Page:The Case of Charles Dexter Ward - Lovecraft - 1971.pdf/46

 shunned by every living soul, remained to moulder through the years; and seemed to decay with unaccountable rapidity. By 1780 only the stone and brickwork were standing, and by 1800 even these had fallen to shapeless heaps. None ventured to pierce the tangled shrubbery on the river bank behind which the hillside door may have lain, nor did any try to frame a definite image of the scenes amidst which Joseph Curwen departed from the horrors he had wrought.

Only robust old Captain Whipple was heard by alert listeners to mutter once in a while to himself, "Pox on that, but he had no business to laugh while he screamed. 'Twas as though the damnedhad summat up his sleeve. For half a crown I'd burn hishouse."