Ammi
accompanied Nahum home with the greatest reluctance, and did what he
might to calm the hysterical sobbing of little Merwin. Zenas needed no
calming. He had come of late to do nothing but stare into space and
obey what his father told him; and Ammi thought that his fate was very
merciful. Now and then Merwin's screams were answered faintly from the
attic, and in response to an inquiring look Nahum said that his wife
was getting very feeble. When night approached, Ammi managed to get
away; for not even friendship could make him stay in that spot when the
faint glow of the vegetation began and the trees may or may not have
swayed without wind. It was really lucky for Ammi that he was not more
imaginative. Even as things were, his mind was bent ever so slightly;
but had he been able to connect and reflect upon all the portents
around him he must inevitably have turned a total maniac. In the
twilight he hastened home, the screams of the mad woman and the nervous
child ringing horrible in his ears. Three days later Nahum burst into Ammi's kitchen in the early morning,
and in the absence of his host stammered out a desperate tale once
more, while Mrs. Pierce listened in a clutching fright. It was little
Merwin this time. He was gone. He had gone out late at night with a
lantern and pail for water, and had never come back. He'd been going
to pieces for days, and hardly knew what he was about. Screamed at
everything. There had been a frantic shriek from the yard then, but
before the father could get to the door the boy was gone. There was no
glow from the lantern he had taken, and of the child himself no trace. At the time Nahum thought the lantern and pail were gone too; but when
dawn came, and the man had plodded back from his all-night search of
the woods and fields, he had found some very curious things near the
well. There was a crushed and apparently somewhat melted mass of iron
which had certainly been the lantern; while a bent pail and twisted
iron hoops beside it, both half-fused, seemed to hint at the remnants
of the pail. That was all. Nahum was past imagining, Mrs. Pierce was
blank, and Ammi, when he had reached home and heard the tale, could
give no guess. Merwin was gone, and there would be no use in telling
the people around, who shunned all Gardners now. No use, either, in
telling the city people at Arkham who laughed at everything. Thad was
gone, and now Merwin was gone. Something was creeping and creeping and
waiting to be seen and heard. Nahum would go soon, and he wanted Ammi
to look after his wife and Zenas if they survived him. It must all be a
judgment of some sort; though he could not fancy what for, since he had
always walked uprightly in the Lord's ways so far as he knew. For over two weeks Ammi saw nothing of Nahum; and then, worried about
what might have happened, he overcame his fears and paid the Gardner
place a visit. There was no smoke from the great chimney, and for a
moment the visitor was apprehensive of the worst. The aspect of the
whole farm was shocking--greyish withered grass and leaves on the
ground, vines falling in brittle wreckage from archaic walls and
gables, and great bare trees clawing up at the grey November sky with
a studied malevolence which Ammi could not but feel had come from some
subtle change in the tilt of the branches. But Nahum was alive, after
all. He was weak, and lying in a couch in the low-ceiled kitchen,
but perfectly conscious and able to give simple orders to Zenas. The
room was deadly cold; and as Ammi visibly shivered, the host shouted
huskily to Zenas for more wood. Wood, indeed, was sorely needed; since
the cavernous fireplace was unlit and empty, with a cloud of soot
blowing about in the chill wind that came down the chimney. Presently
Nahum asked him if the extra wood had made him any more comfortable,
and then Ammi saw what had happened. The stoutest cord had broken at
last, and the hapless farmer's mind was proof against more sorrow. Questioning tactfully, Ammi could get no clear data at all about the
missing Zenas. "In the well--he lives in the well--" was all that the
clouded father would say. Then there flashed across the visitor's mind
a sudden thought of the mad wife, and he changed his line of inquiry. "Nabby? Why, here she is!" was the surprised response of poor Nahum,
and Ammi soon saw that he must search for himself. Leaving the harmless
babbler on the couch, he took the keys from their nail beside the door
and climbed the creaking stairs to the attic. It was very close and
noisome up there, and no sound could be heard from any direction. Of
the four doors in sight, only one was locked, and on this he tried
various keys on the ring he had taken. The third key proved the right
one, and after some fumbling Ammi threw open the low white door. It was quite dark inside, for the window was small and half-obscured
by the crude wooden bars; and Ammi could see nothing at all on the
wide-planked floor. The stench was beyond enduring, and before
proceeding further he had to retreat to another room and return
with his lungs filled with breathable air. When he did enter he saw
something dark in the corner, and upon seeing it more clearly he
screamed outright. While he screamed he thought a momentary cloud
eclipsed the window, and a second later he felt himself brushed as if
by some hateful current of vapour. Strange colours danced before his
eyes; and had not a present horror numbed him he would have thought of
the globule in the meteor that the geologist's hammer had shattered,
and of the morbid vegetation that had sprouted in the spring. As it
was he thought only of the blasphemous monstrosity which confronted
him, and which all too clearly had shared the nameless fate of young
Thaddeus and the livestock. But the terrible thing about the horror was
that it very slowly and perceptibly moved as it continued to crumble. *       *       *       *       *

Ammi would give me no added particulars of this scene, but the shape
in the corners does not re-appear in his tale as a moving object. There are things which cannot be mentioned, and what is done in common
humanity is sometimes cruelly judged by the law. I gathered that no
moving thing was left in that attic room, and that to leave anything
capable of motion there would have been a deed so monstrous as to damn
any accountable being to eternal torment. Anyone but a stolid farmer
would have fainted or gone mad, but Ammi walked conscious through that
low doorway and locked the accursed secret behind him. There would be
Nahum to deal with now; he must be fed and tended, and removed to some
place where he could be cared for. Commencing his descent of the dark stairs, Ammi heard a thud below him. He even thought a scream had been suddenly choked off, and recalled
nervously the clammy vapour which had brushed by him in that frightful
room above. What presence had his cry and entry started up? Halted by
some vague fear, he heard still further sounds below.