Reedle Откройте в мобильном приложении
Понятно
Понятно
Для того чтобы воспользоваться закладками, необходимо
Войти или зарегистрироваться
Отмена
Для того чтобы воспользоваться озвучкой предложений, необходимо
Войти или зарегистрироваться
Отмена
Озвучка предложений доступна при наличии PRO-доступа
Купить PRO-доступ
Отмена
31
When
Wilbur
was
a
year
and
seven
months
old
--
in
September
of
1914
--
his
size
and
accomplishments
were
almost
alarming
.
He
had
grown
as
large
as
a
child
of
four
,
and
was
a
fluent
and
incredibly
intelligent
talker
.
He
ran
freely
about
the
fields
and
hills
,
and
accompanied
his
mother
on
all
her
wanderings
.
At
home
he
would
pore
diligently
over
the
queer
pictures
and
charts
in
his
grandfather
's
books
,
while
Old
Whateley
would
instruct
and
catechize
him
through
long
,
hushed
afternoons
.
By
this
time
the
restoration
of
the
house
was
finished
,
and
those
who
watched
it
wondered
why
one
of
the
upper
windows
had
been
made
into
a
solid
plank
door
.
It
was
a
window
in
the
rear
of
the
east
gable
end
,
close
against
the
hill
;
and
no
one
could
imagine
why
a
cleated
wooden
runway
was
built
up
to
it
from
the
ground
.
About
the
period
of
this
work
's
completion
people
noticed
that
the
old
tool-house
,
tightly
locked
and
windowlessly
clapboarded
since
Wilbur
's
birth
,
had
been
abandoned
again
.
The
door
swung
listlessly
open
,
and
when
Earl
Sawyer
once
stepped
within
after
a
cattle-selling
call
on
Old
Whateley
he
was
quite
discomposed
by
the
singular
odour
he
encountered
--
such
a
stench
,
he
averred
,
as
he
had
never
before
smelt
in
all
his
life
except
near
the
Indian
circles
on
the
hills
,
and
which
could
not
come
from
anything
sane
or
of
this
earth
.
But
then
,
the
homes
and
sheds
of
Dunwich
folk
have
never
been
remarkable
for
olfactory
immaculateness
.
32
The
following
months
were
void
of
visible
events
,
save
that
everyone
swore
to
a
slow
but
steady
increase
in
the
mysterious
hill
noises
.
On
May
Eve
of
1915
there
were
tremors
which
even
the
Aylesbury
people
felt
,
whilst
the
following
Hallowe'en
produced
an
underground
rumbling
queerly
synchronized
with
bursts
of
flame
--
'
them
witch
Whateleys
'
doin
's
'
--
from
the
summit
of
Sentinel
Hill
.
33
Wilbur
was
growing
up
uncannily
,
so
that
he
looked
like
a
boy
of
ten
as
he
entered
his
fourth
year
.
He
read
avidly
by
himself
now
;
but
talked
much
less
than
formerly
.
A
settled
taciturnity
was
absorbing
him
,
and
for
the
first
time
people
began
to
speak
specifically
of
the
dawning
look
of
evil
in
his
goatish
face
.
He
would
sometimes
mutter
an
unfamiliar
jargon
,
and
chant
in
bizarre
rhythms
which
chilled
the
listener
with
a
sense
of
unexplainable
terror
.
The
aversion
displayed
towards
him
by
dogs
had
now
become
a
matter
of
wide
remark
,
and
he
was
obliged
to
carry
a
pistol
in
order
to
traverse
the
countryside
in
safety
.
His
occasional
use
of
the
weapon
did
not
enhance
his
popularity
amongst
the
owners
of
canine
guardians
.
Отключить рекламу
34
The
few
callers
at
the
house
would
often
find
Lavinia
alone
on
the
ground
floor
,
while
odd
cries
and
footsteps
resounded
in
the
boarded-up
second
storey
.
She
would
never
tell
what
her
father
and
the
boy
were
doing
up
there
,
though
once
she
turned
pale
and
displayed
an
abnormal
degree
of
fear
when
a
jocose
fish-pedlar
tried
the
locked
door
leading
to
the
stairway
.
That
pedlar
told
the
store
loungers
at
Dunwich
Village
that
he
thought
he
heard
a
horse
stamping
on
that
floor
above
.
The
loungers
reflected
,
thinking
of
the
door
and
runway
,
and
of
the
cattle
that
so
swiftly
disappeared
.
Then
they
shuddered
as
they
recalled
tales
of
Old
Whateley
's
youth
,
and
of
the
strange
things
that
are
called
out
of
the
earth
when
a
bullock
is
sacrificed
at
the
proper
time
to
certain
heathen
gods
.
It
had
for
some
time
been
noticed
that
dogs
had
begun
to
hate
and
fear
the
whole
Whateley
place
as
violently
as
they
hated
and
feared
young
Wilbur
personally
.
35
In
1917
the
war
came
,
and
Squire
Sawyer
Whateley
,
as
chairman
of
the
local
draft
board
,
had
hard
work
finding
a
quota
of
young
Dunwich
men
fit
even
to
be
sent
to
development
camp
.
36
The
government
,
alarmed
at
such
signs
of
wholesale
regional
decadence
,
sent
several
officers
and
medical
experts
to
investigate
;
conducting
a
survey
which
New
England
newspaper
readers
may
still
recall
.
It
was
the
publicity
attending
this
investigation
which
set
reporters
on
the
track
of
the
Whateleys
,
and
caused
the
Boston
Globe
and
Arkham
Advertiser
to
print
flamboyant
Sunday
stories
of
young
Wilbur
's
precociousness
,
Old
Whateley
's
black
magic
,
and
the
shelves
of
strange
books
,
the
sealed
second
storey
of
the
ancient
farmhouse
,
and
the
weirdness
of
the
whole
region
and
its
hill
noises
.
Wilbur
was
four
and
a
half
then
,
and
looked
like
a
lad
of
fifteen
.
His
lips
and
cheeks
were
fuzzy
with
a
coarse
dark
down
,
and
his
voice
had
begun
to
break
.
37
Earl
Sawyer
went
out
to
the
Whateley
place
with
both
sets
of
reporters
and
camera
men
,
and
called
their
attention
to
the
queer
stench
which
now
seemed
to
trickle
down
from
the
sealed
upper
spaces
.
It
was
,
he
said
,
exactly
like
a
smell
he
had
found
in
the
toolshed
abandoned
when
the
house
was
finally
repaired
;
and
like
the
faint
odours
which
he
sometimes
thought
he
caught
near
the
stone
circle
on
the
mountains
.
Dunwich
folk
read
the
stories
when
they
appeared
,
and
grinned
over
the
obvious
mistakes
.
They
wondered
,
too
,
why
the
writers
made
so
much
of
the
fact
that
Old
Whateley
always
paid
for
his
cattle
in
gold
pieces
of
extremely
ancient
date
.
The
Whateleys
had
received
their
visitors
with
ill-concealed
distaste
,
though
they
did
not
dare
court
further
publicity
by
a
violent
resistance
or
refusal
to
talk
.
Отключить рекламу
38
For
a
decade
the
annals
of
the
Whateleys
sink
indistinguishably
into
the
general
life
of
a
morbid
community
used
to
their
queer
ways
and
hardened
to
their
May
Eve
and
All
--
Hallows
orgies
.
Twice
a
year
they
would
light
fires
on
the
top
of
Sentinel
Hill
,
at
which
times
the
mountain
rumblings
would
recur
with
greater
and
greater
violence
;
while
at
all
seasons
there
were
strange
and
portentous
doings
at
the
lonely
farm-house
.
In
the
course
of
time
callers
professed
to
hear
sounds
in
the
sealed
upper
storey
even
when
all
the
family
were
downstairs
,
and
they
wondered
how
swiftly
or
how
lingeringly
a
cow
or
bullock
was
usually
sacrificed
.
There
was
talk
of
a
complaint
to
the
Society
for
the
Prevention
of
Cruelty
to
Animals
but
nothing
ever
came
of
it
,
since
Dunwich
folk
are
never
anxious
to
call
the
outside
world
's
attention
to
themselves
.
39
About
1923
,
when
Wilbur
was
a
boy
of
ten
whose
mind
,
voice
,
stature
,
and
bearded
face
gave
all
the
impressions
of
maturity
,
a
second
great
siege
of
carpentry
went
on
at
the
old
house
.
It
was
all
inside
the
sealed
upper
part
,
and
from
bits
of
discarded
lumber
people
concluded
that
the
youth
and
his
grandfather
had
knocked
out
all
the
partitions
and
even
removed
the
attic
floor
,
leaving
only
one
vast
open
void
between
the
ground
storey
and
the
peaked
roof
.
They
had
torn
down
the
great
central
chimney
,
too
,
and
fitted
the
rusty
range
with
a
flimsy
outside
tin
stove-pipe
.
40
In
the
spring
after
this
event
Old
Whateley
noticed
the
growing
number
of
whippoorwills
that
would
come
out
of
Cold
Spring
Glen
to
chirp
under
his
window
at
night
.