazed at finding so excellent and unexpected a +library here. I gather from that that your idea of the literacy of this +part of the world is not high. I agree with you in the main--but there +are exceptions everywhere, doctor. You were also amazed at finding +in me a man not wholly a stranger to the subtleties of the mind. I +may be flattering myself in this assumption but I do not think so. In +other words, you had thought of me as a mysterious, surly, country +clodhopper.” + +There was a soft snarl in his voice. Before Dreeme could expostulate he +went on with his enumeration. + +“Number two. You were amazed to hear that my little wound was the +result of an experiment. It piqued a curiosity which, unfortunately for +you, I shall not satisfy.” + +“I assure you, I----” began Dreeme stiffly, but the soft voice +proceeded. + +“Number three. You were amazed to see my wife. Well, I hardly blame +you. She amazes me at times.” + +Again the soft snarl permeated his voice. + +Dreeme instinctively glanced at Mrs. Westcott. She was standing by a +small window gazing out on the darkness and he could see no more than +the cool oval of her face. She seemed to be looking upward toward the +rainy sky with a strained attentiveness that suggested the listener. +It was, perhaps, the rain to which she was listening, for Dreeme could +hear the soft gurgle and suck of the water as it dripped outside the +window. With a final skillful twist he fastened the new bandage about +Westcott’s calf and stood upright. The farmer looked at him calmly, his +lips slightly apart, and Dreeme could see the man’s long yellow teeth. + +“I should say from the casual glimpse I have had of you,” remarked +Westcott, “that you are a capable doctor, a painstaking man, a +sensitive person perhaps a little stiff in reactions to unexpected +things, and an individual who must fight against the impulse of +being--well, not a busybody but one who is driven too far sometimes by +the itch of curiosity.” + +Dreeme laughed aloud and picked up his bag. Absurdly enough, he could +feel the presence of Mrs. Westcott behind him, a presence like the +soft invisible approach of some great feline through the impenetrable +darkness of a forest. + +“Your analysis is amusing,” he said. “But must I take it too seriously?” + +“You must take it for what it is worth,” replied Westcott, fastening +his yellow teeth upon his cigar and puffing meditatively. “Be good +enough, my dear doctor, to send your little bill by mail. I can dress +the wound myself or have it done for me by ... Wagner.” + +He looked up sharply, removing his cigar as the hint of a smile died +from his face. + +“Doctor Dreeme,” he said. “I am a peculiar man. I am a student who has +found a secluded harborage. I do not care to make acquaintances. They +are unpleasant responsibilities and they deprive me of that leisure +which I owe to my researches. I live my own life in my own way. I do +not want to be disturbed by the curiosity of--er--neighbors.” + +Dreeme bowed silently, his face flushed, and turned to the door. Yes, +he decided, Westcott was an offensive brute. The farmer smiled faintly, +his cloven head bending forward in the lamp-light. + +“You must pardon my abruptness,” he remarked. “I am a solitary +anchorite except for my little circle and am not, perhaps, as courteous +as I should be.” + +Dreeme said nothing. He could sense the faint mockery in the farmer’s +stiff speech. + +“Will you show the doctor to the door?” said Westcott gently to his +wife. + +She started from her attitude of rapt listening and turned toward +Dreeme, her heavy-lidded casual eyes flitting coolly across his face. +Then she moved slowly toward the door. Dreeme’s last picture of +Westcott was of a curiously cloven head suddenly bowed above a huge +tome. He could hear the soft rustling of Mrs. Westcott’s skirt as +she crossed the sitting room floor. His heart pounded rapidly as he +moved through the closeness of the room after her. It was as though a +strange drug that affected his breathing filled the air. He heard her +unbar the door, and, as it opened, a rush of cool rain-washed air swept +across his face bringing instant relief from the choked sensation that +had overpowered him in the room. It was still raining, a desultory and +gloomy patter that rattled on the trees and the tiny roof of the back +porch. The wet air was filled with the fresh scent of water and soaked +grass. Dreeme drew in long breaths of it as he stepped bare-headed into +the rain, wondering somewhat vaguely how he was to be conducted back to +town. Just as he was about to bid Mrs. Westcott good-by and was turning +toward her he felt her arm fall sharply against his shoulder. + +“Do you hear anything?” she asked in her low husky voice. + +He strained his ears in some surprise and for a moment in the patter +of rain he seemed to hear a thin rushing overhead as though a flock of +heavy-winged birds were beating through the night air. The sound swept +into nothingness so suddenly that he decided it was no more than the +blood beating in his own ears or the upper whir of the rain. It was as +though a door had been suddenly closed. + +“No,” he answered, “I don’t hear anything but the rain.” + +Her hand pressed against him and he could sense in the darkness the +soft rise and fall of her bosom. The blood started to race through his +pulses again and the choked feeling that had persisted during the +short space of time while they had crossed the dark room to the door +filled him. He felt his lips trembling as though with a faint palsy. +As he strained his eyes violently toward her he could dimly note the +outline of her face turned toward his and he knew that her heavy-lidded +eyes were wide open and fixed with a disturbing intensity upon him. Her +full blood-red lips moved slowly. Then her hand dropped from his arm, +and it was as though a strange power had been removed from him. + +“Good-night,” she said in her low muffled tones. + +The door closed softly and he heard the bolts being shot into place. +Still he stood there, knowing that she, too, was standing just on the +other side of the bolted door. After a moment’s pause he heard her +footsteps passing slowly and evenly through the room. Dreeme turned +to the rain, a bewildered smile at his own impressionability creeping +to his lips. At the same moment he heard Miles clucking to the horse. +Blundering through the dark, he stumbled toward the road. Before he +reached the gate it began to rain furiously, a heavy roaring down-pour +that soaked him to the skin. + + + + +Chapter Two + + +I + +A rainy night abdicated to a warm sun-shot day. Dreeme, who had slept +late after his disturbed rest, rose to a world that moved calmly and +soberly toward mid-day. From his window he could see the weather-beaten +sides of houses basking in the tranquil light and hear the deliberate +and heavy footsteps of occasional pedestrians drifting down to the +post office or the general store. This was his Marlborough as he knew +it best, a sober and silent community that clustered about the narrow +Saccarac River and occupied itself with the daily functions of a +somewhat abstemious living. Superficially Marlborough was uninteresting +although it was not without a certain suggested placidity that might +appeal strongly to the man in search of quietness, rest, and an escape +from the febrile business of that greater world of cities where life +was such a strenuous matter. There was little to see here and still +less to beguile one. It is true that occasional youngsters ventured +into the river but they did not make a habit of it. There were no halls +of entertainment, no motion pictures, no wandering tent shows to raise +their canvas on one of the surrounding meadows. Social intercourse was +limited to casual greetings and infrequent meals. Each Sunday witnessed +the crowding of the small white Congregational church and a dry and +unimpressive religious service. Thus for one day in the week the space +before the church was crowded with horses and small buggies and even +one or two rattling Fords which disappeared as swiftly as ghosts after +the service was completed. The reticent church-goers eddied from the +door of the house of worship, mumbled a few words to one another, and +then sped away toward their separate farms or strolled gloomily to +their houses in town, their new Sunday shoes creaking woefully under +the strain of unexpected use. Their voices seemed dry and rusty as +though with long disuse and an absurd self-consciousness emphasized +the natural awkwardness of their bearing. They plucked gingerly at +unaccustomed collars and viewed one another with dumbly diffident eyes. +Yet they possessed some bond in common, some link of connected life +that bound them together into a whole, something that arrayed them +against strangers and “furriners” although it was not evidenced in any +obvious camaraderie. + +It was not alone the bond of environment although that was evident +enough. Men could not live year in and year out in the same tiny +circumscribed area, scraping at the same granite-pitted soil, walking +through the same tree-bordered streets, turning in at doors that were +white-washed or green-painted replicas of one another, enduring the +same biting winters when the surface of the river was a white plate of +steel and the same scorching summers when the locusts shrilled in the +brown stubble, witnessing the birth and death of the same flowers and +trees, talking the same monosyllabic language and praying in the same +manner to a far-away stone-faced God, without becoming infinitesimal +portions of something that was unified and progressing in a solitary +direction. Therefore the superficial characteristics of the men of +Marlborough were the same just as their harsh voices sounded the +same unlovely crow-like chord. But their similarity extended beyond +this outer covering of manners, gestures, and appearances. Their +humorlessness, their extraordinary seriousness, their unimpeachable +reticence, their thinly-disguised surliness, all these deplorable and +hermit-like traits seemed to point (at least in the young doctor’s +mind) toward an unhappy and despairing consciousness. It might be +that they were tired of living. They might be a weary race of ghostly +fatalists expressing tacitly their disapprobation of existence. It +was true, the young doctor realized, that a portion (and a goodly +portion, too,) of this desolate aspect of Marlborough might well be the +mirage of his own brooding nature. He was imaginative enough, he knew, +to see things in a colored guise. His own feelings rushed into his +eyes and his mind and shifted his perspective. And his feelings were +naturally morbid. Still, he was sure that the subterranean strangeness +of Marlborough was not alone due to his gloomy fancy. He might play +upon it and enlarge it far beyond its actual proportions but there +must be something there to begin with, something that was the core, so +to speak, about which the community had grown, covering it with layer +after layer of taciturn generations until it disappeared completely. +He strove to fix his mind upon these people in a rigidly impartial +historical survey. Perhaps in this way he might reach light, might, +through a series of logical and psychological deductions, define the +spirit of Marlborough to his own satisfaction, but he discovered, +after an intensive trial at such cerebration, that the results were +meager and dissatisfying. He was not an inspired analyst. He was only a +curious young man. + +Here is a forgotten valley, he thought, a cul-de-sac in the hills of +western New England. Into this sequestered place came the sons of +Pilgrims and the Puritans and here they raised their first log-houses, +their mills, their trading stations with the Indians, and their +fortified church. They had no time for the lighter pleasures of living, +and, indeed, their ethical conception of existence forbade them. They +eschewed the colored ribbands of life. They were grim, therefore, +long-faced and unsmiling and their days were taken up with clearing +away virgin forests, struggling with the hordes of painted Indians, +raising houses and churches and mills and forts and armories. The +dark soil, spotted with boulders, fought with the Indians against +them and they subdued it by the might of their tenacious minds and +unresting arms. They had no time for love or laughter but they had +plenty of time for labor and a taciturn doggedness not always unbroken +by sighs. Surely the women must have sighed. Life was not a career but +an onerous duty. It was a profound struggle against formidable and +illimitable foes. What could such a people do but grow into a fierce, +silent, unsmiling, and unimaginative race? What became of their animal +natures in such a land of travail as this? Would they be diverted into +a fanatical zeal for their God who bore always in His right hand a +drawn sword? Or would the Dionysiac passions, the ancient inward pagan +urges, break forth at odd and unsuspected moments in bright flares of +malignant color? It was difficult to conceive of a complete suppression +of all the old zests of living and Dreeme could see no way out for them +but by a dark perversion that twisted them into sudden outbreaks or +secret and terrible channels. + +Well, these were the ancestors of the farmers of Marlborough. They +had lived their drab lives and passed away and been buried in the +forgotten graveyards and their sons, carrying in their hearts and +brains this sullen heritage, had come after them and these sons had +been equally reticent, taciturn, somber, and forbidding. With the years +a slight leaven might have introduced itself, a gradual lightening of +the colors of living, but it had not been enough to erase the ancient +characteristics. Elsewhere in New England, in the busy manufacturing +districts now dotted with cities and towns where the clacking looms +and roaring machinery were never still, it was different. There the +old urges were indelibly dead, perished for want of an iron breed to +carry them on, overwhelmed by the great floods of foreign immigrations, +devoured by a materialistic lust that knew no bounds. And in other +places, in the agricultural corners of the land, a kindlier albeit +somewhat threadbare tradition manifested itself. Dreeme knew for he had +lived in those other portions of the old New England and had seen how +drastically the land had changed. An occasional Puritan strain, a brief +old-world courtesy--a trifle grim, to be sure, and a propped-up pride +still persisted, but for the most part it was as Humphrey Lathrop had +said--a land of curiosity, hypocrisy, labor, and stinginess. It was +true that in certain secluded corners, in sun-dappled village streets, +in twisted roads bordered by crumbling stone fences, in thinned +woodlands flashing with the slim-white trunks of swaying birches, a +hint of the old New England lingered for the pilgrim imaginative enough +to sense it, a hint of mellow days and grave silences. It glowed at its +brightest in the red cheeks of the apples and the gold and crimson of +the sumach. It was there like a wistful ghost roaming through deserted +roads. But it was not in Marlborough and no historical perspective +could satisfy Dreeme as to why the community emanated the atmosphere +which it undoubtedly did. + +He might say that these farmers were the successors of the iron-willed +pioneers who had darkened the soil with their blood and sweat, but +that was not saying enough. They were all this, and they were something +more beside. Behind them was something secret and profound. Under the +layers of generations. Although they might be no more than vaguely +conscious of it, Dreeme was almost satisfied in his mind that the +nature of these natives was colored and subdued by a breed of ancestors +who had possessed some inexplicable outlet for their suppressed +madnesses. The young doctor could give no logical reasons for his +conviction, but there it was. Perhaps Humphrey Lathrop had hinted it to +him. These people differed from the other New Englanders, argued Dreeme +to himself, in that they had been diverted in some mysterious manner +from the obvious development of the New England temperament. Fortune +had strangely enough sequestered this community and kept it intact +through so many years and generations that the ancient characteristics +had persisted on. No influx of foreigners with their European schemes +of living had muddied it, for foreigners did not come here. No +manufacturing boom had smashed it to pieces and founded a new world +upon it. Marlborough stretched out beneath the summer sun and awaited +the investigation of the close student of ethnology. Although its +doors and windows might be open it seemed as though invisible skeins +of mystery swayed before these apertures and defeated the eyes of the +brain and intuitions. Dreeme seemed more conscious of this than ever as +he perfected his toilet and prepared for what the day might offer. His +dormant curiosity, which he had stilled so well, lifted a sluggish head +and peered curiously about. + +The young doctor descended the stairs slowly for the breakfast which +had been prepared for him by his next-door neighbor, Mrs. Slater. + + +II + +Mrs. Slater was methodical. It was her duty to run in during the +morning with Dreeme’s breakfast and the mail which she collected at the +post office when she did her early morning buying. She never called it +“shopping.” For his dinner (served at noon in Marlborough) and supper +Dreeme crossed over to Mrs. Slater’s house where he sat in the midst +of five pop-eyed children, speechless Walden Slater, the Reverend +George Burroughs--invariably called “Preacher” by the community, and +Mrs. Slater herself, a small, plump, dumpy woman, originally from +Leeminster, who was rather more officious than practical. Not being +“born Marlborough” she did not affect the complete reticence of her +neighbors. Still, she had lived in the community long enough to learn +to refrain from displaying curiosity about things. It was only by a +fluttering of her eyes and a somewhat cross-eyed inspection of things +in general that she revealed the fact that she was aware of matters +which puzzled her. It was this fluttering of the eyes that greeted +Dreeme as he entered the room back of his office on the ground-floor, +a room which served as a breakfast chamber and a study. He immediately +understood that she had heard the arrival of the horse in the night, +and he waited, a trifle maliciously, to see if she would refer to +it. He had never looked at her intently, and he did not intend to do +so now. Indeed, he had never looked at any of the Slater ménage with +enough curiosity to fix their features in his mind. He had a general +idea, of course, of Slater and the “Preacher,” one was slouchy and the +other was dark, but he could not tell the children apart. Indeed, he +was uncertain as to their sex. Were three of them boys and two girls, +or was it the other way around? He sat down at the table smiling to +himself. + +Mrs. Slater scurried about the table, removing the blue china cover +from the platter of fried eggs and ham and pushing the three letters +closer to Dreeme’s plate. There was a highly symbolic dolphin on the +blue china cover. It served as a handle. It was a bad handle now for +its tail had been smashed off during some disastrous washing. + +“It seems as though I would work myself to death,” Mrs. Slater said in +her peculiarly breathless voice. “I was out of bed at five-thirty this +morning getting Walden off to the field. That man sleeps like a log. +You have to shake him and shake him. And now it’s you. And then it will +be the boys.” + +“You don’t have to shake me, anyway, Mrs. Slater,” said Dreeme, his +mouth full of toast. + +A small woman shaking a huge man. Get up! Get up! A poodle snapping at +a somnolent St. Bernard. Mrs. Slater sighed, fluttered her eyes, and +gazed in a very cross-eyed manner at the design on the wall-paper. She +caught a wisp of her straw-colored hair and tucked it into the tight +knob on the back of her head. Her arms were covered with freckles and +her nails were blunted and broken. Dreeme slit his letters open and +looked at them briefly, letting them flutter to the floor. One was a +catalogue for medical goods. “Use our electric frictioneer; it enlivens +the blood.” Another was a subscription blank for an agricultural +magazine. How to mix a cheap fertilizer. The third announced a new +supply of seeds and bulbs at Williams’ Grain Shop, Main Street, +Leeminster. + +“Did you sleep well last night, Mrs. Slater?” inquired Dreeme. This was +malice aforethought. + +“If you worked as hard as I do _you’d_ sleep well,” she replied. +The design on the wall-paper enchanted her. + +“Well,” said Dreeme, smiling broadly. “You’d better hurry along and get +the boys ready for school. It is later than usual, you know.” + +Mrs. Slater walked slowly toward the door, small, plump, a bantam of a +woman, her eyes fluttering fiercely. When she reached the threshold she +paused and turned back. + +“I hope you won’t be late for dinner,” she declared. “There’s corn-beef +and new cabbage.” + +“I’ll be early, then,” announced Dreeme. + +She hovered for a moment with fluttering eyes and then walked out, +slapping the door to behind her. + +Dreeme smiled happily. He was getting to be quite a denizen of +Marlborough himself. He could keep his mouth shut and perhaps, after +all, it was a good thing. There was strength in silence. There was +an advantage in it, too. It was nobody’s business that he had been +called to the Westcott farm and he knew in his soul that the natives +were all banded together so far as he was concerned. They would tell +_him_ nothing. He was a stranger. Although he might live there +for fifty years he would still be a stranger. He could open his heart +as generously as he might, still he knew that there would be no +reciprocity from Marlborough. Even Mrs. Slater (and his daily presence +in her house created a sort of inescapable intimacy) kept her own +counsels. He was not on the “inside” with anybody. + +Finishing his breakfast he rose to his feet and wandered about the +small room in a desultory fashion. There was nothing much to see there +except his shelves of books and nothing seemed farther away from him +at this moment than books or study. He was too restless to read and +yet he could hardly define his restlessness. Something spoke to him in +the back of his brain but it spoke with a small muffled voice, and he +could not understand the words. Without being conscious of it he was +brooding about some tangled mystery and he would have to wait until the +secret lifted boldly out of the dark waves of his subconsciousness +and he could see it in the bright sunshine of understanding. He sensed +something. Like a lean dog with dilated nostrils he was aware of a +dim carefully-concealed trail that led into the tenebrous gloom of +Marlborough. He would have to go to Humphrey Lathrop, he reflected, and +force that ancient intellect to divulge the secrets of the community. +Humphrey might not know all, but at least he could indicate the right +trail, a trail that could be followed to the very end, and at the end +of that trail would not be a pot of gold, perhaps, but assuredly a pot +of sulphur. It was true that Humphrey had warned him against curiosity, +but there were times when curiosity ceased to be a mere impertinence +and translated itself into a malady of the soul that could only be +cured by the frankest revelation. Dreeme smiled a bit at putting the +thought so solemnly to himself, but there it was, and he was forced to +admit that his curiosity was steadily developing into a huge monster +that would certainly devour him. It was no longer a titillation of the +mind, but an agony of the spirit. He had lived in Marlborough for two +years now, and he had rigorously caged this curiosity concerning the +community, but he had never killed it. It had been drugged by books and +the casual meditations of a New England mind, but it had never been +put out of the way entirely. There were moments when it had stirred +sluggishly behind its bars, rising slowly to its dark feet and peering +out into the light with vague green eyes. Now Dreeme felt the fragile +bars being snapped one after the other, and he knew that sooner or +later the beast would step forth and either destroy him or be destroyed +by him. All this, he imagined, was the result of a loneliness that had +not preyed too much upon him at first, but which had been there all the +time, gathering strength and biding its time. He had not been satisfied +all these quiet months. He had been drugged by his own weariness of +spirit. And now, at the touch of a hand, he was awake and conscious of +a problem looming before him that seemed as high as the Himalayas. + +The touch of a hand! Dreeme had been forcing his mind away from the +thought that tugged at him, but now he gave way to it as he picked up +his hat and walked out of the house and up the lane toward the old +burned mill and the bridge over the Saccarac River. His feet fell +pleasantly on the dark soil as he strode along. He had been curious +before, but he could date the fierce restlessness of his curiosity to +that moment the night before when Mrs. Westcott had pressed against +him in the rain and listened to noises that were no noises, after +all, in the black clouds. As he walked along the narrow rising street +bordered with the unblinking windows of the clapboard houses, his +thoughts revolved about the Westcotts. He had seen the surly type of +New England farmer, the secret drunkard, the illiterate misogynist, +but none of them had been like Jeffrey Westcott. There was a curious +finish to Westcott, the evident marks of a culture that extended +far beyond Marlborough and which possessed something European in its +fleeting polish. It had not been manifested in words so much as in an +easy insolence of demeanor, a sureness of self that emanated from an +ugly but intelligent face. This man might have been reared among these +hills, but he had certainly not received his knowledge of the world +here. He had gone beyond the hills and the seas and into the most +curious places. And having done so it was all the more remarkable that +he should choose to settle in the intellectually-arid valley that could +boast no better civilization than the taciturn towns of Leeminster and +Marlborough. To think about the Westcotts at all meant to creep upon +them logically and deliberately. Dreeme realized that he would have +to adjust his thoughts in a precise manner if he was to arrive at any +reasonable deductions regarding them. + +As he sauntered along the road and nodded vaguely to the few tanned +expressionless faces which passed him he sought to place his thoughts +in order and achieve a sort of deductive acumen so far as the Westcotts +were concerned. He would consider Jeffrey Westcott first of all. Or, +no, he would take the farm first and its occupants last. What had +he known about Westcott before he had been called to the farm the +preceding night? Practically nothing at all. He had been aware of a +farm, however, because he had passed it numberless times. It was a +large farm for it ran all the way to the profitless soil of Briony +Wood. And Dreeme sought to fix the farm firmly in his mind, for, after +all, the soil played its part in the development of any man. It was the +soil that counted, the soil that colored the mind. Well, the farm faced +on the Leeminster Road and it boasted the usual sprawling building +with a number of ells built on like afterthoughts. There were several +outhouses that faced the reddish dirt of the road and the untidy yard. +Then there were the fields in back of the white-washed structures. +Dreeme had never walked through them, but he imagined they were, for +the most part, uncultivated. Except for occasional patches of ploughed +land, small squares of fecundity in a neglected expanse, they stretched +sere and yellow in the parching sun or green and unkempt through the +heavy rains to the slightly elevated territory upon which grew the acre +or so of closely set trees which were called Briony Wood. This wood +was a gloomy and deserted place, deserted, perhaps, because one could +not reach it without first passing through Westcott’s land, and there +were good reasons for not taking this weed-choked road. Behind Briony +Wood was Nigger Swamp or perhaps it would be better to say that Briony +Wood degenerated into Nigger Swamp. Dreeme had never been near Nigger +Swamp, but he had heard of it as a miasmic stretch of sunken land into +which the Saccarac River seeped through subterranean channels. It was +an unhealthy spot, the home of buzzing insects and slimy reptiles. As +to why it was called Nigger Swamp, Dreeme possessed no idea. Perhaps +negroes had been secreted there during the pre-Civil War days of the +Underground Railroad, those feverish times when the escaped slaves +were rushed through to the Canadian border. Anyway, it was obvious +that black men had had something to do with the swamp in the past. Or, +perhaps again, it was merely the darkness and desolation of the place +that occasioned the cognomen. These things, however, threw no light +on Jeffrey Westcott. He could hardly be connected with Nigger Swamp. +Indeed, it was difficult to associate him with the farm. It was true +that he lived there constantly and that he cultivated a corner of his +extensive holding, but that was all. He was not primarily a farmer. + +Having disposed of the land and having reached no conclusions +whatsoever, Dreeme, who had reached the ruins of the old burned mill, +a black gaping maw of crumbling bricks and beams, paused to look back +and down at Marlborough. It seemed a pleasant enough town in the +bright sunlight with its white and yellow houses, its gonfalons of +thin smoke waving from the chimneys, and its shade trees rising in the +narrow streets. From this distance it was New England to the backbone, +marked by that sweet austerity and pleasant simplicity that is the +aspect of the older communities. There was nothing gothic or strained +or unearthly about it, and yet, looking back so, Dreeme was more than +ever convinced of the mystery that hovered over the town. It was an +obsession with him now. The houses were masks and their true features +were never turned to the light of the day. Beside him the destroyed +mill gloomed, and gazing into its gutted walls through the wide square +of doorway he could see the black cell of the interior and the broken +embrasure of a crumbling window that over-looked the mill-pond. +Proceeding on his way to the faint music of crunching footsteps, Dreeme +reached the small wooden bridge that crossed the Saccarac River, +and here he paused to lean on the worn railing and gaze down on the +sparkling stream that wandered on at so sedate and silent a pace. It +was pleasant to watch the water while the warm sun caressed the back of +his head. The river ran like a dream, like something seen in a trance. +He must go on with his surmises now, for his unquiet mind pricked him +constantly forward and along the Leeminster Road. Well, he had disposed +of the land and learned nothing from it. There remained the human +beings who occupied that land. He would take them in order, considering +the less important first. + +There was the boy Miles. What was there about Miles that was unusual? +He was small, warped in body, large-headed, and obviously older than +his size suggested. His face was twisted, his eyes were of a greenish +hue, and he had a disconcerting way of answering questions. That was +all. The queerness of Miles might be attributed to incipient epilepsy. +And then Dreeme recalled Humphrey Lathrop’s remark about these people +intermarrying from generation to generation. Did he mean incest? +Dreeme had heard of such practices in the lonelier quarters of New +England where the deserted farms were far from communal centers and a +savage ingrowth, physical and spiritual, persisted. But Marlborough +was a fairly good-sized community and it was difficult to imagine +that Lathrop really meant that. What he undoubtedly meant was that +the original families (and there might have been dozens of them to +start with) intermarried and did not welcome unions with strangers who +wandered by chance into the valley. Miles was possibly of an old breed +that had worn thin. He was just an eccentric and stupid boy who knew +no more than the loneliness of hard labor on an avoided farm and who, +therefore, was a stranger in a strange land when he discoursed with +strangers. Dreeme decided that there was nothing to be gotten out of +an analysis of Miles. Well, there was Wagner, the shaggy, red-bearded +hired man. Wagner was obviously the hard-worker on the Westcott farm. +It was he who developed the soil and raised the few crops and tore +the boulders up and did all the excessive heart-breaking manual labor +that warped the shoulders, lengthened the arms, bowed the legs, and +tanned the red leathery skin. He was the pack-horse, the human brute +in action. He could be dismissed, after all, as a grown-up Miles, a +laboring animal of excessive stupidity who talked so seldom that his +voice had rusted in his throat. There was little to glean from these +lesser figures and Dreeme’s thoughts, held rigorously back, now turned +to the Westcotts themselves. + +Of course there was Jeffrey Westcott to start with. Dreeme drew a long +breath as he turned from his inspection of the water and proceeded +along the bridge to the Leeminster Road, walking slowly and gazing +casually at the flickering glimpses of houses through the trees on +either side of him. It was not enough to say that Westcott avoided and +was avoided. That was merely the beginning. Now that Dreeme had seen +the farmer in his house and heard his voice he suspected that there +was much more behind this, much, perhaps, that might be explained +easily if the answers were forthcoming but much again for which there +was no answer. Westcott, first of all, was a cultured man, apparently +a scholar. He spent less time tilling the soil than he did poring +through his huge books. He was an unlikeable person. There was no +doubt of that in Dreeme’s mind. There was an oily menace in him, a +soft snarl in his speech, a barely-concealed cruelty of demeanor that +was emphasized by the superficial polish of the man. His whole being +was dominated by an unclean spirit. As Dreeme thought of Westcott’s +appearance, his cloven head and black sparkless eyes, a slow wave of +fear, impossible to restrain, crept up his flesh. Yet there was nothing +that the young doctor could actually adduce as evidence of any evil +on the farmer’s part. Considered logically Westcott was no more than +a man who desired to be left alone with his books. He troubled no +one and he wanted no one to trouble him. That was reasonable enough. +But logic meant little so far as Westcott was concerned. There are +bodies out of which souls speak without words and Dreeme had seen one +of them in Westcott. He had sensed an unclean atmosphere about the +farmer just as he had sensed an atmosphere of evil emanating from the +huge volumes that lined the farmer’s room. These things were matters +of instinct and intuition and Dreeme could not dismiss them by any +logical explanations or deductions. Something fierce and fanatic and +commanding lurked inside Westcott’s sturdy body and watched the world +with a slow maliciousness. What this spirit was could not be deduced +by any casual study of the man. It had a purpose, Dreeme was sure, and +that purpose was monstrous in its intent and merciless in the steps +which it took toward its ordained objective. So much bespoke a fanatic +and Dreeme was sure that if he could ferret out the reason for this +fanaticism he would be well on the way toward solving the mystery of +Marlborough. The young doctor was not conscious of any logical chain of +reasoning by which he tied the secret purpose of Jeffrey Westcott up +with Marlborough but was convinced that the tie between the community +and the man was close and unbreakable. There were moments when all this +seemed like the wildest reasoning of an imaginative boy to him and he +strove, even in the midst of his revery, to laugh at his assumptions +but something stifled the ridicule in his throat. Though he might +brood about secret objectives and fanatical purposes and buried evils +and unclean spirits without the slightest proof to bolster them up he +found himself incapable of raising his head and scattering all these +thoughts as the misgivings of a neurotic romanticism that was the +result of a too lonely living among dour people. No, there _was_ +something there. And Dreeme, unable to restrain himself, proceeded with +his thoughts even as he proceeded with his stroll up the Leeminster +Road. + +There was Martha Westcott to be considered. Even as her name thrust +itself into Dreeme’s consciousness a slight giddiness took him and he +experienced a brief choking sensation in his throat. It was as though +a thin vapor had suddenly risen in the air beside him and drifted +across his face. At least, _she_ was unexplainable. She was a +walking mystery, a veiled being whose veil was flesh, a detached +spirit wandering in a commonplace world. Dreeme thought of her as he +saw her standing at the window and listening and it seemed to him now +that she was like a person standing at a door she hesitated to open +and yet must open. It was impossible to analyze her in any way, to +say that her heavy-lidded eyes were the result of too much sunlight +or too much snow, that her blood-red mouth had grown so weary from an +endless loneliness, that her quietness was the quietness of a shunned +person. She existed beyond her flesh and yet her flesh, too, so cool +and yet so stirred with a still life, existed beyond the flesh of +other people. How she had become Jeffrey Westcott’s wife and who she +was, from what family in the valley she had sprung, were mysteries as +yet, mysteries that, perhaps, Humphrey Lathrop, if he were goaded hard +enough, might solve, but even the solution of these temporal gestures +would hardly clarify her. Dreeme was amazed at his reactions to Martha +Westcott and a small voice of reason kept thrusting into his thoughts +and arguing a sudden fascination. But Dreeme knew that this fascination +was not the usual type of blind worship. He had not fallen in love at +first sight and there was no question of his ever falling in love with +Martha Westcott. It was something else altogether that compelled him +to surmise in such mystical terms about the farmer’s wife. There was +a power in her mere presence that unsettled him and he did not strive +too arduously to make it clear to himself for he knew that it would be +impossible. + +His mind was growing into a hungry octopus now and it stretched +out a dozen and one tentacles that grasped feebly to right and +left, adventuring weakly in search of enlightenment. But the clear +illumination for which he sought was not to be found. Vague lights +like indistinct marsh-lights glittered wanly for a moment and then +were enveloped by the tenebrosities of a sheer ignorance that was +maddening in itself. He was seeking for something that was hardly to +be found without the most obvious clews. And there were no clews. +Nothing but endless speculation, surmises, unreasonable intuitions, +objectless guesses. Though he might ponder on the Westcotts and the +life they followed it all led to nothing. For a moment he doubted his +own rationality, pointing out to himself with a mocking elaboration of +mental gesture that he was spinning mysteries out of the imbroglio of +his disconcerted mind. There was really nothing to go on, no abrupt +transitions from the normalities of existence, no vindictive flashes +of evil lighting up this valley as lightning might illuminate it, no +ominous gestures revealing the unsuspected. There was nothing about +the Westcotts to suggest the uncleanness of being which he associated +with them. It was all in his own mind, in his restless intuitions. He +_felt_ these things and feeling them he could do no more than give +full vent to his morbid fancies. He might be a fool ... it was very +possible that he was ... but even this humiliating reflection failed to +subdue that uneasiness of spirit that shook him when he brooded upon +Marlborough and the Westcotts. It was as though a far-off and forgotten +voice was speaking somewhere in the jungle of his intelligence telling +him the most terrible things in the most deliberate manner. He could +not gather the sense of the message. He could not even hear the voice. +But somehow he knew that it was there and speaking. It was like a small +obsession making itself more and more evident as he brooded more and +more about it. There was no escape from it now. He would have to make +up his mind to _that_, at least. No escape.... + +Dreeme lifted his head, rising like a swimmer from the turbid waters +of his thoughts, and saw half-concealed in the trees ahead of him +the shapeless mass of the Westcott farm-house. He stopped instantly +and stood indecisively in the road meditating whether to go on or to +turn in his tracks and retrace his steps to Marlborough. Even as he +meditated he knew that he had wandered along this road with only one +purpose and that he would not achieve any ease of mind, if, indeed, he +did then, until he had fulfilled it. Turning aside he left the road +and strode through the bushes into the field, Bidwell’s meadow, that +bordered on Westcott’s property. The dry grass crackled beneath his +feet and great grasshoppers leaped industriously about the crushed +growth. He could hear a locust grinding its rasping note. Otherwise +it was still ... a hot windless stillness that caused him to pant +slightly as he forced his way toward the twisting stone-fence that +guarded Westcott’s land. Reaching it he sank in the tall dry grass by a +crumbling breach where the stone had pitched forward into the farmer’s +yard. From this vantage point he could see the blank side of the house, +once a dirty white but now a streaked colorlessness. A thin curl of +smoke rose from the chimney of the built-on kitchen. The curtains of +the windows were drawn against the sun. A solitary rooster crooked +sleepily as he turned a glassy side-long eye at the stone-fence and +the man concealed behind it. Dreeme could see the uneven rocky path by +which he had circled the house the night before. He was surprised to +discover that it was much shorter than he had thought it to be in the +darkness. Darkness was like that. It lengthened things and translated +them. For fifteen minutes or so the young doctor squatted in the grass +and spied upon the house and the empty yard. He could feel the hot +press of the sun on the back of his head and the sharp thrusts of the +dry stalks beneath him. He would wait now. Until.... + +The door at the rear of the house opened slowly and Martha Westcott +walked down the steps, a white china pitcher in her hand. + +Dreeme lowered his head quickly and peered between the uneven stones +of the fence. He saw her traverse the yard slowly and pause by the +wooden square of the well. She lowered the bucket, running it downward +with long even thrusts of her arm. As she turned her head the sun +glistened upon her blue-black hair and the dead white nape of her +neck. The curving sweep of her broad shoulders and arm was a beautiful +thing to watch. She was like some fatal goddess in action, in sleepy +action. Astarte Syriaca. The name sprang suddenly into Dreeme’s mind. +He had not sought for it. It came of its own volition. Well ... Astarte +Syriaca, then ... an evil goddess. She drew the brimming bucket up to +the shelf of the well, and, tipping it, filled the white china pitcher +with a curving arc of water that glittered like silver in the sun. +Then she hooked the bucket and turned toward the house. As she did +so her eyes swept along the stone wall and the expanse of sun-parched +field beyond. They traveled steadily, large and still and dark under +the heavy lids. Dreeme, crouched in the grass, felt his heart beat +furiously and a slow color crept up his face. It would be ridiculous +to.... Her eyes hesitated an instant at the very spot through which +the young doctor was peering at her. He could see the great motionless +pupils as fixed as the stare of some huge cat and the tiny scarlet +blood-sacs in the inner corners of her eyes. There was absolutely no +expression in these eyes that seemed to look through stone walls. They +were frozen pools of stillness that seemed to take the world as they +found it without any surprise and with a knowledge that was as ancient +as the browned stones upon which the sleepy green slivers of lizards +dozed. Dreeme, pressed abjectly against the stone wall, experienced an +agitation through all his limbs. A choking sensation welled up in his +dry throat and his hands, clinging fiercely to the parched stalks by +his knees, shook as though with a palsy. It was only for an instant. +Her eyes continued their blank survey and reached the house. Turning, +she walked slowly back to the door, the white china pitcher outlined +against her black dress, and slipped silently in. The door shut behind +her without a sound. Dreeme remained for several minutes against the +stone wall fearing to test the strength of his legs. Then he rose to +his feet and tramped back through the burnt and brittle grass, crashing +through the bushes to the road. He walked swiftly along the Leeminster +Road to Marlborough without looking back. + + +III + +The girl’s eyes were like wet violets, a soaked blue so deep as to +be astonishing. Mrs. Slater had said: “Deborah.... This is Doctor +Dreeme ...” and then she had added in a grudging tone: “My niece ... +Deborah is my niece ...” Dreeme remembered that he had bowed and +mumbled vaguely in his throat. It did not surprise him that Mrs. Slater +had a niece. She looked as though she had nieces. Besides, all New +Englanders had nieces. It was the penalty of the country. That ... +or ... well, perhaps, no nieces. It was all a question of family, of +children, of course. Grandfathers were at a premium in New England now +but nieces and nephews and cousins were the common coinage of pride. +It was impossible to go into a musty Back Bay parlor, for instance, +without hearing something about: “He’s a cousin of ...” or “She’s the +niece of....” It was like that. Being reduced to mop up one’s lesser +relatives, so to speak. Or to reach out through a dubious cousinal +(_could_ there be such a word?) connection and so getting a foot +_in_. Families scattered and broke up; the main stem shattered; +there was nothing but twigs left. “I am a twig of the Winthrops.” A +wind-blown twig without any leaves. Mrs. Slater scraped his chair back +and he sank into it. She was staring at him with fluttering eyes. +There were snapping eyes all around the table. He was getting choppy in +his thoughts. Choppy ... choppy. + +He assumed a bland indifference and waited for the smoking bowl of +cabbage to be pushed his way. The long red slices of corned beef lay +like so many tongues at his elbow. He forked one neatly and slapped it +onto his plate. + +Physiognomy, they said, was a science in itself. The twist of a man’s +mind from the twist of his mouth. _His_ slant from the slant of +his nose. But what about a man with a cloven head? What about a woman +with ... oh, wonderful! The cabbage, a pale browny-green glistening +with tiny jewels of grease, reached him and he speared an efficient +mound of it. A long walk induced hunger. Take faces now. The sly +student ran his eyes over a face and solved it as easily as a rebus +is solved, a rebus put together for infantile intellects. One assumed +that the student was right but one did not really know. Still ... there +must be a lot in it. If the proper perspective was achieved the face +fell into an approximate map of the mind. Easy. Like pulling a rabbit +out of a silk hat. But you had to catch your rabbit first. Dreeme put +his knife and fork down softly. He was light-headed. Giddy. Too much +sun. But if he was going to get anywhere he would have to study faces, +covertly, tracking out half-obliterated urges, deciphering.... Mrs. +Slater asked him if he would like some vinegar on his cabbage. Good +God, no! “Thank you,” he said and shook his head. He picked up the fork +and thrust it into his smoking mound of cabbage. The little jewels of +grease dripped from the raised portion. He gazed about him, stifling an +intensity of stare behind an assumed nonchalance. + +He was surrounded by masticating jaws. Walden Slater, the Reverend +George Burroughs, five little Slaters with pop eyes and glistening +chins down which cabbage grease ran. And ... that girl. Mrs. Slater, +having placed everything on the table, sank with a sigh of relief +into her seat. Her eyes fluttered as one brown, freckled hand reached +for the corned beef platter. She, at least, was patent. Her plumpness +bulged at the caught-in house-wrapper. Her face was a small moon +with a turned-up nose, a wide mouth that inclined downwards at the +corners, and round eyes that thrust forward from the puffed circles +that contained them. Her wispy straw-colored hair was drawn back in +a sort of door-knob and the heads of three metal hair-pins stood up +from it like tiny croquet arches. She was an aunt, after all. It +was quite reasonable. Opposite her Walden Slater’s long upper lip +snapped feverishly at a dangling bit of cabbage. The lip of a camel. +The cocks-comb of hair stood upright on his head and the thousand +and one wrinkles in his red weather-beaten neck rippled as he leaned +forward over his plate. The tuft of ragged hair beneath his lower lip +glistened with cabbage grease. There were marks of perspiration about +the arm-pits of his blue denim shirt. His broken nails carried a fair +share of the dark soil of Marlborough. Now and then he would raise his +watery gray eyes and look swiftly about the table. The heavy brows +above them, bristling with a nondescript brush of hair, rose and fell +as his long jaw moved up and down. Jabbing his fork into a long tongue +of corned beef he tossed it dexterously upward and caught it with a +lip that seemed, rubber-like, to stretch down to meet it. It was a +triumph of coordination and Dreeme watched it with a pleased and sleepy +satisfaction. Now if he could catch corned beef like that ... on the +wing, so to speak.... The five little Slaters cracked their iron-shod +heels against the legs of their chairs as they dribbled food. Give them +time. They would grow as dexterous as Walden. They were a regimented +quintet. They rushed out to school with a great clattering of feet +and rushed back again to dinner with the same infernal racket. Their +immature minds were small muddy circles into which the schoolmaster +flung flawed pearls. The jewels sank to the bottom and were seen no +more. + +Dreeme’s mind revolved, for an instant, about educational processes. +Tomorrow this community of Marlborough would be changed. It would be +renewed by the five little Slaters and their companions in age. What +would they make of the valley and the dour town? Would things remain +the same? Would that persistent shadow of mystery that hovered over the +place be lifted or would its darkness, like the impalpable darkness of +invisible wings, deepen and remain? Who could prophesy what would be +the state of affairs at that not-so-distant time? There was no reason +why the outer world should impinge too strongly on Marlborough, for, +after all, the valley was a cul-de-sac, a cache into which the Past had +thrust an untidy bundle of urges and traditions and left them there +to rot in the sunlight. And Dreeme seemed to see the Marlborough of +the future stretching out like a corpse in the bright sunlight of the +valley and striving ... striving.... He shuddered at the picture so +suddenly brought up before his mind, a picture of a white leprous mass +struggling to live, dead and yet never dying, with closed eyes that +continually quivered, with blue lips rolling back over yellow decayed +teeth, with long skeleton fingers opening and shutting and fighting +against the _rigor mortis_ of Time. He slowly put down the.... + +“If you _please_!” + +The Reverend George Burroughs’ sallow face was thrust appealingly at +him and the mechanical portion of Dreeme’s brain slowly grasped the +request. + +“Cabbage? What cabbage? Oh, yes,” he said hurriedly and pushed the +decimated platter of curdling grease along the table. + +Mr. Burroughs, his face drawn into a severe and disapproving +recognition of wool-gathering in general, accepted the glistening +remnants with some degree of asperity. Like a little horse. Like a +little yellow withered horse. Mr. Burroughs certainly had an equine +appearance. Dreeme permitted his eyes to survey the preacher with a +faint degree of curiosity. Though he had sat at the same table with him +for two years he had never developed enough curiosity about the skinny +man of God to observe him closely. Now he would do it. He would fix him +in his mind as a butterfly is fixed in a box. He would thrust the sharp +pin of his comprehension through the withered thorax of the Reverend +George Burroughs. The preacher dropped his face and successfully eluded +his silent inquisitor. Dreeme almost called out, “Hey, there!” The +preacher’s bald forehead bent above his second helping of cabbage. +Dark hair, starting from the ridge of that high forehead grew downward +and lost itself in the musty black coat that huddled over the dingy +collar. The man’s skin was as sallow as a Chinaman with the jaundice. +Though partially concealed by the amusing foreshortening attendant to a +lowered head Dreeme could see a fairly long face with high cheek-bones, +eyes set far apart, and a good-sized mouth. “He will raise his head +and neigh at me in a minute,” thought Dreeme. The preacher did raise +his head but he did not neigh. Instead of that he looked fixedly at +the young doctor for an instant with horribly still eyes and then +transferred his attention to his cabbage. For no reason at all Dreeme +was embarrassed at this expressionless study and he hastily diverted +his eyes elsewhere. + +The girl’s eyes were like wet violets, a soaked blue so deep as to be +astonishing. + +Mrs. Slater had said.... Why yes, she was a niece.... A New England +niece. Now that was funny for she did not look like a niece at all. +Nieces were ... oh, _nieces_! She was a slender pliant wisp in a +matter-of-fact gray dress and with a tiny white collar and cuffs. She +ate daintily, nibbling at the bits of corned beef which she raised on +the tip of a fork held in the smallest hand for an adult that Dreeme +had ever seen. Her absurdly miniature mouth was slightly pursed as +though an infant bee had stung it, the smallest of stings, so to +speak. Her hair was a bright soft bronze, the sort of hair that ... +well, thought Dreeme, it probably feels like warm mist. Now that he +was fairly looking at her he could see how porcelain-like she was, +how small in bones and fastidious in gestures. Such a niece for Mrs. +Slater! It was almost impossible and Dreeme’s glance flitted swiftly +over the five children kicking their heels and gulping their food +and Walden Slater conducting a successful foray against a chunk of +corned beef that had desperately striven to elude his remorseless +fork. The young doctor’s eyes returned to the girl. Deborah. Her name +was Deborah. Mrs. Slater had said.... The girl looked up and caught +Dreeme’s glance with a bright flash of her absurdly blue eyes. The +smallest hint of a smile touched her pursed lips and she turned back +to her food. Dreeme suddenly felt quite elated. It was not that he +_cared_. He was not a lady’s man in any sense of the word. +Just a hard-working doctor who, at this moment, was neglecting his +work because of certain silly obsessions that were driving him to +distraction, obsessions that Humphrey Lathrop would have to clear away. +He would see Humphrey that afternoon, drop in late and smoke a pipe +with him, perhaps. Anyway.... Deborah looked up again. Her eyes seemed +to say, “We have a joke together, haven’t we? Niece? How absurd!” +Dreeme pushed his plate back and waited for somebody to speak. + +Nobody did. Marlborough meals were like this. A greedy silence lowered +over the table. + +Walden Slater, overcoming the resistance of the last bit of corned +beef on his plate, rose awkwardly to his feet, scraped once or twice, +belched forth a triumphant elegy of wind over the meal, and turned +toward the door. He shambled out, long arms dangling. His exit was a +signal for a general clattering of chairs. The five children avalanched +toward the front yard for their fifteen minutes of surly play before +the warning bell of the little one-room school-house across the way +made them still surlier. Mr. Burroughs walked softly to the window and +stood there humming “Rock of Ages.” He was atrociously out of key, +a droning whine that clung tenaciously to one note. His still eyes +wandered absently toward Deborah as he lulled his dinner to sleep. +Dreeme said: + +“So you’re Mrs. Slater’s niece?” + +The girl looked up brightly. + +“Her poor relation,” she replied. “She is very kind to me. Since father +died she....” + +“You might bring out some dishes,” broke in Mrs. Slater vigorously. + +She was a small girl and she carried the stack of greasy plates with an +instinctive grace that pleased Dreeme. When she came back she renewed +her bright attention toward the young doctor. + +“We lived in Leeminster, you know,” she said. + +Dreeme did not know but he nodded understandingly. + +“Perhaps you read about father,” went on the girl, as she piled saucers +in a high heap. “It was in the county paper. The bag of cement fell on +him, you know.” + +“Of course,” said Dreeme politely. + +“The Lord gives and the Lord takes,” insinuated the neighing voice +of Mr. Burroughs, who broke off his humming for this shaft of divine +wisdom and then instantly resumed it. + +“He died in half an hour,” added the girl. + +“Really?” exclaimed Dreeme. + +He watched her go out with interested eyes. Mr. Burroughs’ humming got +on his nerves and he writhed uneasily at the dreary drone. The preacher +was like an old bumble bee with bronchitis. He stood in the window, his +large mouth pursed, his horsey forehead slightly lowered, and intimated +sadly that the Rock had been cleft especially for _him_. In +the flattest of whines he announced his burning desire to fly to Its +bosom. “May it fall upon you and crush you!” thought Dreeme somewhat +vindictively, the unending whine scraping along his nerves. He waited, +in some expectancy, for the reappearance of the girl. But it was not +she who came through the door and gathered up the remaining débris +of the meal. It was Mrs. Slater, a Mrs. Slater with fluttering eyes +and quick lumbering movements. Dreeme felt like smiling but instead +of giving way to any such impulse he rose to his feet and sauntered +toward the door. A lugubrious whine followed him, creeping up his back +and gently pushing him toward the hot early afternoon sunlight. At +the lintel he paused and looked back. A musty expanse of black coat +and an oblong of black hair. Behind it a shapeless hum that drearily +mangled a helpless hymn. A dumpy woman folding a red and white checked +table-cloth. She was expressionless now. A big clock ticking. Also +expressionless. A waterfall design in pink wall-paper. Curved pink +water falling indecently into black base-boards. Scattered chairs to +be placed discreetly against the wall until supper. They stood about +dejectedly, awaiting the touch of a hand ... what was it? He stepped +through the hall and into the street. The heat was oppressive. It +rose at him on scarlet haunches and panted against his face. He stood +looking up and down the thoroughfare at nothing before he returned to +his next-door office in the little cottage. At nothing. Absolutely +nothing. That was it. That was where _he_ stood. That was where +they put _him_. A niece, eh? Well, why not? Mrs. Slater probably +had a dozen nephews and nieces living within a radius of ten miles +and the fact that _he_ had seen none of them in two years really +meant nothing. Mrs. Slater was like that. Marlborough was like that. +She didn’t want the girl to grow too friendly with him. To tell him +things. Not even obvious things. Ridiculous. He would ply the girl with +questions at suppertime and shock, astound, disconcert, and upset the +whole table. Well.... He stood smiling at his own thoughts. Let them, +then.... Now what did that mean? He was growing reckless as well as +nervously excitable. It was time to see Humphrey Lathrop. Decidedly, +Marlborough was getting.... He progressed slowly to his own door and +placed a hand upon the polished knob. + + + + +Chapter Three + + +I + +Doctor Humphrey Lathrop was so huge that it was difficult for him to +move about even with the aid of the two gnarled canes that flanked +either side of his gargantuan reinforced chair, a throne that creaked +ominously as his shifting bulk, a bulk that seemed to roll slowly like +cooling lava, swayed forward in wheezing conversation. He sat like an +enormous and kindly jelly-fish, his stomach resting on his great round +thighs and straining fiercely against the bulging vest spangled with +fobs and seals, his triple chins trembling beneath his wrinkled face, +his broad flat feet encased in comfortable slippers that suggested a +pair of medium-sized Gladstone bags. His black velvet smoking jacket, +odorous with a villainous tobacco, spread over him like a voluminous +cape. The polished baldness of his round cranium was thrust into a +skull-cap that fitted as snugly as a skin. On the back of his neck the +rolls of fat rippled as he stretched a plump arm out and lifted the +tiny green tea-cup in a massive hand. He wheezed softly as he moved, +a pleasant sibilant sound that chimed with the remonstrative creaking +of his over-loaded chair. Dreeme, perched opposite him on the end of +his chair, observed the ancient friend of his father with an approving +and respectful eye. He saw the moon-face and sagging jowls tanned by +many suns and eaten by an intricate net-work of wrinkles (which Lathrop +called “my map to eternity”) and the large blue intelligent eyes gazing +out of the gold circles of precariously balanced spectacles, and +experienced, as always, a curious sense of inferiority and complete +trust in the wisdom of the old doctor. Humphrey Lathrop was more than +an ancient friend. He was a monument of probity and wisdom, a great +quivering idol from whose lips issued counsel and the finalities of an +achieved experience. He was a Mahomet transformed into a mountain. For +fifty years he had been the solitary medical adviser to Marlborough +and it had only been after his bulk had reached such proportions as to +render it impossible for him to get about or climb in or out of his +rusty old buggy that he had turned over a meager and thankless practice +to the son of his boyhood friend. He had done so with misgiving and +regret for he distrusted the vagaries of the young in the profession +which he had honored for half a century. He was old-fashioned, deucedly +so, believing that a doctor’s prime concoction was common-sense +mixed with a little peppermint. It had been enough for him to supply +the simplest of remedies to the ailing and he possessed an undying +suspicion of what he denominated as “applied book-learning” in so far +as the practical treatment of sickness was concerned. He pointed +out time and again that there were no rare diseases in Marlborough. +Children were born in the usual way and men and women died as they had +always died. Between these two important dates were the ailments of the +young, mumps, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and measles. After that there +were accidents, cuts and bruises and broken limbs, and then such major +ailments as typhoid fever, chronic stomach trouble (which, so far as +Doctor Lathrop was concerned, included stomach, kidneys, and liver), +and pneumonia. He scoffed at appendicitis, calling it “an aristocratic +belly-ache.” In spite of his limitations as a doctor, and, perhaps, +because of the wiry health of his patients he had been accounted an +unusually successful practitioner. The thunderous approach of his great +flat feet and thumping canes were the immediate prophecies of relief. +What impressed Dreeme most strongly about him was the excellence and +keenness of his mind when taken apart from his dogged attitude toward +medicine. Though he might be a narrow-minded old fogey of a doctor, +he was, as a thinking man on general topics and life in general, +far-sighted, deliberative in judgment, ratiocinative, and exceedingly +shrewd. He mixed a certain amount of imagination with his observations +and limited it with a complacent fatalism that was less abrupt than +dimly wistful. Therefore, whenever Dreeme was perplexed he visited +Lathrop, finding in him a genial fount of encouragement and pertinent +comment. At this moment he was fumbling toward an utterance of the +problem weighing upon his puzzled mind and the old doctor, fully aware +of the purpose of the visit, studied him with some amusement, his blue +eyes twinkling behind the gold spectacles. + +“I was called out to the Westcott farm last night,” said Dreeme +finally, pushing his cup from the edge of the little table. + +Lathrop’s blue eyes opened wide and then closed. He wheezed gently and +drank his tea, pausing to blow at the scalding mixture, and then put +the cup down. It tinkled sharply in the silence of the room. Dreeme +heard the monotonous buzzing of a fly in the curtains by the window. + +“So?” said Lathrop at last. Then he seemed to dismiss the subject, +reaching for his blackened corncob pipe and stuffing it from the can of +shag on the table. + +“You don’t come to see me often, Daniel,” said the old doctor as he lit +a match, applied it to the pipe, and puffed wheezily. The pipe wouldn’t +draw. “Drat it!” he exclaimed, putting down the charred corncob, and +gazing about the room with a calm benevolent smile. + +“I don’t see anyone often,” remarked Dreeme somewhat dejectedly. + +Lathrop looked at him quickly, pursing his large lips. + +“I warned you that this was no place for a young man,” he said. “You +can’t go about here. There is nothing to see and still less to do. I +don’t mind it but I am an old man and I couldn’t get about if I wanted +to. I have to sit in this chair like an old rheumatic hippopotamus and +look out the window.” + +“And nobody goes by,” added Dreeme gloomily. + +A faint chuckle irrupted from the huge body before him. + +“Nothing but the sun and the rain and the clouds and the snow and the +night,” checked off Lathrop on his pudgy fingers. “But I don’t mind. It +isn’t so bad to have the chair placed out in the sun and to doze in it. +It warms me up.” + +“I haven’t minded it either,” said Dreeme, “that is, until a day or +so ago. Then my mind got working again and I began to grow curious. I +want to know the ‘why’ of things. I want to know about people and why +communities are what they are.” + +“That’s simple,” declared Lathrop. “Environment ... blood ... breeding.” + +Dreeme flung out an impatient hand. + +“Oh, I know,” he said. “I know all that. But there is something in back +of those things, something that creeps in the soil and climbs in the +trees and looks out of empty window-panes and circulates about you when +you walk in the street, and....” He broke off abruptly. “Do you believe +in magic, Humphrey?” he inquired suddenly. + +Lathrop chuckled and wheezed, fumbling for the handkerchief in the side +pocket of his smoking jacket. The blowing of his nose was like the +sounding of a trumpet. + +“So that’s it,” he said. “So that’s it. Lordy, Lordy.” + +He picked up his pipe again and sought for the pen-knife in his +trousers pocket and began to clean out the stubborn bowl. + +“Daniel,” he said, “I’ll tell you what I believe. Perhaps it will help +you and perhaps it won’t.” + +He paused and maintained a silence until the pipe was cleaned, filled, +lighted, and drawing comfortably. Then he settled his huge bulk back in +the creaking chair and observed Dreeme with bland blue eyes through the +gold spectacles. + +“You’ll have to forgive the inconsistencies, Daniel,” he began. +“I’ve never worked out a system of things. I’ve been too lazy and +too conscious of my own ignorance to do that. But I have certain +instinctive beliefs and I imagine they are unalloyed with the +new-fangled notions that are called modern psychology. I think that we +have two ways of classifying what is strange and mysterious to us--the +supernormal and the supernatural. I do not say ‘no’ to any of the +supernormal things. Against the supernatural I turn my face. It isn’t +reasonable. It isn’t even spiritually reasonable. For instance, the +most ordinary inventions today would have seemed supernatural three +hundred years ago, whereas, at that time, they were merely supernormal, +existing in that unexplored terrain outside of the comprehension and +investigation of the day. So today we have faith that the things which +seem supernatural are merely in _our_ unexplored terrain and that +tomorrow or next year or next century they will be made ordinary to +us. There is a great difference between the radio and Jonah in the +whale’s belly. One is supernormal and the other is supernatural. A +man cannot be heard from San Francisco to New York, as people loosely +state, but a mechanical invention carries the sound of his voice. That +is supernormal but conceivable. But Jonah in the whale’s belly is not +represented by any kind of mechanical contrivance. He is not carried +there and represented by any kind of ultra-wave. He is just there, +his physical self. That is supernatural. A man putting his head in a +pail of water and holding it there for three hours and then coming out +unaffected by the immersion is supernatural. But a man in a diver’s +suit with oxygen tanks attached who goes beneath the sea for three +hours is merely supernormal. I believe in the supernormal--in the vast +and still unexplored terrain that stretches before us but I do not +believe in the supernatural.” + +“You believe in the scientific explanation of everything,” said Dreeme. + +“I wouldn’t say that,” replied Lathrop, pursing his lips. “No, sir, +I wouldn’t say that. I would even go so far as to say that there are +things which I conceive to be supernormal that cannot be explained by +any scientific theory whatsoever. I do not believe in the levitation +of tables by spirit-hands although I do not say that tables are not +levitated. I do not believe that an ectoplasm is a materialization of +the dead but I do not say that there is nothing unexplainable there for +the eye to see. I do not believe that the dead talk through the lips +of the living although I do not affirm that the words issuing from the +medium’s mouth are always her own.” + +Doctor Lathrop waved his pipe at Dreeme. + +“I believe in mysteries,” he insisted. “I believe these mysteries to +be intellectually suspected at rare moments but never actually solved. +I do not believe that we will ever solve them. So far as I know they +move on another circle of time or in another dimension or anything +you choose. But I demand that they be called supernormal and not +supernatural.” + +“Do you believe that there is a supernormal aspect to Marlborough, +then?” asked Dreeme, seeing at last a short-cut to the thoughts that +boiled so inchoately in his mind. + +Lathrop nodded his head and Dreeme laughed triumphantly. + +“Then you know what I mean,” he said, “when I say there is something +in back of all this, something in the soil and the air and the very +houses,” and he waved his hand toward the window. + +“Yes, yes,” agreed Lathrop, “I haven’t denied it, have I? Every +community has its supernormal aspects, its twisted web of mysteries +floating like a fine skein in the air above it. We’re all tangled up +with supernormal things. I admit it. You cannot go anywhere without +finding yourself pushed against a dark wall of impenetrable silence +that speaks without words and always speaks in a foreign tongue.” + +Dreeme’s lean face grew solemn as he hitched his chair closer to the +little table and extended his hand, palm upward, toward Lathrop. + +“That may be true enough,” he said. “But the sensation I experience +in Marlborough is different. Every community has its own strange aura +rising from it. Even the veriest over-night town thrown together beside +oil-wells or gold-mines speaks in what you might call a foreign tongue. +But it says brave or bright or progressive things. It lifts itself +toward some sparkle in the adventurous sky above it. I have been in +New York and raised my eyes to the heavens and seen, in my mind’s eye, +at least, a thousand glittering spires which were the reflection not +of the monstrous shafts of granite about me but of the City behind +the city, the great, mad, impressive, unresting urge upon which the +infinite foundations of this finite metropolis are built. It was +awesome but it was not fearful. Marlborough, I tell you, is different.” + +Lathrop stirred uneasily, his enormous bulk swaying forward to a +strident creaking of the chair. + +“I told you when you first came here that Marlborough was different,” +he said. The shadow of a growing perplexity was in his eyes. + +“I know you did,” responded Dreeme, “and telling me so much you told me +nothing. You told me there was a breed of New Englanders here that I +had never seen before. I admit it now. But why is this breed different? +You did not tell me that. You told me that a mixture of ethical and +Dionysiac madnesses produced the forefathers of these people, of the +Bidwells and Barnsons and Westcotts and Slaters. Well, what does that +mean? You opened the door of a dark room to me, a door which I should +have pushed open myself sooner or later, but you did not give me any +lamp. Do you know what the sensation is that I have when I think of +Marlborough?” + +Lathrop shook his head slowly, the loose chins beneath his round face +wagging like the wattles on a cock. + +“I think constantly of a horrible dead body, a white leprous mass of +flesh, that is striving to live,” answered Dreeme in a low voice. “The +dark circles of the closed eyes quiver, the blue lips roll back, and +the long fingers, struggling against _rigor mortis_, slowly open. +There are only shadows in the palms of the hands.” + +“Good God!” exclaimed Lathrop, reaching hastily for his cup of cold +tea. After a moment he laughed in his wheezing way. + +“You have the imagination of a penny-dreadful,” he remarked. + +“Have I?” asked Dreeme. “Do you really think so, doctor?” + +Lathrop drank the last swallow of his chilled beverage and then put the +cup back and turned to his corncob pipe. + +“Look here, Daniel,” he commanded. “Do you want me to prescribe for +you? You’re suffering from nerves. Your digestion is bad. Do you sleep +well? How about a nice vacation? Eh, what?” + +Dreeme shook his head. + +“I’m all right, Humphrey,” he said. “You can’t get rid of me in that +way. You’ve got to tell me things.” + +Lathrop sighed loudly. + +“I was telling you things,” he remarked. “I was telling you what I +believed. Let me go on. Perhaps there will be a clew in it for you.” + +He paused for an instant and whistled loudly as his blue eyes roamed +about the room. + +“Let me give you some of my detached thoughts,” he said at last. “I +believe in the sense of the past. I believe it to be a living urge in +itself but I also believe that it may be explained. Any place that has +been lived in long enough will rear a fine fabric of associated ideas +stretching back through the centuries. I believe that a philosophy +of living may be developed from this sense of the past. I believe +that a philosophy of living may unhinge the brain if it is based on +vague enough historical urges and cause a man to mistake supernormal +phenomena for supernatural things. I believe in the power of the +fanatic and so many things may be regarded as fanaticisms--the +fanaticism of ego, of evil, of good, of superstition, of a displaced +historical sense. This last one alone is worth a treatise in itself. +I believe in the suggestion of the more powerful will and its might +in causing lesser wills to pervert the realities into mysteries. I +believe in the concerted suggestion of the crowd to formulate a seeming +atmosphere in any community. Do these thoughts tell you anything about +Marlborough?” + +“In a way,” answered Dreeme. “But not enough. Give me the key to all +this, Humphrey, for you must know it. You’ve lived here for half a +century and you have had opportunities to observe.” + +“No more than you have,” replied Lathrop quickly. “Haven’t I intimated +to you that an idle curiosity was the worst of all evils? Daniel, you +must not try to pry into things too closely. I could, perhaps, tell you +enough to quicken your curiosity into an intolerable sneakiness. You +would go about peering at people, watching their movements, spying upon +their activities, surmising their thoughts and reactions and springs of +being. And, sooner or later, you would be known for the Paul Pry you +would be and your practice would be lost and it would be impossible for +you to live in Marlborough. I tell you,” and the doctor slapped his fat +knee loudly, “these people _will_ not be watched and analyzed. Let +well enough alone.” + +Dreeme raised his eyebrows. + +“I’m not a Paul Pry,” he said finally. Lathrop seemed to take this +remark as a dismissal of the subject and his joviality, which had +been somewhat dampened by Dreeme’s insistence, reasserted itself. He +hammered the floor lustily with his cane and after a moment a long +vinegary countenance thrust itself through the door. + +“Lucinda,” ordered Lathrop, “bring a bottle of apple-jack and two +tumblers.” + +The vinegary face grew still longer. A thin mouth, a mere slit in the +wrinkled face, shrivelled in severe disapproval. + +“You had some apple-jack this mornin’,” announced a high nasal voice. + +“I’m going to have some more now,” answered Lathrop blandly. + +The visage swayed for a moment in the doorway and then disappeared to +the sound of a loud sigh. + +Lathrop winked at Dreeme. + +“The old fool,” he said. “Lucinda’s been with me for forty years and +she still considers me a giddy dissipated youth.” + +“Do you believe in God?” asked Dreeme suddenly, apparently giving +utterance to some train of thought in his mind. It was now Lathrop’s +turn to sigh as loudly as Lucinda had sighed. + +“Daniel, Daniel,” he said, shaking his head. “Can you tell me what you +mean by God?” + +“That’s the old way of evasion,” said Dreeme impatiently. “Do you +believe we exist as individuals after we die?” + +“I believe we exist as individuals in a thousand and one ways and eyes +and minds and words spoken or written,” answered the old doctor. + +“Do you believe that we exist in the consciousness of ourselves as +individuals after we die?” persisted Dreeme. + +“I do not,” answered Lathrop wearily. + +Dreeme slipped back into his train of thought and a moment or so sped +by while the stillness of the room was broken only by the buzzing of +the fly still entangled in the window-curtain. It shrilled loudly as it +darted blindly from the soft folds of cloth to the hard surface of the +transparent pane of glass. + +“Even in life,” added Lathrop, “I do not believe that we exist as +individuals in ourselves, although, of course, our consciousnesses, +being what they are, can tell us nothing else.” + +The door swung open and Lucinda’s vinegary face appeared over the tray +upon which perched the amber-hued apple-jack bottle and two greenish +tumblers. She stalked silently to the table and deposited her burden +upon it. Lucinda was tall and spare and her arms were extraordinarily +thin. Her long face, small black eyes, and pursed mouth registered a +deep disapproval beneath the thin graying hair, tied in a back-knot, +that covered her narrow head. + +“I should think one glass might be enough for you, Humphrey,” she +complained, backing from the table like a tall and awkward colt. At the +door she turned to add a final word. + +“And young men might do better than sit drinkin’ alcohol when there’s +plenty of sick people about needin’ attention.” + +The door closed noisily behind her. Lathrop’s wheezing chuckle followed +her to the kitchen. + +“The old fool,” he said softly and tenderly as he poured out the amber +liquor. + +Dreeme accepted the tumbler that was offered him in an absent-minded +manner, placing it on the edge of the table. He sighed loudly and +Lathrop, gazing over the top of his glass, scowled pleasantly but said +nothing. + +“Why do you side-track me, Humphrey, whenever I mention the Westcotts?” +inquired the young man at length with asperity in his voice. + +“Did I?” asked Lathrop mildly. + +Dreeme did not answer but took a brief swallow of apple-jack. + +“Good, isn’t it?” questioned the old doctor with a fair degree of +enthusiasm. “The national tipple of New England,” he went on. “Eve’s +brew,” he concluded, draining off the tumbler. + +“What do you know about Eve?” taunted Dreeme with a wan smile. + +Lathrop wheezed for a full minute, and then, reaching over with a +great effort, dug at Dreeme’s ribs. Then his face sobered. + +“Oh dear!” he said. And then: “I didn’t side-track you, Daniel. I +merely ignore you.” + +Dreeme finished his drink slowly and put the tumbler down. He said: + +“I shall find out about the Westcotts, I have been in the farm-house +and I can go again.” + +“Did they invite you back?” inquired Lathrop. + +The young man stared moodily across the table. Lathrop smiled blithely +and poured himself a second tumbler of apple-jack. + +“You’ll get tipsy,” remarked Dreeme. + +“No such luck!” wheezed the old doctor. “I was brought up on this +drink. I sucked it in at my mother’s knee.” + +“That’s a lie,” answered Dreeme. “You were not permitted to drink +anything stronger than milk at home.” + +“How did you know that, Daniel?” asked Lathrop with mild surprise. He +drained half the tumbler and wiped his mouth. Dreeme sat doggedly in +his chair. + +“Very well,” said the old doctor with a sigh of defeat. “I give up. +What do you want to know about the Westcotts?” + +“Everything,” announced Dreeme. He did not change his position but a +brief light of excitement danced in his eyes. + +Lathrop shook his head. “I can’t tell you that,” he said, “because I +don’t know everything. But I’ll tell you what I do know and you may +make the most of it. With this preamble....” He cleared his throat. +“You just wear a man down, Daniel. I’m departing from the rule of a +lifetime. Much good may it do you or me!” + +He filled his ubiquitous pipe and lighted it. A piratical odor assailed +the air. + +“I came to Marlborough in ’57,” he said. “New England in ’57 was a +strange place. The old world was breaking into pieces and there were +faint, very faint glimmers of a new order of things. It was the days +shortly after Dan Webster had thrown his party. Charles Sumner was +being assaulted in his seat in the Senate and the Abolitionists were +roaring their heads off. It was a curious time because the Republic +was rushing straight to perdition. It was State’s Rights and ‘nigger, +nigger, who’s got the nigger’ all the time. There was always a nigger +in _somebody’s_ wood-pile. Up popped a woolly head and the farmers +who had no use for nigger-labor grunted like hedge-hogs for Abolition. +I was pretty young and careless about the destiny of our revered +Republic so I did not cogitate _too_ much about things (you’d +call them phenomena, Daniel) that were for me no more than theoretical +problems. It was my business to explore the highways and byways of +Marlborough, fish the streams, go fowling for bats, pick blueberries, +and sleep in the sun. I don’t imagine I thought much about the people +whom I met. Most of them were funny. One of them rather impressed +himself upon me for I used to enjoy snooping about the Leeminster Road +and there I would meet him stomping along and smacking at the stones +with his stick. That was old Captain Uriah Carrier. He had been a +ship-mate of Hawthorne of Salem, the one who died of fever at Surinam +and whose son wrote books.” + +He paused and reached for his can of shag. Then he said: + +“Is there anything crazier than writing books, Daniel? It is the +ultimate idiocy, the last gasp of the lunatic.” + +“All this is getting somewhere?” asked Dreeme. + +Lathrop wheezed. He said: + +“More or less.” + +He settled back and proceeded with his rambling story. + +“Let us, my impatient young friend, pause and consider Captain Uriah +Carrier. He was the type of man that distinctly does not exist +any more. He had hunted whales in the Pacific, had terrorized and +robbed the natives of Tahiti, had blackbirded off the African Gold +Coast, had carried a Manchu woman about with him for mistress, had +retired, returned to Marlborough--for he was born here, joined the +Congregational Church, married, raised children, and become the usual +pillar of New England. He was a pillar of smoke by day, for his tobacco +was vile, and a pillar of fire by night, for his cellar was full of +Jamaica rum. He was a tall man with bristling white hair and stained +whiskers (a lovely rust-color about his mouth) and an evil eye. He had +an invariable greeting for me. ‘Younker,’ he’d say. ‘Look out for the +devil.’ I’d say, ‘Where is he, Capt’n?’ ‘In my ’bacca pouch,’ he’d +growl, and shake it at me. I was too old for that, though, and would +laugh at him, whereupon he’d show his yellow fangs, smack another stone +with his stick--it was big and knobby enough to kill Goliath with--and +stomp along muttering to himself. A great man, Daniel, but I’m glad +that I did not follow in his wicked footsteps.” + +He wheezed a soft sigh. Dreeme stirred impatiently in his chair. + +“Well, now,” went on Lathrop. “Captain Uriah Carrier had several +children, all of whom died young except one and that was Peleg Carrier. +I went away to college and came back after the Civil War. The old +captain was dead. I heard that he sat up in his huge four-poster after +Gettysburg sucking at a rum-bottle and singing some foul old sailor +song full of the most terrific obscenities. Then he had fallen back, +said ‘What ho, now!’ in faint surprise, and passed out. Peleg Carrier +was a quiet sort of boy as I remember him but it is not so much the boy +I remember as the man who returned from Germany to Marlborough after I +had slipped into the saddle as doctor here. That must have been in the +early seventies when Jesse James was shooting up Missouri and Kansas +and old Sitting Bull was preparing his revenge and the buildings for +the Philadelphia Centennial were being raised. Peleg Carrier was rather +different from his blasphemous old scoundrel of a father. He was a +melancholiac.” + +Lathrop brooded for a moment, one great hand raised to his round face. +Dreeme could see the hairy ring of fat about the old doctor’s wrist. + +“My memory of Peleg Carrier is revised and aided and abetted by my +later analysis of him,” proceeded Lathrop. “I got to thinking about +him early in life and for some years he was a pet study of mine. +A sort of unusual specimen, you know. He lived all alone in the +Carrier house on the Leeminster Road, a house that burned down long +before your time. I imagine that leading a lonely rigorous life in +a desolate country community induces melancholy. Don’t you, Daniel? +Peleg, however, was born a melancholiac. Melancholia, I take it, +is not a malady so much as a matter of temperament. It renders its +victims austere and dour. They dissimulate violent passions that are +exhibited only through tempestuous outbreaks of weeping and nerves. +By their nature they are exposed to a continual perturbation of the +vital organs, to spasms and obstructions, for instance. These physical +disorders induce an unquietness of mind without respite just as bad +eating brings horrible dreams. Therefore in their waking hours these +unfortunate people are the victims of disordered stomachs, spleens and +livers. Their minds as well as their bodies are attacked and such a +thing as constitutional anxiety sets in and predisposes them to sombre +fancies. These pathological conditions favor an over-development of the +interior life and melancholiacs become disposed to the depravities of +the imagination. Errors of sense ensue and their enfeebled normalities +become the slaves of phantoms. It is but a short step to frenzies and +fanaticisms. Peleg Carrier was such a man. Tall, cadaverous, with a +face as yellow as old parchment, and a continual twitch of the hands, +he passed like a morose ghost through the life of Marlborough. Who +knows what preyed upon his perverted mind? Perhaps it was the sins of +his father, Uriah. Perhaps the inclination toward those sins was reborn +in Peleg and strangled by him through a supreme effort of will. I don’t +know. If there was an ethical impulse in him it must have run against +a stone wall in Uriah. Perhaps half the dourness of life is in living +down the sins of our fathers. This seems to be getting nowhere, Daniel, +but I want you to remember both of these Carriers, the first an old +ferocious rascal and the second a nervous melancholiac. Peleg married +late in life the woman who was his housekeeper and she had one child. +The father died the day that Martha was born.” + +Dreeme pricked up his ears at the name. + +“Well, there you are,” said Lathrop placidly. “There you have Martha +Westcott.” + +“I can’t see ...” began Dreeme. + +“Of course you can’t,” broke in the old doctor, “and neither can I. But +we can both guess. Westcott himself I know little about. I have heard +that he was the son of one of Peleg Carrier’s German friends, born in +those days when Peleg was studying in Germany. I have also heard that +he was a grandson of old Uriah Carrier. The first I saw of him was when +he suddenly appeared in the valley to take charge of Peleg’s funeral. +Who sent for him and from where he came are mysteries to me.” + +“Is he so much older than his wife?” asked Dreeme with some surprise. + +“Twenty years or so,” remarked Lathrop. “Martha is only twenty-five.” + +“What!” exclaimed Dreeme. + +Lathrop nodded. + +“She’s always looked sort of ageless,” he said. “Westcott brought her +up. They lived in the old Carrier house until it burned down. Then they +went to Germany. When they came back seven or eight years ago they were +married.” + +The old doctor yawned and stretched his huge arms. He looked +quizzically at Dreeme from beneath his eyebrows. + +“So there you are, Daniel,” he said. “It is no story at all, you see.” + +“Who do you think Westcott is?” inquired Dreeme. + +“Well,” said Lathrop meditatively, “they say that old Uriah had a sort +of cloven head. Perhaps he’s the man in the moon, Daniel.” + +The soft chime of a clock broke in upon them and Dreeme counted six +beats. It was time to go. + +“You’re not telling me much about Jeffrey Westcott and his wife,” +remarked the young doctor. + +Lathrop shook his head despondently. + +“I don’t know anything about them, I tell you,” he complained, a faint +note of irritation in his voice. “I’ve never been inside their house. +I haven’t talked to them for five years. I haven’t seen them. What do +you want me to say, Daniel? Do you want me to invent a fine theory +concerning them?” + +“If you must,” said Dreeme. “But why not tell me the fine theory you +have already invented?” + +For an instant Lathrop nearly exploded. Then he said softly: + +“Darn it!” + +He looked at Dreeme in a woeful manner. He said: + +“You _will_ have something, won’t you?” + +Leaning forward he grasped Dreeme’s hand in his huge soft paw. + +“Good-night, Daniel,” he articulated heartily. “Good-night.” + +Dreeme disengaged his hand and sat tightly in his chair. + +“I have my supper early,” remarked Lathrop in a mildly protesting voice. + +His chair creaked as he leaned back in it. + +“I hate to talk about people,” he said in a loud voice. “It means no +good, I tell you.” + +There was a loud crash in the room and both men sat upright suddenly +and stared about them. Lathrop’s can of shag had slipped from the table +to the floor. The dark curling tobacco lay in an untidy heap between +them. The can rocked on its round side for a moment and then ceased. + +“Humphrey,” said Dreeme, “you have thought a lot about the Westcotts. +You’ve even studied their hereditary strain. You describe a villain and +a madman to me and then you introduce a man who has studied in Germany. +God knows what he studied. The Black Arts, perhaps.” + +“There aren’t any Black Arts,” interjected Lathrop, gazing woefully at +his tobacco. + +“He studied something, anyway,” went on Dreeme, ignoring the +interruption, “and I will venture to assert that it was neither +differential calculus nor Emmanuel Kant. He is still studying it. He’s +an abnormal creature and so is his wife. Why have you kept hinting +at some sort of a fanaticism and pointing out the difference between +supernormal and supernatural and insisting on the melancholia of Peleg +Carrier?” + +Lathrop made a motion as though washing and wiping his hands. + +“I refuse to be led into wild theories, Daniel,” he said. “I base my +opinions on facts. Any other process means eventual madness. Good +Lord, how do you suppose I have lived here for half a century without +turning into a sheer lunatic? Principally by minding my own business, +which I advise you to do. And by treating a fact as a fact and letting +it carry me no farther.” + +The twilight, shot with the spent gold of the afternoon, curdled about +the corners of the room. It dusted in through the windows and rolled in +wispy vapors over the heads of the two men. It crept along the floor +and eddied beneath the tables and chairs. Dreeme felt the slow tide +rising about his feet and curling about his hands. He made an impatient +movement as though to brush it from him. He started to feel Lathrop’s +hand suddenly placed on his knee. + +“Daniel,” said the old doctor, “thought is a terrible thing. You are +too young to grow morbid. Your nerves are on edge. Let them rest. +Forget the Westcotts and forget your mystery of Marlborough. It is only +by new thought, by bright strenuous acceptances that this sad land may +be translated from the barren graveyard of Puritan traditions to the +New World that is our heritage. I will not give you half-baked notions +to feed on for then you would grow as somber as the people you see +about you. I’ve told you what I know about the Westcotts and if I have +certain personal reactions to them and to the people in this community +it is far better that I keep them to myself. I, at least, can cage my +thoughts and let them grumble there and hurt no one. You are too young +to keep your opinions to yourself and they would escape and end by +devouring you. Eat, sleep, read, do your work, my boy. That is all that +you need do.” + +“You’ve not kept a single thing from me, have you, Humphrey?” said the +young doctor accusingly. + +Lathrop pursed his great lips and refused to meet Dreeme’s eyes. + +The twilight edged the young man toward the door and he rose +reluctantly. Humphrey Lathrop’s huge bulk eased back in his chair to a +noisy creaking. He smiled agreeably. Dreeme picked up his hat and held +out his hand to the old doctor. + +“I’ll drop in and see you soon, Humphrey,” he said. + +“That’s the boy,” wheezed Lathrop, patting the back of his hand. +“That’s the boy.” + + + + +Chapter Four + + +I + +Mrs. Slater moved, a black silhouette, across the yellow glow of the +kerosene-lamp, bearing in chubby hands the last of the supper dishes. +She kicked the kitchen door open with a grunt and disappeared. It was +silent in the room. Walden Slater, having removed his boots with the +elastic sides, drifted almost surreptitiously to the back porch, his +gray woollen socks touching the floor soundlessly. Reaching his haven +he sank with a hoarse sigh of relief into the broken rocker. Dreeme +could see his bent form against the misty light of evening whenever +the door to the kitchen flapped open. He sat there and rocked to the +faint creak-creak of the chair; his talon-like hands grasping the arms +of the rocker. He was a personification of a certain aspect of this +New England. He was the tired man reeking with dried sweat, earth, and +barn-yard odors sitting in the quiet evening and drawing in hoarse and +throbbing lung-fulls of fresh air. His bones were tired. His flesh +crawled sluggishly with an old weariness. The hinges of his knees were +stiff. He was a finality in himself, a period put to a long sentence +of history. The kitchen door swung to and fro and Dreeme ceased to +look at the farmer. He looked out of the window instead, into the dark +side-yard where the Slater children sat huddled together on a broken +barrow and talked soberly in low tones. Their voices sounded thin and +far away, pinched sounds, words rolled between huge fists. The low +light of the evening fell across the sides of their faces. Small impish +profiles turned to the brooding night. A dark form passed between +Dreeme’s eyes and the children’s faces and the young doctor saw the +figure of the reverend George Burroughs, skinny hands clasped behind +the frayed skirts of his musty coat, stalk off into the darkness. It +was like a brief eclipse, an instant’s impenetrable blackness, and +then it was gone. Light footsteps died almost instantaneously in the +direction of the Leeminster Road. + +Dreeme looked back into the room ... well ... he progressed slowly +toward the kitchen door. + +“Where is your niece?” he asked Mrs. Slater with a directness that was +unusual in Marlborough where people talked by inference. The woman’s +eyes fluttered wildly at this unexpected question. + +“Deborah ... well, Deborah....” She hurried toward the kitchen door +with a massed pillar of plates, a sort of leaning tower of Pisa that +threatened to dissolve into fragments at every step. At the door she +turned. She said: + +“Helping out.... They needed somebody to help out....” + +Her voice drifted back through the door. + +“Mrs. Westcott ... sent for her....” + +Dreeme brooded upon this for an instant, fumbled in his pocket for his +pipe, and then sauntered slowly toward the kitchen. Mrs. Slater, at the +sink, her sleeves rolled back over her short plump arms, observed him +with a suspicious concern, her head cocked on one side, an eye turned +back. It was like the eye of a querulous parrot. Dreeme leaned against +the wall, and, watching her, filled his pipe. + +“Has Mrs. Westcott been here?” he asked. + +Mrs. Slater turned to her dishes. She said: + +“Oh, no!” + +It was inconceivable, of course. + +Dreeme waited for a moment as he lighted his pipe. + +“Who has?” he inquired. + +Mrs. Slater looked reproachfully at him as she fumbled for certain +words in her throat. + +“We thought we’d have Deborah with us ... especially since....” A +clashing of dishes drowned a few words. “But the preacher said ... he +saw Mrs. Westcott....” + +“You mean Burroughs had your niece sent over to the Westcott farm as +hired girl?” broke in Dreeme. + +Mrs. Slater did not like the word. + +“She’s going to help out ... until Mr. Westcott is better....” + +She actually glowered at Dreeme. + +“In that lonely hole,” thought Dreeme aloud. + +“It’s hard enough to live ...” began Mrs. Slater. + +“It _is_,” said the doctor strongly. + +Well, it was none of his business. The poor relation. Go where you are +sent. All the same ... it was a shame. Cloven head and his malignant +eyes. Eyes like wet violets. “Rock of Ages.” Now why had he thought +of that? He opened his mouth to speak again to Mrs. Slater, thought +better of it, and turned back into the lamp-lit room. He had wanted +to talk to the girl, to find out what she thought of things and how +this valley had affected her young mind. But now.... Why she might +as well be in Timbuktoo. The Westcott farm-gate opened into.... “All +hope abandon....” He picked up his hat from the little side table and +walked slowly through the hall and into the yard. The hushed voices +of the Slater children sounded like a faint drone. He could hear the +rocker on the back porch. Creak-creak. The dew was heavy. It was better +to keep to the gravel path. Creak-creak. He reached the street and +turned toward his own house. Creak-creak. Shine, moon. He looked up at +a murky sky. No moon. It was too early for the moon. Creak. “Stars of +the summer night.” Longfellow. “Far in yon azure....” Creak. He fumbled +(creak) at the knob to his door, pushed it open, and entered the small +hall. To go upstairs. Bed. But he was not sleepy. He would go into +the back study and read for a while. Or mull over Humphrey Lathrop’s +conversation. Humphrey knew.... He felt his way along the dark hall and +pushed the door open into the study. The minute he entered the room he +knew that there was somebody there. He was not frightened. He leaned +back against the door and said softly: “Who is it?” + +A throat cleared noisily. + +“Wagner,” replied a hoarse voice. + +“Are you by the table? There is a lamp there. Light it,” said Dreeme. + +The match spurted like a tiny firework and great shadows sprang up on +all sides. A dancing ring of Jinns. Wagner’s red beard hung like a +sultry smoke above the chimney. The man lowered his head and peered at +Dreeme across the table. + +“What is it, Wagner?” inquired the doctor. “Is Westcott’s leg bad?” + +The shaggy head shook slowly. + +“That’s all right,” he replied. “I wash it now. I’m real good at it.” + +His eyes narrowed under his bushy brows and his yellow teeth glowed +through the mass of hair. + +“She said you was to meet her by ten in the back room of the burned +mill,” he said slowly in his rusty sepulchral voice. “She told me to +tell you.” + +A faint throb of anticipation tugged at the doctor’s mind. + +“Deborah?” he asked. Wagner said: + +“Missus Westcott.” + +Dreeme’s mind stopped dead. Automatically he said: + +“Tell her I won’t come.” + +“She said she guessed you would all right,” replied the hoarse voice. + +To think now. Leaning over the well. The white nape of her neck. Heavy +boots dragged across the floor. + +“What does she want?” he asked softly. There was no response. Boots +dragging. A puffing. Dreeme floundered in a sea of amazement. He +repeated his question loudly. + +“What does she want, I say?” + +This silence! Collecting his wits, he peered about the dimly lighted +study. Empty, of course. He had gone out. Gone right by him. Dreeme +walked over to the table and sat down in the easy chair by it. A tiny +white moth dipped and volplaned about the smoky chimney. Now what was +this? He would have to think about it. He leaned back in his chair and +pulled at his cold pipe. + +The faint ticking of the clock was like the tiny regular beating of +a miniature tomtom. The minutes danced to it, shaking their small +feet in an unending circle. They tripped by him, hands joined, and +infinitesimal tapping heels maintaining a regular time that measured +off the softly-flowing hours. He watched the vain moth dashing its +white wings desperately against the smoky chimney. Sooner or later it +would get scorched and flutter to the table, a charred and crumbling +pinch of powder. Life was a curious thing. Breathed into a bit of dust +it became a moth. Or a man. Something was happening to him now. His two +years of dreary silence were breaking down and he was beginning to grow +morbid about things in general. He was getting nervous, acutely aware +of invisible tentacles that seemed to reach out of this darkness that +encircled him on all sides and touch him softly. Humphrey Lathrop had +said that it was nerves. But perhaps it was more than that. Perhaps +it was a sixth sense slowly coming to birth inside him, a sense +nourished by his loneliness that was reaching out into new dimensions. +He was pursuing phantoms, hunting through the sun-shot fields about +Marlborough for invisible essences that drifted deliberately and had +a particular semblance of their own. He was going to solve an intense +and formidable riddle. He was going to track down the secret of an +atmosphere, the aura of a community. It sounded absurd enough but +it was only the absurd things that mattered greatly after all if a +man desired to be more than an eating, sleeping, laboring animal. +To be a man, and all that _that_ meant, was to walk arm in arm +with phantoms, to discourse with shadowy substances, to resolve high +mystical riddles. Ah! The moth shrivelled against the hot glass and +dropped to the table. So that was that! He turned it over tenderly +with a paper-knife and then pushed it to the floor. + +Now then! He looked at the ticking clock from which the joined minutes +were tripping their fantastic and regular dance. It was nine-thirty. +Then it would be in half an hour. His thoughts, held tightly by the +leash of his will, were set free and they sprang forward like a pack +of ravenous hunting dogs. Up the Leeminster Road they sped and his +spectral self followed them as an eager hunter follows his baying +hounds. For an instant the face of Deborah flashed in the dark air and +then it disappeared, left far behind by this rout of yelping coursers. +He had said that he would not go. But she knew that he would, that his +curiosity would carry him as far as the mill at least. What she wanted +he did not know but he could suspect it. She was assuredly a lonely +caged-in creature. She stood at windows and watched the night-sky and +wondered about the life that went boiling so turbulently by on the +great highroads to the west and the east of her locked doors. She sat +in a room lined with books beside a cloven-headed man and a secret sat +there with them and she had nobody to share that secret with her, no +one, that is, except the man himself who _was_ the secret. Perhaps +she wanted to tell him things, to pour out the subterranean stream +of her consciousness. He could imagine her muffled voice speaking in +the darkness of the mill. It was not strange that she had sent for +him, after all. It would have been stranger if she had maintained her +silence. Dreeme rose slowly from his chair and blew the light out. +Well.... + + +II + +She was seated in an embrasure formed where a portion of the brick +wall had fallen away and dropped into the yellow-scummed water of +the mill-pond. He could see the dark silhouette of her head as it +turned sideways against the smoky light of the moon, and for a moment +he paused in the doorway watching her, noting the regularity of her +boldly-cut features and the cold sensuousness of her rounded lips. It +was almost symbolic to find her so, no more than a silhouette, a face +seen in a single aspect, a profile clean-cut and set against unsteady +light that flowed with the rippling of milky waters. She was like this. +She was the outline of a mystery, a part of that riddle that somehow he +must solve if he was to have any peace of mind. It was dark and gloomy +in the mill. Its fire-blackened walls retained the horror of an old +debacle. Two men had been incinerated here. She said: + +“I was sure you would come.” + +She had not turned her head. She still sat sideways against the moon. +But her hand moved. It was pale and indistinct as it shifted into +the dim light. He advanced toward her slowly, his footsteps sounding +hollowly on the cracked cement floor. + +“What is it?” he asked. “What do you want?” + +Her head turned and although her face was a blackness he could feel her +eyes studying him, fondling his features with a glance that was both +tired and expectant. + +“I was tired,” she answered in a muffled voice. + +That seemed to explain something and he continued his advance until he +was beside her. She drew back slightly into her corner of the embrasure +and he sat down on the cold crumbling bricks. He said: + +“You mean ... of loneliness?” + +Her shoulders quivered a trifle. She did not need to answer that. Her +movement dislodged a fragment of brick and it dropped with a sharp plop +into the mill-pond. Dreeme started nervously at the sound. + +“Why were you spying on me through the stone wall today?” she asked +suddenly, and then went on, not waiting for an answer. “I knew you +would come. You mustn’t loiter about the house, though. It isn’t safe. +He would be sure to find it out.” + +Dreeme felt like a drowning man, and he made a valiant effort to save +himself. + +“I had business Leeminster way,” he replied in an uncertain tone. “I +just happened that way. I wasn’t spying, I....” + +“You needn’t lie,” she returned coolly. She put her hand on his knee. +She said: + +“You are the first young man I have talked to alone for years.” + +The electric touch of her fingers filled Dreeme with a nervous +excitement. He fumbled vaguely for words, but his mind was like a +great empty sack. Explore as he might there was nothing there. + +“He keeps me shut up,” she went on. “I have to ... but no matter.” + +Dreeme still sought blindly for words. Her voice and her +vaguely-outlined face were dead weights on his intelligence. He could +not rise above them or push them aside. + +“I like you,” she said. “Does that sound silly? Let it. I liked you the +minute I saw you.” + +“I think ... I mean ...” began Dreeme. + +“You were like a boy with the weary lines of a man’s face impossibly +stamped on you,” she remarked slowly. Her eyes studied him a moment. +She asked softly: + +“Are you afraid?” + +His silence, complete and emphatic, was the mute answer to her +question. In the milky light he could see that she was almost smiling. + +“Don’t be afraid,” she said as though she were speaking to a child. + +“I’m not afraid,” replied Dreeme with an effort. “What is there to be +afraid of? I don’t understand. That’s all.” + +Her face was level with his, and she looked at him for a moment +steadily, her dark eyes under their heavy lids full of a vague surmise. + +“How long have you been here?” she asked presently. + +“Two years,” answered Dreeme much as though he were a school-child +being examined. + +“So long?” she murmured. “You see how ignorant I am. Men pass outside +my window and I never see them.” + +Dreeme, in spite of his confusion, doubted that. + +“What do you know about me?” she proceeded. There was a faint +breathlessness in the question. + +“Practically nothing,” he said. + +She sighed, and it seemed to Dreeme that she sighed in relief. + +“We are not children, are we?” she asked irrelevantly. + +Dreeme shook his head. + +“It has been so long since I conversed with anyone that I have almost +lost the use of words,” she said half to herself. “Yet words were once +my favorite play-things. I would shape them into all sorts of patterns.” + +She removed her hand from his knee for an instant and then put it +back. It seemed to Dreeme as though there had been a brief flaw in the +electric current that was pouring into him and which so unsteadied him. + +“Be silent, then, and let me talk,” she went on. “I need to say things. +I am tired of talking to myself and inanimate objects, tired of +reading, tired of working, tired of listening to things that I do not +much care about any more.” + +She paused for a moment but Dreeme said nothing. + +“You see,” she said. “I needed someone.” Her hand closed about his +wrist softly. “I needed you. I had not been in the room more than a +minute before I realized that you were that sensitive type about.... +Do you remember looking at me? Weren’t you trying to say something to +me, trying to say it without words?” + +Her speech had suddenly become a husky caress. She leaned forward. She +murmured in an almost inaudible voice: + +“Say it now.” + +Dreeme fumbled for words. Had he desired to convey any message to her? +He could not find it in the welter of his mind. + +“I was wondering,” he stuttered. “I mean, it seemed strange to find +that room full of books, that curious man, and ... you.” + +He was suddenly aware that he did not desire this relationship between +them to establish itself too quickly and too firmly upon a basis +of mystical understanding. It was too silly. Two strangers did not +reveal themselves so nakedly to one another. He clutched eagerly at +the tattered cloak of his New England reticence. She did not appear +to understand that he was attempting to convey a polite snub, a +discreet hint, as it were, to resume the formal disguises of casual +acquaintances, but her hand slipped from his wrist. Dreeme almost +breathed with relief. + +“It is good to be away from that house and to be able to talk as I +wish,” she proceeded. “It is an evil house. It is dominated by an evil +man.” + +Dreeme said nothing. He sat gazing at the mill-pond in a phlegmatic +manner. Her dark eyes narrowed a trifle as she watched him. + +“I, too, am evil,” she added. + +Her tone was matter-of-fact, as though she were stating a thing already +understood. At the same time, there was an implied challenge in it. +Dreeme felt that he should say something. + +“I don’t think you are evil,” he protested. There was but little +conviction in his voice. + +“All that is relative, though,” she went on in a voice almost +indistinct. “Do you like to ponder over things, to intellectualize +them? So do I. Evil is relative. Perhaps he is not evil according to +his own lights. Sitting alone in the house I have evolved my own scheme +of things.” + +“What is it?” he asked suddenly. “What is it in that house? Why is he +different from other men? What is it in Marlborough that ... what ...” + +He waved his hand expressively, showing for the first time a curious +liveliness. + +A slow startled look suffused her face. She gazed at him steadily for +a moment, and then the corners of her mouth quivered. Behind the cold +mask of her face she seemed to smile. + +“I will not tell you,” she answered, “At least, not now.” + +There was an implicit promise in her voice. But no sooner had she +conveyed this slight intimation of future explanations than she seemed +to regret it. + +“There is nothing,” she said. “It is the loneliness. It is the +ingrowing. It is the days passing along and every day the same.” + +“Have you lived here all your life?” he asked. + +She paused a moment. She said: + +“All my life. I have never left this valley. I have never found the +door that leads out into the world.” + +She was a liar. Dreeme knew that at last. Her voice had again become +a husky caress. It strove to reach out and embrace the dubious young +doctor. He was conscious of a vague note of insincerity in it. Far back +in his mind a sly intuition manifested itself, and it suggested that +this woman was very near to acting, that she was cautiously feeling her +way into his emotions. She wanted to find out if he could be swayed by +passion, pity or intellect. He must be careful, terribly careful. He +must avoid the almost overpowering magnetism that emanated from her +white slumberous body. + +“Life should proceed,” she said, her words sounding like slow +calculating steps through the difficult labyrinth of her thoughts. “It +should go on and touch different places and different people, accepting +and rejecting, considering all. It should meet the passions and accept +them all and live through them and with them. But my life is not like +that. I am cut off, set apart from things, bounded by walls and the +will of one man. My thoughts boil in me to no purpose. My mind revolves +and it achieves no friction, no flashing of sparks. It is just an +insane wheel whirling endlessly in a vacuum. That is what it really +is. I cannot go on like that and remain sane.” + +Dreeme did not know what to say. He knew that he was beginning to be +frightened. + +“I do not live in that house,” she went on. “I exist in it. I stare out +of the window in summer and see parched fields stretching to eternity. +In the winter it is all an expanse of untrodden snow. Sometimes voices +come to me from the road. That is all. That is all, I tell you.” + +Her voice rose, deep and husky. Louder than she had spoken before she +declared: + +“I was born to great acceptances.” + +Dreeme was becoming more and more frightened. He did not want to hear +these things, these somber intimacies of a household that was no part +of his affair and yet he could not stop listening. Her words were a +warm web that caught up all his thoughts. He could not stand up and +say, “I’m sorry, but this is not my business.” It would be cowardice. +He opened his mouth to say something, perhaps that very thing, but she +continued to speak as though to hold his wavering will in the balance. + +“I don’t have to describe my life to you,” she said. “You know. You +know because you know Marlborough, and the strength that exists in the +walls of the houses of Marlborough. But there are things that you do +not know. You do not know that my husband is ... but why should you +know? He is like God, but I cannot tell you what I mean by that.” + +She stopped, apparently expecting some exclamation, but Dreeme sat in +silent bewilderment and said nothing. + +“He directs destinies,” she went on. “He lets nothing stand between +him and the objectives he has planned for himself. Not even me. Least +of all, me. He has great power over the minds and futures of people +when he chooses to exercise it. It is impossible to be independent +with him. Once inside the walls of his house there is no individuality +left to the visitor,--or rather the intruder, for no one enters his +house except intruders. He spreads like a great force over everything. +Freedom becomes a secret possession then, something to be cherished +darkly at one’s bosom. It is only in an escape from that house that +one may assert one’s unique unity. It is by slipping away that I keep +myself sane. I have slipped away now. He is busy at his books, and the +new girl moving about will, perhaps, seem to be me.” + +“What books?” asked Dreeme abruptly. If he could find out what Westcott +read he could find out what he thought. That was Westcott’s own idea. +Even as he asked the question he realized that he was crudely diverting +Martha Westcott from her self-revelation, and he flushed at his +unconscious rudeness. She did not seem to notice his divagation. She +said: + +“I don’t know. He buys old books, sends to Europe constantly for items +he finds in the catalogues that come to him, but I never look into +them. My mind is my book. I think that he is formulating a new religion +from them.” + +He was aware of her untruthfulness again, of something held back and +reformulated in the mind, of a desire to impress him and yet not to +tell him anything substantial. + +“A new religion?” he repeated with a shade of curiosity. + +She dismissed it vaguely. She said: + +“He is fashioning a new god in his own image.” + +It sounded silly to Dreeme. He wanted to smile. A cloven-headed man +on an avoided farm in a forgotten valley creating a new god. He felt +like blurting out, “Oh, come now. That is a bit too thick.” Instead he +declared: + +“We all fashion God in our own image. It is our unfortunate weakness.” + +She was getting impatient with this topic. She did not want to talk +about anything but herself. + +“But not his kind of a God,” she replied, a vague note of irritation in +her tone. “Perhaps, after all, he is fashioning himself into the image +of an old god. Would that be unusual? I really can’t tell you. I don’t +know. I am only a part of the furniture in that house. I, too, have my +philosophy of living.” + +She paused for a question. + +“Yes?” said Dreeme politely. + +She stirred uneasily, and her knee, warm beneath her skirt, struck +against his leg. In moving her head bent forward and the fragrance +of her hair swept his face. Suddenly he was enveloped in the hot +disturbing atmosphere of flesh. He wanted to rise to his feet now, to +terminate this ineffectual interview, to explain to her that though +she might upset his mental equilibrium by the magnetism of her body, +the subtle insinuations of her mysterious eyes, and the leashed ardor +so like a caged tigress that moved behind her pale flesh, he was yet +aware of her cunning licentiousness that would use him for her own +malicious ends. He could view her with a cold intensity from a distance +now, could speculate as to her designs; yet, at the same time, he was +aware that in her immediate presence she dominated him by a power that +was not entirely beauty. It was this that made him uneasy and unsure of +himself. + +“Yes,” she said, low, husky, half-passionately. “I have my philosophy +of living. It is to drink to the dregs the opportunities vouchsafed +us by Time, to take advantage of that cruel gaoler, Destiny, and fool +him at every turn. We are born free and we should live free. Our blood +whispers messages to us and we should answer those low calls that ring +in our ears if we are to vindicate ourselves to ourselves. Have you +ever rested your head against a woman’s breast and heard the blood +racing furiously through all its arteries? What are we put into the +world for? We are the fruit of suppressed joy, are we not? It is the +liberation of self for which we are ordained. There is only one way +of being actually free, and that is to surmount the thousand and one +petty laws and dogmas that hedge us about. We speak constantly of +obligations, but what do we mean by them? Do we mean the suppression +of our free instincts and the obliteration of our integrity before the +selfish demands of another’s welfare and peace of mind? Is not that +a slavish instinct? What is our debt to humanity but the reverse of +humanity’s debt to us. There is a freedom based upon the destruction +of all laws, political, religious and moral, a freedom where we may +tread the earth as gods in a great tranquil equality, and it is to that +freedom that I turn my face. If I am free in myself, if my thoughts and +secret passions move as they please, why not this flesh which I carry +travel in freedom also?” + +He heard the soft sound of her breast struck sharply by her hand. + +“I do not say ‘no’ to anything,” she went on. “I merely say ‘does it +satisfy me and fill me for the moment?’ If it does it is good. If it +does it is an end in itself. Let men and women think what they please +and move about with free wills. I abolish slavery.” + +It all sounded like a set speech to Dreeme, something she had written +out and memorized, something that she had evolved to sap the spiritual +integrity of whosoever she might meet in this mood of attack. Well, he +would show her that he was adamant. + +“You are an anarchist,” he said. He strove to say it lightly, to +fashion it into a mere flippant rejoinder. To his chagrin he heard his +own voice trembling. + +“I am a woman,” she replied. “All women are anarchists at heart. The +only laws they respect are the laws of their desires. I am an anarchist +of the soul, of the mind, of the flesh. Nothing but the limitations of +my body shall stand in my way. And through the limitations of my body I +will find my own deliverance.” + +She stopped at that as though expecting a sudden flood of answers on +his part and her eyes were fastened upon his face. He said nothing but +waited. + +“I am lonely,” she murmured in a low, almost inaudible voice. + +Dreeme, turning his face directly toward her, looked into her eyes. She +was speaking through them, steadily, mercilessly. For a moment they +stared at one another, and then Dreeme, his face flushing and his body +shaking, stood up. In the moonlight so diffused and cloudy her eyes +dilated like those of a tigress. + +“Have I told you nothing?” she cried. “Have I said nothing to you?” + +Her voice was loud and raucous, a terrible sound that caused Dreeme’s +body to sway. It was as though she were lashing him with a whip. + +“You have told me many things,” he answered in a trembling voice, “and +most of them I did not want to hear.” + +She stood up before him and put her hands upon his shoulders, the +nails of her fingers pressing into his flesh. + +“You coward!” she said. “You miserable coward!” + +He took her hands from his shoulders, but still retained them in his +own. Her hands were cold and the palms were moist. + +“I am not a coward,” he answered in an uncertain voice. + +She breathed deeply, a long shuddering inhalation, and then put her +mouth close to his ear, her long body resting lightly against him. + +“Listen!” she said in a husky whisper. “Are you as lonely as I....” + +Suddenly she stopped and twisted about toward the door of the mill, a +door that yawned on the road and framed in its square a clouded milky +haze. + +“Do you hear it?” she asked in a low monotone. + +He had already concentrated his faculties and was listening intently. + +“Yes, I do,” he answered. A cold fever settled on him as he replied, +and he knew that he was perspiring icily at every pore. + +Over the narrow wooden bridge that spanned the Saccarac River sounded +slow footsteps. He could hear them distinctly in the nerve-wracking +silence of the night, a measured advance that increased in sound as the +invisible traveler neared the mill. One of the bridge-boards creaked +beneath the weight of this unknown, and then there was a brief silence. +The unseen wanderer had apparently paused, and Dreeme could imagine +him leaning on the wood rail of the bridge and gazing into the black +water that flowed so sluggishly beneath the cloudy sky. There were +no stars reflected in that water. There was not even the reflection +of the face of the noctambulist who was leaning over and gazing into +nothingness. Even as the thought flashed through Dreeme’s mind he heard +the tread resumed, this time to the accompanying crunch of gravel. +Whoever it was had crossed the bridge and was following the path +that skirted the ruined shell of the mill. Suddenly, with surprising +strength, Martha Westcott thrust Dreeme away from the broken embrasure +where they had sat in the murky glow of the half-drowned moon and +against the charred side-wall of the mill. From that dark corner they +could stare obliquely at the door. They stood there crushed against the +wall, the acrid smell of burned timbers in their nostrils, while the +crunching footsteps deliberately progressed toward them. The invisible +wanderer was passing the angle of the mill now, following the blackened +wall, just about to cross the milky square of the doorway. At this +moment the sound ceased, stopping with a startling abruptness as though +the hidden prowler had paused with one foot in the air. Dreeme could +hear the woman beside him catch her breath in a tiny strangled sob. +Both of them, flattened against the blackened beams, their shoulders +touching, watched the dimly-glowing frame of the entrance with dilated +eyes. In the silence that surged back about them like a dark wave, +Dreeme could hear Martha Westcott’s heart beating. It was like a drum. +It seemed to increase in volume until the whole interior was throbbing +with the sound. Then slowly, ever so slowly, a dark shadow obscured +the doorway, although there were no accompanying footsteps. The shadow +hovered for an instant as though it were poised in the air, and then, +to Dreeme’s horror, a low monotonous humming filled the wrecked room. +The shadow, enlarged by the deceiving rays of the cloudy moon, appeared +to sway, to diminish, to swell in rhythm with this unceasing drone. +Dreeme, his nerves at the breaking point, started impulsively forward, +but the tight clutch of Martha Westcott’s hand on his wrist caught +him back. At this moment he recognized a melody in the low humming. +“Rock of Ages.” Somebody was standing in the doorway of the mill and +monotonously humming, “Rock of Ages.” Immediately Dreeme’s imagination +shaped before him a shallow-faced figure in a frayed frock coat. A lean +figure with dead eyes. + +He had barely time to identify the man in the doorway before the +humming ceased, and the shadow withdrew as noiselessly as it had +appeared. There was the instant’s pause and Dreeme suddenly recollected +that there was a patch of soft earth before the mill door. Of course. +The loiterer was crossing that, returning to the gravel path again. +Even as his mind began to function rationally once more he heard the +crunching footsteps, this time decreasing in sound as the wanderer +progressed along the road to Marlborough. They were slow, casual, a +retarded crunch-crunch, a deliberate and unexcited dwindling. Presently +there was silence. Dreeme, relaxed and almost smiling at the fever of +fear into which he had been thrust by the nocturnal rambler, turned to +Martha Westcott. He expected to find her relieved, but instead of this +he could faintly decipher a concentrated expression of mingled fear and +anger on her face. + +“Well,” he said, “our unexpected caller has departed.” + +“You knew him?” she asked. + +They were both walking toward the door, tacitly admitting that the +rendezvous was at an end. + +“The worthy Burroughs?” said Dreeme lightly. “Of course. He was taking +his usual evening promenade.” + +She said nothing until they reached the milky square of obscured +moonlight. Then she asked: + +“Will you meet me here tomorrow night?” + +“No,” said Dreeme. + +She frowned at that. + +“I have certain things I want to tell you,” she went on. “I need your +advice about a number of matters.” + +“Why don’t you come to my office?” he inquired. + +“You know very well why,” she replied. + +He said nothing but stood restlessly outside the door, anxious to leave +her and unwilling to be too abrupt. + +“Burroughs didn’t see us anyway,” he said inconsequentially. “It was +too dark in that corner.” + +She opened her eyes wide at that and regarded him with a mocking +expression. + +“It isn’t wise to meet in this clandestine way,” he insisted. “Somebody +might see us, and you know how people gossip. I don’t like gossip when +there isn’t any reason for it. It’s ... it’s too nerve-racking.” + +He teetered on one foot and turned toward Marlborough. She was leaning +easily against the door. She said: + +“I will tell you a great many things tomorrow night.” + +Dreeme made an impatient gesture, and started to walk away. + +“He did see us,” remarked Martha Westcott, not so much to the young +doctor, as to the night about them. “Of course he saw us.” + +Dreeme did not turn about, but kept on his way down the road. The air +was cool and frolicksome, and it ruffled the hair on his forehead. It +was fresh and pleasant. It was not like the acrid smell of burned wood. +Two men had been incinerated in the mill. That was a long time ago, and +still the charred timbers stood there waiting for somebody to rebuild +them. He wondered how late it was. There was not a single light in +any of the houses. If he turned back now he would see Martha Westcott +leaning against the door of the mill, her heavy-lidded eyes and archaic +mouth turned toward him. He would not turn back though. The road +twisted a trifle, and he knew that the mill was hidden, that if he +looked back he would see nothing but the sprawling angle of a stone +wall. An invisible weight seemed to fall from him. He had not realized +he was so tired. + + + + +Chapter Five + + +I + +The girl beat with her hands against the door, whimpering softly as the +steady concussions shook the white-washed planks. The morning sunlight +caught her by the shoulders in warm hands and seemed to shake her. She +did not pause to listen for any approaching footsteps, but continued to +hammer at the wood as though in a half-trance, and but semi-conscious +of what she was doing. White clouds ballooned upward in the bright blue +sky and watched her from a distance. They were snowy-plumaged hawks +observing the peregrinations of a lice-like humanity upon a rolling +ball of earth and sea. The girl was a far-away mote to their far-seeing +eyes, a speck of dust without form or meaning. She moaned to herself +and shook the door. Dreeme heard her thin voice so broken by suppressed +and breathless sobs as he hurried down stairs, turned the key in the +rusty grating lock, and flung the door open. She stumbled into the +hall, her tear-streaked face lifted like the face of a wounded animal, +and lurched against him with a sudden paralysis of knees, clinging +tightly to his arm. Dreeme pushed the door shut and half-carried her +along the hall to the little study. + +“Why Deborah!” he cried. “What is it? Sit down. Shall I get you a glass +of water?” + +She refused to sit down, but continued to cling to him still +whimpering. Her face was streaked with tears and dust, and her mouth +shook convulsively. The pupils of her eyes were dilated, and she did +not seem to see him. + +“What is it?” he repeated. “What is it? You must tell me, you know. +What has happened?” + +She gazed about the little study in a vague manner, and for a moment +appeared to strive for the mastery of her feelings. Her mouth opened +and coherent speech seemed about to issue. Then she broke down +completely and, relinquishing his arm, dropped to a chair beside the +table upon which she buried her face. Dreeme, hearing her unrestrained +sobs and noting the convulsive quiver of her pathetically small +shoulders, realized that this was better than the stifled whimpering +with which she had entered the room. She was giving full vent to her +outraged nerves now, letting them run away with her until, tired and +exhausted, they would once more be subject to her reason. The young +doctor sat down calmly and waited. + +Outside the morning moved on leisurely sun-shot feet through the cool +lane. Sparkles of light caught at the flawed panes of the windows. +In the sky the clouds hovered like white hawks. Birds chirped loudly +in the ancient trees, and a creaking wagon drawn by a heavy-hoofed +farm-horse protested its way toward the general store. Dreeme listened +as the creaking axle-tree and softly-jingling harness grew fainter and +finally died out. He heard the far caw of a crow as it sped in feathery +darkness toward some field unguarded by an ungainly scare-crow. It +was all peaceful and unvexed, a crystal tide of morning, a time for +calmness and not tears. He waited patiently. He inspected the atrocious +wall-paper that closed him in from the sun, and cleared his throat +with dry humor. The wall-paper designer must have been a practical +joker. Finding nothing better to do he drew his watch out and looked +at it. The heavy, old-fashioned, silver-cased heirloom blandly +announced that it was quarter past seven. He forced it back into his +vest pocket, and stroked one freshly-shaven cheek meditatively. He +had not slept so well. He ... had been troubled by dreams. He thought +of ... no, he wouldn’t think of her now. Mrs. Slater would be along +with his breakfast soon. He raised his eyes to the ceiling and waited. +Fly-specks. Blackened rings of lamp smoke. It was cracked in the +corner. That was where the mice nibbled and made little crackling +noises during the night. Did they live on wood or plaster? + +The girl lifted her head suddenly and pushed back her disheveled +hair. Her eyes were like wet violets, a soaked blue so deep as to be +astonishing. Dreeme smiled at her gently and said nothing. She looked +at him in a surprised manner. + +“I feel better,” she announced in a very small voice. + +“I’m glad you do,” he replied. “Shall I get you a glass of water now?” + +“Please,” she nodded. + +When he came back with it she had wiped her tear-stained face with a +small handkerchief, smoothed her hair, and brushed part of the dust +from her gray dress. She drank the water in slow sips, gazing at him +over the top of the tumbler. Dreeme leaned back in his chair and +observed her. Curiously enough, although he had seen her but once +before she was like an old acquaintance now. It was as though he were +sitting in the room with what, in his New England, would be dubbed +“family.” A tacit feeling of confidence established itself between +them. Her intensely blue eyes, her misty bronze hair, her small mouth +and nose, even her thin arms and slender wiry hands, were part and +parcel of an old knowledge. It was pleasant to be like this while the +mysterious white hawks in the sky hovered so far above them. + +“I’m not like this generally,” she informed him as she put the tumbler +down. There was a wise and confidential intimation in her voice. + +“I know you’re not,” he answered. “You’ve been terribly frightened.” + +His statement was almost a question, and the pupils of her eyes dilated +again as she nodded assent. + +“I’ll tell you all about it directly,” she said. + +She was small ... small. That was his main impression. But intelligent. +Wise. He waited with a seeming patience praying fervently that Mrs. +Slater would not appear until he had found out the source of Deborah’s +trouble. He could guess part of it, but he did not want to let his mind +stray too far along the vague pathways of unsubstantiated surmise. +The girl closed her eyes and obviously strove to adjust herself in a +reasonable manner to the subject which was in her mind. It was patent +that she did not know how or where to begin, and that she was fearful +of not being able to communicate the essence of her story to Dreeme. +She wanted to speak reasonably now. To assure herself, perhaps, of her +own rationality. He would help. Like a doctor. + +“Begin at the beginning,” suggested Dreeme. She opened her eyes. She +said: + +“I don’t know how to tell you and make it seem like anything. It’s.... +It’s more feeling than anything else.” + +He nodded sagely, and, after a moment’s hesitation, she began. + +“You see I have to do something for my living. Father was killed at +the court-house in Leeminster, and he was all that I had. We lived +there ... Leeminster, I mean ... and father was a constructor. He built +houses. There weren’t many to be built, of course. He was working on +the ell of the new court-house and the men mixed cement on the roof +of the front porch. One of the bags was pushed off in some way, and it +fell on father. He died in half an hour. That was a month ago. Then I +had to close up our house ... such a little one, sell things, and help +finish up father’s business. I had a very good lawyer, Mr. Stopes. +Perhaps you knew him?” + +Dreeme shook his head. + +“Lawyers,” he said, “are out of my line. They never get sick.” + +“He was a very good lawyer,” she insisted. “After the estate was +settled there was just enough to pay his fee. Then Aunt Slater sent +for me. It was only yesterday that I came over. I walked all the way. +I thought I should stay here and help Aunt, but it seemed that Mr. +Burroughs had heard about me or seen me in Leeminster ... he preaches +there sometimes ... and he told Aunt that Mrs. Westcott needed somebody +to help around the house. I didn’t want to help because I am not a +servant, and I told Aunt so, but she said that she couldn’t afford to +keep me. I thought that was funny, because, after all, she _had_ +sent for me. I’m telling you this because I want to show you that I +was feeling bad in my mind anyway, and perhaps exaggerated some of the +things that happened later.” + +Dreeme nodded. Mrs. Slater was like that. She was a New England aunt. + +“I didn’t have to come,” proceeded Deborah. “I might have stayed in +Leeminster and taught school. Father was very careful about putting +me through my studies. Well, I went over late yesterday afternoon to +the Westcott farm with Mr. Burroughs. We walked because he said he +thought I would like to see the country. I didn’t like the country, and +I didn’t like Mr. Burroughs. He is like the country, dull and ghostly +and green and sad. I think I first became afraid and nervous on that +walk, for Mr. Burroughs, after we started, never said a word to me. We +just plodded along, and he would look at me sideways with his funny +eyes. I tried to say something once or twice, but he only nodded. I +felt as though I was walking into a nightmare. The Westcott farm seemed +terribly dreary to me, and I was frightened as soon as that horrible +little boy appeared at the fence-gate.” + +“Miles,” said Dreeme. + +“Is his name Miles?” asked Deborah. “I didn’t know. He had a great +growling dog on a rope, and he let it walk after me up the path. It +snarled all the way. He started to say something, but Mr. Burroughs +just waved his hand and the boy went off through the bushes. We went +into the kitchen and Mrs. Westcott was there. Mr. Burroughs introduced +me, and I went right to work helping Mrs. Westcott. There were piles of +dishes to wash. After that Mrs. Westcott showed me where I was to sleep +and where I was to put my things.” + +She paused for a moment and shut her eyes, seeming to revisualize +inwardly the appearance of Mrs. Westcott. + +“She’s quite beautiful, I think,” Deborah proceeded. “But it is what I +would call ... something frozen-like, you know.” + +Dreeme shifted slightly in his chair. + +“If you could imagine cold fire, fire that was just like ice, I think +that would be Mrs. Westcott,” went on the girl. “She didn’t have much +to say to me. She moved around the kitchen like some ... like some +queen, like somebody who didn’t want to be there and didn’t mean to +be there very long. Presently she went away with Mr. Burroughs, and +I finished up the work in the kitchen and went into the living room. +There wasn’t anything to do there, and I kept on into another room that +was full of books. It was just like a library, shelves all around, and +such tattered books. There wasn’t one that was new. The only thing that +I could think of to do was to dust the books. So I found a bit of cloth +and started in on them. It would take a lifetime to dust those books. I +had removed an armful from one of the shelves and was about to dust the +shelf itself when I saw a lot of little dolls in a row against the back +of the shelf. They were terribly amusing, and I took two of them out to +look at them more closely. One was a tiny man and he had needles stuck +in his eyes. The other had a needle thrust into the knee. I pulled +it out. It was while I was holding the dolls in my hand that I felt +somebody standing in back of me. At first I was afraid to turn around. +I was sure that my knees would give way. I put the dolls back, and +stood there looking at the shelves. Then something began to turn me, +and I faced about, and there stood that awful man in the doorway, with +his head thrust forward, and his still eyes watching me with a sort of +smile way back in them.” + +Deborah paused and thrust a small tongue over her dry underlip. + +“I first began to be really frightened then,” she added. “You see, I +have nothing to go upon but sensations and intuitions.” + +Dreeme sat motionless in his chair, his entire intelligence +concentrated upon her story. She said: + +“It came over me like waves, and I began to feel like somebody in deep +churning waters. There was no reason for it, just something inside of +me telling me to be afraid. He stood in the doorway and looked at me, +and I stood there unable to move or say a word. I could see the ridges +on his head. ‘Who told you to come in here?’ he asked. ‘Go back to the +kitchen,’ he added. ‘When I want you to dust the books I’ll tell you +so.’ His voice was low and snarling. I don’t know how I got to the +door, but I did, and he must have passed me, for just as I was stepping +out of the room he shouted, ‘You damned little fool!’ He was standing +by the shelves with one of the dolls in his hand.” + +Dreeme frowned. Something about wax dolls with pins thrust into them. +He had read it somewhere. He could not recall it now. He put the +subject away for the time being, and resumed his calm rôle of auditor. + +“Nothing more happened till suppertime,” Deborah was saying. “I stayed +in the kitchen and helped with the cooking. Then we all sat down at +table. There was Mrs. Westcott, and the boy, and Wagner, the hired man, +and myself. Mrs. Westcott wanted to say something to Wagner. I could +see it on her mouth and in her eyes. And Wagner wanted to hear what she +had to say, for he sat like an attentive bull-dog waiting for a caress. +But before she could say anything _he_ came out of the library, +lurching along in an awkward fashion, for he is lame in one leg, and +sat down. None of us spoke then. The dishes were passed in silence. +Mrs. Westcott sat with her eyes lowered to her plate, although every +now and then she would glance under her long lashes at Wagner, who sat +on the edge of his chair with a puzzled expression on his face. He was +just like a bull-dog that is trying unsuccessfully to comprehend what +its master desires it to do. Mr. Westcott saw them every time, and he +would smile in the most malevolent manner. That supper was terrible. I +thought that it would never end or that I should suddenly scream and +run out of the room. Do you know that taut feeling when your nerves +seem strained to the breaking point? I was like that. The boy ... did +you say his name was Miles? ... ate like a greedy little animal. Wagner +was puzzled and surly. Mrs. Westcott was terribly excited, although on +the surface she was as still as snow. I could sense the fever in her. +Mr. Westcott was the only calm person, and his calmness was like the +breathlessness that is in the air before an electric storm breaks. You +know what I mean. When you can hardly breathe. And I was thinking how +terrible it was to be there, and how miserable and frightened I was. +How could I stand it? How could I stay there? The silence, it ... it +seemed to crawl around the room, to move like a great lazy snake, to +slide under the table and up the backs of the chairs, and across the +face of the clock. The air was heavy. Like before a storm, you know. +Like....” + +She stopped abruptly, plainly at a loss for words to convey the strange +nuances of that meal. Dreeme sat uneasily in his chair, dimly conscious +that he was involved in this imbroglio of ominous silences. He began +to feel like a man sitting at the edge of the crater of a slumbering +volcano. Sooner or later it would erupt, and he would be destroyed by +unimaginable fiery lavas. He could picture to himself the silence of +that supper without the aid of Deborah. Around a table sat a group +of wax figures with living eyes. The eyes spoke, but the mouths were +speechless. These eyes whispered, laughed, threatened, fought invisible +duels. They were glittering assassins moving stealthily toward their +defenseless victims. Deborah was a victim. He was a victim. Anyone who +blundered into that death-like circle of wax figures was a victim. +Deborah’s voice cut across his brooding. She had given up the attempt +to picture the Westcott supper with any degree of vividness. She said: + +“After supper, we rose from the table without a word. Wagner hurried +away. He went like a ghost. I heard the door close softly behind him. +Mr. Westcott heard it, too, for it seemed to be a signal for him to +go into his room of books. He said to Mrs. Westcott, ‘Leave me alone +now. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ She said, ‘Don’t make a fool of yourself.’ +He smiled at that and said, ‘That’s your prerogative.’ Then he went +into the library and closed the door behind him. I helped wash dishes. +Pretty soon Mr. Burroughs came. He slid into the house humming to +himself. He loitered about the kitchen for a while and talked to Mrs. +Westcott about what sort of a year it was, and how he was going to +preach Leeminster way on Sunday. Mrs. Westcott just laughed in her +husky way. ‘Preach!’ she said. ‘You’re an insane humorist, George.’ He +smiled, too, and looked at me in that sly still way. ‘Watch out for +my little Paschal Lamb,’ he said, nodding at me. Then he went to the +door of the library and knocked, and pretty soon he went in, leaving +the door ajar. I could hear him talking with Mr. Westcott. I continued +to work about the kitchen, but the door that led into the sitting room +was open, and so, too, was the door to the library, ajar, I mean. I +could hear men’s voices, but it was hard to distinguish the words. I +didn’t notice when Mrs. Westcott went away, but when I looked for her +to ask her about something, she was gone. Once I heard Mr. Westcott’s +voice raised. He cried out, ‘I tell you she’ll do, George. At the place +called Dagon....’ Then I heard footsteps coming toward the door. ‘The +master ...’ began Mr. Burroughs, and the door was closed with a slam. I +couldn’t distinguish any more words. When I went into the sitting room +I could just hear Mr. Burroughs’ voice. It was monotonous, as though he +was preaching, and it sounded like some foreign language. Maybe Latin.” + +She stopped and looked at the silent attentive figure of Dreeme. + +“It doesn’t sound like anything does it?” she asked. + +“Go on,” said Dreeme briefly. Queer word, Dagon. + +“I’m getting to what really frightened me now,” she said, “All that +went before was a mere leading up, a series of nothings that put me +in a nervous state of mind. I wanted you to know, though. I went to +bed rather early because I was tired. It was a long time before I got +to sleep. You know how a strange bed feels, and when one is nervous. +But I did get to sleep finally, and I guess I slept pretty heavily. I +don’t know how long I slept, but I am sure that I was awakened by three +horrible screams. I started up....” + +“You heard somebody screaming?” asked Dreeme. She shook her head. She +said: + +“No, I didn’t hear anything. But I am sure that I was wakened by three +screams. I don’t know.... I.... I sensed the echo of them, I guess. +I started up wide awake and half-mad with fright. I knew instantly +without looking that the door to my room was open. There was a little +moonlight straggling in at the window and when I looked toward the door +I could see him standing there. I could see his face very plainly, and +the ridges on his skull. He....” + +Dreeme uttered a stifled exclamation. + +“You mean ...” he began. + +“Yes, yes,” she said, the shadow of fear starting up in her eyes again. +“Mr. Westcott was standing in my doorway and looking at me. He was +leaning forward a little, his head lowered on his breast, and staring +at me from under his eyebrows. The moonlight rippled across his uneven +head and his flat nose. His eyes were large and dark and still, with +that awful stillness that seems to say so many things. He stood there +and stared, and everything seemed to die inside me. The blood paused in +my veins, and a queer sort of dizziness came over me. I was conscious +of nothing but his eyes, and of an enormous will in his eyes that +seemed to but half-reveal itself. I seemed to swoon, to float upward, +while his eyes grew into huge circles that swallowed me and the room. +Far off, as though from another world, I heard a low voice saying, ‘At +Dagon. At Dagon. For the master.’ He did not say that, for his lips +never moved, and even if he had spoken I could not have heard him, for +my ears were like dead things. It was through his eyes that everything +came to me. And it was looking into his eyes, being drowned in his +eyes, that I saw....” + +For a moment she lost the faculty of speech and lifted a small white +frightened face to Dreeme. Her lips fumbled for words, and the young +doctor could see them moving dumbly. + +“Wait,” he said, “Don’t tell me any more.” + +In the back of his mind a faint light was beginning to dawn. It was far +away as yet, as far away as those snowy hawks that hovered over the +valley. He would have to mount as high as those clouds if he was to see +everything spread out like a simple map before him. + +“I must,” she said with an effort. “I must try to let you know. It was +all in his eyes. An unutterable evil. A concentration of everything +that is horrible and bestial in this world, or, for all I know, out +of it. His eyes were telling me of all the sins and perversions and +horrors that have existed since before the beginning of time, of +reptile urges and.... I can’t explain it, you see. I do not know how to +handle the words. But I saw ... the horror of time ... and....” + +She could not go on. But she did not sob again. She sat with +trance-like eyes and said nothing. + +Dreeme was staring at her intently, and, from a half-shocked mind, +striving to piece together her stumbling narrative of mingled fears +and menaces. Curiously enough he did not doubt the authenticity of her +mental fever. This was no mere hysteria, no nightmare. It was as though +the hidden facet of an admitted evil had been slowly turned toward +him. The far-away light continued to shine in the deepest recesses +of his mind. He felt all that she felt as he heard her story, and +understood vividly enough the aspect and profoundity of that terror +which moved her, and which she conveyed so haltingly. She had sensed +something that could not be adequately expressed in words, just as he +had sensed something in the community that was beyond the power of +speech. + +Deborah began to speak again. She said: + +“He turned and went out noiselessly, and the door made no sound as it +closed behind him. I could hear the clock ticking somewhere. It was the +first time I had heard one in that house, and somehow it made the night +and the world real again. I could not sleep again. It was too much to +expect. I lay there staring at the door for hours, and sure that there +was somebody on the other side of it, somebody standing there with his +head thrust forward and still eyes that grew as large as moons. It +began to grow light, that skimmed-milk-like color that the early cloudy +morning has, and I kept saying to myself, ‘I must go away from here. I +mustn’t be found here in the morning.’ It was only by a terrific effort +of will that I forced myself to get up and dress. I can’t tell you how +blinded with panic I was when I pushed the door open. There was no one +there. There wasn’t a sound in the house as I crept down stairs and out +of the kitchen door. I reached the road and looked back at the house. +It squatted there like a dead thing with blind eyes. It couldn’t see +me. I began to run then. I ran all the way here. I thought I could hear +things running after me, but when I looked back the road was empty. I +even thought I heard someone laughing in the air. I came to you first +because....” + +The door swung open and the small plump figure of Mrs. Slater appeared +behind a breakfast tray. Her eyes opened with amazement when she +saw the drooping figure of Deborah, but she said nothing until she +methodically placed the tray on the table and removed the napkin from +the food. Then she turned to the girl, a thin disapproval curling down +her mouth. + +“Land’s sakes,” she said in a querulous tone. “You’re in town early.” + +Deborah gazed from her aunt to Dreeme, a mingled defiance and +supplication in her blue eyes. + +“I’ve run away,” she said. “I’m not going back. I won’t stay there.” + +Mrs. Slater arranged the breakfast plates in a deliberate fashion. Her +eyes fluttered as she moved about the table. She said: + +“You can’t run away. Girls don’t run away in Marlborough.” + +There was no interest in her voice, nothing but a faintly-aggrieved +protest. + +“She has run away,” remarked Dreeme shortly. “Can’t you see her in +front of you?” + +Mrs. Slater ignored him. In a voice entirely lacking in curiosity she +inquired: + +“What was the matter, Deborah?” + +“I ... I was frightened,” replied the girl. “I don’t like that awful +place and those awful people.” + +She stopped abruptly at that. Dreeme understood that she realized the +impossibility of explaining anything to Mrs. Slater. He undertook to +fill the gap. + +“Deborah is a highly nervous girl,” he said. “It is necessary that she +have surroundings that are favorable. A lonely farm and a brutal farmer +who peers into one’s bedroom at night, and who is up to the devil knows +what, are not the surroundings for her. Speaking as a doctor....” + +“Your coffee’s cooling,” said Mrs. Slater. She shifted the sugar-bowl +uneasily. Dreeme poured a cup of coffee and handed it to Deborah. + +“There’s plenty of breakfast in the house of your relations,” announced +Mrs. Slater, the wan ghost of indignation in her voice. + +“But not plenty of room,” added Dreeme. He sat down angrily to his +breakfast, and proceeded to eat. Mrs. Slater stood looking at her niece. + +“You know I would do for you,” she said, “but Walden has about all he +can handle with the children. The land’s mighty poor.” + +She ignored Dreeme completely. The young doctor visualized a picture +of a stoop-shouldered man struggling all day with thin soil that noisy +little mouths might be fed. He cultivated a stone and strove to make +bread of it. Well, it was no circus. Still.... + +“You can’t place Deborah where she is frightened and unhappy,” he said. + +“Mrs. Westcott is the only neighbor around here who wants somebody,” +remarked Mrs. Slater. There was a hopeless and dispirited note in her +voice. + +Neither Dreeme nor Deborah replied. Mrs. Slater stood by the table +stolidly, her eyes fluttering. + +“There’s nothing to be frightened of at the Westcott farm,” she added. +“Nothing at all.” + +Dreeme passed a slice of toast to Deborah. Curious. All his life. He +knew she sat that way. Mrs. Slater moved closer to the table. + +“I don’t see why you should be unhappy there,” she said. “I don’t see, +at all.” + +“Well, we’ll talk it over later,” interposed Dreeme. “Let Deborah +recover her equanimity.” + +“It’s hard on me,” said Mrs. Slater. She stooped to lift an empty +plate, and tiny lines rippled across her plump face. It was sagging a +bit now. The earth seemed pulling it downward. She was aggrieved at +life in general and Deborah in particular. Dreeme she plainly regarded +as an interloper, an officious stranger, who thrust himself into +affairs that did not concern him. For an instant he was angry. It was +hard on her! He opened his mouth to expostulate, even to deliver a long +speech on her unkindly attitude, when a measured thumping sounded in +the hall leading to the study. It was a rhythmical alternating sound, +now loud and then soft, the sound of a man, perhaps, with a wooden leg. +A man with a wooden leg or.... Before the door swung open Dreeme knew +who it was. With calm eyes, therefore, he raised his face to Jeffrey +Westcott who stood in the doorway. He said: + +“Good morning. You are into town early.” + +Westcott nodded slightly. His eyes were fastened on Deborah. + +“You’re abroad early also,” he remarked to her. His voice was low and +casual. The girl did not answer him but turned appealingly to Dreeme. +Westcott smiled vaguely, the mere flash of an ironic humor that was +undisturbed and sure of itself. + +“How are you, Mrs. Slater?” he asked. + +Mrs. Slater fluttered her eyes and coughed an intimation that she was +not so well. Dreeme perceived that she did not like Westcott, but was +making an effort to conceal her instinctive antagonism. There was +fear in this effort. The farmer’s eyes roved about the room, casually +inspected the books in the little case, and then reverted to Deborah. + +“I’ve the horse here,” he said to her. “I’ll take you back now.” + +“She’s not going back with you, Mr. Westcott,” interposed Dreeme dryly. +“She’s not going back at all.” + +Mrs. Slater opened her mouth with a cluck. + +“Not at all,” repeated Dreeme, giving him a defiant look. + +Westcott continued to regard the girl. + +“Weren’t you coming back with me, Deborah?” he asked in a low silky +voice. + +A strange thing happened. Deborah rose to her feet slowly and took a +single step toward the farmer. His dark eyes were fastened piercingly +upon her now. Dreeme jumped from his chair and turned the girl around. +Instantly she burst into tears. + +“Don’t let me go,” she pleaded. + +“I know now,” said Dreeme. He faced Westcott with a smile. He added: + +“Try that on me. See if it will work on a man.” + +Westcott lowered his cloven head. + +“Really, doctor,” he said in a mild voice, “I don’t understand you.” + +He, too, was smiling slightly. + +“You neglected to send your bill,” he went on. + +Fumbling in his pocket he drew forth a brand-new five dollar bill, and, +limping forward, laid it on the table. + +“There,” he said. “We are quits. Let us hope that we may remain quits.” + +He opened his eyes and gazed full into Dreeme’s face. There was +absolutely no expression in his look. It was like the meaningless stare +of a blind man. Paying no more attention to Deborah he turned to Mrs. +Slater. + +“Is Walden in the fields?” he asked. + +She nodded, and he swung on his heel. + +“Good morning, doctor. Good morning, Mrs. Slater,” he said. He ignored +Deborah. An instant later they heard his lame thumping through the +hall, and then the closing of the front door. Dreeme absently picked up +the bill. On it was scrawled: + +“Even a fool may learn wisdom.” + + +II + +The Reverend George Burroughs stretched his long yellow hand out and +grasped a slice of bread. He made it a point to take the fattest +cut. Dreeme, watching from beneath lowered lids, noted that the +preacher’s hand was shaped like a claw. The fingers curled back like +the crazy-shaped bits of driftwood he had seen washed up on the tip +of Cape Cod years ago, when, as a boy, he had made a vacation trip +to those rolling dunes of white sand. Indeed, the Reverend George +Burroughs himself was very like something that had been washed up on +the beach. Some sort of skinny sea-monster, an old merman who was half +sea-horse. It was time to keep an eye on the preacher. Dreeme looked up +at Burroughs and discovered that the man of God apparently was thinking +the same thought, for his expressionless eyes were fastened upon the +young doctor over the bread that he was cramming into his capacious +mouth. Burroughs masticated loudly and continued to stare at Dreeme. +The pupils of his eyes were like two black shoe buttons. He had never +done that before. He had always averted his eyes or dropped them to the +heaped plate above which he constantly hovered so eagerly. Dreeme was +less startled than amused. If he had entered into the old hypocrite’s +line of vision at last so much the worse for the old hypocrite. He +would give him something to look at. Something to think about. The old +night-wanderer! The old fool who poked his horse-like face into burned +mills to see what he might see! The withered employment agency for the +Westcott farm! Dreeme remarked calmly: + +“You enjoy evening strolls, preacher.” + +Burroughs, his mouth clogged with bread, nodded slowly. + +Dreeme awaited an answer, and as none was forthcoming apparently, he +transferred his attention to the rest of the table. He had sat so many +times at this board and had seen nothing and understood everything. +Now he saw everything and understood nothing. This noon, for instance, +it was simple enough to perceive that a general unrest pervaded the +secretive diners. It was even communicated to the children, who gazed +frightenedly from face to face, seeking for the reassurance of an +unslipped mask, for a visage that did not suggest the complexities +of perturbation. Mrs. Slater, her cheeks heightened in color--tiny +scarlet flags mutely calling for aid--and her eyes fluttering, was +plainly disaffected and at odds with circumstances. Walden Slater was +so upset that he ate meagerly. His long camel-like upper lip closed +half-heartedly over the mouthfuls that he balanced precariously on the +flat blade of his knife. The preacher was puzzled, a bit startled, +perhaps, to find Dreeme thrust into his scheme of things for he must +have heard all about the young doctor’s championship of Deborah. +Deborah! She, at least, was real. Though Dreeme did not know these +other people he knew _her_. She smiled briefly across the table +at him, and it was as though she had flung him a flower. A small blue +flower with a starry heart tossed across a table of strangers. A flower +as blue as her eyes were blue, as starry as the pupils of her eyes. He +smiled back at her broadly. The smile was intercepted by everybody at +the table. He enjoyed their reactions to it. Mrs. Slater nipped at it +as a parrot nips at a cracker. The children thrust little faces of ice +between it and Deborah. Walden Slater retreated from it in a bewildered +manner, and then, to Dreeme’s pleasant surprise, wrung the doleful +ghost of an accompanying smile from his long lip and tossed it gingerly +to Deborah. The Reverend George Burroughs observed it impassively and +blew a little cloud of darkness over it. The busy knives and forks +played a greedy melody. + +“In the cool of the evening it is good to walk,” announced the +preacher. He spoke as though he were delivering the text for a sermon. + +“And much may be seen by night that is invisible by day,” returned +Dreeme facetiously. He felt in a high good humor, light-minded, puffed +up with a malicious playfulness. He was quite fearless of the community +and its inhabitants, “I will not be here long,” he thought to himself. +He, after all, was but a sojourner. He did not belong in Marlborough +and he was glad of it. + +“The true heart of man is often bared to the darkness,” agreed +Burroughs in a sententious voice. For an instant Dreeme thought +the preacher was laughing at him, and he gazed at the yellow face +before him suspiciously. There was no hint of a smile upon that long +countenance. It was a sober blank, quite clear of any subtle writing. +Indeed, it was a little too guileless. “Perhaps,” Dreeme thought, +“I am not as self-sufficient as I think I am.” His eyes returned to +Deborah. She was looking at him brightly. Well, he would have to be +self-sufficient for her sake. Still, these people were accepting his +interpositions too quiescently. He knew that they could not be as +weak-willed as that. Humphrey Lathrop had intimated too much. He, +himself, had observed too much. Did not Burroughs know that he had +met Martha Westcott in the burned mill? Had not Burroughs told all +this to Westcott himself? Or had the darkness concealed them from the +inquisitive eyes of the preacher? Martha Westcott had said “no” to that +and he had believed her. And why had Westcott received his interference +in the matter of Deborah’s return to the farm so blandly? What was he +planning behind his smiling face and hypnotic eyes? That was it, of +course. Westcott was fooling with hypnotism. He had hypnotized Deborah +that night and even when he had come for her this very morning he had, +for an instant, subjected her will to his. Dreeme scraped his plate +clean with outward unconcern but inwardly he was perplexed. “As a +matter of fact,” he thought to himself, “I am all at sea.” He was not +self-sufficient at all. He was aware of a great many questions, but he +could offer but a meager handful of answers. These people were leagued +against him, and they intended to do what they pleased with him when +the psychological moment came. And that would be when he interfered +too strenuously in their designs, when through fool-luck he clogged +their purposes. That would be when? The scraping of knives and creaking +of chairs aided and abetted his inquiring mind. He pushed his plate +back and scowled. Then his features lightened. Of course! A thrill of +triumph ran up his spine, and the far-away light in the depths of his +mind glowed brighter. It would be when he found the place called Dagon. +It would be when he stood on that spot and faced these farmers in the +very heart of their mystery. Even as the unfamiliar name flashed across +his consciousness the preacher’s yellow hand closed upon his wrist. He +lifted startled eyes to the calm equine face. + +“I asked,” said the Reverend George Burroughs in his solemn voice, “if +you enjoyed strolling in the evening.” + +Still at it, eh? + +“By myself, yes,” replied Dreeme. The yellow hand disappeared beneath +the table. + +“It is good to be by one’s self,” remarked the preacher. “He who goes +by himself need fear no man.” + +The stilted voice of Burroughs rose like the neigh of a horse. + +“That is not exactly the saying, is it?” inquired Dreeme politely. + +The preacher wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said nothing. + +They had finished eating now. The defeated platter lay in greasy +subjection. The knives and forks reposed upon the stained field of +battle like discarded weapons. The buzzing flies hummed above the +debris monotonously. With a clattering of steel-tipped shoes the +children squirmed from their chairs and fled through the door. Mrs. +Slater and Deborah rose and staggered toward the kitchen under loads +of plates and cups and gravy-boats. They were Trojan women carrying +the shields of their warriors. The three men still sat in their +places as though there was something to be said between them. Walden +Slater opened and shut his mouth. He looked helplessly from Burroughs +to Dreeme. His sweaty shoulders seemed to climb up about his tanned +leathery face. A remnant of bread swung like a miniature acrobat from +his chin. + +“It’ll be a poor crop,” he mumbled. + +“Poor crop,” echoed Burroughs. + +“Why will it be a poor crop?” asked Dreeme. + +Walden Slater opened his mouth and eyes very wide at that. After a +moment he answered weakly: + +“Because it will be a poor crop.” + +Several minutes of silence ensued. + +“The Lord will provide,” remarked Burroughs finally. + +Walden Slater did not brighten perceptibly at these glad tidings. He +had put his trust in the Lord before, and he knew exactly how much +it was rewarded when there was too much sun and not enough rain. He +corrugated his brow in the unusual travail of thought. + +“I guess ...” he commenced. + +“If rain ...” started Burroughs. + +“How much ...” questioned Dreeme. + +All three men had started at once, and at the surprising medley of +voices they ceased abruptly. Each one waited for the other to speak. No +one dared to begin. Mrs. Slater and Deborah had removed all the dishes. +The red and white table-cloth was folded up and put away. The hot +afternoon sun splashed through the windows and flooded the dining room +floor. Burroughs cautiously withdrew his chair from the golden pool. +Walden Slater spoke with unusual rapidity for him. + +“About Deb,” he said, “I guess if she wants to stay, she can. I told +Jeff Westcott that. I said....” + +He stopped as abruptly as he commenced. + +Dreeme wanted to jump up and fling his arms about the weary farmer. +This was what had been on Walden Slater’s mind. This was what he had +desired to communicate to Dreeme. Having delivered himself of his +pronunciamento he rose painfully to his feet and turned toward the +door. The Reverend George Burroughs picked his teeth meditatively with +a wooden toothpick he had drawn from his black vest pocket. Then he +blew his nose with a rare fish-horn effect. + +Dreeme fumbled for his pipe contentedly. Well, Walden Slater was a +friend. He was an ally. He was stretching a grotesque gnarled hand +across the imbroglio of nights and days to Dreeme. The young doctor +watched the farmer’s bowed shoulders disappear through the door. He was +going back to his meager sun-parched acres where he would labor all +the harder that he might feed one more mouth. Dreeme lighted his pipe, +pushed his chair back, and walked slowly across the room. Before he +reached the warm flood of sunlight he was halted. + +“Doctor Dreeme.” + +The Reverend George Burroughs stood beside the table with a half-raised +yellow claw. His stringy black hair stood out above his frayed coat +collar. + +“If you enjoy the pleasing scent of the evening air,” he declared in +his neighing voice, “perhaps we may stroll together some time. I am a +silent companion, I fear, but equally a lover of nature. If you desire +I shall be pleased to give you some information about the flora and +fauna of this neighborhood.” + +“Thank you,” responded Dreeme. “I generally stroll alone when I +do stroll, which is not often. Sometime, however....” He waved an +inconclusive hand. + +Outside he wondered. “Now, what the devil does he mean?” He turned at +the gateway to meet a corpulent red-faced man who came running heavily +down the road. The fellow was waving his arms in excitement. “Doctor,” +he called as he came nearer, “Doctor.” Dreeme waited for the excited +individual. When he came abreast of the doctor he stopped and puffed +furiously while he mopped his ruddy face with a ruddier handkerchief. +“Cardiac trouble,” thought Dreeme. Aloud he said: + +“You shouldn’t run in the sun.” + +The individual flourished his active hand. + +“They’ve found a body by the Saccarac River, almost under the bridge,” +he bellowed. “I’m Barnson. I don’t know nothing about it. My farm’s +just above the bridge. My son, Simon, found the body. You remember, you +treated him for blood-poisoning in the foot last Fall.” + +Dreeme was uncertain as to whether he had treated the body or Simon for +blood-poisoning in the foot, but he turned with Barnson and started to +walk hurriedly with him up the Leeminster Road. + +“Whose body?” he asked. + +“Didn’t wait ... to find out,” puffed Barnson. “My boy, Simon, found +it. You remember ... the boy you treated.” + +He sat down heavily by the roadside. + +“Dang it, I’m winded,” he declared. “You run ahead.” + +“The body won’t run away,” said Dreeme. + +Nevertheless he mounted the incline at a trot, his exertions and the +sun covering his face with a freely running river of perspiration. +The dry red sand puffed about his feet and sifted into his shoes. As +he turned the arc of the road by the burned mill he saw a knot of men +standing by the river below the bridge. They were leaning forward, +their shoulders almost touching. He scrambled down the bank, the +wiry weeds catching at his clothes and thrusting up his coat-sleeves +as he half-slid and half-stumbled toward the low baked bank of the +river. The men drew apart at the sound of his scrambling feet, and a +freckled-faced youth with a bobbing Adam’s apple, whom he recognized as +Simon Barnson, turned to him as he approached the group. + +“It’s Wagner, Westcott’s man,” he called in a shrill voice. + +Dreeme waved the men aside and approached the limp bundle of clothes +that huddled before him. Wagner lay on his side, his heavy-booted +feet sunk in the muddy ooze of the Saccarac River. One arm was +twisted across his face. The two or three farmers who stood in a +knot conversing in low tones, observed Dreeme curiously as he went +methodically about his task of investigating the condition of the +corpse. It was only by a violent effort that the young doctor moved +Wagner’s bulky upflung arm sufficiently to study the dead man’s face. +He started back with an exclamation of horror at the sight. Wagner’s +eyes had been torn out and a wooden peg had been driven into each +socket. Streamers of blood had flowed from these wounds and coagulated +along the tanned cheeks and in the red and bushy beard. The purple +lips were drawn back over the yellow teeth in a last ghastly smile of +anguish. In the back of the hired man’s head, a trifle above the lined +red neck, was an open wound, a gaping orifice of blood and splintered +bone, that might have been made with some fairly sharp instrument, an +axe or a heavy chisel. + +“He’s dead all right,” said Dreeme, rising to his feet. “How long since +he was found?” + +The farmers stood in stolid silence until Simon Barnson constituted +himself spokesman. + +“I found him ’bout half an hour ago,” he said. “Then I run home and +told Pa. Then I run to Bidwell’s.” He indicated a tall farmer standing +near. Bidwell backed hastily away. + +“Don’t you be talking too much, Simon,” called a voice from the top of +the bank. “You’ll be talking yourself into jail first thing you know.” + +Dreeme glanced up and saw the elder Barnson sitting on the ground and +mopping his fiery face. His lips curled, and he turned back to the +silent farmers. He said: + +“It’s murder, you know. I should say the man’s been dead about three +hours. We’ll have to find out who’s been across this bridge during the +last three hours.” + +The farmers shuffled together. + +“I reckon there’s authorities’ll find that out,” said one of them +coldly. The others nodded in agreement. + +Dreeme felt helpless and out of place. He addressed himself to Simon +Barnson. + +“Has the coroner been sent for?” + +Bidwell, the tall farmer, spoke up at that. He said: + +“Yessir. I sent my man with the mare out to Leeminster right away as +soon’s Simon told me. He’ll pick up Westcott on the way back.” + +“Oh, will he?” said Dreeme. He stood beside the body gazing down at it. +Wagner stared up at him with a fixed grin upon his ensanguined face. +He lay like an old sack half-filled with boneless flesh. He was worm’s +meat now. All his toiling in the hot sun and the fierce rains had come +to this. His heavy feet had crunched through the last field. His hands, +so calloused and split with labor, would guide farm implements no more. +Dreeme looked down at the clenched hand that he had forced from the +disfigured face and he saw clutched in the black, broken-nailed, stumpy +fingers a bit of paper. It was curious that he had missed it before. +He knelt down and tried to force the stiff fingers open. The farmers +watched him from a little distance curiously, their necks craned, +their eyes narrowed to slits in the sunlight. It took all his strength +to open these dead fingers but with one last desperate effort he heard +them break with a crackling sound and the slip of paper fluttered to +the oozy bank. He snatched it up before it drifted into the river. +Standing up he held the paper before him and looked at it. There was +nothing upon it except the tiny drawing of a goat’s head. Dreeme stared +at it in perplexity. + +“I reckon you’d better save that for the coroner, Mister Doctor,” +remarked Bidwell. + +“I intend to,” replied Dreeme shortly. + +None of them trusted him. He was a stranger and they wanted their own +kind around, men who talked and thought as they did, who understood +without words the springs of hidden actions. Well, to hell with them! +Let them all go to hell! He heard the creak of the coroner’s buggy +and the clop-clop of the horse on the bridge-boards above him and +lifting his eyes he saw the thin-mouthed Leeminster official. One of +their own kind at last! Beside him was Jeffrey Westcott, hatless, his +cloven skull gleaming blue in the sunlight. The farmer turned his +head downward and stared coolly at the body of his hired man. Then he +transferred his attention to Dreeme. There was no expression in his +face. + +“Down here, coroner, down here,” called Simon Barnson. + +“Hold your horses, son!” replied that official. “I’ll be right there.” + +He lumbered heavily from his buggy and slid down the bank in a sitting +posture, adjusting his steel-rimmed spectacles as he came. + + + + +Chapter Six + + +I + +Dreeme sat gloomily in front of Humphrey Lathrop and waited for the old +doctor to deliver any advice that he might have to give. + +“There you are,” he had concluded, an exasperated perplexity lining +his face. “I’m out! It’s a closed community so far as I am concerned. +A murder is committed, a murder as obvious as the nose on your face, +and I can do nothing about it. I’ve tried. I’ve run about town in the +boiling sun all afternoon, I’ve even been to Leeminster. What’s the +result? Nothing!” + +Humphrey Lathrop pursed his great lips and looked wise. “He’s the +frog,” thought Dreeme. He was thinking of the old story of the frog +who puffed herself up until she burst. The little frog had seen a cow. +He had described it to his mother. It was big, enormous. “Was it as +large as this?” she had inquired, puffing herself up to formidable +proportions. “Larger,” the little frog had said. The big frog scowled +(imagine a frog scowling!) and had puffed herself still bigger. Her +abdomen had distended to an horrendous bulge. “As large as this?” she +had asked proudly. “Larger,” responded the little frog. The mother was +beside herself. She had puffed valiantly again and her green skin had +stretched and swelled wonderfully. She was a rotund circle of emerald. +“As large as this?” she had shrieked. “Oh, larger,” the little frog +answered gloomily. He had probably become a bit bored by this time and +had wanted to go off and sit on a lily pad and snap at flies. With a +last desperate effort the great frog indrew a huge breath. There was +a pop and then no frog. The little frog had looked up in the sky and +then down at the ground but he had failed to discover his mother. She +had burst into fragments, disappeared entirely. Humphrey Lathrop puffed +himself up in this way. Some day he would burst and disappear. And then +Dreeme felt quite ashamed of his malicious analogy. Humphrey Lathrop +was a kind helpful old man. His importance was only the privilege of +age. He was not consciously puffing himself to impossible proportions. +He was merely trying to ease Dreeme’s mind, to act the wise counsellor. +The young doctor observed him and nearly smiled. Then his levity +abruptly died away as his reason thrust him back among his grievances. + +“There you are,” he had said. “What’s the result? Nothing!” + +“It’s always the result,” said Humphrey Lathrop gloomily. + +Dreeme reiterated himself. + +“After I saw the body I questioned the coroner. I wanted to study the +wooden pegs. I gave him the scrap of paper with the goat’s head on it. +I wanted to talk about time, about possible murderous weapons, about +a dozen and one things. He put me off with silly generalities. I went +to Bidwell, who seemed to have the confidence of those infernally +silent farmers, and pleaded for an investigation without loss of +time. He evaded me. I talked to the damned selectmen or whatever they +are, Winship and Collender. There was nothing doing. Nothing but +antagonism in sleepy little suspicious eyes. The constable was busy +getting in some parched hay. He knew nothing about it and didn’t want +to know anything about it. He was a hopeless fool. Finally I went to +Leeminster. The officials there referred me back to Marlborough. I tell +you, Humphrey, it is impossible to start a serious investigation of +this murder. By God, I’ll write to Boston. I’ll telegraph Washington.” + +He paused breathless. Lathrop broke into a low chuckle. + +“You can’t do anything,” he said. + +They sat in silence after that and Dreeme smoked moodily. The twilight +drooped its dark wing over the valley. The white hawks that had hovered +in the sky were gone now. Shadows crept up the tree-lined street and +squirmed into the corners of the houses. There was a shadow over the +Saccarac River. A shadow over the trampled bank where Wagner’s body +had crushed the reeds. It would be night soon. The sable mantle would +drop and the lights would be extinguished. + +“It’s impossible,” said Lathrop. The great chair creaked as he shifted +his huge body. “Go away, Daniel. Don’t worry yourself. Marlborough will +look out for itself as it has always looked out for itself. You can do +nothing about it.” + +The air seemed to sigh about them. + +“An investigation is not too much to expect,” said Dreeme doggedly. + +Lathrop shook his mountainous shoulders. His three chins quivered with +the gesture. + +“Don’t expect anything here,” he said after a moment. The shadow of +night was in his eyes. + + +II + +Dreeme walked down the road to his house. The night was extraordinarily +clear, the heavens being covered with a huge wheel of glittering stars. +Lifting his head the young doctor could see the Great Dipper, the +Little Bear, the steadfast North Star. The Milky Way was a shoal of +misty light pricked to diamond points by infinities of sparkling gems. +Between the hosts of stars and the road were the crowded tops of the +ancient trees interposing their thick foliage. The huge branches idly +shaking their multitudes of leaves made moving patterns upon the road, +crazy designs and impossible arabesques. Dreeme stepped through these +checkered patterns unseeingly. Two shadows walked on either side of +him. One was a shadow of ruddy gloom, the secret lustre of a beryl; +the other, a shadow of dim light, the shy reflection of crystal. He +walked between them and the moon moved like a lantern in the hand of +some sky-traveler above him. The shadows crept closer to him and he +instinctively spread his arms to keep them from him. There was no sound +in the quiet evening and yet they were speaking to him. The ruddy +shadow said: + +“I do not say ‘no’ to anything.” + +Dreeme walked faster. The shadow of dim light said: + +“I had a very good lawyer, Mr. Stopes.” + +“I do not hear you,” said Dreeme. His pace increased until he was +trudging along at a furious rate. + + +III + +In his study Dreeme turned the pages of the book impatiently. Finally +he closed it and placed it upon the table. He would think. He wondered +if he ever stopped thinking, if, indeed, his cerebral efforts were ever +more than an ineffectual attempt. The clock struck nine and he noted it +automatically. Another day had fled by. A day of excitement and terror +and perplexity. He sat desolately and watched the yellow flame of the +lamp as it sputtered despondently. The chimney was soot-stained. Mrs. +Slater should clean it. There was small reason to think when he could +find no answers to his thoughts. Perhaps Humphrey Lathrop was right, +after all. If he had troubled his mind about nothing his mind would not +be troubling him so fiercely as it undoubtedly was now. Perhaps the +time had come for him to pack his books, his trunk, and his bags, and +take his way eastward out of the valley, leaving the dour natives to +live their lives in their own way and to continue to clutch the mystery +that permeated the community to their secretive bosoms. Why should +he stay here where he was a barely-tolerated stranger and prescribe +cures for unthankful patients who viewed even his ministrations with +suspicion? It was no career for a young man. The rewards could be +counted neither in money nor in friendships. He was a fool, an infernal +fool. + +And thinking these thoughts he reached a hand to pick up his book but +paused, the hand poised in mid-air. She had asked him to come to the +burned mill again that night. During the troublous surprises of the day +he had forgotten all about it. It was inconceivable to imagine that +she would appear after the unusual happenings of the day, happenings +that had touched her so closely. Was she not sitting in her room, +understanding, perhaps, why Wagner had been killed? Dreeme shuddered +at the approach of the thought which he had kept so resolutely out of +his mind. To go to the burned mill now would be a very fool’s errand. +He would find nothing there but blackened bricks and charred beams and +the disturbed dust where he had sat in the broken embrasure with her +and watched her obvious efforts to entangle him. He had even told her +that he would not come, told her so brusquely and with no pity for her +demands. What had she said to him? “I will tell you a great many things +tomorrow night.” What had she meant by that? What was she driving at, +anyway? His hand dropped to his lap and he sat gazing vacantly at the +yellow lamp-flame. + +The first time he had seen her, she had fascinated him. He supposed +that was the word for it. Anyway, he had felt her presence, had sensed +the magnetic appeal of her power, the outrageous suggestion of her +will. Nature had endowed her with certain unusual attributes and +chief among them was this curious power of disturbing the rational +equilibrium of the men about her. She was sly and skillful in her +amoral way, determined to have what she wanted regardless of the +consequences. There might be some things to be said on her side, +particularly by the special pleader who, dominated by her undoubted +beauty, perished in the spell of her personality. But Dreeme knew +that she could not dominate him in this way although at the first she +had disturbed him greatly. Even now he knew that he would be visibly +excited in her presence. The man in him would tremble before the +woman in her. She could not touch his brain, though, for that was an +insuperable bulwark between them. It was his stout shield of defence +and beat upon it as she might with the sharp sword of her loveliness +she could not hack her way through. She was like the beautiful and +heartless wife of the Afrit in the Arabian Nights, the one who +possessed the vast number of rings, each one a souvenir of a time when +she had betrayed her sleeping lord. Well, _he_ would not be a +victim. No ring of his should join that glittering and invisible chain +that he suspected Martha Westcott wore about her white throat. He was +safeguarded from her by a welling desire that rose in his heart, by +a desire that he knew would keep him in Marlborough until the time +came when he might go away not alone. A shadow of dim light, the shy +reflection of crystal, stood near him now and his eyes brightened as +his thoughts shifted. + +He had helped _her_ anyway. He had stood between her and the +callousness of her reticent relations, between her and the despairing +selfishness of her helpless aunt. She had wanted to bury her on a +lonely farm, to engulf her in the very mystery that tormented all his +faculties. He wondered if she was sleeping now in the house next door, +lying with one thin pathetic white arm stretched across the bright +patches of the crazyquilt and dreaming, perhaps, of him. Dreeme smiled +at the yellow lamp-flame. He was growing sentimental. Her confident +helplessness, her blue-eyed surrender to circumstances, her ultimate +faith in the goodness of humanity, her unquestioning dependence on +him, all these things touched him acutely. He felt his eyes grow moist +at the thought of her. She, at least, was real. He had said that to +himself before and he would say it again and again for it gave him a +strange strength. She counted and made the whole thing worth while. He +could depend on her as she depended on him. He would constitute himself +her champion, the fighter who would stand between her and ... Dagon. +The name sprang spontaneously into his mind. “Dagon,” he said aloud, +listening to the sound of the word in the little study. “Dagon.” It +meant something. It was a place. + +His mind turned back. “I will tell you a great many things tomorrow +night.” Did she mean anything, after all, by that statement? Or +was it merely a snare, a bait to inveigle him back to a rendezvous +that he found in itself distasteful? Would she, for instance, tell +him about Dagon, describe it to him, indicate where it was, explain +what it meant? If pushed to a last extremity of desire she might. He +flushed at the thought of so befooling her. Still.... He was fighting +with whatever weapons he could grasp. If only.... The clock noisily +announced nine-thirty. Of course, she would not be there. She would +never dare to come after what had happened the night before. Go ... +stay ... go ... stay. The clock was ticking it now. Still undecided he +rose up and reached for his hat. It would do no harm to take a walk +anyway, to stroll in the cool of the evening as the Reverend George +Burroughs would say. Dagon ... Dagon. He closed the door softly behind +him and stood in the moonlight. + + +IV + +The burned mill stood in the bright moonlight, its charred door yawning +on the road. It looked like the sun-dried skull of a buffalo resting +forlornly on the dry sand of a parched plain. Yet about it were the +trees shot through with a milky light and beyond it was the silver +blade of the Saccarac River. Dreeme walked slowly through the door +wondering if she would be waiting there for him. Inside he paused with +a brief start of surprise and anger as his eyes located the figure in +the broken embrasure. The moonlight flowed in crystal over a cloven +head bowed forward in a listening attitude. This shaven cranium seemed +phosphorescent in the rich glow. + +“Good evening, doctor,” said Jeffrey Westcott. There was the hint of +a grim levity in his voice. He stood up, his powerful arms swinging +ape-like at his sides, waiting for the young doctor to approach closer. +Dreeme eyed him speculatively and without fear. Of course. He might +have known if he had thought clearly enough about it. + +“I’m afraid that this is an abrupt surprise for you,” remarked the +farmer. His tone was studiously polite, the tone of a man about to have +business dealings with a stranger. The snarl that had permeated it the +first night when Dreeme had removed the bullet from his plump calf +was missing. The young doctor approached him slowly and sat down in +the embrasure. Well, if he was in for a scene.... Westcott turned, the +moonlight rippling across his flat face. His eyes and teeth glittered +in the flood of light. + +“It is a surprise,” said Dreeme calmly. “I expected to meet your wife +here.” + +He might as well have it over with at once. + +“She is detained,” answered Westcott softly. + +“You must not misunderstand me,” proceeded Dreeme, a trifle stiffly. +“Your wife and I....” + +Westcott spread a broad hand deprecatingly. + +“I know my wife,” he said in a very low voice. + +There was silence then while Dreeme shifted his eyes from the farmer +to the scummed waters of the mill-pond. They were like an old opaque +mirror in the moon. Did he know his wife, though? Did anybody know his +wife. Astarte Syriaca. The wife of the Afrit. What was she? + +“No, no, doctor,” resumed Westcott as though he were reading Dreeme’s +thoughts. “My wife’s little vagaries do not disturb me. She discommodes +me at infrequent times but I have a remedy for it.” + +Dreeme glanced at Westcott’s long powerful arms. + +“I suppose you beat her,” he remarked shortly. + +The farmer flung back his head and laughed, a low rumbling laugh, a +hollow burst of merriment that rattled among the blackened beams. + +“Nothing so simple as that,” he said, after he had recovered himself. +“Nothing so simple as that. You’re a trifle primitive, doctor.” + +There was a faint hint of hysteria behind the calmness of Westcott. +Dreeme could sense it, a far-away excitement that was kept under +control only by an effort of the mind. The farmer was laboring under an +unrest that he desired to conceal. The young doctor sat coolly gazing +into the scummed mirror of the mill-pond. There were no faces there, +not even the reflection of the silver drum-head of the moon, nothing +but a glow, a blank meaningless glow. The farmer sucked in a long +breath suddenly. + +“When are you going away, Doctor Dreeme?” he inquired. There was a +finality in the question that made it as much an order as a query. + +“I don’t expect to go away,” said Dreeme. + +So that was it? He was to be forced out of town, was he? + +“Do you find much that holds you here?” Westcott’s tone was studiously +innocent, devoid of any sly innuendo. Yet the implied order was there. + +“I find much that interests me here,” answered the young doctor. He +wanted to add, “Even you,” but thought better of it. Let the farmer +show his teeth in his own way. Suddenly he felt Westcott’s broad hand +on his shoulder. + +“Doctor Dreeme,” the farmer said. “You had better go away from here. +The farmers don’t want you any more. They are suspicious and ill at +ease with you. You are fashioned from a different kind of flesh than +they are. Your mind works differently. There are doctors who can come +from the outside, from that world of cities where everybody is more +or less the same in social relationships, and settle here and be of +some use but you are not one of them. Old Doctor Lathrop was like +that. You are too ... too speculative, too eager to find out things, +too unwilling to permit the valley to go its own way and employ its +own methods. The itch of curiosity is too strong inside you. These +men who scrape at the soil do not want active intelligences about +them. They distrust strangers. Go away. Forget that you were ever here +and forget the people who are here. The world has forgotten them and +they desire no less than to stay forgotten. This is good advice that +I am giving you for I know what I am talking about. I may not mingle +much with these people but I know their minds. After all, I am one of +them. I tell you to go away ... before you are sent away in a manner +humiliating to you.” + +The heavy hand dropped from Dreeme’s shoulders. The dark eyes studied +him curiously. + +“Thanks for the advice,” said the young doctor. “I’ll stay.” + +“Why are you so obtuse?” asked Westcott sadly. Behind the intonations +fluttered the tiny scarlet bird of hysteria. + +Dreeme became a trifle angry. + +“I’m not obtuse,” he snapped. “That’s why you want me to go away. +You’re afraid of what I’ll find out. Of what I’ll discover about your +wax dolls and your goats’ heads and your hypnotic charlatanry and your +murdered hired man and ... and your place called Dagon!” + +Westcott’s face became distorted in the moonlight. The scarlet bird flew +upward with a feverish beating of wings. + +“You fool! You fool!” he cried, in a strained raucous voice. “That’s +it! You must be made to leave this valley even if you are carried out +of it!” + +Dreeme laughed shortly. + +The blazing eyes of Westcott moved closer to his face. + +“Do you think we care one tinker’s damn about you?” he shouted. “Do you +flatter yourself that we are afraid of you? You simple idiot! We are +doing our best to get rid of you without hurting you! You mean nothing +to us. You are stumbling about in the darkness and don’t know where you +are. You are pitting your puny mind and strength against a power that +is as old as the Egyptians, a power that established itself in this +valley nearly two hundred and fifty years ago. We who have listened +to the voice of the Master need fear nothing but deliverance from the +Master.” + +“Have I gotten on your nerves as badly as that?” cried Dreeme +maliciously. + +Westcott’s voice had changed and a crazy ecstasy was in it. The scarlet +bird filled the burned mill with a hysteric swishing of wings. + +“He walks on the hills at night. He whistles to the Sacred Goat and +snaps his fingers at the moon and stars. In the dark palms of his hands +is all the power of the earth. He stands at the place called Dagon and +his feet are rooted like mountains.” + +Dreeme rose to his feet. Westcott was swaying like a drunken man and a +thin white froth bubbled on his lips. + +“Aie-e-e-e, Asmodeus!” he screamed. “Sweep this man out of my father’s +holy place!” + +Dreeme thought he was about to fall upon the ground and he stretched +out a hand toward him. Westcott shuddered all through his heavy body. +Then, as suddenly as it had come, his delirium passed away. The madness +died out of his eyes and voice and he sank down in the embrasure. The +scarlet bird had flown away on the wind. + +Westcott lifted his hand to his eyes and sat for a moment in silence. +Then he turned to Dreeme. + +“I am taken with seizures,” he said rapidly. “I am an extremely nervous +man. You must not take my outbreak too seriously. You are a doctor. You +know.” + +Dreeme sat down opposite him in the embrasure. The far-away light in +the depths of his mind was glowing so brightly that it dazzled his +reason. Shapes passed before it and they were familiar but he could +not quite identify them. He glanced sharply at Westcott. The farmer, +quite himself, was smiling slyly, secretively. + +“Nervous delirium,” he said confidentially, tapping his cloven head. “I +lose control of myself.” + +Dreeme eyed him searchingly. + +“I am not so sure,” he said. “Are you all right now?” + +Westcott nodded. The young doctor noted that the farmer’s hands were +quivering, however. + +“As you admit I am a doctor,” he said, “perhaps you will give me a +doctor’s privilege of questioning you. Do you ever take drugs?” + +“I do not take drugs,” replied Westcott, “and I do not give you a +doctor’s privilege of questioning me. When I need a doctor I send for +one. I do not need one now.” + +The bright moon placed a silver sword between them. Westcott rose to +his feet. + +“I have given you my advice,” he said, “You will do as you please about +it.” + +He turned toward the door. + +“Wait,” cried Dreeme. Westcott turned on his heel and regarded him +smilingly. + +“Will you answer three questions?” the young doctor asked. Westcott +said: + +“Ask them and I will answer or not as I see fit.” + +“Why did you hypnotize Deborah?” + +“I didn’t hypnotize Deborah.” + +“Who killed Wagner?” + +“I don’t know who killed Wagner.” + +“Where is the place called Dagon?” + +“I never heard of the place called Dagon.” + +“Three lies in as many seconds,” said Dreeme bitterly. + +“Only two of them were lies,” remarked Westcott. He actually chuckled. +His hands had stopped trembling and he stood easily, nonchalantly, +watching Dreeme sardonically with his large dark eyes. + +“No, doctor,” he said. “You are beating at a stone wall. When I first +saw you I detested you. Later I revised my reaction to you. In fact, I +feel a sympathetic pity for you. You are so ... so obtuse. Sooner or +later you will cut your own throat.” + +“You say you belong here,” broke out Dreeme, ignoring the farmer’s +remarks. “I don’t believe it. You don’t talk like a farmer. You have +nothing in common with Slater or Bidwell or Barnson. You live alone out +in that secluded house. Are you so ashamed of yourself that you exist +so secretly? What are you up to in that room lined with books? Are you +fashioning yourself into the image of an old god?” + +The last question had popped into his head suddenly. He was quite +fearless, indeed, he experienced the peculiar sensation that there +was a conversational _rapport_ between him and the farmer if he +could only find the key to it. There was no doubt in his mind now +that Westcott was mad, that he was ridden by some monstrous theory, +that he pursued some irrational objective. He suspected that if he +could discover the proper opening Westcott would pour out as much of +it as he dared. He began to believe that the farmer was a theoretical +fool masked as a lion. His last question had arrested Westcott who had +already turned to go. + +“What’s that?” asked the farmer. “What’s that?” + +He turned slowly. He said: + +“What do you know about old gods?” + +“Perhaps I know more than you think,” insinuated Dreeme craftily. + +Westcott eyed him suspiciously and with some concern. + +“I wonder ...” he mused to himself and then broke off. He surveyed +Dreeme coolly. + +“You picked that question up somewhere?” he said. “You never thought of +it yourself.” + +A light dawned on him and he smiled. + +“Ah, dear Martha,” he murmured. “Dear talkative Martha.” + +He came back and sat down in the embrasure. The moonlight flung great +silver arms about him. + +“You bring to life an inborn loquaciousness,” he said. “I had forgotten +the need of conversation. Doctor Dreeme, I am not an ignorant man. +I have studied in three countries and I bear a degree from one of +the most famous German universities. I have traveled in Arabia and +in Persia and in India. I have lived among the secret priests of +unknown religions. Behind all their conflicting dogmas I discovered +one objective. Years ago the peculiar circumstances of my birth pushed +me into a specific line of investigation. The seeds of that particular +knowledge for which I sought were buried in this valley and I settled +here with the determination to foster them and cause them to grow. +You say that I have nothing in common with the farmers of Marlborough +but that only reveals your ignorance. I have this in common with +them,--they, too, know of the seed. They, too, keep the ground fertile +that it may grow in its appointed time. Their lives and the lives of +their forefathers are but a preparation for the time when that seed +will sprout. I am the self-constituted gardener. I am the man who +directs.” + +He paused and gazed across the moonlit room. His eyes were filmed, +trance-like, and he seemed to be looking inward at the secret growths +of his mind. + +“To fashion myself in the image of an old god,” he murmured. “That +is a crass way of putting it. There are no old gods. There are only +new gods, gods builded out of our invincible wills and forced by the +strength of intelligence into the domains of high powers. The greatest +of all gods is man’s will. If a man possesses enough knowledge he can +do anything, shape the destinies of those about him, influence the +comings and goings upon the surface of the earth, cause wars and the +breakup of nations, and even, when the seed is sprouted and the tree +has flowered, defeat the purpose of death.” + +Westcott seemed entirely unconscious of Dreeme. He was talking to +himself now. + +“‘And the will therein lieth which dieth not,’” he quoted. “The +instincts of man are constantly drawn toward what, for want of a better +word, we call evil, as a filing of iron is drawn toward a magnet. Evil +is therefore the fountainhead of life. All the gods, Buddha, Allah, +Christ, are the enemies of the will for they pretend to dominate it. +The only god is that demon of the mind who places himself in bold +antagonism to the high tyrants of the heavens. Satan is the only god +and he is the god that we daily create out of our will. All that we +are springs out of evil. We have misunderstood evil so long, masked it +in outrageous masks and clothed it in obscene garments, that we forget +that it is a pure essence, that it is evil--as we understand evil--only +when we compare it with our artificially created good. The animals +know no evil because they know no good. They know nothing but a great +impulse pulling them one way always,--the way of self-emancipation. +It should be so with us. There is neither evil nor good but a sole +purpose and that purpose is the domination of the will over matter, +the power of regulating time by the exertion of the will. Within us +the sixth sense lies dormant. We taste, touch, smell, hear and see +but these are animal functions. The sixth sense is to will. When that +is discovered we shall be the lords of creation. How can we develop +and strengthen this weak will that staggers like an infant child in +the dark corridors of our brains? The old magicians did not know. I +have read all their books and my house is filled with them. Can the +will be sharpened by symbols, by monstrous symbols that tear our time +accustomed minds from the old impulses and subserviencies? May we +by building an artificial structure of liturgies and ceremonies and +sacrifices, by constant allegories that call the imaginative faculties +of the will into exertion, discipline and exercise that weakness that +is our shame today? In other words, may we by a complete reversal of +all those religious mummeries that subjected our will and made it puny +before the imaginary gods, destroy the prison walls we have builded +about ourselves? We made the gods by worshiping them, by fearing them. +Can we unmake them by reviling them, by walking boldly before those +pillars of hollow smoke? There was once a group of people who believed +that the will might become paramount if they followed the dictates of +their mystic senses regardless of so-called good. They called the will +by a symbolic name and they met in secret forest clearings. They made a +pledge with evil and they barely understood why they did it. They....” + +Westcott stopped suddenly and looked at Dreeme. The trance-like light +died out of his dark eyes. + +“I will not tell you any more,” he said. “Why should I talk to you of +these things. You do not understand.” + +“There are some things I understand,” answered Dreeme. “You associate +Satan with the free will. You imagine you can strengthen your own will +to superhuman dimensions by denying the impulses of good. You....” + +“I deny no impulses,” said Westcott roughly. “I follow the solitary +impulse.” + +He rose to his feet. + +“Good-night, doctor,” he said. “Take my advice and go away.” + +“Go away!” cried Dreeme. “Why should I go away??” + +“Because,” replied Westcott, “even a fool may learn wisdom.” + +He strode heavily to the door, his injured leg swaying his body from +side to side as he walked. He did not even turn back as he passed out +into the full moonlight. A moment later Dreeme heard his uneven stride +as he passed over the little bridge. Dreeme sat alone in the burned +mill and looked at the scummed water of the quiet pond. One thing was +certain. Westcott was a mad man. He was a megalomaniac eaten up by a +ridiculous theory that gave him an excuse for any excesses he desired. +Anything might fit into his theory of strengthening the will. Even +murder. Constant brooding upon his purpose had awakened an hysteric +ecstasy in him and there were times when this ecstasy broke into an +uncontrollable display. Dreeme tried to remember what he had read about +these lunacies in the past. Somewhere, he was sure, he had learned that +an abnormal intellectual power went hand in hand with an infant-like +abandonment to symbols. For instance, one of these fanatics might +display the most brilliant intellectuality in building up an elaborate +and mystically logical structure and this structure might be built +upon the most absurd and impossible foundation. Or, again, the mad +man might reveal the most refined cunning to a certain point and then +observe a cloud in the sky, a leaf on the ground, the note of a bird +in the darkness and be swung abruptly from his purpose. Such men were +dangerous. Any slight incident might provoke their madness. + +Dreeme had an instantaneous picture of Westcott sitting alone among +his books and searching through the yellowed leaves for the secret +of the mastery of the will, building up impossible theories out of +insane hints, drawing into the crazy net of his mind all the obsolete +mysticisms of the dark ages, of the Egyptians, of the Indian fakirs, +of the Satanists. He was partly sane and partly mad. One half of his +brain functioned with surprising agility; the other was a dark morass +of supernatural superstitions and primitive impulses. It was plain that +he was employing the community for his dark purposes and it was equally +plain that the community, because of some secret injection of blood, +favored these impulses. These farmers were ridden by an ancient fear +which Jeffrey Westcott kept alive. They did not see him often but they +knew that he was there and while he was there, sitting in his lonely +house and avoided by those about him, he would continue to dominate the +valley. He employed some legend for his own ends and the farmers were +in some way the inheritors of that legend. + +Dreeme rose to his feet and proceeded out of the burned mill and down +the road toward Marlborough. He had never seen the moon so white, so +lustrous. It was as though the valley were bathed in a crystal liquid, +as though the air were full of sparkling essences that flowed through +the tree-tops and along the fronts of the farm-houses. He drew in long +draughts of the clear cool air as he went his way, a little surprised +at it for the day had been so hot and the sun had been so like a +fountain of pale fire spraying the dry streets. As he walked along he +wondered why he had ever feared Westcott. It was easy enough to handle +a man like that. One had but to keep an eye on him. That was all. And +yet ... Dreeme was not so sure. Westcott’s actions were unpredictable. +The actions of any lunatic were unpredictable. He might be smiling and +suave one minute and a ferocious beast the next. What had he desired +with Deborah, for instance? In what way could she serve to strengthen +that will that was apparently his only god? It was too much to believe +that he desired her only as an aid to his wife in the farm-house. In +some way Deborah entered into his crazy scheme. Well, he would keep +his eyes open and his wits sharpened. He would stand between Westcott +and Deborah to the end of time. The end of time. That was a long period +but it was not long enough for him to watch over Deborah. + +His mind reverted to the interview with Westcott. It was funny. Why +had the farmer shown so little rage at the idea of Martha Westcott’s +meeting with him? Was Martha playing her game with the connivance of +her husband? Dreeme was inclined to think that this was not so, that +Westcott, sure of his power over his wife, let her run to the end of +the rope which he held and then pulled her back when he thought she had +gone far enough. Perhaps he practised his will upon her, forcing her to +do the things which he did not want her to do only for the pleasure of +stopping her when he felt like it. Dreeme turned in at his gate still +brooding and was about to open his door when he heard the creak-creak +of Walden Slater’s rocker. He would go around the house and see if he +could engage the taciturn farmer in conversation. + +Walden Slater sat slumped in his chair, a corncob pipe stuck at a crazy +angle in his wide mouth. He was looking at the moon. + +“It’s bright tonight,” remarked Dreeme, sinking down on the stair to +the little back piazza. + +Walden Slater grunted, removed his pipe, and rubbed his long upper lip +with a huge hand. + +“Aren’t you up late?” asked Dreeme. + +“Uh-huh,” said the farmer. + +“It must be about eleven o’clock,” continued Dreeme. + +“Ten-thirty,” said the farmer. “I just heard the kitchen clock.” + +“What’s wrong?” questioned the young doctor. + +Walden Slater rocked slowly. Creak-creak. Creak-creak. + +“I dunno’s there’s anything wrong,” he said mildly. + +“Have they done anything about Wagner?” asked Dreeme. + +Walden Slater squirmed about in his chair and put his pipe down on the +floor. + +“Took him to Leeminster,” he said ungraciously. + +Dreeme laughed aloud. He said: + +“You old curmudgeon!” + +Walden Slater grinned with some difficulty and then remarked: + +“I’m thinking.” + +Dreeme rose to his feet, still smiling. + +“This is a nice social neighborhood,” he said to the moon. + +Walden Slater thrust his pipe back in his mouth and resumed his +inspection of the great white globe that floated in the heavens above +him. Dreeme turned the corner of the house slowly. + +He didn’t feel sleepy. The night was too fine, too exhilarating. +It was like a heady wine, some mystic vintage that ran through his +body and sharpened every impulse, every wit. It was on a night like +this that the imagination might spring hawk-like into the air and +bring down fair and impossible prey. Dreeme wondered how far the +mind might travel through the starry immensities above him, through +the glittering star-fields unplowed by Time, before it reached ... +something. Humphrey Lathrop did not believe in the supernatural. He +clung to the theory of the supernormal, of mysteries that might be +explained as the intelligence of man lifted itself higher and higher +and even of mysteries that might never be explained but which were yet +felt in the intuitive senses as supernormal and not supernatural. Poor +old Humphrey! The dear old frog swelling larger and larger! He sat in +his cottage retired from Time and Lucinda squabbled about his frequent +potations of apple-jack. He was happy, though. As happy as anybody +could be who had long ago put ambition behind him and had not very much +before him to expect. + +Dreeme paused before his own door and half-put out a hand to turn the +knob. The door was ajar. That was funny. He was sure he had closed it +carefully when he started out for the burned mill. He stood looking at +the door vacantly, his mind wheeling about elsewhere, wheeling through +the enormous starry arc that revolved in the sky above him, wheeling +through the cool and quiet expanse of the sleeping valley. Why should +he go in and sleep when there was no sleep in his eyes? He was not +tired. He would continue to walk until he was wearier than he was now. +He turned from the door and retraced his steps along the path to the +road. As he turned into the sandy stretch he heard the creak-creak of +Walden Slater’s rocker. The farmer was thinking, doggedly following +some faint light that glimmered before him. Poor Walden! Dreeme smiled +to himself as he stood in the sandy road and listened to the faint +protest of the rocking chair. He was beginning to pity everybody. +Was this a testimony of his own exhilaration, a sign of his unsought +superiority? He began to whistle softly some old tune that crept back +into his consciousness. He didn’t know what it was but it seemed to fit +the night. + +The sound of the Slater front door softly opening caused him to turn +his head. Who would dare to walk through that blank closed parlor stiff +with its horse-hair stuffed chairs and its lumpy sofa and its colored +portraits of dead and vanished Slaters? He stood by the fence, his +face turned toward the door and waited. A slender form came down the +steps and along the path toward him. She walked slowly, almost with +diffidence, and she did not speak until she was standing close beside +him. He noticed that her dress was white, her party dress undoubtedly. +The moon poured its silver light over her and she stood like a white +ghost in a white world, her blue eyes sparkling and her small mouth +curled in a faint smile. Reaching out his hand he drew her toward him. + +“I’ve been waiting by the window all evening,” she said. + + + + +Chapter Seven + + +I + +“Not that way,” said Dreeme hastily as Deborah instinctively turned up +the Leeminster Road toward the Saccarac River. + +Everybody seemed to head in that direction as though there were +a magnet at the end of the road attracting them irresistibly. He +would change the scheme of things by facing another way, by facing +an opposite direction than that in which lay the Westcott farm, the +burned mill, the trampled bank of the river, and the creaking bridge +that had groaned with the weight of the coroner’s buggy. She wheeled +on her small feet and followed him obediently and they passed the dark +front of his little house and the tarnished brass plate upon which was +inscribed “Dr. Daniel Dreeme.” A moment later they were walking side +by side through the main street of Marlborough, a main street that +speedily opened into a tiny square faced by the small church, the post +office and general store, and Mrs. Larkin’s boarding house where nobody +ever boarded. The blank fronts of the scattered buildings gloomed at +them incuriously. Though this was the heart of the community Dreeme +could not hear a single beat. The heart had stopped pulsing for the +night and even in the daylight it functioned but sluggishly. No lights +glimmered from the windows of the houses for all the inhabitants +had long ago crept into their beds and stretched out beneath their +home-made quilts to wait uneagerly for another early rising. Yet the +moon flooded the square and made it as bright as day and in that +crystal bath they walked slowly, feeling the cold light run along their +faces and ripple over their arms. + +“Did you expect to see me tonight?” asked Deborah. Her voice was a thin +silver wire plucked by a soft finger. + +“No,” said Dreeme. “But I wanted to see you. I didn’t know it, though, +until you came down the path like a little ghost.” + +“I’m not a ghost,” she said. “I wanted to see you all evening. I sat by +the window and waited.” + +“Why?” he asked. + +She was silent at that and only shook her head. + +“Have you anything to tell me?” he inquired. + +She shook her head again. + +Moved by a sudden impulse he put his finger under her chin and raised +her face. Her violet-blue eyes gazed at him calmly but something in +them, some far-away message, set his pulses pounding furiously. He +dropped his hand and looked away. Unconsciously they hastened their +pace, passing through the square and the narrow side street that led +toward the lower end of the town. The houses thinned out, falling away +like specters from them, and an instant later they were trudging along +a country road. + +“If you follow this road far enough,” he said with an effort at +lightness, “you’ll reach the real world.” + +“I shall travel on it soon,” she answered. There was a break in her +voice. + +“What is the real world like?” she asked after a moment. + +“It is full of people,” he said. “It is full of cities. It is like a +noisy jungle. It is easy to hide there.” + +She did not answer him. For a long time they walked in silence, their +shoulders touching lightly as their bodies swayed over the uneven road. +His hand rubbed against hers as they moved along the sandy stretch +and for no reason whatsoever he resisted the temptation to take her +small fingers in his own. There didn’t seem to be anything worth +saying although he was conscious that she was waiting confidently for +something to be said. He knew what it was and she knew, also, that both +of them were saying it without words, without the use of futile speech. +Their brushing shoulders said it to one another and their touching +hands made it unmistakably plain. + +“We’d better turn back,” he remarked finally. They were far along the +road now and no houses loomed their dark bulks against the white sea of +the flowing moon. + +They turned and retraced their steps, walking swiftly through the +loose sand and pebbles of the road. She continued to look straight +ahead and occasionally he would glance sideways at the cool oval of +her face. It seemed but an instant before they were back among the +squatting houses, closed in by the silent walls and shut away from the +full light of the moon. In the shadow of the frame-building that served +for post office and general store she stopped and turned to him and +said: + +“I put my best dress on.” + +A moment later he realized that both his arms were about her and that +he was saying: + +“I love you! I love you! I love you!” + +He kept repeating it and she did not interrupt him but leaned against +him listening contentedly. When he stopped she looked up at him and +said: + +“Shall I tell you that I love you?” He said: + +“I’m babbling like a fool. I’ve been wanting to tell you this all day +and I didn’t know it till just now.” + +“I led you on,” she said soberly. Then she laughed with a quick +feverish gaiety. + +“I didn’t need to be led on,” he declared. “It was the getting started +that was difficult. I’m a slow idiot. I wasn’t sure. I’m not sure even +now.” + +“That you love me?” she gasped. + +“That _you_ love _me_,” he returned. + +“Oh, _that_!” she said. + +She put both her slim arms around his neck and embraced him tightly. +For an instant he seemed to be wearing a necklace of fire. + +“It was because I loved you that I ran to you this morning,” she +announced. “I wanted you to protect me.” + +“Good Lord! Was it only this morning?” he exclaimed. + +“It was only yesterday that we met,” she said. There was wonder in her +voice, too. + +He bent down to her and kissed her for the first time. Her lips were +like damp rose-petals and they clung to his greedily. + +“If it was only yesterday,” he said, “how long our Paradise will be.” + +She disengaged herself from him and they walked slowly up the street +toward the Slater house, hand in hand. + +“Some day,” he said gravely, “I’m going to ask you what your last name +is.” + +A small ripple of laughter broke from her. + +“It’s Morton,” she announced. “My name is Deborah Morton.” + +“My first name is Daniel,” he declared. “At present I am in the lion’s +den. I haven’t been bitten, though.” + +“Daniel and Deborah,” she repeated softly to herself. + +At the gate to the Slater house they paused and he looked down at her, +noting her fresh white dress and the fragility of her small figure. + +“You are nothing but a child,” he said. “What is this?” + +He touched the square brooch on her breast. She unpinned it and handed +it to him. + +“Do you want it?” she asked. “I’ve had it always. It was given to me by +my mother. My father gave it to her and his father gave it to him. It +has been in the Morton family for years, for ages.” + +He held it up to the moonlight and inspected it and as he saw what it +was an exclamation of amazement broke from him. + +“What is it?” she asked. “Have you seen it before?” + +“No,” he said, handing it back to her. “Keep it. It must be some sort +of an heirloom.” + +She pinned it back on her breast and lifted up her face that he +might kiss her. “Good-night,” he murmured, and an instant later her +ghost-like form hurried up the path to the front door. Dreeme turned +toward his own house, wondering why Deborah should have a brooch upon +which was the finely-cut cameo of a goat’s head, the exact replica of +the drawing he had wrenched from the dead hand of Wagner. + + +II + +Dreeme heard the solemn-toned clock in the Slater house striking as he +pushed his own unlatched door open and stepped into the narrow hall. +One hollow sound. A single and ineffectual blow at the star-lit night. +It must be eleven-thirty, he thought, for Walden Slater had mumbled +something about ten-thirty when he had paused at the back piazza an +hour before. Time for all good men to go to bed. Time for all good +men to come to the aid of their party. After he pulled the door shut +behind him and shot the bolt and turned around he realized that the +lamp was glowing in his little study. For an instant he stood in stupid +perplexity, wondering how he could have been so excited as to leave the +light aflare and the door ajar when he had hastened forth two hours +ago to the burned mill. Was he actually as absent-minded as that? “I +didn’t leave them so,” he said to himself, shaping the words silently +with his lips, and then walked slowly along the hall to the study. +Through the angle of the partially opened door he could see a patch of +black dress against which a long white hand hung languidly, the fingers +idly curled. He stopped and observed it, not with surprise--indeed, +subconsciously he had expected it--but with a vague distaste that +wrinkled his forehead and tightened his lips. She was sitting in a +listening attitude waiting for him to turn the corner of the door. He +was tempted to turn and walk out hastily, letting her have the house +to herself until the loneliness and weariness of waiting forced her to +return to her own home. He was tired and didn’t want to talk. He had +ridden a wave of excitement all day, a towering tidal wave that had +swept him high and far, and now he was exhausted, let down, filled with +the glow of a faint triumph, to be sure, but pleasantly hollow inside. +He was like a swimmer who had outreached his strength but achieved some +goal in the endeavor. He desired nothing more than to climb into his +bed, stretched out beneath the great square patches of the coverlet, +and sleep dreamlessly, to renew his benumbed faculties for the day +that was to follow. What on earth could she have to say to him now? +Had his attitude not settled everything last night when he had left +her at the mill without turning back? She had called him a miserable +coward. Well, let her think so. Perhaps that was the safest way for +him. All he desired now was to get out of the valley with Deborah. Let +them continue as they willed with their own theories. They were all +mad and perhaps it would be a good thing if they killed each other off +in the process of their lunacies. His curiosity about them was sleepy +now. The unrest that had pervaded him at the thought of the mystery +hovering over Marlborough was slothful. It was more important to go out +into that real world with Deborah and begin to live. Here, he was in +a valley of shadows. He stood, therefore, in the shelter of the door +peering through at the lighted room in sleepy impatience and lethargic +anger. She sat there listening. She knew he was lurking just out of her +sight. He could see her hand crumple up in irritation. + +“Will you come in?” she said in a low husky impatient voice. + +He crossed the lintel reluctantly and stood facing her. Her eyes +glistened in the saffron glow of the lamp as she observed him coldly. +It was only by the heightened rise and fall of her full breasts +outlined beneath the dark fabric of her dress that he could see how +enraged she was. Vaguely he wondered how long she had been sitting +there and waiting for him. + +“Since ten o’clock,” she said as though in answer to his thought. “I +heard you walk about the house an hour ago. I heard you stroll away +with that ... that servant girl. I heard you come back with that ... +that servant girl.” + +He decided that Deborah did not need any defence so he complacently +ignored her contemptuous speech. + +“Are you as lacking in ambition as you are in courage?” she inquired +maliciously in her peculiar husky voice. + +Dreeme nodded. He didn’t care what she thought as long as she left +speedily. She could not rouse him to anger by anything she said. With +an excitable gesture she stood up and paced swiftly about the room, +her long shadow flickering across the atrociously-papered wall. Dreeme +watched her objectively. She was magnificent. There was no doubt of +that. Like a tigress. A great slumberous tigress in whose arteries ran +a secret and smoldering flame. Full breasted, long in the thighs, wide +cheek-bones and great eyes, hair like a blue-black smoke curling over +her white forehead, archaic mouth. He had pictured her in so many ways. +Medusa. Astarte Syriaca. Wife of the Afrit. Tigress. A creature of the +imagination compounded out of dark and passionate urges. Yet his veins +ran slow now at the thought of her. She could not touch his emotions +again as she had that first time in the lamp-lit library when he had +felt her presence like a dim magic in the room. He could look at her +coldly and say, “Please go. I do not want you here. I do not trust +you. You belong in this unreal world and I am not a part of it. There +is the shadow of blood on your mouth.” He even opened his mouth to say +these things and then thought better of it and closed his lips tightly. +She stopped in front of him, her face a few inches from his, and +studied him fiercely. The bitter-sweet aroma of her hair rose about his +nostrils. He thought fixedly of the frail ghost-like figure of Deborah +and observed her coolly. + +“You have a new mask,” she said shortly. “Where is my weak doctor now?” + +“He never existed except in your imagination,” he replied. + +In spite of her anger she smiled. + +“Do you think so?” she said. + +She continued to study his face. Her large understanding eyes were +disconcerting and he looked away from her finally. + +“Did you go to the mill?” she inquired. + +“Don’t you know?” he returned. + +“So did I,” she added. “But he was there waiting. I knew he was waiting +for you. I told you that Burroughs saw us. I came here, then, and +waited.” + +Dreeme moved over to the table and she followed him, seating herself by +the side of it. + +“Did he tell you to come here?” he asked. “How could you have passed me +on the road?” + +“He did not see me. He does not know I am here,” she said. There was a +flash of anger in her eyes. After a second she added: + +“I cut through ... in back of the Slater house. There is a path there. +You must know it.” + +He nodded absently. He didn’t care, after all. + +“What do you want, anyway?” he demanded. “I’m tired. I want to sleep.” + +She looked at him appraisingly. + +“I want you to take me away from here,” she answered coolly. + +He smiled at that and shook his head. + +“Wait!” she said, lifting her hand. “I will be faithful to you. I +will give you more than any woman has given any man. I will give you +strength ... which you lack, and intelligence ... which you lack, and +confidence ... which you lack, and.... Do you want love? I have an +eternity of it stored up inside me.” + +She spread her arms and her ripe bosom rose with the gesture. + +“I don’t want any of these things,” he said in a low voice. + +“That little girl has befuddled you,” she said in an angry voice. “You +are like a somnambulist, a man walking in his sleep and afraid to wake +up. You are dreaming like a schoolboy of a little empty face. I tell +you I will take you up on the mountaintops of the world and show you +all the riches of Time. You can pick what you will and with me beside +you it shall be yours. I will pour strength into you and make you one +of the proudest of men.” + +The lamp sputtered fitfully between them and Dreeme sat looking at her +sleepily. She was like a Sibyl now, muttering some incantation. All +that she did was in the vein of play-acting. Even her rolling sentences +seemed out of some old drama. Then, Dreeme thought of Westcott’s brief +delirium and wondered how many of them Martha Westcott had heard to +talk in this vein. Both of them were acting in life. Both of them were +archaic masks. + +“I don’t want the riches of Time,” he said wearily. “I’m satisfied as I +am.” + +He sat up suddenly. + +“No!” he cried. “All I ask is to be let alone.” + +“You don’t understand,” she said in a patient voice as though she was +speaking to a child. “You are frightened and you don’t understand. You +are frightened out of your wits at the idea of living life fully. You +want to spend it in little ways beside a little fire with a little +face in front of you. That is not life. That is merely a subterfuge for +living. Life extends beyond the lighted square of the fireplace. The +path leads upward to the high rocky places, to the granite cliffs, to +the place where the free winds blow. There is a continual excitement +there and no peace. The brain is sharpened in that rarefied atmosphere +and the will is hardened. It is there that living is its own reward.” + +Still he shook his head. + +“I know!” she exclaimed fervently. Then she paused and seemed to cast +about in her mind for some conclusive argument that might move him +from his sleepy lethargy. “Shall I tell you about myself?” she asked +at last. “Last night I tried to tell you what I thought, the sort of +philosophy that I had built up out of the dreariness of my days. Shall +I tell you who I am now?” + +He did not answer but sat gazing at her weariedly. She took his silence +for assent. + +“My people came from Salem,” she began, “but that was a long time ago. +It was back in the days of Cotton Mather. I was named for my first +ancestor,--Martha Carrier. When I was a young girl I used to lie in +bed and dream about that woman whose name I bear. Once I actually saw +her. I do not think it was a dream. She really came into the room and +stood beside my bed and there was a pale light all about her. She was +a tall dark woman with a secret mouth and she walked like a queen. She +leaned over the bed and said something to me but I forget the words +if, indeed, I ever heard them. When she bent above me I saw a red +stripe about her white neck and knew that she had been hanged. I was +frightened at the sight and hid my face in the pillow but not before +I heard a mingled sound of voices muttering and shouting and caught a +glimpse of shadowy shapes swinging against the moon. I didn’t know, +then, what it was all about but I know now. I was to learn all these +things in the years that followed while I grew up alone in the valley +here. My father died on the day that I was born, Peleg Carrier his +name was, and so, of course, I never saw him. My mother died when I +was three years old. She was a shadow, something that I cannot catch +in my memory, strive as hard as I may. When my father died Jeffrey +Westcott appeared in the valley and took charge of everything. He had +been a friend to my father in those days when he had been a student +in Germany. I was brought up by Jeffrey Westcott. We lived out on the +Leeminster Road in an old house very near where the farm is now.” + +Her eyes softened and she appeared to be turning back in memory to +that house. Dreeme, whose faculties had quickened as her husky voice +proceeded with her tale, had automatically drawn his pipe out and was +filling it. She said: + +“I carry that house about inside me. It was an old rambling structure. +It must have been centuries old. My forefathers had lived in it since +the first one came into the valley and raised it. It was a house +that was full of the Past, full of the essence of times gone. When +I wandered through the many rooms and the floors creaked beneath my +feet and the shadows leaped out of the yawning closets and the huge +stone fireplace. I seemed to be constantly accompanied by shapes in +steeple-crowned hats and muffling cloaks. These shapes were always +trying to say something to me, to whisper some secret, to tell me, +perhaps, of a treasure that was hidden somewhere in the musty recesses +of the building. There were so many things in that house, so many +reminders of the past, that it was a haunted house. Jeffrey Westcott +and myself lived there for thirteen years and it was rarely that we saw +anyone. There were not so many people in the valley then and Jeffrey +did all the house-work until I was old enough to take it over. Until I +was thirteen or fourteen years old I was free, free to roam about as I +pleased, and I became a wild creature. I loved to wander in the woods +and along the bank of the Saccarac River and down the muddy roads. I +was never lonely for I seemed to find living spirits in the river, the +trees, the few houses. I could sit and converse with these invisible +beings. Each season brought me something, a deposit of mystical +knowledge. In the winter everything was mantled in white and the trees, +covered with a crystal coating of ice, stood like crazy shapes blown +out of glass. The wind roared down the valley and the branches rattled +and clashed like pendants. The shivering deer trooped along the river +bank and there were bears in those days. The thought came to me that +the heart of nature was a frozen thing and that the natural state of +the earth was cruelty, that only light and heat and fructification +meant anything at all. Then the spring would come and the ice on the +river would crack, split into whirling sheets, and vanish, and the +earth became black again and tiny shoots of pale green would thrust +out on the stark branches. There were early flowers and the pale sun +would give out a thin warmth. Here, I thought, is the vague beginning +of passion, the indomitable urge to live pushing against the ice of +Time, the defiant gesture of the earth against itself. After that the +full-flushed madness of the summer would descend on the valley and +the wide fields would bear their yield and the heat would buzz in +the air. August was a feverish madman running through lush grass and +waving his fiery torch. This season became to me the end and purpose +of being, the complete passion of the sensual earth, the triumphant +vindication of self. The earth became a ruddy murderer standing above +the pale shadow of itself and sucking its warm passion from its own +secret heart. Out of the dead body came forth the living body. And then +came autumn wearing a colored blanket striped with red and yellow and +brown, walking through the flowers like a proud Indian chief in full +head-dress of tufted feathers. In his eyes was a gray sadness and there +was a mist about his mouth. The smoke from his pipe of peace curled +over the valley. He was a tired man stirred by the last embers of +passion. This was to me the period of weariness after the full flame +of passion had died down. It was in this way that I became a mirror to +the seasons, reflecting them in my moods, walking with them all the +way. I dramatized myself. I became the earth alternately dead, fecund, +full-flowering, and weary. You see how imaginative I was, how different +from other children.” + +When she paused Dreeme lit his pipe and the sharp flare of his match +danced about the room. Martha Westcott’s cheeks were glowing with +the ardor of her memories. She seemed to take on a girlish aspect +as she spoke of her girlhood and her face reflected the seasons as +she enumerated them. When she spoke of the winter her cheeks were as +white as snow and when she described the summer they were flooded with +rich blood that glowed through her pale skin. She was like some rare +sensitive instrument reacting to the moods that flowed through her. +Dreeme’s antagonism to her began to dissipate and a creeping interest +manifested itself in his attitude, as, puffing upon his pipe, he leaned +forward and listened to her recital. If she noticed this weakening +on his part she gave no sign of it but continued to dwell among her +memories whole-heartedly, snatching out of the past whatever came +within the net of her words. + +“Once,” she said, abruptly diverting the thread of her memories, +“I was wandering about in the old house, poking into odd corners, +opening forgotten chests, creeping under the stairs, investigating the +numberless tiny closets that occupied so many curious places in the +walls. It was a summer day and I can recall the buzzing flies that +hovered about me and the sound of Jeffrey Westcott’s footsteps down +stairs as he moved about the kitchen. I was running my hand along +an upstairs fireplace, thrusting my fingers between the bricks when +one of them moved. With an effort I pulled it out and discovered a +hollow into which I could force my whole arm. I fumbled about and +my fingers closed on something that felt soft. Drawing it out I +discovered that I clutched an old book in a soft black leather cover, +apparently a note-book for it was filled with a strange writing in +archaic characters and symbols and a map. I was sitting on the floor +investigating it when Jeffrey Westcott came upstairs. I could hear him +walking behind me and pausing and looking over my shoulder. Suddenly +he cried out, ‘Old Uriah’s black book!’ and snatched it from me. He +retired to his room with it and passed the rest of the evening there. +It was on that day that Jeffrey went mad. Old Uriah was my grandfather, +Uriah Carrier. He....” + +“I know,” said Dreeme, removing his pipe from his mouth. He remembered +Humphrey Lathrop’s description of the old sea-captain. A hunter of +whales in the Pacific who had terrorized and robbed the natives of +Tahiti. A blackbirder off the African Gold Coast. A man with the devil +in his tobacco pouch. + +“What was in Old Uriah’s black book?” he asked. + +She shook her head. + +“I did not find out till years later,” she replied. “I know but I will +not tell you. It is not part of my story.” + +She dismissed it with a wave of her hand. + +“Jeffrey Westcott changed from that day,” she said. “His relations to +me changed. He was no longer the kindly guardian but a silent malicious +man eaten up with a mad dream, with an idea, with a monstrous theory. +We met and ate in silence and he would have nothing to say to me. A +year or two after that the old house burned down. It was struck by +lightning one day while Jeffrey was in the fields working and I was +wandering by the river. I saw the smoke and flames rising in the dark +stormy air and then the storm burst. But it was too late. There was +nothing but a black gutted ruin after the rain cleared and the last +ember expired. For a while I thought my past had gone up in fire and +smoke and then I began to realize that houses may burn and people may +die but the past is indestructible. We carry it about inside of us +and nothing can smash it to pieces. Jeffrey was not too demoralized +by the fire. He said, ‘It was time. It is a symbol. It means there is +nothing for me to find here until I have studied there.’ He decided to +go away. I remember the long ride to Boston, the wait for the boat, +and the longer trip to Hambourg. It was in Hambourg that Jeffrey +married me. He said that it made things easier, that it smoothed the +difficulties of traveling. It was in Germany that I grew to maturity, +grew to a lonely maturity while Jeffrey dragged me from town to town +and city to city, wherever there was an old library or an old withered +man full of insane notions. He had been in Germany before, had studied +there as he had studied in other parts of Europe and Asia. He left me +much by myself and I read a great deal, all sorts of quaint old books, +philosophy, poetry, history, and the natural sciences. At first I loved +Germany. The little towns with their quaint houses delighted me and +the homeliness of German life soothed me. As time went on, however, +all this became an old story and a vast weariness descended on me. I +knew that I did not love Jeffrey Westcott and he knew that he did not +love me. I grew in upon myself, became silent and morbid, passed my +days revolving the various thoughts that came to me out of old books. A +reticence fell over me. I could not talk to people. I was eaten up by +a desire to be myself and I knew that I could not be myself as long as +Jeffrey Westcott dominated me. His will grew stronger and stronger as +the days passed and I could feel it concentering on me as the attention +of a doctor fixes itself upon a rabbit he is about to dissect. I found +that I could not fight against his will, that something iron in his +nature forced me to go the way that he wanted me to go. As his will +developed he grew more and more morose, absenting himself from the +society of people. Soon I was entirely cut apart from any common +intercourse. It was then that he returned here, bringing me with him--a +reluctant ghost. He bought the farm on the Leeminster Road and we have +been there ever since.” + +Dreeme’s pipe had gone out and he made no attempt to relight it. He +felt a strange pity welling up inside of him for Martha Westcott and +yet a faint voice within the dark convolutions of his brain told him +not to pity too much. His mind, at the same time, was setting scattered +facts together and he began to realize the situation in the valley. He +felt now that there was only one thing left to discover--the placed +called Dagon. After that, everything would be made clear. + +“My life here,” she said, “has been a waiting. The seasons have passed +by and I have wandered like a ghost about that lonely house waiting +for somebody to come, waiting for a rescuer. All these years Jeffrey +Westcott has sat immersed in his books or conducting his strange +experiments and his will has made me a part of those experiments. I +will not tell you what they are because I desire to forget them. They +must not be a part of my life in the future.” + +She paused again and glanced at him curiously. + +“Yes,” she said then, “I will tell you one thing so that you may +understand how he has dominated my mind. I will tell you this because +it concerns you indirectly, because it was the thing that brought you +into my life. One day he came out of his library and said to me, ‘I can +make you shoot me in the leg.’ He sat across from me at the table and +kept repeating it to himself. ‘I can make you shoot me in the leg.’ I +set my will against his and laughed. ‘There will be no pain,’ he said, +half to himself. ‘I shall will that there be no pain.’ He sat across +the table from me. He kept saying that. I thought I should go mad. I +rose up from the table to clear away the dishes and then I found myself +in front of him with the rifle in my hand and smoke curling from the +muzzle. ‘I will not,’ I said. ‘I will not shoot you in the leg but some +day I will shoot you through the brain.’ He laughed at that and said, +‘You have shot me in the leg and there is no pain. Send for the doctor. +Send Miles for the doctor.’ I looked down and there was blood running +along his leg. It was running into his shoe. Then you came.” + +Dreeme believed every word she said. He put the cold pipe on the table +and pushed back his chair. Far away he heard a clock strike midnight. +Mrs. Slater’s window must be open, he thought. Perhaps Deborah was +lying awake listening to that chime that marked the end of a day. He +felt restive and stood up from his chair. Martha Westcott felt his +unrest and spoke rapidly. + +“Then you came. We looked at one another and I knew that I might +be saved from this living grave by you. You were the first young +man I had seen to talk to since I left Germany. You were not like +these bent-backed farmers who scrape at the soil and bow beneath the +old horror that Jeffrey Westcott conjures up before them. You are +different, a man from the outer world. You knew that I was different, +too, for you trembled all over when I walked to the door with you that +night. I thought of you all the time. I thought so fiercely that my +thoughts brought you back to me the next day and you hid behind the +stone wall and watched me draw water from the well. Something began to +laugh inside me then. That was why I sent Wagner to you. That is why +you met me at the burned mill. That is why I am here now.” + +The yellow lamp-flare was burning dimly but Dreeme felt as though the +little study was filled with a strange incandescence, a milky glow that +lighted up both of their faces. He who had been so sure of himself was +frightened again for he felt his pulses quickening in their beat and +that trembling that had assailed him before in her presence was upon +him like a palsy. He should not have listened to her. He should not +have permitted her to creep into his mind, to envelop him with the warm +mantle of her personality. He walked jerkily around the table toward +her and she stood up as he came. Her eyes became luminous pools as he +neared her and she half-raised her hands. + +“I won’t have it,” he said in a grating voice. “I won’t have you say +these things to me.” + +She dropped her hands but remained standing in front of him, very near, +her eyes studying his face. + +“Are you entirely a stranger to passion?” she asked him. “Is there no +pulse of life in you?” + +He tried to talk rationally, to shake his anger from him. He said: + +“I’ve heard what you have to say about yourself and I’m sorry. You +have been the victim of a hard life and I pity you. But I do not feel +toward you in the way that you seem to imagine. I am not in love with +you and I shall never be in love with you. You surprised me, took me +off my guard, so to speak, when I first saw you that night. I had not +expected to see anyone like you. I was curious. You seemed to represent +something, some part of the secret in this valley, and I thought about +you a great deal. But that is all. If my emotions were stirred ... they +were the ... the....” + +He fumbled for adequate words for his thought was slipping from him. +In the first place, he had never actually analyzed his emotions toward +her, never satisfied himself as to the reason why she could at times +make him tremble. It was certainly not because she was beautiful, +although he realized as she stood there in front of him that she was +very beautiful. No, it was not that. It might be ascribed to a certain +magnetism that flowed about her and drew him insensibly toward her. Yet +was not that a part of her beauty? Lost in conjecture he stood before +her and observed her with tired eyes beneath a frowning brow. She had +listened to him quietly, watching him closely all the time, and when he +faltered and became silent, she placed her hand on his arm. + +“You are reasoning,” she said. “You are trying to destroy me by +reasoning, but you find that you cannot do it. I am in your mind and I +shall stay there.” + +“I shall root you out of my mind quickly enough,” he said brutally. + +“Is it that little girl?” she said. “Do you think that I am afraid of +that little girl?” + +He shook his head impatiently. + +“I will not discuss her with you,” he declared. “You have nothing to do +with her ... or me, either.” + +“Good-bye,” she said then, and put both her arms about his neck. He +felt the heat of her long body against him, and instinctively held her +to him. + +“Good-bye,” he muttered against her blue-black hair. + +His arms tightened about her as he felt her body pulsing against his, +and he shut his eyes tightly. Waves of sunlit heat seemed to roar about +him. She was no more than a creature of flesh and blood, after all, a +warm breathing woman frantic with primitive urges, and unsuccessfully +disguising them in a web of pretentious phrases. The thought of her +lonely life crept into his beguiled consciousness, and a feeling of +tenderness, of pity, swept through his blood. If he could help her, +he would. But there was no way to it. She must go on and fight her +own battle against life, against the close prison of the valley, and +against the madness of Jeffrey Westcott. He was not a part of that +arduous struggle. He was but an onlooker, a non-participant, a traveler +who would shortly go away. And yet ... her body contained a kindling +heat ... the scent of her hair was about his face ... he could hear the +shuddering ecstasy of her breath. + +Suddenly she drew away from him and stood in the center of the room, +breathing rapidly. He could see her dilated nostrils and her archaic +lips slightly parted. Her dark hair had fallen about her shoulders. +Her hand was raised to her shoulder. For an instant she poised like a +living statue, and then with a quick gesture, she tore the black dress +from her shoulders, and the snow-white flesh rippled to gold in the +lamp-light. + +“Daniel Dreeme,” she gasped in a husky tone. “Daniel ... you ... +you....” + +He stood rooted to the spot, staring at her right shoulder, at the +golden-white flesh that shone in the lamp-light and at the blue figure, +no larger than the palm of his hand, that disfigured the glossy +skin. It seemed to leap to his eyes at the instant conclusion of her +abandoned gesture. He could not take his gaze from it, for it seemed to +burn luminously by itself, a tracing of blue fire that writhed before +his strained eyes. It fluctuated, drew near, retired from him, grew +larger, and then diminished in size. He wanted to cry out, “What, in +the name of Christ, is that!” but he could not force a single word +through his lips. She had sensed the direction of his eyes the instant +she had torn the dress from her shoulder, and a horrified hopelessness +had swept across her face. She could see that the brief bond which +had held them together was instantaneously snapped, that the charm +was shattered. He was thinking no longer of her, no longer stirred +to tenderness by her, or to passion by the whiteness of her body. +Slowly she drew together the torn fragments of her dress and covered +herself. Without a single word she walked slowly toward the door. She +stood there with her back to him for a full minute and waited, but +he said nothing. He still stood by the table, his eyes on the spot +from which she had walked. His mind was an amazed welter of thoughts +through which constantly moved the cold dead hand of Wagner, and the +frail ghost-like figure of Deborah. He could piece nothing together, +make sense of nothing, find no rational explanation of anything. The +lamp began to sputter, shooting its thin protesting flame upward in +the chimney as the oil burned out of the wick. In a minute it would go +out and leave them in darkness. Every time the flame shot upward the +shadows lengthened in the room and every time it went down the corners +filled with curling pools of blackness. Dreeme walked slowly toward the +lamp. It needed oil. It should be put out. His mind strove to function +automatically as he stretched his hand out toward the lamp. He heard +Martha Westcott move in the doorway, and he turned toward her. She was +disappearing into the hall, walking slowly. Suddenly his voice came +back to him. + +“The goat’s head,” he said. “Where did you get the goat’s head?” + +He could hear her feet walking down the hall, and he stood listening +as the front door softly opened and then closed again. Leaning over he +blew the light out and stood in the darkness, frowning. + + + + +Chapter Eight + + +I + +When Dreeme awoke late in the morning he heard the heavy roar of rain +on the roof, and, hurrying through his morning ablutions, he proceeded +downstairs to his breakfast, finding the covered dishes on the table +in the little study. Mrs. Slater had been there and had not waited, +and he was thankful for this. He did not care to see her standing +beside him, her eyes fluttering with excitement, and a repressed +rancor in her pursed mouth. She resented his interference on Deborah’s +behalf, and a strong distaste for her had grown in the young doctor’s +mind. A regular New England aunt. A narrow-minded, overly-righteous, +cold-hearted descendant of icy-natured forebears. The devil take her! +Dreeme raced through his breakfast, not minding that the eggs were cold +and coagulated on the heavy china plate, that the coffee was insipid +and luke-warm. He would probably never get good service again from Mrs. +Slater. Well, he would not need her services long. He would not be here +in this small two-storied, two-room building that whined in the strong +winds and drew in all the unpleasant heat of the summer. He would be +in some large city, Boston or New York, and Deborah would be with him. +There were lots of places where a young doctor could find a refuge. +Finishing his meal he rose from the table and strode through the hall +to the door and thrust it open. A wind-blown gust of rain dashed in +his face, and he drew back from it. The weather had changed all right. +Last night the largest moon he had ever seen had poured its silver +light over Marlborough, but some time in the night it had disappeared, +devoured by angry storm-clouds, and now the community lay prone beneath +a furious down-pour. The farmers would not complain at this. Here was +fecundation enough. Reaching for his rubber-slicker Dreeme adjusted it +about his shoulders and stepped out into the storm. The heavy drops +snapped against his face and drummed on his hat. The trees across the +road were mere misty shadows. It was dark, too. Dreeme noticed that the +lamps were lighted in the Slater house. + +A New England rain-storm was a desolate phenomenon. It turned the +entire vista gray and sodden green. Great puddles widened in the road, +and the unceasing whir of falling water made a monotonous sound in the +ears. Dreeme supposed that he should have put on boots, but he did not +feel inclined to turn back into the house. He desired too much to go +on and to finish up the business that was in his mind. He was going to +face Humphrey Lathrop, and stay with the huge old doctor until he had +made everything clear to him. He would tell Lathrop everything that +had happened. Lathrop would help him, for, after all, Lathrop was a +wise man. Even if he did look like a swelling frog at times. Dreeme +sloshed through the puddles and mud on his way to the old doctor’s +cottage, his mind a chaotic mixture of problems and unasked questions. +He had all the facts now, but he could not put them together until +he possessed the key. With the key he could unlock the last secret +door, and when he did this everything would fall into order, and his +curiosity about Marlborough would be satisfied. He crossed the square +and saw nobody but the tall spare figure of Bidwell standing in the +shelter of the porch of the post office and general store. Bidwell did +not return his greeting, but stood immovable watching the young doctor +who proceeded on his way, head down against the driving rain and wind. +Dreeme smiled sarcastically to himself. He was certainly a popular man +in Marlborough. The rain dripped in an unceasing stream from the front +brim of his hat and got into his eyes. It flowed into the back of his +neck. It was in his shoes now. Every time he stepped he made a sucking +sound. But it was cool and not altogether unpleasant. It quenched the +restless fire of his body, and soothed his torn nerves. He felt as +though he could walk for miles with this heavy down-pour beating upon +him and that he would be all the better for it. The front of Humphrey +Lathrop’s cottage, small and gray in the rain, loomed before him, and +he opened the rickety gate and walked up the path. He would find out +everything now, and he would not leave Humphrey until he did. + + +II + +Dreeme pushed the untasted tumbler of apple-jack away with an +expression of disgust, and stood up and pointed a questioning finger at +the old doctor. He demanded: + +“Where is the place called Dagon?” + +There was a finality in his voice that rang through the room. Humphrey +Lathrop’s jaw dropped and his three chins quivered like jelly. He +pushed back his reinforced chair from the table with a mighty effort +and an enormous scraping sound. For an instant Dreeme feared that the +old man’s eyes would pop out of his head. There was amazement in them, +consternation, something very like terror. For the first time since +Dreeme had known him the old doctor was completely taken off his guard, +surprised, and routed. + +“Where did ... where did....” + +Lathrop fumbled for speech unsuccessfully, his tongue sticking to the +roof of his mouth. He glanced cautiously about the room as though he +expected invisible foes to spring up on all sides. Dreeme, amazed at +Lathrop’s reaction, stood with outstretched hand and pointing finger, +awaiting his answer with an obvious determination that no beating +about the bush might distract. The rain dripped from the bottom of his +trousers, and made a dark pool about him on the round rag carpet. The +clock ticked desolately as he waited. Lathrop spoke slowly and with +evident reluctance. He said: + +“Where the bones were buried.” + +He appeared to have given up all hope of dissuading Dreeme from the +subject. + +“Bones? What bones? What does that mean?” cried Dreeme. + +Lathrop’s voice was monotonous. + +“The bones of the Salem witches.” + +A great light seemed to flood Dreeme’s mind, that light that had once +been so far away, but it was too dazzling for him as yet. A voice +deep inside him was talking feverishly, saying things, explaining, +indicating. He could not catch the sound of the words. The voice was +talking too fast. The words ran together. They were a febrile blur of +sound. + +“You must explain everything, Humphrey,” he said in a calm voice as +he sat down. “I’m in this thing too deep now. Somebody I know ... is +affected.” + +The old doctor nodded, and then, reaching for his tumbler of +apple-jack, drank the entire potion down in a single draught. He choked +and wheezed for a moment. + +“You hit me amidships then,” he remarked soberly. “Where did you hear +of the place called Dagon?” + +“Never mind,” returned Dreeme. “Don’t stave me off with questions. Tell +me things.” + +“I’m going to,” answered Lathrop mildly. “I’m going to tell you things. +You’re going to have it all now, and much good may it do you.” + +His eyes roved about the room. Then they reverted to Dreeme. + +“Suppose you tell me everything first,” he said in a wheedling voice. +“I want to know what you’ve found out. There is no use duplicating the +few facts and suspicions that I possess.” + +Dreeme eyed him impatiently. + +“All right,” he said shortly, and plunged immediately into his tale. In +a rapid condensed form he told Lathrop of the first visit he had paid +to Westcott’s house, of the two conversations with Martha Westcott, +of the death of Wagner, of the strange fright of Deborah, and of +the goat’s head. He strove to reinterpret the theory of will which +Jeffrey Westcott had put forward in the burned mill. He explained +his suspicions of the Reverend George Burroughs. Lathrop listened +attentively, his head on one side, and his great lips pursed so that +they thrust out like the snout of a pig. Occasionally he would nod. +Once or twice his eyes opened very wide. In one instance he emitted a +triumphant cluck as though some suspicion he had carried in his mind +for years were verified. + +“Will you fetch me down that big black book?” he said softly when +Dreeme concluded his tale, indicating the little shelf that was nailed +high on the wall behind him. Dreeme strode over and drew forth a bulky +volume that was covered with dust, blew it off, and brought it to the +table where he placed it. He deliberately read the title on the back of +the tome as he laid it down. The name “Cotton Mather” was printed there +in faded gilt letters. Lathrop smiled, a smile with no humor in it, and +drew the book toward him. Then he adjusted his spectacles and leaned +back very much like a judge about to give a decision. + +“I tried to keep you away from this,” he said, “for good and sufficient +reasons, and chief among them was the peace of your own mind and the +degree of your success in Marlborough. Well, you have lost the peace of +your mind, and there is no longer any reason to suppose that you will +ever have any success in Marlborough. There is no reason, therefore, +why you should not know as much as I know. I will tell you, Daniel, +that what you have told me has made some dark places clear to me, +and verified certain suspicions which I have wisely kept to myself. +Therefore, in making plain to you what I know I shall adjust some of +your own information into the scheme of things.” + +After this preamble he cleared his throat loudly, searched through the +huge volume before him until he found a certain place, closed the book +upon a pudgy finger that retained the page, and glanced soberly at +Dreeme. + +“It’s witchcraft we have to deal with,” he said mildly. “It’s a cursed +madness that has ruled this valley since 1692.” + +Dreeme nodded without surprise. He suspected this, indeed, he knew it. + +“Yes, sir, witchcraft,” repeated the old doctor. “You probably don’t +believe in it. No more do I. But the outward forms of it exist just as +surely as the outward forms of the Christian religion exist. It has its +established hierarchy, although I believe today that it is the weapon +of madmen, charlatans, and fanatics.” + +He sighed loudly. + +“This is a mad world, Daniel,” he said. “We are all more or less +insane. Well, I’m getting nowhere. As I age I grow more discursive.” + +Dreeme moved restlessly and the old doctor lifted a hand. + +“Let me tell you this in my own way,” he said. “You’ll have it all +before I am done.” + +Lathrop cleared his throat and fastened his eyes upon Dreeme. + +“In 1692,” he said, “the little town of Salem went insane. You’ve read +your history and you know all about the witch scares and the hangings +on Gallows Hill. You know how the children cried out that they were +possessed, and gave testimony against various men and women in the +community, and how the judges and preachers strove to battle with +this strange outbreak of insanity. I don’t have to give you a resumé +of that history. It is enough to remind you of it. It is the common +conclusion of most scholars that all this was a form of religious +mania, and that the people who were hanged were not professed witches +but victims of hallucinations and enmity. I don’t believe it. I believe +those people belonged to a secret and blasphemous order that met all +over the world, that they were divided into covens or parishes, that +they each had their leader in the shape of a Black Man who represented +the Devil, that they worshipped Satan, and that they attempted to +practise magic. I believe that they were unhinged to such a degree that +they could imagine themselves flying through the air, that they were +addicted to hallucinations and delusions and visions, that, like the +whirling dervishes, they could fling themselves into hysteric trances +and dwell in the domain of their sick imaginations. They believed those +things, Daniel. They had faith in Satan. And they attained a malevolent +strength through their faith. They could superimpose their will on +innocent people and make those people sick by the power of suggestion. +There is nothing supernatural in that, after all. It is supernormal, +perhaps, but you know my views on these things. The trappings and +the ceremonies and the results might seem supernatural, but that was +because the people in those days did not know about such things as +thought-transference, auto-suggestion, and the impulsion of the will. +In a measure, these people were liberating themselves from time, moving +beyond the limitations of their days, subsisting in an arcane of their +own manufacture through the full strength of those fanatical beliefs, +which, after all, is saying no more than that they liberated their +wills and believed in the strength of their wills. Well, in 1692 all +this was brought to a halt by the hangings and the persecutions of the +witch-judges. The Salem coven was demolished and scattered. Do not +think, however, that all the witches were strung up on Gallows Hill. +Others fled into the woods and sought far places where they might +conduct their orgies and ceremonies in their own way. The larger group, +and now, Daniel, I am telling you something I read in a book of which +you have heard, hovered in the wilderness about Salem for some weeks, +living on roots and berries and what the Indians might give them, for +the Indians, too, believed in witchcraft. By night they ventured to the +desolate graves of their hanged companions and dug up those bodies and +bore them away with them into the thick forest. They pushed westward, +avoiding the little settlements in the clearing, passing north of +Springfield, crossing the Connecticut River, and eventually they came +to a valley and discovered it to be a lost cul-de-sac in the hills, +and there they settled down. With them they had the black book of the +order, a book filled with ceremonies and liturgies, and in which a +scribe set down the account of their wanderings. Can you guess where +they settled, Daniel?” + +Dreeme nodded. + +“Here,” he said. “They settled in this valley. These farmers are their +descendants. The black book they carried with them was the black book +of old Uriah Carrier.” + +Lathrop wagged his head up and down. + +“That’s right,” he said. “As a boy I looked into that book and was +frightened out of my wits. Yes, Daniel, they settled here, still +carrying on their frightful ceremonies, still calling upon the devil by +night and meeting in the secret forest clearings to dance in the light +of the moon. One place they kept sacred. It was a hidden place, known +only to the adepts. It was there that they buried the bones of the +hanged witches, those poor bodies that they had carried for two hundred +miles through the thick wilderness. There, too, they raised the Devil +Stone upon which the Black Man stood during the great ceremonies. They +called the place Dagon and strewed it with ashes. I can picture that +place lighted by torches at midnight. I can picture the rapt faces of +the witches and the compelling eyes of the Black Man as he stood above +them and called on Satan, on Beelzebub, on Asmodeus, the fiends that he +imagined served his purpose. I can hear the laughter of the women and +see their glistening eyes as the madness took them. By day they were +taciturn people, carrying on the quiet masquerade of pioneers, building +up homes in the clearing, pushing the forest farther and farther back; +but when the moon rose the madness that was in their blood swept them +out of themselves and they became other creatures employing pagan +symbols and ancient phallic ceremonials. They existed in a domain +out of place and time, then, a land of hallucinations and dreams and +primitive urges. It was a land where they celebrated the Black Mass +and the Witches’ Sabaoth, and gave full rein to the frenzies of the +blood and brain. I’ve never seen the place called Dagon, Daniel, and +I never hope to see it, but I suspect where it is. I suspect that the +Devil Stone is still there, and if one dug deep enough one would come +to crumbled bones, if, indeed, bones last that long.” + +The old doctor drew a long breath and paused. He reached for the +apple-jack bottle and poured himself a drink. + +“I’m developing into an old drunkard,” he remarked. “Imagine it. At my +age!” + +He drank half the tumbler of amber liquor and set it down on the table. +The roar of the rain filled the room and Dreeme, gazing toward the +window, could perceive nothing but a silver opaqueness that ran and +glittered. He waited for Lathrop to go on, knowing that the old doctor +could tell his story best in his own way. + +“Now then,” said Lathrop, wiping his mouth with a fat hand. “Where was +I? Where, for that matter, are any of us? That’s philosophy, Daniel.” + +He summoned up a smile, but it was lost in the earnest attention of the +young doctor. He said slowly: + +“I didn’t actually lie to you, Daniel, but I did conveniently forget +to tell you some things the other day. I thought there was no need +of spreading a story that had better not have existed at all in the +beginning. Well!” + +He sighed wheezily. Then he resumed his story. + +“It was not alone the descendants of the Salem witches who wandered +into this valley and established homes,” he said. “You’ve heard of +Thomas Morton of Merry Mount, haven’t you?” + +Dreeme nodded. Of course, he had. Why, Deborah.... + +“Morton,” said the old doctor, “was a rascal who headed a colony +of loose fellows. They sold liquor to the Indians, disregarded the +Puritanical laws of living, laughed at religion, and injected a +licentious scarlet into the gray cloth of the old New England. You can +imagine that carousing colony near enough to Boston to cause the good +Puritans a prodigious loss of sleep. It was something that they hated +and feared because it stirred in them the covered embers of their own +suppressed excesses, I suppose. Uncommitted sins that are buried in the +blood and brain are fearful things, Daniel. I imagine that most of the +Puritans sublimated their fleshly longings into a religious ardor but +this would make them fear the downright honesty of openly committed +sin more than ever. Anyway, when news reached Boston that the Morton +colonists had reared a huge May pole and were dancing about it with +their skins full of good liquor and debauching all the likely squaws +they could lay hands on, they decided that something drastic should be +done. So a body of armed men (crusaders of the Lord, Daniel) marched +to Merry Mount, cut the May Pole down, strewed the place with ashes, +cursed it and called it Dagon (you see how the name crops up?), and +scattered the befuddled revelers. What was more natural than that some +of these topers and lechers should push westward into the wilderness, +having, so to speak, their bellies full of Puritanical oppression? To +the west they came, then, following an old trail that led north of +Springfield and across the Connecticut River, and eventually they found +themselves in this valley. Leeminster was the town settled by them. So +there you have the two towns, Daniel. I don’t know which was settled +first. It doesn’t make any difference. They were near enough for daily +intercourse, and I suppose there was some inter-marriage. Whether the +witch-fever spread to Leeminster or not is a mystery. I am on dubious +ground now, for most of the opinions I have arrived at are the result +of deduction and there is no documentary proof to bolster me up. That +is why I am chary at giving vent to them. Some of the things that you +have told me seem to substantiate a few of the suspicions I have had. +My voice, Daniel, is getting awfully hoarse.” + +He paused and finished his tumbler of apple-jack. + +“You are going to be reeling in a minute,” said Dreeme impatiently. + +Lathrop wheezed and chuckled. + +“No, sir,” he said. “When you see me reel you’ll see a sight.” + +He chuckled again. Dreeme observed an apoplectic glow on his fat +cheeks, however, and it made him uneasy. He was afraid that the old +doctor’s head would loll to one side, and that the continuation of the +story would be a series of stertorous snores. He had seen it happen +before for Lathrop plied the apple-jack not wisely but too well. + +“Where was I?” inquired Lathrop mildly. He rolled his blue eyes at the +ceiling in thought. + +“Oh!” he said in faint surprise as he unexpectedly lighted on the +thread of his conversation. “Oh, yes!” + +“Marlborough and Leeminster proceeded on their solitary way while the +land developed,” he declared. “Towns sprang up on all sides of them, +but they were protected by their valley and the fact that no large +artery of travel cut through them. They were in a cul-de-sac. They +accepted the modernities of living suspiciously and in a gingerly +manner. Being farmers, the natives subsisted by themselves and without +too much aid from the outside world. As time passed on I imagine the +witch practices ceased, although the memories of them were handed down +from father to son, and mother to daughter. They were not so much +ashamed of these practices, at first, as they were reticently jealous. +The very fact of them made them different from other men and women. +When I came here I found no signs of secret practices. I did find a +dour reticence, perhaps a more antagonistic one than you have run up +against. But I paid no attention to it, and I minded my own business. I +did not ask questions. I did not watch people. I admit that I thought +a lot. I read a great deal of history, and tried to orientate these +people. It was from old Captain Uriah Carrier himself that I got my +clew, for, thinking me no more than a mere boy and being a boastful old +scoundrel, he told me that he was the last Black Man, and he even, in +a burst of drunken recklessness one night, showed me the book that had +been in his family for generations. It was easy enough for me to put +two and two together after that. Being wise though I put them together +by myself and kept my convictions to myself. I....” + +Lathrop developed a choking fit and sputtered for a few minutes while +Dreeme waited impatiently. The old doctor made a half-gesture toward +the apple-jack bottle, thought better of it, and withdrew his hand +reluctantly. + +“You see Marlborough today,” he said wearily, leaning back in his +chair, “and you see a community that has hugged a secret to its bosom +for centuries. These men and women are alive to the past, to the +terrible heritage which they possess, and they desire to eradicate it +from common knowledge, to bury it, as it were, in the dust-heap of gone +things. That is their first impulse. They do not want strangers to know +that they have descended from condemned witches. Now there’s Jeffrey +Westcott.” + +He paused and blinked his blue eyes. + +“Who is he?” he proceeded. “I don’t know. You don’t know. But we can +guess what his purpose is. You’ve told me all about his maunderings +about the mightiness of the will, the theory he hinted at to you in +the burned mill that night. Now this is what I see, Daniel. Westcott +fell in with Peleg Carrier in Germany, learned from him about the +witch-cult that had existed here, and came to find out more about +it. He had a theory of his own, a theory in an inchoate state, and +he fancied that witch practices might be subdued to the ends of that +theory. When he was settled here he found that he could start nothing, +for these people had ceased to practice the so-called Black Arts. +What he needed was a key, a weapon to drive the farmers before him. +He found that weapon in Captain Uriah Carrier’s black book. All he +had to do was to startle the morose inhabitants of Marlborough and +its outlying district with the testimony from this book, for the will +toward witchcraft was already a part of their blood’s inheritance. I +believe, Daniel, that he reinstituted witch meetings, formed a coven +here, and made himself the ruling Black Man. That’s why he’s avoided; +that’s why his farm is shunned territory. He commands the dark side of +the nature of Marlborough. These people lead two lives, and one of them +is the surface life that we see going on about us. The other is the +secret life that centers about the place called Dagon. Westcott drives +them through their fears and their secret weaknesses, weaknesses that +they might fight against and successfully conquer if he were not here. +When he goes the whole scaffolding of mummeries will break down, these +people will become normal inhabitants, and all this stuff will seem +like some wild dream. That’s what I think, Daniel.” + +Dreeme nodded an assent. + +“That’s it,” he agreed. “Now what can we do about it?” + +Lathrop scowled heavily. + +“_I_,” he emphasized, “can do nothing about it.” + +“Something must be done about it,” urged Dreeme. + +“Then you do it, Daniel,” said the old doctor. “And God be with you.” + +He shook his head dolefully. + +“I’m not a witch-hunter,” he explained mildly. “Neither am I Don +Quixote or Bayard or Sherlock Holmes or ... or....” + +He continued to roll his head from side to side slowly. + +“No, Daniel,” he protested, “I’m the man who sits in a chair all day.” + +He reverted to the phenomena that Dreeme had adumbrated during his +story. + +“The various things you’ve told me,” he said, “clear up, as I’ve +pointed out before, some of my suspicions. Let us take up the wax +figures first, those little puppets that Deborah Morton found behind +Westcott’s books. That’s an old witchcraft trick. A doll is made +and baptized with the name of some living person against whom the +witch desires revenge or evil. Then needles are thrust into those +places where the person is to be injured and charms are recited over +the little figure. Westcott, I believe, imagined this mummery would +sharpen and direct the invisible strength of his will. You say one of +the dolls had a needle thrust into its leg. Well, Westcott got shot in +the leg, didn’t he? I imagine that was his first charm, a charm against +himself. And it worked. Never ask me how it worked, but it did. The +other doll had needles through its eyes. Well, how about the wooden +pegs driven into Wagner’s eye-sockets?” + +Dreeme shuddered as he recalled the disfigured face grinning up at him +from the bank of the Saccarac River. + +“I don’t believe Westcott killed Wagner,” added Lathrop. “No, sir. I +believe he wanted the hired man dead because he found out that the poor +fellow was acting as a go-between for Martha Westcott and yourself. Now +into whose brain did Westcott force the thought of and will for this +murder? Find that out, Daniel, if you can.” + +“I intend to,” said the young doctor, his mouth a thin line of +determination. + +“But don’t forget,” remarked Lathrop, “that there may be a little doll +somewhere christened Daniel Dreeme with a needle through its heart.” + +“I’ll take my chance,” said Dreeme. + +“We come to the goat’s head,” proceeded Lathrop. “That puzzles me. I +know its origin but not its purpose.” + +Dreeme was visibly excited at this topic. + +“Here we sit like two Sherlock Holmes,” chuckled the old narrator, +“and we’re really two Doctor Watsons. Amateurs, Daniel, amateurs.” + +Suddenly he sobered up. + +“The goat’s head,” he explained, “was the seal of Thomas Morton of +Merry Mount. It is still extant upon legal documents which he left +behind him. I’ll venture to assert, Daniel, that your Deborah, who +wears that seal, apparently, about her neck, is a descendant of the +Morton clan. Old Thomas left enough illegitimate progeny, God knows, +and there is no reason why some of these women may not have taken +the rascal’s name. Why the goat’s head should have been clutched in +Wagner’s hand or why it is branded on Martha Westcott’s shoulder is +beyond my reasoning faculties. Those are things that you will have to +find out.” + +Slowly he opened the bulky black volume before him. + +“Daniel,” he said, “listen to this. I am reading from Cotton Mather.” + +He bowed over the page and read slowly: + +“... this Rampant Hag, Martha Carrier, was the person, of whom the +Confessions of the Witches, and of her own Children among the rest, +agreed, That the Devil had promised her, she should be Queen of Hell.” + +He looked up solemnly. + +“That, I take it,” he remarked, “is the fountainhead of the Carrier +family. You notice she had children. She was the Queen of Hell, Daniel, +the Queen of Hell. That’s a brave title for a Puritan lady.” + +He turned back to the book and searched through a few pages. Finding +what he sought for, he cleared his throat and looked up. + +“Now then,” he said, and began to read again. + +“‘Richard Carrier affirmed to the jury that he saw Mr. George +Burroughs at the witch meeting at the village and saw him administer +the sacrament.’ And here’s another interesting bit. ‘He,’ ... that’s +Burroughs, Daniel.... ‘He was Accused by Eight of the Confessing +Witches, as being an Head Actor at some of their Hellish Rendezvouses, +and one who had the promise of being a King in Satan’s kingdom, now +going to be erected....’” + +Lathrop closed the book with a snap and a puff of dust started up from +it. + +“And there,” he said, “is the stock from which your sallow +preacher-friend, the Reverend George Burroughs, descends. I point these +things out to you, Daniel, so that you may understand how clear the +stock has come down from the Salem witch-days. There’s another place +in this book, if I recollect aright, where the witches accused George +Burroughs of bringing puppets with him and sticking thorns into those +puppets. Burroughs, I suppose, was the Black Man, or one of the Black +Men, who ruled the New England coven. There we are, Daniel. Now you +know all that I know and I imagine you can see why I wanted to keep +it from you. I thought the ancient fever would die out and that there +would be no need of all this speculation. It seems not.” + +He wheezed heavily and shook his head. + +“What must I do, Humphrey?” asked Dreeme. + +Lathrop opened his eyes very wide and pointed a pudgy finger at the +young doctor. + +“Do?” he said. “Why, be a wise man. Take your little Deborah Morton +with you and get out of the valley and settle elsewhere and live your +life without worrying about these things. This situation cannot last. +Westcott is undoubtedly mad, and he will blow himself up in some +devilish experiment, or some farmer will do for him. Why should you +stay here rooting into things that, after all, are no concern of yours? +If these fools want to play at being witches, let them. Much good may +it do them! Your life is all before you, and it moves on another arc +than the existence in this gray town of Marlborough.” + +He sighed and glanced at the silver-streaked window where the runnels +of rain slid unceasingly. + +“I’m anchored here,” he said sadly. “I’m an old hulk rotting in a +forgotten dry-dock. Time has forgotten me. All I can do is sit in this +chair and watch absolutely nothing go by and cogitate upon it. It’s a +bright prospect, Daniel, a bright prospect.” + +“I shall go away,” remarked Dreeme slowly. “Just when, I don’t know, +but soon ... soon.” + +He, too, watched the rain beating against the window-panes and listened +to the confused roar of the storm as it beat over Marlborough. It +was pleasant to sit in a dry warm nook and observe the elements +raging vainly outside. The valley was full of the grey smoke of the +down-pour, and the greedy soil, that had parched beneath the hot sun; +was drinking the cool water, bringing its measure of relief to the tiny +thrusting roots that fumbled about in the darkness for nourishment. It +had not rained since the night he had first gone to the Westcott farm, +since he had stood in the dark doorway with Martha Westcott listening +for the sound of wings in the air; and that had been but a brief storm, +a swift and vanishing interruption of the parched season that had +hovered over the valley. That had been but a few days ago, and yet how +far away it seemed. Wonderingly he watched the rain beat against the +window and listened to the whirring music that filled the cloudy air. + + +III + +Walden Slater had drawn his rickety rocker back against the wall and +he sat just outside the curtain of water that dripped from the eaves +of the back piazza. He looked through the swinging silver hangings +of rain soberly, his empty corncob pipe drooping disconsolately from +his wide mouth. It was evident that he was deep in the concentration +of difficult thought for his brows wrinkled and his head bowed still +lower as he twiddled a small bit of wood in his hand and gazed blankly +at the whirring rain. Dreeme stood in the back door and watched him. +Behind the young doctor in the kitchen Deborah moved about, her small +clear voice raised as she attempted unsuccessfully to converse with +the reticent Mrs. Slater who paraded back and forth with dishes and +answered her in grudging monosyllables. There was an excited quaver in +Deborah’s voice that moved Dreeme, the note of a stifled excitement. +They all had something on their minds. They were all concealing +something from one another. The very atmosphere induced an ingrowing +that was unhealthy and unnatural. Dreeme coughed loudly and shifted +his position. Walden Slater did not stir. He still sat crouched in the +rocker rolling the bit of wood between his stumpy fingers. + +“I should think the rain would cheer you up,” remarked Dreeme. + +Walden Slater turned his head slowly, inspected the young doctor with a +blank eye, and then resumed his study of the rain. + +“Won’t it be good for the crops?” + +“Umph,” said Walden Slater. He twiddled his bit of wood and looked at +the sky. + +“I’m going to marry Deborah,” announced Dreeme. + +Walden Slater turned deliberately around and stared at the young +doctor. He looked first at his shoes, then his trousers, then his coat, +and finally into the doctor’s face. His eyes were opaque mirrors. He +cleared his throat. He said: + +“Be you?” + +His tone was mild and there was no surprise in his voice. + +“I reckoned so,” he added after a moment. + +“Any objections?” asked Dreeme. + +Walden Slater watched the rain carefully. + +“Do you ever whittle?” he inquired. + +Dreeme laughed aloud. + +“No,” he said. “I don’t even carry a knife.” + +His mind flashed back to dour farmers seated morosely before the post +office and general store whittling away at small pieces of wood, +industriously carving nothing to pass away the endless time. + +“No objections at all,” remarked Walden Slater mildly. + +Both of them heard the humming of the Reverend George Burroughs as he +came through the kitchen from the dining room, and Dreeme drew back +with some distaste as the tall sallow figure pushed through the door to +the back piazza. + +“The Lord gives plenteously,” intoned the preacher as his black +expressionless eyes roved from the faces of the two men to the gusts of +rain that swept across the green foliage beyond the house. + +“Lend me your knife,” requested Walden Slater, twiddling the bit of +wood in his hand. + +The Reverend George Burroughs extracted an old clasp-knife from his +pocket and passed it over to the farmer. Walden Slater began to +methodically whittle the bit of wood he held to a fine point. The tiny +shavings fluttered to the floor. + +“A fine rain makes a fine crop,” announced the preacher. + +“A fine crop makes a fine profit,” added Dreeme, saying the first thing +that popped into his mind. + +“A fine knife makes a fine point,” declared Walden Slater. “This knife +is dull.” + +He handed it back without any thanks, and the preacher stowed it away +in his pocket. Dreeme drifted back through the kitchen preparatory to +returning to his study. The conversation was altogether too dull. + + +IV + +Dreeme was jerked out of a sound sleep by a strong hand grasping his +shoulder. He started up with an uncontrollable cry of amazement. + +“Get into your clothes,” said a voice. “It’s time.” + +He recognized Walden Slater’s voice. Without any questions he leaped +out of bed and hurried into his trousers and shirt. A heavy rain +pounded on the roof as he completed his brief toilet, and shook his +head violently to recover his partially benumbed senses. Walden Slater +moved before him as they hurried for the stair-case and ran down it to +the entrance hall. Before dashing out through the door into the rain +Dreeme flung his still soggy rain-coat about him. A moment later they +stood in the road where the heavens seemed to open and let down an +unimaginable flood upon them. Walden Slater snatched up a storm-proof +lantern from the ground by the gate, and as he stooped his heavy coat +gaped open and Dreeme caught a glimpse of the butt of the Smith and +Wesson revolver thrust into his belt. + +“What is it, Walden?” gasped the young doctor. “For God’s sake, find +your tongue.” + +“I can find my tongue when I want it,” replied the farmer. “You come +with me.” + +They splashed through the puddles up the gradual rise of the Leeminster +Road, bowing their heads to the fierce blows of the frantic gusts of +rain that sought to thrust them back. Dreeme was running in his bare +feet. + +“Walden!” he gasped. “Walden!” + +“Deborah’s gone. Disappeared completely,” cried Walden Slater with +unwonted vigor. “So’s Burroughs. Does that tell you anything? Dreeme, +I’ve thought this whole thing out. You come with me.” + +He ran all the faster, and Dreeme followed him while a mounting rage +seethed within him. + +“I know what I know,” the farmer called back over his shoulder. + +Dreeme seemed to be borne along by the furies within him. He +accelerated his pace and soon was abreast of the farmer. For a time +they ran doggedly, the breath whistling in their lungs. Under their +feet drummed the boards of the bridge that spanned the Saccarac River. +A moment later they were on even ground. Deborah gone! How or why she +had gone Dreeme did not know, but Walden Slater knew, and that was +enough. It would be time enough later to ask questions. Yet Dreeme, +leaning his head closer to the farmer, did ask something. + +“Where are we going?” His voice rose in a shout. “To the Westcott farm?” + +“Dagon, damn it, Dagon!” shouted back the farmer. “We’re going to the +place called Dagon!” + +They ran all the faster through the relentless rain. + + + + +Chapter Nine + + +I + +As Dreeme, racing close at the heels of Walden Slater, circled the +Westcott farm-house, he glanced up curiously at the windows. There was +no light. The building gloomed in its cluster of trees just as it had +that first night when he had stumbled after the boy Miles along the +uneven path and entered through the back door. It was like a house of +the dead, a dwelling-place from which the rose-colored actualities of +living had long ago vanished. Around it, the tall dark trees kept their +somber watch, standing like ghostly sentinels. The spark of Walden +Slater’s lantern sent strange beasts of shadows scurrying into the +underbrush that lined the hummocky path. At the back door the farmer +set down his light and hammered upon the wood with the butt of his +revolver. The sound seemed to echo inside the house. It was like the +echo that comes from a musty tomb when the iron grille that guards its +dead from the living world is shaken. If there was anything in back of +the wood against which Walden Slater was hammering so vigorously, that +shape or being or spectre was standing mute. + +“Of course not,” muttered the farmer. With a fierce kick of his +heavy boot he crashed the door open and it smashed against the wall +on broken hinges. The intruder entered slowly, holding the lantern +before him in one hand and grasping his cocked revolver in the other. +Dreeme followed at his heels. The small beam of light darted about the +room reflecting the stuffed chairs, the wax flowers under glass, the +photographic enlargements on the wall. Dreeme’s mind automatically +swept back to that time when he had followed Martha Westcott through +this room trembling from the magnetism of her strange personality. +Walden Slater circled the sitting room slowly, lifting his lantern to +view the pictures and examining the tables and the chairs. He seemed to +be looking for something, some hint that might indicate the direction +that he desired. “Uriah,” he muttered, pausing before one picture, a +particularly large and atrocious piece of workmanship that hung above +the wax flowers. Dreeme caught a glimpse of a glittering eye highly +touched by the painter’s art. + +“What are we searching for?” he inquired. “Shouldn’t we get on?” + +Walden Slater said nothing but strode toward the door that led to the +library. He kicked it open unceremoniously and entered and Dreeme +followed close at his heels. It was just as the young doctor remembered +it. + +“Light the lamp,” said the farmer. Dreeme fumbled at the chimney +and wick, and an instant later the pale yellow glow illuminated the +room. The crowded book-stacks leaned forward, and the ancient volumes +seemed to watch the intruders speechlessly. The young doctor walked +impatiently about the table where he had once seen Jeffrey Westcott +seated. He felt that they were wasting time, that Deborah was confined +somewhere in some secret place from which she should be rescued as +speedily as possible. He wanted to say this to the farmer, to get him +started on the way to the place called Dagon, and yet he refrained +from speech, for Walden Slater was obviously looking for something. +He, too, circled the room, inspecting the backs of the books with a +swift and keen eye. Dreeme paused near one case and read a few faded +titles. “Certainty of Worlds of Spirits” by Richard Baxter. “De la +Démonomanie des Sorciers” par Jean Bodin. “Sadducismus Triumphatus” by +Joseph Glanvil. “Daemonolatria” by Nicholas Remigius. “Discourse of the +Subtill Practises of Devilles” by George Giffard. He turned abruptly to +the farmer. + +“What are we looking for?” he asked. + +“The goat’s head,” replied the farmer. He had ruffled through the +papers on Westcott’s table. + +“Do you know what that means?” exclaimed Dreeme. + +Walden Slater nodded. + +“Be patient,” he said. “It’s the signal for the Esbat.” + +He continued to rummage about the room. + +Suddenly he snorted in triumph, and started for the door. Dreeme +followed close at his heels. The farmer, still holding his lantern, +turned a corner and they began to climb a narrow flight of stairs. +Behind them in the deserted library the oil-lamp perched precariously +on the corner of the table and quivered at each gust of rainy air that +swept through the window. + +They wandered through two bedrooms, the feeble flare of the lantern +illuminating neatly-made beds, and came to a closed door that +apparently opened into a room on the rear of the house. Walden Slater, +employing his usual tactics, kicked it open and they entered into a +small chamber that was entirely unfurnished except for a raised stone +slab on three perpendicular pillars of granite in the corner. The +farmer made his way immediately toward this strange bit of furniture +and held his lantern over it, inspecting the corrugated surface of the +stone. Dreeme, standing beside him, saw dark stains on the slab and a +small keen-bladed knife that appeared more like a lancet than anything +else. The knife glittered in the ray of the lantern and the young +doctor was overwhelmed by a sudden fear. He stared wide-eyed at the +farmer, and Walden Slater’s long upper lip quivered in the dim light. +Dreeme struggled between an absorbed excitement in their discoveries +and his intense concern for Deborah’s safety. She was somewhere not +far from them, her mind a riot of fear, waiting frantically for him. +He was sure of that. But what had happened to her in the meantime, +during those hours (and he was not sure how many they had been, for the +taciturn farmer had vouchsafed no specific information on this point) +she had passed since Burroughs enticed or kidnapped her from the Slater +house, he could not even guess. If any harm had come to her (and his +heart nearly ceased beating at the thought) he would not leave the +valley until he had killed Jeffrey Westcott and George Burroughs. A +cold determination seemed to freeze the emotions in him as he came to +this decision. His thin lips tightened and his eyes became like blue +steel. + +“I shall go mad in a minute,” he said calmly to the farmer. + +Walden Slater opened his mouth to speak and then, with a grunt that +expressed both surprise and relief, he pointed to the corner in back +of the stone slab. The dejected carcass of a chicken lay there in its +dishevelled feathers, its crop slit open and its blood dabbled upon the +floor. + +“He’s been divining,” he said. Then he looked closely at the young +doctor. + +“You perk up, Doctor Dreeme,” he added. “I know what I’m doing. There’s +no harm done to anybody ... yet.” + +He bent over and fumbled about the limp carcass of the chicken and +then straightened his body with a grunt of satisfaction. In his hand +he held a small blood-smeared square of paper. Silently he turned and +strode down stairs, Dreeme close at his heels. He did not speak until +they had regained the comparative light of the library and then he +sank into Jeffrey Westcott’s chair by the table. The curtain from the +window fluttered inward, narrowly missing the chimney of the sputtering +lamp. Dreeme stood before the farmer, his eyes staring and his hands +trembling. + +“I reckon I’ll have to explain a few things,” he remarked slowly, “or +you’ll be fainting on me, Doctor.” + +“I’m not going to faint, Walden,” replied the young doctor, “but I am +mad to get on. I know Deborah’s in grave danger and I should be with +her.” + +Walden Slater nodded gravely. + +“Westcott is playing his last card to dominate the valley,” he said. +“He’s called an Esbat, a meeting, and he intends a sacrifice. I knew +it was coming ever since I saw that goat-head in Wagner’s fist. The +goat-head is used as an announcement for a coming event. Wagner was on +his way to somebody with the sign when he was smashed in the head and +killed. That’s when I started thinking. There hasn’t been an Esbat in +this valley since old Captain Uriah Carrier died, and my dad told me +all about him.” + +He cleared his throat after this unexpectedly long speech. Then he +renewed his distasteful task of narration. + +“We don’t want none of this stuff, Doctor,” he declared. “The farmers +want to forget what their grand-dads were. Westcott won’t let us +forget. He’s got Uriah’s black book and we’re all in it. He’s got some +of us fooled by stirring up feelings in us that we thought had died +out of us. It has died out of me. I don’t take any stock in this stuff +though my dad was befuddled by old Uriah and went to his Esbat.” + +He cleared his throat again and held up the bit of paper. In the +lamp-glow Dreeme saw the tiny goat’s head carefully drawn in +blue ink and when Walden Slater slowly turned the paper he saw +“Dagon--two--nigger” written in small letters. He recalled now that he +had never turned over the bit of paper he had given to the coroner. He +recalled, too, the antagonism of the farmers who had stood so short a +distance from him when he had extracted the paper from Wagner’s stiff +hand. + +“It seems that they meet at Dagon at two o’clock, and that Dagon is +somewhere in Nigger Swamp,” he said mechanically. + +Walden Slater nodded his head in assent. + +“That’s it,” he said. “Westcott sacrificed a chicken to see if the +signs were propitious. Apparently he decided they were, although what a +chicken’s crop has to do with it is beyond me.” + +He stopped abruptly and turned his face toward the open window. Dreeme +listened, too, and he could hear the distinct sound of footsteps going +by the house. They apparently died away in the soft grass of the field +that stretched from the dwelling to Briony Wood. + +“They’re gathering,” remarked the farmer simply. He stood up and +regained his lantern. + +“We can’t know where they’ve hidden Deborah,” he said, “but we do know +that they’ll bring her to the place called Dagon. She’s to be the +sacrifice, Doctor.” + +“They wouldn’t dare to kill her!” exploded Dreeme. + +“There’s some things worse than death,” answered Walden Slater. + +He moved toward the door and Dreeme followed him. Behind them the +forgotten lamp perched on the edge of the table, and as the wind +increased the curtain flapped ever nearer the yellow flame, a flame +that sputtered but, being shielded from the worst of the gust by a +protector, never went out. The two men passed through the sitting room +and out through the broken door into the storm which had now settled +down into a gusty drizzle. + +“And, besides,” said Walden Slater slowly, “Wagner was killed, wasn’t +he?” + +“Do you know who killed him?” asked Dreeme. “Was it Jeffrey Westcott?” + +“I know that the pegs driven into his eye-sockets were whittled by a +mighty dull knife,” returned the farmer grimly. + +They plodded on in silence after that, their heads bowed against +the driving wind and rain. Occasionally they stumbled over hammocks +of wet grass and once Walden Slater sprawled upon the ground, his +lantern rolling from his hand and blinking out. With a grumbled curse +he scrambled to his feet and picked up the extinguished lantern and +examined it. + +“It’s busted!” he said vehemently, flinging it from him with an angry +gesture. They heard it clatter against a stone wall to the side of +them. After that they struggled on in the darkness across the field, +the black shadow of Briony Wood in its slight elevation looming nearer +and nearer against the faint glow of the stormy sky. + +“If you meet anybody,” said the farmer suddenly, “don’t you say a damn +word. Keep your head down and trudge along.” + +Dreeme muttered something in his throat. Mingled rain and perspiration +was streaming down his face and his naked feet were cut by the sharp +stones and twigs. He heard his heart beating violently in his bosom and +wondered if the farmer was as tired as he. They had crossed the greater +part of the field now and the ground was sloping upward before them, +sloping upward to tall spectral trees that stood with inter-mingled +branches and waited menacingly for their coming. It would be dark in +those trees and there would probably be no pathway. But they would have +to go on, for somewhere beyond the trees was the place called Dagon, +and it was at Dagon that he would next meet Deborah. Sobbingly he +climbed the slope at the heels of Walden Slater. + + +II + +The trees reached out and took them in, circling about them in a massed +formation. They were in the darkness of Briony Wood now, a darkness +that was unrelieved by any light except the pale intermittent glow of +the sky that filtered through the bowed branches of the trees. The +unceasing storm rumbled in the leaves above them, and the incessant +drip of water sounded about them as they lurched over broken branches, +stones, unbared roots, and washed-out hollows. Far above the moist +darkness through which they struggled Dreeme thought he could hear a +faint humming, the sound of wind, perhaps, flowing along the tilted +tops of the taller trees. His labored breath chimed with it. Walden +Slater was lurching along doggedly beside him now, no longer ahead, +but shoulder to shoulder with him except when the unevenness of the +road they took caused them to stumble apart. It was good to feel his +sturdy shoulder as it struck against him occasionally. It was like a +tower filled with armed men who were always on guard. It was a fortress +against evil and chance. The farmer was silent, conserving his strength +for the difficult journey through the wood, and Dreeme, taking a lesson +from him, refrained from speech, although questions were beginning to +boil up in his restless mind. His intelligence was clarifying although +he was still in a riot of fear over the situation in which Deborah +must be. Images appeared and dissolved before his eyes. Deborah lying +on the rainy ground bound and gagged. Deborah insensible in some +secret retreat where George Burroughs, his sallow face aflame with +malice, bowed over her and blasphemously intoned Biblical phrases that +were twisted to serve the devil’s purpose. Deborah sitting wide-eyed +in an hypnotic trance while Jeffrey Westcott stood before her, his +cloven head bared to the rain and the wind. Deborah gazing into the +heavy-lidded remorseless eyes of Martha Westcott while the taciturn +farmers, muttering to one another, gathered about a great dripping +stone in the heart of Nigger Swamp. + +The humming in the air increased steadily above the two travelers now +until it seemed as though a hundred and one far-away aeroplane engines +were singing their way through the darkness and rain like a swarm of +huge and unbelievable mosquitoes. Dreeme’s labored breath sucked in +his throat as he pushed the entangling spiky vines aside and thrust +his tired body forward. His bare feet were bruised and cut, but they +seemed devoid of all sensation, blotches of white meat that lifted and +fell with a maddening regularity. He was not sure that the humming he +heard was more than the blood pounding in his ear-drums and throbbing +in his temples. Yet it seemed to be more than that, to be, in fact, an +ominous and steadily-increasing warning of the approach of mysterious +and frightful things. It would not have surprised him to see a host +of devils and witches suddenly sweep through the tree-tops screaming +and laughing to one another. He could imagine them calling to one +another gross phrases, turning their red-rimmed eyes downward at him, +pointing with long-nailed hands and bursting into gales of infernal +laughter. Then he realized that his imagination was slipping from +his control and he strove to concentrate on Deborah, to save himself +from his own madness through the memory of her. He pitched forward +over oozy hummocks. The fierce thorns of clutching vines ripped along +his legs and arms. Malicious branches lashed murderously at his face. +Water sucked and gurgled about his naked feet. But he pressed forward +half-blindly, hardly conscious of the direction in which he was +proceeding, knowing only that Walden Slater’s shoulder struck against +his from time to time, and that a desperate and imperative necessity +was urging them into the depths of the marshy wood. Some small beast +scurried beneath his feet, and he screamed at the nervous tension of +the moment. He heard laboring branches crack and groan above his head +and the hollow sound where a dislodged stone rolled down an incline and +landed in a huge puddle. The humming had developed into a roar about +him. It was so dark that he could not see Walden Slater. He could not +even hear the heavy thud of the farmer’s boots. Suddenly he became +conscious that a devastating delirium of fear was engulfing him and +rendering him incapable of any action, “This is horrible!” he sobbed in +his throat. He stopped dead in his tracks, straightened his body, and +gazed upward until the faint glow of the stormy sky pierced his dulled +eye-sight. It came slowly, a gradual light, a milky hue against which +the silhouettes of the black branches cut sharply. Gazing steadfastly +he strove to quiet the tempest that shook his mind. He thought for +a moment that he could see small winking lights scurrying across the +surface of that milky sky, but, forcing himself to gaze fixedly, he +decided that these lights were no more than optical illusions or the +small sparks that rise in tired and over-strained eyes. His heart +was beating like a loud trip-hammer and he pressed one hand against +it tightly. Standing so for several seconds he experienced a slowing +of his nervous faculties, a sensation of again being master of +himself and not the victim of an unreasonable fear that was, perhaps, +self-implanted by a too imaginative mind. It was with actual surprise +that he felt Walden Slater’s sturdy arm about his shoulder urging him +forward. Clear-headed now he resumed the laborious toil of the journey. + +This is New England, he thought. This is the tired land of forgotten +pioneer enterprises. This is the land of machinery and shoe factories +and canned goods and ice-skates. It is everything that is material +and dispiriting and “up-to-date” and unlovely. It is the land of lean +farms and thin mouths, too. It is a land of humming commercial cities, +of great businesses, of the New Day. But it is more than this, as +well. How if all this glittering commercial civilization is no more +than a huge shell, an incrustation of years, beneath which lurk the +old pagan madnesses that were corollaries of the Puritan repression? +How if the ancient Dionysiac urge did not perish but remained like an +ominous monster in a deep cavern biding its time and waiting its day? +Suppose that the May Pole of Merry Mount and the Witches’ Sabaoths of +Salem were to be reborn with disastrous consequences because of their +long suppression? Might not the humming wind be saying, “The day is +coming! The Black Man is coming! The May Pole of Merry Mount is to +be reared again on the site of the factory! The witches and warlocks +are to rule! The cities are to be laid waste for this huge shell of +civilization is no more than a pasteboard affair and it is only the +ancient furies and instincts that count in the long run!” Dreeme +permitted his imagination to go to whatever lengths it pleased as he +plunged through the forest with Walden Slater. He was fully aware of +the fancifulness and impossibility of his thoughts, but they seemed to +act as a release-valve for the feelings that boiled within him. + +Walden Slater suddenly clutched his wrist in a huge gripping hand. +He drew the young doctor to one side, and as he did so Dreeme became +aware of the tiny bobbing jewel of light before them, a spark of yellow +that disappeared behind trees only to reappear again. The farmer did +not slack his pace but kept on rapidly, but Dreeme noted that there +was a tenseness in his walk. The light bobbed before them and they +gained on it. It grew in dimensions and before they had traveled many +rods Dreeme, by straining his eyes, perceived that it was a lantern +carried by a dark figure. He grew aware at the same time that other +figures were slipping noiselessly through the trees before them. He +even heard the subdued mutter of a voice somewhere to the right of +him. Still holding the young doctor by the wrist, Walden Slater made +a detour to the left and they circled the bobbing lantern. Keeping +their eyes turned toward the lantern they drew abreast of it, passed +it, and then Walden Slater uttered an exclamation as he bumped into a +sluggishly moving figure in the shadow of a huge over-arching tree. +“At Dagon,” said a low voice. An inspiration came to Dreeme. In a calm +subdued tone he answered, “For the Master.” The figure fell away into +the darkness of the trees and as they forged ahead Dreeme could feel +Walden Slater’s fingers tighten on his wrist in an approving manner. +The ground was growing more marshy and their feet sank into the soft +soil as they pressed forward. The young doctor suspected that they were +reaching that portion of Briony Wood that degenerated into Nigger Swamp +and that their objective was not so far before them now. Walden Slater +appeared to sense the same thing for his pace quickened automatically. +They moved rapidly now, their feet making a distinct sucking sound as +they lifted them from the muddy earth. The incline turned downward and +as its slope increased the two men found themselves wading through +good-sized pools of water and tall scratchy reeds that tore against +their legs. Their feet sank deeper in slushy mire and occasionally the +sleepy croak of a frog sounded in the darkness beyond them. + +Although the journey was harder now, a painful lifting of one foot +after the other, Dreeme’s weariness seemed to fall from him. He was +like an eager hunter hot on the scent with the quarry almost in view. +Any moment, he thought to himself, I may turn a corner and see a ring +of dim lanterns about a huge stone and know that I am at the end of my +journey and that I have seen what no other stranger in this valley has +ever seen. The thought exhilarated him. So, too, did the memory that he +had passed other mysterious figures in Briony Wood, for it meant that +he was not late, that Deborah would be unharmed when he reached Dagon. +How she was to be taken away from the group of fanatics who gathered +in the swamp he did not know, but he trusted partially to the skill +of the silent Walden Slater and partially to the inspiration of the +moment. There would be a way, for he would make one. He was pleased +to think that there was no fear in his heart now, that his brain had +cleared, and that his nerves were steady. He had lost his madness in +Briony Wood, and that was good. There was nothing but a clear flame of +determination in him. + +Walden Slater’s mouth was close to his ear. + +“We’re not quite in the swamp yet,” he said. “There’s a road. We’ve got +to find it.” + +He turned and started to walk rapidly at right angles to their previous +direction and Dreeme followed him. + +There seemed to be nothing but swampy land, and in certain sunken +places the slimy water rose to their knees. The drizzling rain +continued to spit about them. + +“We should have followed the lantern,” said Dreeme in a low voice. + +“We’ll find the road all right,” replied Slater. + +They trudged for some minutes through the water and mud and then Walden +Slater emitted a low ejaculation of satisfaction. At the same moment +Dreeme stumbled upward from the sucking mud to a firm elevation. +Turning again in the direction which they had previously followed the +two men followed this elevation which appeared to extend in a long +narrow ribbon into the darkness before them. It was the road all right, +and it ended at Dagon. Some distance ahead of them they could see the +bobbing lantern, and looking back Dreeme observed another lantern +coming down from the higher ground upon which stood Briony Wood. There +were farmers before him and behind them, and the only way in which +they might hope to avoid them would mean taking off into the swamp on +either side of the narrow road. Walden Slater, as though in answer to +an unasked question from Dreeme, said: + +“The muck is up to your waist on either side. Don’t step off the road.” + +The trees had thinned out, although a few grotesquely-twisted forms +loomed up about them. The eery glow in the sky swept across the long +desolate expanse, but it was not bright enough for the young doctor +to make out anything with any degree of accuracy. All that he could +see were great motionless shapeless shadows, bulks that squatted on +the marshy ground like prehistoric beasts. In the daytime they would +probably dwindle into nothing more menacing than bushes. But now +there was something sinister about them. They sat on huge haunches +and watched the two men travel along the narrow lifted road that ran +through the flooded land. Dreeme could almost imagine great sleepy +eyelids beneath which peered motionless eyes. He was neither frightened +nor moved by his thoughts. Instead of excitement the slow blood of +determination ran through his cold veins. He lifted his hand and +brushed the wet matted hair from his forehead and rubbed his straining +eyes. He could feel how set his face was, how the lines had deepened +in his cheeks, how tight his jaw was set. He could not make out Walden +Slater’s face in the deceiving rainy light, but he imagined that it was +set like his own, reflecting a determination that would be ruthless and +unescapable when the time for action came. + + +III + +This was Nigger Swamp at last. The dark road ran like a pencil line +across the level expanse that waved in the rainy wind its monotonous +host of thin reeds. These reeds clacked together with a tiny rippling +sound that was half-drowned in the sturdier bluster of the lessening +gale. Rain still fell in a dispiriting manner, cold, large-dropped, +maddening in its relentless evenness. Dreeme felt the rain no longer, +for, soaked to the skin and numbed to the bone, the surface of his body +had lost all sensation. Even his feet were senseless now. He followed +the lurching beat of Walden Slater’s boots like a man in a trance. Yet +his faculties were alert. Though he experienced no physical sensation +he realized that his brain was clearing and capable of swift action. +It was like a live intelligence in a dead body. It was this live +intelligence that noted, even before the phlegmatic Walden Slater, that +the bobbing lantern ahead of them had stopped. The young doctor touched +the farmer on the arm. + +“Look!” he whispered. “The man ahead has stopped.” + +Both of them paused in their tracks and observed the stationary light +with some unrest. Dreeme glanced behind him and saw that the light +which was following them was steadily approaching nearer. He remembered +Walden Slater’s warning: “The muck is up to your waist on either side.” + +“What shall we do?” he whispered to Walden Slater, indicating the +approaching stranger in their rear. The farmer said nothing but opened +his coat a bit and loosened the revolver in his belt. He glanced first +at the stationary light before them and then at the approaching light +behind them. After that, he spat reflectively into the swamp at his +side. + +“We don’t want to kick up a fuss till we locate Deborah,” he said +mildly. + +Even as he spoke the stationary lantern before them began to return on +its tracks, to approach them from the front even as the other lantern +approached them from the rear. They were caught between two fires now. + +“Perhaps we can hide our faces,” whispered Dreeme. “Perhaps we can pass +them as we passed those other fellows back in Briony Wood.” + +“Perhaps,” said Walden Slater noncommittally. + +“Shall we stand out in the swamp?” asked Dreeme suddenly. + +Walden Slater shook his head. + +“You’d never pull yourself out of it again,” he said. + +The light before them returned ten or twelve yards on its own track, +and then suddenly disappeared to the right, vanishing completely from +sight. Walden Slater grunted. + +“They missed the cross path,” he said. “It’s a lucky thing for us.” + +He started forward, accelerating his pace as much as the hummocky road +would permit, and Dreeme, suddenly relieved from the tenseness that +had held him like a coiled steel spring, followed with agility. It was +remarkable how refreshed he felt after that brief halt. He even forgot +the lantern that was following at his heels, perhaps fifty yards behind +him in the rainy gloom, a dancing midge in the deceptive air. The road +dipped a bit as they proceeded forward, and soon Dreeme observed low +bushes lining it, bushes that rose in height as they stumbled along +over the increasing unevenness. They were entering another expanse of +wooded territory, this time, without a doubt, the center of the swamp. +Trees shot up out of the mist about them and the road assumed the +aspect of a funnel that dwindled to nothingness before them. Walden +Slater walked very slowly now inspecting the bushes at the right of the +road. Soon the misty light vanished behind the climbing shrubbery and +trees and the farmer cursed softly to himself. + +“Whereabouts did that lantern turn in?” he inquired of the night in +general. Dreeme did not attempt an answer, but went down and felt the +dark ground, fumbling about for possible footprints. + +“You can’t find anything that way,” said the farmer ungraciously. He +blundered along close to the bushes, sometimes stepping through only +to catch himself just in time from toppling into the sunken mire from +which the soggy growths sprang. It was intensely dark now and they +could perceive nothing before them. Dreeme, lifting up his hand a foot +from his face, could not make it out. They were in an alley of small +trees and bushes that met above them. + +“The lantern came back from here,” muttered Walden Slater. “I’ll swear +to that.” + +He turned on his heel and retraced his steps. + +“Look!” whispered Dreeme. + +The lantern that had been following them was now less than thirty yards +before them. It approached slowly, its feeble spark illuminating a +small circle of milky haze. Who held it or how many were in the party +could not be made out. Walden Slater stopped by the side of the path +and Dreeme paused beside him. The lantern approached deliberately at +such a speed as to indicate that the person carrying it was walking +very slowly. The stranger, or strangers, were evidently studying the +right side of the road even as Walden Slater and Dreeme had studied +it, searching for an ingress into the swamp, for a concealed road that +would take them off at an angle from this main path. + +“If they miss the road they won’t miss us,” murmured Dreeme. + +The farmer said nothing but waited mutely for what might happen. When +the lantern was within ten yards of them it paused for an instant and +then disappeared. Walden Slater crept forward slowly. Dreeme followed +close at his heels. Reaching the spot where the lantern had disappeared +the farmer went over and fumbled at the ground. The charred trunk of a +tree met his hand. He grunted and stepped by it, almost sliding as he +struck a sharp incline, and then caught his balance on a narrow ribbon +of hard soil. The lantern had disappeared entirely, but the farmer and +Dreeme, stepping tentatively, discovered that the tiny footpath they +were now on curved steadily. They walked very silently now, stepping +as gently as they could along the path, a path covered with the soaked +dead leaves of many seasons. Their instincts told them that they were +reaching the end of their journey, that the time would soon come for +any action that they might plan. Dreeme felt a momentary inclination +to ask the farmer what he intended to do, but he repressed it, feeling +that Slater desired silence now. Like two Indians they stole forward +through the bushes and small trees, disturbing only an occasional +frog that croaked dismally from the swamp about them. A musty smell +of rotting vegetation was in their nostrils, of green-scummed water +disturbed by violent rains, of disintegrating animal life. + +After some minutes walk the underbrush thinned sufficiently to permit +the pale reflection of the cloudy sky to reach them. It had practically +stopped raining, the unceasing drizzle dwindling into no more than an +occasional flutter of large cold drops that dashed against their faces. +The few trees dripped disconsolately, however, and whenever the uneven +road caused them to lurch against a bush they were covered by a tiny +unpleasant downfall. Some distance ahead of them they caught unfrequent +glimpses of the tiny lantern, glimpses that immediately winked out as +the road turned and followed the narrow ribbon of raised territory. +Something hard and cold cut against Dreeme’s naked foot and he bent +over and picked it up. Holding it up to the faint light he could dimly +make it out. A surprised and agitated exclamation broke from him, and +he turned to Walden Slater who had paused. + +“Look,” he said, handing the object to the farmer. + +Walden Slater turned it over slowly in his large dripping hand. His +long upper lip drew downward as he recognized it and handed it back +without a word to Dreeme. The young doctor stared at it again. It was +a brooch. A brooch upon which was the finely-cut cameo of a goat’s +head. Deborah’s brooch. The brooch he had seen hanging on her bosom +that evening before when they had walked through the quiet street of +Marlborough and had told each other so much. She had passed along ahead +of them, then, and was already at the place called Dagon. There could +be no time to lose now. Walden Slater, who had not said a word, was +walking along as rapidly as he could on the narrow uncertain road. +Dreeme, close at his heels and sometimes abreast with him when the road +permitted, kept pace with the farmer. + +They were back among trees again. The young doctor had never realized +the extent of Nigger Swamp before. He had always pictured it as a small +circumscribed area of loathsome water and rotting bushes but now he +understood that it covered a vast expanse of territory. It was either +very large or the deceptive path they followed wound round and round +it in a spiral. Perhaps they had circled Dagon. Perhaps the path was +a maze that took the ignorant wanderer round and round until, by some +lucky chance, the riddle was solved and he stood at the heart. As +Dreeme labored onward his imagination drew into the dark void about +them the first descendants of the fugitive Salem witches who had +settled in this part of the world. He pictured to himself a breed of +silent, mad-eyed men in steeple-crowned hats and baggy knee-breeches +and homespun stockings and square-toed buckled shoes lurching along +this immemorial road. On their shoulders they bore heavy bell-mouthed +muskets and stands upon which to rest these muskets when they fired +at enemies. Powder horns swung from their shoulders and bags of round +bullets. There were women, too, sharp-faced, hawk-nosed women in white +caps and dull gray dresses, hurrying along and laughing hysterically +at the storm for there was no secrecy in those days, no reasons for +quietude in the unspoilt wilderness, no one to watch them except the +lean Indians in their breech-clouts of deer-skin, their proud fierce +faces crowned by the scalp-lock and the turkey-feather peering from +behind the trees in superstitious wonder. The startled deer crashed +through the underbrush and the brown bears lumbered away from the +flares of the torches and the old-fashioned lanterns. All this had died +away, had been erased by Time, had vanished into the nothingness of +dead and unwritten history. + +Then, decades and decades and decades later, Uriah Carrier, by the maps +in his black book, had found the lost place called Dagon and he had +worked on the slumbering instincts of the people about him, appealing +to the madness that slept in their subconscious memories, bringing +them again to the secret stone and the place where the crumbled bones +rested. He had probably promised them dominion over their days, the +power of exerting their wills and destroying their enemies, the joys +of the liberation of their darkest instincts. It sounded impossible +enough on the face of it, like some insane fairytale that a sick +imagination might bring forth, and yet it must have been a fact for +here he was, a sane doctor in the twentieth century, stumbling through +the rotting vegetation of an untraveled swamp in search of a madman and +the fanatical minds he had released from the kindly bondage of reason. +It was like a nightmare. + +Walden Slater halted abruptly. The road had grown somewhat wider +now and they had been walking abreast. About them the trees rose to +an imposing stature and the ground to right and left of them seemed +higher and firmer than that through which they had toiled for the last +half-hour. Dreeme imagined that they had reached a sort of island in +the middle of the swamp and his conviction was intensified when, after +peering right and left, before him and behind, Walden Slater stepped +from the road and began to thread a slow circuitous advance through +the trees. The ground as he stepped on it seemed softer than safety +might desire but the young doctor followed with alacrity. His bare +feet sank to the ankles in the soft ooze but following Walden Slater’s +example and stepping close to the trunks of the trees he discovered +that the walking was not so difficult after all. They appeared to be in +a tall woodland now where the thin trees rose straight out of a soggy +soil, a soil in which the rotting stumps of lightning-blasted growths +and scattered boulders cluttered up and made difficult any swift +passage. The boulders seemed unusual and Dreeme wondered about them. +They possibly were evidence of a strata of rock, the slice of some +prehistoric glacier, that thrust upward out of the marshy soil here. +Walden Slater walked warily, taking care to step on no dead branches or +to crash through none of the small undergrowths that sprang up between +the slender trees. Dreeme followed suit. + +They had walked through this woodland for a few minutes only before the +young doctor observed a faint glow among the trees that faced them. He +instinctively hastened his pace a little and soon was several feet in +front of Walden Slater. The farmer plodded along doggedly exhibiting +no excitement or unrest. Dreeme, clutching Deborah’s brooch in his +hand, was about to break into a stumbling run when the wiry hand of +the farmer jerked his shoulder back. A trifle angry but aware of the +wisdom of the rebuke the young doctor adjusted his pace to the farmer’s +steady progression and they moved forward toward the faint glow, a glow +that brightened perceptibly as they neared it. The rain had stopped +altogether, even the large infrequent drops disappearing into the mist +of the night. In those few minutes while Dreeme crept forward beside +the farmer a dozen and one thoughts flashed through his mind, plans of +rescue, schemes of attack, possibilities of tactics to be employed. +Would they rush into the group of farmers, and, while Walden Slater +held them back with the menace of his revolver, would he snatch up +Deborah and make away with her along the exhausting road which he had +been traveling for nearly an hour? What could they hope to do against +a dozen or more men who were mad? He wanted to ask Walden Slater what +he thought but the farmer was so evidently bent on silence that he did +not venture a word. The glow was quite bright now and it seemed to come +upward from the earth, from a hollow beyond them that was masked by +crowded tree-trunks. There were many lanterns in that hollow and there +were many men. Deborah was there, too. Perhaps at this very moment she +was a part of the unclean ceremonies that were taking place. It seemed +an eternity to the young doctor while they crept slowly and silently +through the last ring of trees, stepping gingerly over the protruding +boulders and rotting branches and mouldering stumps. Walden Slater now +carried his revolver in his hand. Leaving the last of the trees behind +them and facing the yellow glow of the invisible light that formed a +strange fan of color against the milky atmosphere they crept up an +inclined bank toward a ring of low intertangled bushes. The subdued +hum of voices reached their strained ears. Walden Slater carefully +pushed aside one of the branches of the bushes against which they +now rested and cautiously thrust his face forward. For a second he +looked downward. Then he drew back and putting his mouth very close to +Dreeme’s ear said: + +“This is the place called Dagon.” + +The young doctor, his blood beating furiously, crept up to the bush, +drew the branch aside, thrust his face forward, and looked downward. + + + + +Chapter Ten + + +I + +He stared into a hollow that was filled with shifting forms, moving +figures that were slices of darkness before the lanterns. Faces passed +and repassed before his curious gaze, paused, bent forward, turned, +leaned toward one another, disappeared, and it was some minutes before +he could make them out, could recognize them as human faces that he +had once viewed vacantly in the quiet lanes of Marlborough. He had not +expected so much light, so much action. As his eyes adjusted themselves +to the scene before them he began to perceive the spectacle as a whole, +almost as a painting whose component parts might be observed and then +relegated to their proper order. He sensed Walden Slater creeping into +the bush beside him but he made no gesture of comprehension, merely +shifting his position a trifle so that the farmer, too, might see +what was going on in the hollow. For his own part, he was intent on +the spectacle before him, watching eagerly for the one face of all +faces and subconsciously deliberating in his mind what he should do +when he did see that face. The hollow was large and level and the +ground upon which these people walked was dark and firm. There was +no grass, no growths of any sort. It stretched like a black carpet +to the ring of bushes that hemmed it on all sides. It was a natural +amphitheater, an arena formed by chance. Circling this expanse of +black soil was a series of lanterns, perhaps twenty of them, placed +at regular intervals and lighting up the scene as though it were a +stage and they were footlights. The beams of yellow glowed upward, +striking the lower portions of faces and distorting them. Chins and +nostrils and the undersides of cheek-bones were crazily illuminated +in this unnatural light. In the center of the hollow loomed a large +flat-topped rock, perhaps five feet high. It was black stone glittering +now with moisture, with the rain that had fallen so steadily on it +all through the day and night. There was something ominous about this +stone, something unclean, and the young doctor studied it with intense +loathing. Its slimy black sides were like the skin of some great horrid +toad, smooth yet studded with offensive warts that caught the glow +of the lanterns and flung them back again to the misty night. Dreeme +wondered if it were true that crumbling bones were buried in the dark +soil beneath this rock which seemed so immovable, so placed there by +time in the center of this secret amphitheater. The rock appeared as +old as the ages. It seemed riven immutably into the earth. Yet it was +unmistakably the Devil Stone and from its moist toad-like surface the +Black Man had preached his blasphemous sermons in times past, had +conducted the orgiastic liturgies of the Witches’ Sabaoth and the +Esbat. There was no one near the stone now. It stood malevolently, a +shunned phenomenon in the hollow. “Rock of Ages.” Yes, this was the +Rock that George Burroughs meant when he hummed monotonously the old +church tune. + +Dreeme’s eyes drifted over the faces that moved about in the hollow. +There were, perhaps, twenty people present, all men. The low hum +of their subdued voices reached him distinctly. They walked about +slowly, clutching their rain-coats closely to their tall bodies, their +heavy boots falling heavily on the dark soil. Something feverish and +repressed in their movements injected a tense note into the assemblage. +They seemed uncertain of themselves, a little hysteric and desperately +straining to conceal the hysteria that quickened their blood and +plucked at their nerves. There was doubt here, a doubt that sickly +denied itself. Sober faces gazed blankly at one another and sunken +fanatical eyes glittered in the lantern glow like wet beetles. The +young doctor observed one tall figure that walked round and round just +within the circle of lanterns ceaselessly, pausing before no one but +moved apparently by an interior restlessness that would not permit him +to stop. As the man passed a short distance from where the young doctor +lay hidden he recognized him as Bidwell, the farmer whose land adjoined +Westcott’s toward the Saccarac River. Bidwell’s mouth was moving +steadily as though he were talking rapidly to himself. And now as +Dreeme’s eyes became accustomed to the scene he recognized more faces. +There was Lacy, the post-master and proprietor of the general store, +a stork-like man with a carbuncular nose, and Winship, one of the +selectmen, stout, worried-looking, and somewhat at a loss, and Titubit, +the dark hawk-nosed farmer who was supposed to have Indian blood in his +veins, and Corey, the tanned white-haired owner of Corey’s Acres on the +lower road. Dreeme had attended all of these men at some time or other +for minor ailments and he viewed them now with a disbelieving wonder, +half-suspecting that any minute the whole scene would vanish in thin +air and he would wake up in bed sweating from a nightmare. Yet here +they were, and others whose faces he dimly recognized but whose names +he could not place, strolling nervously about the dark hollow, waiting +restlessly and suspiciously for some evil thing to happen, stirred by +some daemon of hereditary madness that had been wakened in their blood +and brains after sleeping for years. Dreeme crouched lower in the +bushes and watched them attentively. His few garments were saturated +with water and the cold wind blew across his back yet his pulses were +beating fast enough and the warmth of excitement shuddered along his +drenched flesh. Beside him he could feel the heavy shoulders of Walden +Slater. + +It was all a psychological riddle, something to be unravelled at +leisure and explained after the event. Some power had frightened +these men out of their taciturn ruts of living into the mockery of an +ancient superstition. A legend had come down with uncommon vividness +through the centuries and the will of a madman had resurrected it to +terrible life. Old impulses, too powerful to resist, had been set free +and they were following these impulses suspiciously yet absolutely. +Dreeme studied the face of Corey and wondered. White-haired, almost +saintly-looking, the farmer walked slowly about in low conversation +with Lacy who lifted his round uneven knob of a nose like a wolf about +to howl at the moon. The fever was growing on these men now and their +movements became faster and jerkier. They stared about them expectantly +and as they stared their hands quivered. The yellow lanterns flung +fantastic blossoms of light into the bushes, colored blossoms that +glowed on the wet branches. + +Dreeme caught his breath suddenly. Silently, almost stealthily, +Jeffrey Westcott had appeared from behind the black stone. He stood +observing the score of men with expressionless dark eyes, watching +their movements as they shifted to and fro, saying nothing, waiting for +them to see him. Immediately the group approached him, standing within +a few feet of the Devil Stone. They gathered silently, standing in a +half-circle, their backs to Dreeme and Walden Slater. Westcott observed +them coldly and when they had achieved their half-circle and were +motionless he climbed to the top of the black slimy stone. Standing +so, five feet in the air, Dreeme could see him perfectly, a stocky +figure garmented entirely in black, his cloven head bowed slightly, the +yellow glow from the lanterns catching the lower part of his face--the +blue shaven chin and heavy cheek-bones. In his hands he held a square +black book which he lifted slowly. The men before him seemed to sigh +and sway back. Westcott held this book high in the air for a full +minute. Then he looked up into the misty night air intently and cried +in a suppressed hoarse voice: + +“Asmodeus! Asmodeus!” + +The men stood fixedly, their heads thrust slightly forward as though +they were listening. After an instant’s silence Westcott said: + +“He stands at Dagon. He enters into me.” + +A shudder shook his heavy frame and the black book slipped from his +hand, falling to the surface of the stone with a dull slap. + +Dreeme, listening as intently as the men, heard nothing but the +infrequent spatter of rain-drops as the tree-tops swayed and the wind +that shook them, a husky sighing wind that sounded like the hoarse +breathing of a giant. He wanted to shout, “You fool! There is nothing +to hear but night sounds!” The aspect of Jeffrey Westcott fascinated +him, however. The farmer’s face was lighted with an evil smile, his +eyes glittered and danced in the lantern-light, and his heavy hands +were clasped before him. A tenseness held his bulky body and he +seemed to grow with this tenseness, to enlarge until Dreeme could not +say whether he were six feet high or twelve. It was an illusion but +an illusion so well maintained that the young doctor automatically +understood how easily Westcott could sway these superstitious farmers +who stood before him, a strained expectancy on their weather-beaten +faces, their hands clenched, their bodies visibly quivering. It was an +evil transfiguration wrought inwardly. Nothing but the most dynamic +belief in one’s self, in one’s own powers, could cause it. The farmer +was in a rapt state now, in a moving and speaking trance. He lifted his +hands up to the night. In the same suppressed hoarse voice he cried: + +“Enter in to us, Asmodeus! Enter in to your heritage! Were we not sold +to you by the bond of blood by Salem Village two hundred and thirty +years ago? In the deep forest you accepted us and made a pact with us. +We forsook all other gods but you for you were the eternal will of man. +Though we have slept for generations the ancient pact still holds. +Under this rock lies the testimonial of the bones. The bones cry out to +you, Asmodeus. We cry out to you.” + +A murmur like a sigh swept through the cluster of attentive men. + +“By the aching of the bones, we call upon your strength,” cried +Westcott. + +“By the aching of the bones, we call upon your strength,” murmured the +men. + +“By the secret head of the Sacred Goat, we call upon your strength,” +the farmer cried again. + +“By the secret head of the Sacred Goat, we call upon your strength,” +repeated the men. + +The litany went on. + +“By the Black Book that our fathers owned we call upon your strength.” + +“By the Black Book that our fathers owned we call upon your strength.” + +“By the Hidden Face in the rock we call upon your strength.” + +“By the Hidden Face in the rock we call upon your strength.” + +“By the Cloven Hoof that walks in the darkness we call upon your +strength.” + +“By the Cloven Hoof that walks in the darkness we call upon your +strength.” + +“By the Lost Road that our fathers followed we call upon your strength.” + +“By the Lost Road that our fathers followed we call upon your strength.” + +“O Asmodeus, give me my purpose.” + +“O Asmodeus, give me my purpose.” + +Beads of perspiration stood out on Jeffrey Westcott’s forehead. His +body shook violently. He cried loudly: + +“Asmodeus! Janicot!” + +A thin white froth appeared on his lips and his face writhed. The +farmers before him were swaying from side to side excitedly and +suddenly one of them, little more than a boy, screamed and fell upon +the wet ground, his talon-like hands clutching at the black soil. + +“Aie! Aie!” shouted the boy, his white face tossing from side to side +and his eyes tightly closed. Westcott leaped from the rock and knelt +for a moment by the boy. Then he lifted him up and bore him to the +great stone, placing him beside the black book. The farmers surged +forward, some of them moaning, all of them shaking as though in an +intense ague. Their hands were outstretched and quivering. + +Dreeme watched the ceremony with amazement, noting that Westcott by the +power of his will, apparently, had lashed these people into a mystical +fury that was close to the trance-state. They would believe whatever +he had to say implicitly now for their individualities were lost and +they were a mingled mob madness. The swiftness of the whole proceeding +was the surprising part of it to the young doctor. Then he realized +that these men had gathered here for some time, that an overpowering +realization of helplessness inborn in their blood weakened their powers +of resistance, and that Westcott’s powerful personality had sapped +their independence and reason long before this. They were a poisoned +and hysterical breed. + +Westcott stood beside the possessed boy, his hand upon the heaving +chest of the victim. He stared about the half-circle with glittering +eyes, his yellow teeth--yellow as the flames of the lanterns--bared in +a smile. + +“He sleeps,” he said, indicating the boy, “he sleeps in the arms of the +Master. Dagon is filled with the Master. The ground cries out and the +bones tremble.” + +Even as he spoke the scene darkened and a gust of wind blew so heavily +that the lantern-flames behind their heavy glass protectors slanted +sideways. It was like the descent of a sudden cloud, an abrupt eclipse +in answer to Westcott’s solemn speech. For an instant it paralyzed the +watching doctor and trembling chills, icy-cold, ran up and down his +spine. He felt the surge of something huge and shapeless and black and +irremediably evil, a presence that was beyond description and vision +filling the hollow. A soft hand seemed to tap tentatively at his face +and then, without warning, sharp talons clutched at the back of his +neck. For an instant he dared not move. He fought fiercely with an +intense desire to scream. Then, summoning every iota of his will power, +he cautiously raised his hand and thrust back the thorny branch of +the bush that the gust of wind had blown against his neck. A flood of +relief poured through his tired wet body and as he felt the released +blood throbbing through his arteries the gust of wind died away and +the lantern-flames lifted their flattened spears of yellow. He thought +to himself how easily the imagination could drive the nerves before it +in riotous debacle. It was fear that was the great enemy, fear of the +unknown, fear of the stronger will, fear of the old wife’s tales that +thousands of years of self-preservation against mysterious phenomena +had planted in the feeble mortal body. There was no safety in life +except by the deliberate massacre of one’s fears. Well, he would +throttle these unworthy spasms and surmount the horror of these cruel +tricks. He fastened his entire intelligence again upon the scene before +him. + +The inanimate boy on the Devil’s Stone had ceased to breathe +frantically. His bosom no longer rose and fell furiously. Instead +of this he seemed to be quietly sleeping. Westcott, placing his arm +beneath the boy’s head, raised the body to a sitting posture and the +pale unconscious face with its closed eyes gazed out blindly upon the +assembled farmers. For an instant Westcott’s hand rested lightly upon +the boy’s white forehead. Then he said: + +“Are you one with the Name?” + +“With the Name,” answered the boy. His voice was high and clear. + +“Is the Master with you?” went on Westcott. + +“With me,” responded the boy. + +“Is he saying things?” proceeded the farmer. + +“Saying things,” repeated the boy. + +The farmers listened avidly although they still swayed slowly from side +to side and now and then one of them would whimper softly as though he +were in pain. + +“What do you see?” inquired Westcott. His own eyes were shut and he +appeared to be undergoing a fierce mental reaction. + +“See,” said the boy. + +There was a pause while the wind soughed softly in the trees and bushes +and the infrequent spatter of great rain-drops fell in the shadows. The +boy’s mouth opened and closed speechlessly. He half-raised one arm. His +throat throbbed. Then, in the same clear tone in which he had spoken +throughout, he said: + +“The bones move together. The dust assembles. I see a skeleton. Flesh +comes out of darkness like an army of white ants and clusters upon the +bones. A body lies beneath the rock. It opens its eyes and lifts its +hands. It is the body that is speaking to me.” + +He paused. The farmers waited expectantly. The boy’s lips moved again. +This time the startling voice of a deep-chested man issued from his +mouth. It was like a great voice calling from a tomb and it struck upon +Dreeme’s ears with dismay. + +“At Dagon we set the Rock for our children’s children’s children. We +marched through deep trees and the feathered men watched our fires from +the darkness beyond the rings of light. We caroused and danced through +the virgin land and the Master walked before us with a smiling face. We +raised our rooftrees in the valley without doors and our fires went up +to an alien sky. When the moon walked on the farthest hills we traveled +the long path to the Rock and danced before the Master. We beat upon +cymbals and drums. We whistled and cried lewd words to the naked women +who laughed in the bushes. We felt the fever of life in our veins +and knew that it was well with us. We were unhumbled and proud and +possessors of time. We devoured our enemies for the Master’s will was +our will. We set no bounds to life for all life was within our bounds. +We bowed only to one law and that was the law of the Master and though +the pale faced priests harried us we existed beyond them in a free land +of the Master’s conceiving. The Master took us up to the mountain top +and showed us the riches of the world and the cities of the plain and +we said ‘yes’ to him and all those things became our own. Our farms +prospered in the valley without doors and the rain came and we saw that +it was well with us. And we knew the Master to be the living god of the +free will, the voice that spoke in the darkness to us and said, ‘do so +and so,’ and we did these things and we prospered and lived long years +and the sun shone upon us.” + +The great voice died away and the boy fell back limply upon the stone, +his head resting upon the black book. Westcott lifted him quickly and +bore him to a side of the circle where he placed him upon the wet +ground. The farmers stood motionless now. They were like figures in a +trance. They made no gestures as Westcott walked slowly back to the +rock and mounted to it. His dark eyes swept over the gathering and from +where Dreeme lay he thought that he could see the thin ghost of a smile +flit across the farmer’s determined mouth. + +“You have heard,” he said. “You have heard the voice from the bones, +the voice of your ancestor, speaking. You have heard how good life was +when the children of the Master first came into this valley. And how +have you fallen away from that high estate! How have you lost that +greatness when you walked like the sons of the morning! The years have +come between you and the Master and you have fallen away from that +source of all power. You bend weary backs over meager farms and live +from hand to mouth and your heritage is just beyond you in the shadow +of Time. You have but to reach out your hands and take it. Instead of +this, you deny the impulses that are in your blood and avoid the final +gestures that would liberate you from the entangling bonds of fear and +superstition and false gods. There is no other god but the Master! He, +alone, exists and he, alone, is the tower of your strength. The Master +sums up all things in himself. He is the will, the invulnerable will, +the will to power, the will to happiness, the will to self-realization. +It is only by symbols and liturgies and ceremonies that you may induce +the Master to enter into you. I bring the Master to you. I bring the +key to the door, the lantern to the darkness, the will to the deed. +I am the Black Man. I am the prophet possessed by the Master. I do +not bring you a god that you may see, a god that you may touch. I +bring you an essence, an invulnerable essence that speaks through the +mouths of living people, that rises in trances, that permeates time, +that joins the dead with the living, that is called evil but is yet +beyond evil, a god that is strength and food and determination and +skill and craft and understanding and self-realization and power. This +is the god I bring you and because he has no other name you may call +him what you will, Asmodeus, Janicot, Beelzebub, Satan, Lucifer, any +name that stands for the opposite of the cold power that destroys the +eternal will within you. He is a jealous god and he will endure no +other rivals. He speaks in thunder and he walks upon the mountaintops +by night. His face is hidden in darkness and his hands hover over the +cities of the plain. The brightness of his face is turned only to +the adept. If you desire that complete emancipation from obligations +and hardships and the domination of alien things you will turn +whole-heartedly to him. Your fathers did it before you and they lived +in a Paradisal valley and fulfilled themselves completely. But you must +cleanse yourselves of old weaknesses if you would be like your fathers. +The will is buried in you but you must excavate it, must dig it out of +the dross of many days and many years. To do this you must pass through +rituals and ceremonies, must give yourselves whole-heartedly to the +Master. Then, and not till then, will you feel the dark flower growing +in you, the intense inward ecstasy that lifts you through deliriums to +that plane where the Master walks and controls the events of the ages. +The rituals are but the outward symbols of the interior miracles. The +flesh is a weak and uncertain thing and it must be driven upward into +the mystical regions by visible signs and ceremonies. It is for this +that I have called you here, calling each one by the sign of the Goat’s +Head which your father used before you, that we may establish, or +rather renew, the coven of Marlborough, the coven that was driven from +Salem Village in 1692 and which has slept with all its symbols beneath +this rock for so many years.” + +He paused and gazed about him. A few muttered words passed between +the farmers, who, while Westcott was talking so persuasively, had +recovered in great part from their emotional excitement. Dreeme, from +his secret place of vantage, had listened with a reluctant admiration. +He could understand that, given the blood impulses of these men and the +dark shadow of ancestral urges and one-sided fanaticism, the speech +just delivered would seem reasonable and convincing. This was what +they had been fighting against half-heartedly for so many decades. +The young doctor instinctively thought of all the crazy cults that +permeated American life, the free love colonies, the Holy Rollers, the +theosophical circles, the Rosicrucians, the Spiritualists, the esoteric +societies, and he understood how easy it was to lead the secret wish +into the deed. Westcott controlled these men now and he could do with +them what he willed. They were ripe for a fanatical outbreak. As the +young doctor observed the farmers he noted that there was no opposition +whatsoever, no desire to question the truth of what Westcott was +saying, no antagonistic rationalism. Even the white-haired Corey +seemed to grow in stature to the farmer’s words, to take into himself, +as it were, the essence of will of which Westcott spoke. As for the +dominating farmer he stood upon the Devil Stone with sparkling eyes, +an image of self-contained power, gazing down at the men before him. +Bidwell’s nasal voice rose in the stillness. + +“What must we do?” he asked. + +Westcott shut his eyes. He appeared to be communing with invisible +powers. Then he picked up the black book and held it against his +breast. He said: + +“We must throw all our strength into a sacrifice. Into this sacrifice +we must wish all our weaknesses and when the ceremony is accomplished +we shall be cleansed and bound together by an awful and secret +knowledge.” + +He paused and glanced about him as the men gazed fearfully at one +another. Then he said: + +“We must abolish fear. We must destroy the conscience. We may only do +this by a terrible sacrifice.” + +He shut his eyes and turned his face upward to the night. + +“Asmodeus!” he cried. “Is this well?” + +Suddenly from the recumbent body of the boy which lay near the circle +of lanterns came the deep voice that they had heard before. + +“A sacrifice!” he cried. “A sacrifice!” + +At the same instant the bushes opposite Dreeme’s haven of concealment +parted and the Reverend George Burroughs, tall, sallow, serious, +stepped into the light of the lanterns. He walked slowly toward the +rock, his eyes expressionless wells of darkness. Dreeme’s pulses beat +faster at the sight of him for he understood that the presence of +the preacher meant also the presence of Deborah. Beside him he felt +Walden Slater cautiously move. The farmer seemed to be extricating +something from beneath his coat. Burroughs paused by the rock, his +long yellow hand resting lightly on the toad-like surface. He gazed +about him calmly. Dreeme, as far away as he was, could sense the +impalpable atmosphere of malevolence that emanated from the preacher. +It was a still icy restrained power confident of itself and supremely +indifferent. For the first time the young doctor saw the preacher +as he was, a creature of vindictive strength and sly calculation, a +quiet creeping madness that permeated Marlborough. If Jeffrey Westcott +was the self-appointed god of this impossible fanaticism then George +Burroughs was the high priest, the militant Satanist, the tactician who +hid behind a veil of holiness. The man’s sallow horse-like countenance +dominated the assembly although he had not spoken a word. Even the +repressed hysteria of Jeffrey Westcott faded before this still horrible +strength that poised lightly by the Devil’s Stone and with a single +glance read the minds of the perturbed and chaotic farmers before him. +Dreeme crouched lower in his place of concealment. Beside him he could +feel the tense form of Walden Slater coiled like a heavy steel spring, +ready to dart forth at the slightest gesture. There was strength in +Walden Slater and it seemed to seep mercifully into the cold body of +the young doctor. Burroughs opened his wide mouth and his neighing +voice broke the shifting silence. He said: + +“In the beginning there was nothing. But the Will moved on the face +of the flickering gases and the Will established the earth and the +vegetation on the face of the earth and the beasts and men who walked +upon the face of the earth. And there were two gods. And one was the +god of that weakness called good and the other was the god of that +strength called evil. But the god of goodness was an invisible god who +lived in a mist. The god of evil made the world and all the things that +are in the world. He fashioned all our pleasures and placed the seed of +his eternal Will within us. It is that god who calls us to the place +called Dagon that we may worship him and enter into our heritage.” + +He paused and stared before him. For an instant Dreeme thought that +the piercing black eyes of the preacher threaded the heavy leaves +of the bush behind which the young doctor lay and he tightened his +muscles, preparing to spring forward at the first word. Burroughs made +no gesture, however. His eyes reverted to the farmers before him. He +was patently searching for new words, for further demonstration of his +Manichean doctrine of an evil god controlling an evil world. Apparently +he found the words for his neighing voice rose again in the stillness. + +“We have been chosen out of all the people in this land for we are the +children of our fathers. I am the child of my fathers and if you will +read the withered records you will find that my name is not unknown +among the disciples who followed the Master. I have lived and died many +times. I have walked through many centuries. I have listened to the +Voice in many lands and the Voice has told me many things. I carry the +wisdom of the decades within me. I have told you these things before, +in your houses, in the fields, in the dark places of the forest. You +have listened to me. You are here. Together we shall discipline our +wills until they become a part of the major Will that controls all +things. We shall persecute our enemies in the darkness. We shall +achieve our ends, our desires, through the malefic intensity of our +wills. We shall dance at the full of the moon and sink into divine +trances where we shall discover all things. The Past and the Future +will become like open books to us. To reach this desirable plane we +must murder the pale sick consciences, inheritances of the god of mist, +that murmur weakly within us. We shall cleanse ourselves by charms and +sacrifices.” + +His voice changed to a deeper tone and he gazed significantly at the +absorbed farmers. + +“The one sin in our decalogue is weakness,” he said. “There was a +man amongst us who was weak. He was shaken by qualms. Through his +stupid brain crept the faint messages of conscience. He listened to a +woman and became her willing tool. He drew into our secret circle a +stranger, an obtuse fool from the outer world whose curiosity was like +that of a gossiping woman. What became of that man?” + +He glanced savagely about him. + +“The will of the Master came into me,” he cried, “and I struck him down +by the river. With my own hands I drove the pegs into the eyes that had +seen too much!” + +Dreeme heard Walden Slater’s suddenly indrawn breath. + +“And the obtuse fool!” neighed Burroughs, “What about the obtuse fool?” + +“Let him leave the valley,” said Jeffrey Westcott suddenly. “Let him +leave the valley and forget us.” + +“Too late!” cried Burroughs, still facing the farmers and paying no +attention to Westcott. “He must not leave the valley. He must be buried +in the valley.” + +Dreeme’s mouth was a sharply drawn line. They would have to catch their +bird first. + +“The will of the Master is ruthless,” declared the preacher, stretching +out a long skinny hand toward the silent group of farmers. The men +mumbled and muttered among themselves. Dreeme could see that they were +still crazed, that they were like men in a trance half-knowing what +they were doing but without the power of asserting themselves. Both +Westcott and Burroughs had these victims semi-mesmerized. They had +ceased to be rational men but were fanatics oblivious of consequences +and moved by a common spirit. + +The insensible boy lying near the circle of lanterns moaned. He lifted +a hand weakly and it fell with a wet thud to the dark trampled soil. + +“Sacrifice!” he cried, “Sacrifice!” + +The glittering-eyed farmers surged about the rock. They lifted up +their hands to the night and bayed like lost hounds. Bidwell began to +shake rapidly and then to perform an awkward dance before the Devil +Stone. His eyes were closed. Suddenly Lacy lifted his snout up and +laughed, a long high-pitched mad laugh that sounded like a scream. +The white-haired Corey was clapping his hands together rhythmically. +Neither Westcott nor Burroughs moved. They stood by the rock watching +the insane farmers and once Dreeme thought he caught a significant +glance that passed between the two men. It was impossible to tell how +sincere these two leaders were, how much faith they placed in the +crazy doctrine they enunciated. Dreeme was certain that Westcott was +driven by his theory of the omnipotent will, that it had unhinged him, +that one half of his brain was diseased, but Burroughs was different. +He might just be a great charlatan, a born criminal who saw a way of +controlling the community by urging it into crime. Ostensibly he was +a minister of the gospel but inwardly he was a ferocious beast, a +furious figure all the more to be feared because of his saintly mask so +well worn in public. There was a blood-lust in him but whether or not +this blood-lust was propped up by the knowledge that he was a direct +descendant of the Salem witches was a mystery. Perhaps one would never +know. As Dreeme watched the swaying madness of the farmers he recalled +how, for two years, he had sat at a common table with the Reverend +George Burroughs and given him no more attention than he had the back +of the chair against which he had leaned. It was amazing, something +that either gave proof of the preacher’s skill at self-concealment +or his own stupidity as an observer. However, it was too late now +to wonder at these things or to berate one’s self for failing to +read character as it loomed before one’s nose. As Dreeme watched the +gyrations of the farmers his glance traveled beyond them to the line +of bushes opposite him, drawn, as it were, by some invisible power and +there, hanging bodiless on the wet green leaves, he saw the white face +of Martha Westcott peering into the circle. He was not surprised to +see her, indeed, he had expected her to put in an appearance sooner +or later. Just what her status was among these men, however, he could +not say. He did not believe that either Westcott or Burroughs trusted +her too far or permitted her to go any great distance beyond their +scrutiny. Her appearance seemed to be a signal for Burroughs walked +rapidly toward her and disappeared into the bushes with her. Dreeme’s +attention now concentrated upon that spot in the bushes for he was sure +that behind it was the woman he loved, the woman for whom he would +fight until the last drop of blood in his body had been spilled. The +farmers, too, were watching this spot in the bushes through which +Burroughs had disappeared. But they were watching with a mad laughing +expectancy, their tanned hands stretched out, their faces twisted and +their eyes glittering. + +The bushes parted and Martha Westcott walked through them very slowly. +Her eyes were shut and she seemed to be in a trance. Holding her arms +straight before her she held in her hands a long thin-bladed knife. +Gazing neither to right nor left she proceeded straight to the Devil +Stone and stood by it holding the knife outstretched. Jeffrey Westcott +took the shining blade from her and placed it upon the rock. An awful +silence had fallen upon the hollow. The rain-drops had ceased and even +the wind, that had soughed so hoarsely through the leaves, had died +away. The farmers stood like wax figures, their faces frozen into +twisted smiles, their arms stiffly outheld. Dreeme felt the flesh +crawling upon his body. He stared fixedly at Martha Westcott, noting +how like some strange priestess she stood in her long black garment, +her white insensitive face an oval of clear luster in the light of +the lanterns, her heavy eyelids partially lowered over the great wide +eyes, her archaic mouth a mystic hieroglyph. She was like a being from +another world, a spectre from some pagan land. Though her smooth white +shoulder was garmented in black he could sense the blue goat’s head +burning upon it, shining through the close fabric, the goat’s head +that made her one with these maniacs who gathered in the darkness of +Nigger Swamp. Conflicting thoughts rushed through the young doctor’s +head. This woman had desired him. This evil goddess had come to him in +the middle of the night and she had shaken his will. If they were both +in another world perhaps.... He swiftly put the thought from him. No! +No! He must not weaken. He must not think of her in any way except as +an ominous reality that would steal his soul from him. + +The bushes parted again and Burroughs strode forward swiftly carrying +in his arms a limp form. Dreeme recognized the preacher’s burden as +soon as he appeared with it and sprang up from the ground. It was +Deborah. She hung limply from the long black arm of Burroughs, like +some fragile white bird that had been shot down but not killed. Even as +Dreeme sprang to his feet Walden Slater’s resistless arm, the muscular +arm of a giant, dragged him down again and held him in the shadow of +the bush with a clutch like iron. “Wait!” the farmer whispered. “Wait!” +Burroughs advanced rapidly to the Devil Stone and laid Deborah’s body +upon it. The head of the girl fell sideways and Dreeme could see her +thin face and the blue circles of her closed eyes. Her bosom was rising +softly and regularly. She appeared to be in a calm sleep. Burroughs, +his black eyes fixed on the recumbent figure of the girl, reached for +the long knife and took it up. He climbed slowly to the top of the +Devil Stone and stood towering above the assemblage. He opened his +mouth to speak. He raised the knife. It glittered wanly in the light of +the flickering lanterns. + +“Asmo...” he began. + +A thunderous report over Dreeme’s head pitched him forward. In the +single instant when he sprang down the bank he saw the preacher’s eyes +wide with amazement and the dark gush of blood out of his neck. Then +the Reverend George Burroughs fell forward as a log falls, the knife +clattering from his hand upon the Devil Stone, and landed with a heavy +thud upon the dark soil. His skull crashed against an iron lantern +with the sound of a bursting cocoanut. Dreeme, already in the circle, +leaped over the body and rushed toward the rock. Behind him he heard +Walden Slater kicking the lanterns over as he stumbled forward, the +smoking revolver in his hand. The amazed farmers had scattered in all +directions and as Dreeme gathered Deborah up in his arms he caught a +moment’s glimpse of Westcott, the black book clutched to his breast, +darting through the bushes. The farmer was heading straight into Nigger +Swamp. All of this was observed automatically for the young doctor’s +sole concern was for the girl who had lain so helplessly upon the Devil +Stone. As he staggered along with her he gazed anxiously into her face +and listened to her breathing. She stirred a trifle and moaned and a +second later one thin arm slid over his shoulder blindly. He understood +that she was slowly coming out of an hypnotic sleep. He wanted to +shout, to laugh, to burst into tears. He clutched her all the tighter +to him in his delirium of joy and hurried forward striving to find the +narrow ribbon of road that would lead him back to the Westcott farm +and the highway to Marlborough. He had forgotten the maniac farmers, +Westcott and Burroughs, Martha Westcott, even Walden Slater. It was not +until he had plunged one leg up to the knee in the slime of the marsh +and knew that he was off the road that he reconsidered his predicament +and knew that only Slater could guide him through the swamp. He turned +and looked directly into the farmer’s face. There was a light of +victory in Walden Slater’s countenance and his eyes glistened. In his +hand he still held the revolver. + +“Here,” said the farmer. He reached down a burly arm and hauled both +Dreeme and the girl back to the road. Then, without a word, he took +Deborah from the young doctor’s arms and stepped ahead. They circled +the hollow partially without gazing through the bushes and soon struck +the path by which they had come. Then, at a dog-trot, the sturdy farmer +started back to town with Dreeme at his heels. + +“What ... happened?” inquired the young doctor breathlessly and +bewilderedly. + +“Judgment Day,” replied Walden Slater. His voice was grim. + +Behind them they could hear confused voices. + +“Will there ... be more ... fighting?” panted Dreeme. + +Walden Slater cleared his throat. + +“Nope,” he said. + +He coughed loudly and spat into the darkness. + +“Nothing to fight about,” he added. “Nothing to make these fool farmers +mad now. It’s all over.” + +They went on in silence after that. It was not until they had left the +swamp, climbed the open stretch into Briony Wood, and were once more +among the trees that Walden Slater spoke again. + +“Westcott got away,” he said significantly. His voice was the voice +of a trial judge. He was the law personified. Dreeme understood him +perfectly. + +“You’ve got five shells left,” he said. + +“We’ll stop at the Westcott farm,” replied the farmer. + + + + +Chapter Eleven + + +I + +The twisting path through Briony Wood had never been traveled at such +a speedy pace before. Walden Slater, carrying Deborah in his arms +much as he might carry a small baby, maintained his dog-trot over the +hummocky path, through puddles, across deceptive roots. As Dreeme, +close behind him, running, too, in his bare feet, observed the square +back of the farmer, a back against which the water-soaked shirt clung +tightly and so revealed the contours of the great sliding back-muscles +much as a skin might, a feeling of wonder and intense indebtedness +crept over him. He had never known Walden Slater but now he knew him, +knew him for a determined and relentless machine bent on justice. He +had seen him in previous years bowed by the killing toil of his stony +acres, eating gluttonously at table, sagging in his creaking rocker on +the back porch, always silent, always (now that he came to think of +it) self-contained. The young doctor’s mind swept back over the past +few days. Walden Slater eating cabbage. Walden Slater rocking in the +darkness. Walden Slater finding words with difficulty, announcing that +Deborah might stay with him as long as she pleased. Dreeme knew now +that this statement was a secret challenge to Westcott and Burroughs. +Walden Slater whittling on the back porch, asking the preacher for +a knife. The knife was dull. How easily he had achieved this bit of +detective acumen. Walden Slater thinking, reaching conclusions in that +slow dogged mind that was, after all, so far from stupidity. Walden +Slater watching night after night, keeping guard under the bright moon. +Walden Slater like an enormous hound on the scent. Walden Slater rising +like justice with the smoking gun in his hand. The figure of the farmer +grew to colossal dimensions in the young doctor’s estimation. + +All this while they were hurrying through Briony Wood, hurrying through +trees that were no longer malevolent spectres of a diseased fancy but +merely slender birches and pines. Though the branches whipped across +his face, though he stumbled into muddy hollows, though sharp thorns +tore at his soiled and soaking garments, Dreeme no longer experienced +that instinctive fear that had haunted him so short a time before. +His body was emptied of fright. It was almost emptied of exertion as +well for a growing hollowness within him, a tightening at the pit +of his stomach, a painful numbness in his legs informed him that +he was approaching the end of his endurance. Still, an implacable +nervous energy pushed him forward, a febrile comprehension of one +more important thing to be done. He knew what it was but he did not +permit his mind to dwell upon it too fiercely. After all, what had he +to do with the peculiar ideas of justice in the valley. He had seen +what could be accomplished by established authority during the day +following the murder of Wagner. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. There had +been evasion, then, a deliberate slowness, a maddening deflection of +proper proceedings. But this time it would be different. Justice would +secure its own and would even the balance. He hurried on at the heels +of Walden Slater serious but determined. He could see the loose hair of +Deborah resting against the stout shoulder of the farmer and the sight +of it filled him with a vast pity. It would be justice accomplished for +her sake so far as he was concerned. She, the innocent victim, would +be furiously avenged. Walden Slater might have the future of the whole +valley in his thoughts, its complete release from an evil domination, +but the safety of Deborah was enough for him to think about. There was +only one way in which to fight madness. + +They were at the height of Briony Wood now and the soughing wind was a +cold lance against their faces. It was remarkable how swiftly they had +proceeded on their return journey. The way to Dagon had seemed much +longer. As they pressed forward the heavens seemed to split apart like +two halves of a dark shell and out of the break sprang the moon like +a great white seed. A milky light flooded the black shining leaves +and the tall thin tree-trunks. It was like a miracle, a glittering +phenomenon that translated the dripping environment into a place +of mingled silver and tossed diamonds. There had been a moon like +this when he had held Deborah’s slight figure close against him and +understood that she was an absolute part of his life. He had walked +home that night from Humphrey Lathrop’s cottage and phantoms had +walked on either side of him. One of them had said: “I had a very good +lawyer, Mr. Stopes.” He had forgotten what the other phantom said. It +did not exist any longer. It had been a world of glittering jewelry. +It was marvelous, the way in which the earth changed. It was the slave +of imagination, the willing Genie that brought whatsoever the dreamer +desired. Though he was surrounded by trees and following a path that +permitted no view of the country on either side he yet experienced the +sensation that he was on a sort of Mount of Vision, that everything was +being made clear to him here without words, that the answers to all +he had been asking were in the sparkling moonlight and among the dark +wet green leaves of the trees. He felt immeasurably grown in spiritual +dimensions, enlarged so that he might contain all the love and wonder +that abounded in the world. The uneven stones cut his feet but he was +oblivious of them. Malicious branches lashed across his face like small +whips but he laughed to himself as he thrust them aside. It was all +right now. + +The path turned and slanted downward and he understood that they were +on the final stretch that led into Jeffrey Westcott’s land. The name +sprang back into his intelligence ominously and his lips tightened at +the thought. There was still justice to be accomplished. Glancing back, +he wondered vaguely what had become of the score of farmers who had +gathered about the Devil Stone in that hollow which he should never see +again. What justice could there be for those deluded men? He strove +to remember what had actually happened but all he could recollect was +the report of a gun, the log-like fall of Burroughs, and his own mad +rush when he had snatched Deborah up from the stone and darted into +the bushes with her. A vague idea of scattered running forms lingered +in the back of his consciousness but he could not verify it by any +reasoning. Had those men fled into the swamp or were they now slowly +returning along the path which Walden Slater and he had followed? +Were they, even now, lurking among the trees to the rearward of him, +watching him with fanatic eyes, planning among themselves some secret +onslaught? He could not tell and he did not care. He knew that the +head of the serpent had been crushed in the Reverend George Burroughs +and that the heart of the serpent would be stilled when justice was +accomplished on Jeffrey Westcott. After that, the blind body could +do what it desired. He understood that the frenzied farmers had been +controlled by a malicious power of will and that when that will was +destroyed there would be, as Walden Slater had said, “Nothing to fight +about.” Comforted by this thought, he plodded on, Walden Slater’s +dog-trot having dwindled to a fast walk on the downward grade. + +The last stretch of woods passed swiftly and as the path turned and +they faced the thinning trees Dreeme became aware of a reddish glow +that lit up the heavens before him. It was not the light of the moon +for that great white miracle hung directly above his head in the wide +cleft of the split storm-cloud. It was something else, something +that glowed upward from the ground, and as they burst through the +final fringe of bushes into Westcott’s back meadow, he saw that the +mysterious farm-house was a mass of high leaping flames. At the same +instant Walden Slater started forward in a run and the young doctor, +accelerating his pace, followed closely at his heels. As he ran his +mind automatically snapped back to a lighted lamp with a protector and +a flying end of curtain that ever blew closer and closer to that lamp. +Had they put that lamp out? He knew that they had done nothing of the +sort, that, in their hurry, they had left it burning just as they had +left the window open regardless of the wind that puffed the curtain +inward. His first thought was one of relief that the farm-house, a +hive of malevolence, was burning up with its books, its sacrilegious +altar, and its memories. The lair of the serpent was destroyed. Then +he remembered the purpose that brought them back here. Where would +Jeffrey Westcott be? Would he hide in the swamp while his years of +evil knowledge went up in thick smoke and spurting flame? Walden Slater +shifted Deborah from one shoulder to the other and ran all the faster. + + +II + +A few men and women were gathered about the Westcott farm-house, +gazing helplessly at the flame that thrust sudden tongues of fierce +yellow through the shattered windows. Mrs. Slater, among them, moved, +a small fluttering-eyed plump woman, back and forth, gesticulating +but saying nothing. Her mouth opened and shut, a round black hole in +the light of conflagration, but no sounds issued forth. In the first +place, she could find nobody with whom to converse. There was Lucinda, +sitting awkwardly in Humphrey Lathrop’s old buggy, holding the somewhat +startled horse tight-reined, as she watched the burning house, but +Lucinda was speechless. She had nothing to say and she conveyed this +to Mrs. Slater by a cold vinegary downward stare whenever the plump +little woman wandered near the buggy. She was there to observe and then +to report to Humphrey Lathrop who sat at home, a helpless mountain, +waiting eagerly for news. As Dreeme and Walden Slater circled the house +and came out on the Leeminster Road below it Mrs. Slater ran toward +them. + +“Where in the land’s sake....” she began. + +Walden Slater silenced her with a look. + +He brushed by her speechless and she followed in his wake, a small +fluttering-eyed creature. Behind them came Dreeme, unshaven, +mud-splashed, soaked, bare-footed. The farmer walked directly to +Humphrey Lathrop’s buggy. + +“Get out, Lucinda,” he said. + +Lucinda turned her thin face down at him in wrathful amazement. She +opened her mouth to retort and then she saw the senseless form of +Deborah. Without a word she climbed from the buggy and, turning, lifted +a rug to draw over Deborah as the farmer deposited her in the seat. + +“I’ll drive her down to Humphrey’s,” said Lathrop’s housekeeper. + +“Will she be safe?” interposed Dreeme hastily. He had visions of men +leaping out from the side of the road. “Perhaps I’d ...” + +“She’ll be safe,” snapped Lucinda. + +Without another word she climbed back into the buggy, picked up the +reins, clucked to the horse, and the revolving wheels grated on the +road. Dreeme stood watching the retreating carriage dubiously until he +felt Walden Slater touch him on the arm. He turned with the farmer and +they walked up the road toward the burning house. + +“What time?” said Slater laconically to the group of watchers. + +“’Bout two-thirty,” answered one of the men. + +“What time is it now?” questioned the farmer. + +“’Bout three,” the man returned. + +Dreeme turned with Slater and watched the fire. + +The flames, darting out of the windows, licked upward against the +walls and the white paint sweated and bubbled in the fierce heat. A +low roaring like the roaring in a wood-furnace reached the ears of +the watchers. It was obviously too late to do anything. The entire +interior of the farm-house was burning. Dreeme could imagine the books +in the library blackening in the smoke, their pages flaming along the +edges and then spurting up furiously as the tomes tumbled forward to +the floor. Small fiends screamed in the heat of those books. The wax +figures were melting, running into mere blobs, then vanishing as the +fire ate them up. The table at which Westcott had studied night after +night was festooned with a dazzling magic. Even the window through +which Martha Westcott had gazed was ringed with a bright frame of +splendor. Low crashes reached the ears of the helpless watchers as +objects within the cauldron of the building fell before the buffets +of victorious flame. The wind blew; the flames darted up to heaven; a +bellying scarlet-hued balloon of heavy smoke seemed attached to the +house by ropes of yellow flame. It tugged at the dwelling, strove +to lift it upward with an enormous strength. The house groaned and +cracked. The rumbling of destruction continued within the white +blistered walls. + +It seemed as though any minute the house would be torn from +its foundations and lifted high in the air leaving beneath it a +flickering-tongued bonfire, a bonfire gigantic in size and unbearable +in heat. The long ell of the kitchen was a mass of ochre flame now, +a dancing madness against the darkness of the sky. Showers of sparks +shot upward, dipped, and veered downward again like fire-works. With a +rumbling crash the roof of the kitchen fell in and the detonation of +the collapse was like a discharge of cannon in Dreeme’s ears. These +old houses burned quickly. Time had seasoned the wood for destruction, +dried it out, honeycombed it with the tiny tunnels of wood-borers so +that the bright spirit of destruction might dart along it. It was +all going now, chairs, tables, wax flowers beneath glass, family +portraits. The spirit of things was turning all this into a heap of +smoking débris, of blackened jagged beams and heaps of fuming ashes. +Dreeme stood in the glare of the flame beside Walden Slater and his +face burned with the heat. His few garments smoked and dried. His +skin seemed crawling and parched. He felt as though he were watching +the fires of Tophet. He glanced about him at the group of sober-faced +observers and suddenly caught his breath in his throat. Leaning +sideways he struck his hand against Walden Slater’s arm and when the +farmer turned his slow eyes toward him he indicated an eddying knot +of men some distance from the conflagration. The farmer studied them +with narrowed lids but said nothing. Then, with the utmost calm, he +resumed his attention of the burning house. He seemed to be watching +the second-floor windows, windows through which wisps of curling smoke +projected like lost snakes. Dreeme was faintly astonished at his lack +of interest in the men toward whom he had directed Walden Slater’s +attention. For his own part, he continued to keep a watch on them, +observing them sideways through the corners of his eyes. + +These men were not so far away but what he could recognize them. +They were muddy and distracted in demeanor, uncertain of themselves, +self-conscious of their presence in the light of the burning building. +They clung together as though for common strength. In the center of the +small group Dreeme could see the lanky figure of Bidwell and beside +him was the white-haired Corey. Threading the clustered group, talking +first to one man and then to another, was Lacy, his carbuncular nose +glowing in the fierce light of the flames. How they had emerged on +the road, whether they had followed along the narrow path from Nigger +Swamp or found some secret passage directly across the sunken marsh +were mysteries to Dreeme. He did not care greatly how they had reached +this spot. The main thing was that they were here, that they dared +show themselves in public. He wondered if others in that mad group +had followed Lathrop’s buggy to town and this conjecture aroused an +angry fear in him. He stared boldly at the group and scowled. These +men were equally aware of him and Walden Slater for they persisted +in glancing toward them as they continued their nervous conversation. +Once Bidwell gesticulated openly toward the young doctor. They were +strong men, broad-shouldered, browned by changing seasons, hard-sinewed +and tight-lipped. Still Dreeme felt no fear, nothing but a righteous +fury. A loud crash before him diverted his attention to the farm-house. +The right wall of the kitchen had fallen in. When, after observing +the shower of flame and sparks, he resumed his observation of the +self-conscious knot of men the white-haired Corey was walking slowly +toward him. The grave old man continued his approach until he was +within a yard of Dreeme and then he turned and surveyed the fire. The +young doctor, trembling at the nearness of this man whom he had seen +so shortly before in the grasp of a mystic delirium, said nothing +although a flood of recriminatory words rose in his throat and quivered +on his lips. He thought it peculiar that Walden Slater made no gesture +of recognition, that he stood so easily with his attention apparently +confined to the blazing building before him. Corey moved a single step +sideways toward Dreeme and still keeping his eyes directed before him +began to speak. He said: + +“Doctor Dreeme, after a great madness comes a great sanity.” + +Walden Slater, beside the young doctor, was listening, too, although +his expressionless face did not shift from its steadfast inspection of +the burning farm-house. Dreeme made no answer to Corey. The old farmer +spoke again. He said: + +“You have evidently seen what you have seen. You can never see it +again.” + +He extended one hand as though he were discussing the fire. At a +distance the little knot of farmers observed them fixedly. Corey said: + +“There are no explanations. The chain is broken. I am an old man, +Doctor Dreeme, and I know what I am talking about. I am speaking for a +score of men who were lost and who, through a great shock, have found +themselves. I cannot tell you what dominated us but the domination has +ceased. The valley is cleansed. We are cleansed. We ask for silence.” + +There was something behind his words that impressed Dreeme. He opened +his mouth to speak but Walden Slater forestalled him. The farmer said: + +“We lost our tongues in Nigger Swamp.” + +Corey observed the fire fiercely. + +“What’s done is done,” added Slater mildly. + +“Let what’s done rot with the body by the stone,” said Corey softly. + +After a moment he withdrew quietly and a second later Dreeme saw +him back among the little knot of perturbed men. There was a brief +conversation and then calm blank faces resumed their observation of the +flame-wreathed Westcott farm-house. + +“What does this mean?” inquired Dreeme of Walden Slater. + +The farmer shifted his feet. + +“It means what it means,” he said. “Let that be enough for you, Doctor.” + +Dreeme wondered if it meant no retribution for these men who were +willing to connive at the destruction of a human being. He opened his +mouth to say something to this effect when the farmer snatched at him. +At the same time an exclamation of mingled surprise and horror rose +from the group of people in the road. Dreeme turned hastily toward the +burning house. + +In one of the upper windows through which the thin snakes of curling +smoke had crept stood a man. There was flame in that window now and he +was silhouetted against the bright flare. He seemed just about to leap +for one foot was on the sill of the window and one heavy arm was raised +against the side of the house. Dreeme saw the fierce light play over a +cloven skull and lowered forehead. He saw, in the man’s other hand, a +black book clutched tightly. All this he saw in an instant for even as +he looked the window-sill seemed to cave inward to crumbling fire and +the figure, black against the light, fell backward, one hand snatching +desperately at the air. The next instant a great puff of flame +surged through the vacant window. There was nothing there, nothing +but a roaring cauldron that devoured its own. The destroyed building +seemed to emit a great sigh of relief, a hoarse gasp that soared +upward and spread out over Marlborough. Dreeme imagined that sigh of +relief permeating the air as far as Leeminster, sweeping through the +moonlit heavens and driving the intangible mists of mystery before it, +cleansing the valley of an old horror. He even pictured a calmness and +relief on the attentive and wide-eyed faces that watched, as he did, +this instantaneous tragedy. There seemed to be nothing left to say, +nothing to do but watch or go home. Walden Slater, after his first +instinctive grasp at the young doctor, had said nothing. He stood with +his great shoulders bowed, his long lip dangling loose, his coat gaping +and, through its opening, the revolver glistening. Dreeme suddenly felt +exhausted, a complete exhaustion that was flesh-weariness and great +relief mingled. + + +III + +Humphrey Lathrop put his tea-cup down and wiped his huge pursing lips. +He nodded slowly. + +“Yes, sir,” he said, “Walden’s right. Walden’s a great fellow. He knows +where justice is due.” + +The bright sunlight of the early afternoon plucked at the curtains. +A refreshed and neatly shaved Dreeme sat before the ancient oracle, +toying with his cup of tea. + +“Perhaps you’d like apple-jack, Daniel?” The old doctor was solicitous. +Dreeme shook his head slowly. + +“No,” he said. “I don’t understand it all.” + +“You never will,” replied Humphrey Lathrop. “You are too young to +understand anything.” + +He said it pleasantly. + +“And why shouldn’t the farmers get off scot-free?” asked Lathrop, +pursuing the thread of the conversation. “They haven’t done anything.” + +Dreeme opened his eyes very wide. + +“No, they haven’t,” persisted the old doctor. “Corey was right. Corey +is a good man. They’re all good men.” + +Dreeme sat looking at him in amazement. Humphrey Lathrop chuckled +wheezily, leaned over, and prodded the young doctor. + +“Use your head, Daniel,” he said. “Use your head even if you have lost +it.” + +He wheezed again merrily at that. + +“Do you hold a sick man accountable for what he does when he’s out of +his head?” asked the old doctor. + +Dreeme shook his head negatively. + +“All right,” said Humphrey Lathrop conclusively. That seemed to settle +it for the old doctor looked in his empty tea-cup, wheezed mournfully, +and then chuckled. + +“I never felt so young in eighty years,” he remarked blandly to the +room in general. + +Dreeme had to smile at that. + +“Now, _say_!” exclaimed Lathrop. He pounded vigorously with his +cane. An instant later Lucinda’s vinegary visage thrust itself through +the door. + +“The apple-jack bottle and two glasses,” ordered the old doctor. +Lucinda’s visage wrinkled into an absurd map. She started to withdraw +her head when Lathrop shook his huge cane. + +“Y’d better make it three glasses,” he declared, winking in a knowing +manner at Dreeme. + +“I’ll bring four,” announced Lucinda in nasal tones. “I believe a teeny +mite ’ud do me good.” + +She withdrew the wrinkled map of her visage after strangely contorting +it. Lathrop stared after her with his mouth open. + +“I believe the old fool was laughing,” he said in a husky whisper. Then +he chuckled. He beamed. His three chins shook waggishly. He added: + +“Well, well, well!” + +It seemed a period to Dreeme’s adventures. Suddenly Lathrop’s crinkling +face sobered. He leaned forward and said to Dreeme hastily: + +“I heard this morning from young Barnson. He’d been over to Leeminster. +He saw a tall dark woman come into town. She had no luggage. She +engaged a buggy to take her over to Pittsfield. She....” + +Dreeme raised his hand. + +“She’s gone,” he said. “And that’s that.” + +“That’s that,” agreed the old doctor cheerfully. + +The door was pushed open and Lucinda stalked in balancing a tray on +which reposed a bottle and four tumblers. Dreeme did not see her. He +had risen to his feet and was gazing past her at the slight figure +that came smilingly at her heels. + +The girl’s eyes were like wet violets, a soaked blue so deep as to be +astonishing. + + +FINIS. + + + + +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES + + - New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the + public domain. + + - Some clear typographical and spelling errors have been corrected. + + - The table of contents was created for this edition. + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79055 *** |