The Dunwich Romance Read Online Free Page A

inasmuch as the manner in which it seemed to hide furtively behind the hill. Betraying not even an inkling of fatigue, Wilbur had transported her in his arms a considerable distance until he’d turned into the wooded fringe that half-circumscribed the Whateley property. The house had quite oddly been built right into the weedy, rock-knobbed hill itself, nearly as though the hill were attempting to consume it. Ramshackle barns, most with concaved roofs, sat greyly and decrepitly farther out, while closer stood several aged but sturdy sheds, one of which released a plume of sooty smoke—Sary estimated this to be the previously remarked upon smokehouse.
    “Heer it ‘tis,” said her tireless bearer. “Property been in the family for couple’a centuries. See, thar be lots’a Whateleys raound heer but the fust, comin’ direct from Salem, built this haouse.”
    “Waow. Two centuries, yew say?”
    “Ee-yuh. That’n more.”
    So complacent was Sary just then that she’d heretofore remained insensible of the dwelling’s most irregular feature: “Why—Wilbur. Why’s all the winders of yew’re haouse boarded up?”
    Slowing his pace, the giant deliberated amid a pause, then adduced, “Wal, see, I dun’t live in the big haouse no more”—and upon this curious statement, his steps veered away from the edifice, to approach the most substantial of the sheds. “Haven’t for a spell. ‘Tis this tool-haouse I live in. It be plenty sizable.”
    But Sary eyed the house proper as she was carried past it.
    “And I’se boarded up them winders and doors on accaount‘a I dun’t want no thievin’ folks a-breakin’ in. Lots’a them raound heer— reprobate scum, my grandsire called ‘em. Ever naow’n then I see one mopin’ abaout. So the haouse jess be used for storage naow—”
    At the moment of this verbal revelation, the looming house seemed to emit a series of hefty creaks, a thunk! and then—
    Sary flinched in Wilbur’s arms.
    —a sound that could best be detailed as a phlegmatic snuffle, akin to that of swine, only of incredible sonic proportions, something almost elephantine.
    “Wilbur, yew say ya use yer haouse for storage? ” Sary felt predisposed to ask. “Is it animals yew’re storin’ in thar?”
    “Uh, ee-yuh...” He kept his gaze straight ahead. “Of a kind.”
    Due to his extraordinary height, Wilbur had to bend over in order to enter the tool shed. Sary found the structure commodious indeed, yet strangely lacking in the implements of its namesake. Bookshelves, instead, hung where one would surely expect tool boards to be evidenced. Only the most diminutive windows emitted the light of day, while candles sat perched abundantly about. A woodstove, cold now due to the season, sat bulkily erected in one dim corner, and another corner was occupied by a vast, intricately carved writing desk full of letter slots and tiny drawers. The desk stood nearly as tall as the man who attested to live here.
    Wilbur gently put Sary down on her feet. “Knees still a-wobblin’?”
    “Naw, I feel much better naow—thanks! My, ‘tis a big place, as yew said,” Sary remarked, reveling in a mental luxury of having an abode similarly sized and equipped to sleep in. “En’t never seed a woodstove so big neither. But...what’s ‘hind that cartin theer?”
    The wood floor creaked as Wilbur stepped toward the indicated curtain, which he withdrew. “Warshin’ cove, see?”
    “Waow!” exclaimed Sary, for she’d never seen an apparatus so extensive, which consisted of a wide tin tub to stand in, surrounded by an oak frame of some craft. A length of sisal rope, serving in the function of a cable, rose from a wooden lever to a watering can on an axle mounted between two studs of the frame. Another lever, lower, sprouted from a hand-pump, servicing a narrow rubber hose which conveyed water from a large barrel all the way up to the watering can.
    “A shower’s what it’s called,” Wilbur reported, then stooped