For a decade the annals of the Whateleys sink indistinguishably into the general life of a morbid1 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 recur2 with greater and greater violence; while at all seasons there were strange and portentous3 doings at the lonely farm-house. In the course of time callers professed4 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.
About 1923, when Wilbur was a boy of ten whose mind, voice, stature5, and bearded face gave all the impressions of maturity6, 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 lumber7 people concluded that the youth and his grandfather had knocked out all the partitions and even removed the attic8 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 rusty9 range with a flimsy outside tin stove-pipe.
In the spring after this event Old Whateley noticed the growing number of whippoorwills that would come out of Cold Spring Glen to chirp10 under his window at night. He seemed to regard the circumstance as one of great significance, and told the loungers at Osborn’s that he thought his time had almost come.
‘They whistle jest in tune11 with my breathin’ naow,’ he said, ‘an’ I guess they’re gittin’ ready to ketch my soul. They know it’s a-goin’ aout, an’ dun’t calc’late to miss it. Yew12’ll know, boys, arter I’m gone, whether they git me er not. Ef they dew, they’ll keep up a-singin’ an’ laffin’ till break o’ day. Ef they dun’t they’ll kinder quiet daown like. I expeck them an’ the souls they hunts fer hev some pretty tough tussles14 sometimes.’
On Lammas Night, 1924, DrHoughton of Aylesbury was hastily summoned by Wilbur Whateley, who had lashed15 his one remaining horse through the darkness and telephoned from Osborn’s in the village. He found Old Whateley in a very grave state, with a cardiac action and stertorous16 breathing that told of an end not far off. The shapeless albino daughter and oddly bearded grandson stood by the bedside, whilst from the vacant abyss overhead there came a disquieting17 suggestion of rhythmical18 surging or lapping, as of the waves on some level beach. The doctor, though, was chiefly disturbed by the chattering19 night birds outside; a seemingly limitless legion of whippoorwills that cried their endless message in repetitions timed diabolically20 to the wheezing21 gasps22 of the dying man. It was uncanny and unnatural23 — too much, thought Dr Houghton, like the whole of the region he had entered so reluctantly in response to the urgent call.
Towards one o’clock Old Whateley gained consciousness, and interrupted his wheezing to choke out a few words to his grandson.
‘More space, Willy, more space soon. Yew grows — an’ that grows faster. It’ll be ready to serve ye soon, boy. Open up the gates to Yog–Sothoth with the long chant that ye’ll find on page 751 of the complete edition, an’ then put a match to the prison. Fire from airth can’t burn it nohaow.’
He was obviously quite mad. After a pause, during which the flock of whippoorwills outside adjusted their cries to the altered tempo24 while some indications of the strange hill noises came from afar off, he added another sentence or two.
‘Feed it reg’lar, Willy, an’ mind the quantity; but dun’t let it grow too fast fer the place, fer ef it busts25 quarters or gits aout afore ye opens to Yog–Sothoth, it’s all over an’ no use. Only them from beyont kin13 make it multiply an’ work . . . Only them, the old uns as wants to come back . . . ’
But speech gave place to gasps again, and Lavinia screamed at the way the whippoorwills followed the change. It was the same for more than an hour, when the final throaty rattle26 came. Dr Houghton drew shrunken lids over the glazing27 grey eyes as the tumult28 of birds faded imperceptibly to silence. Lavinia sobbed29, but Wilbur only chuckled30 whilst the hill noises rumbled31 faintly.
‘They didn’t git him,’ he muttered in his heavy bass32 voice.
Wilbur was by this time a scholar of really tremendous erudition in his one-sided way, and was quietly known by correspondence to many librarians in distant places where rare and forbidden books of old days are kept. He was more and more hated and dreaded33 around Dunwich because of certain youthful disappearances35 which suspicion laid vaguely36 at his door; but was always able to silence inquiry37 through fear or through use of that fund of old-time gold which still, as in his grandfather’s time, went forth38 regularly and increasingly for cattle-buying. He was now tremendously mature of aspect, and his height, having reached the normal adult limit, seemed inclined to wax beyond that figure. In 1925, when a scholarly correspondent from Miskatonic University called upon him one day and departed pale and puzzled, he was fully39 six and three-quarters feet tall.
Through all the years Wilbur had treated his half-deformed albino mother with a growing contempt, finally forbidding her to go to the hills with him on May Eve and Hallowmass; and in 1926 the poor creature complained to Mamie Bishop40 of being afraid of him.
‘They’s more abaout him as I knows than I kin tell ye, Mamie,’ she said, ‘an’ naowadays they’s more nor what I know myself. I vaow afur Gawd, I dun’t know what he wants nor what he’s a-tryin’ to dew.’
That Hallowe’en the hill noises sounded louder than ever, and fire burned on Sentinel Hill as usual; but people paid more attention to the rhythmical screaming of vast flocks of unnaturally41 belated whippoorwills which seemed to be assembled near the unlighted Whateley farmhouse42. After midnight their shrill43 notes burst into a kind of pandemoniac cachinnation which filled all the countryside, and not until dawn did they finally quiet down. Then they vanished, hurrying southward where they were fully a month overdue44. What this meant, no one could quite be certain till later. None of the countryfolk seemed to have died — but poor Lavinia Whateley, the twisted albino, was never seen again.
In the summer of 1927 Wilbur repaired two sheds in the farmyard and began moving his books and effects out to them. Soon afterwards Earl Sawyer told the loungers at Osborn’s that more carpentry was going on in the Whateley farmhouse. Wilbur was closing all the doors and windows on the ground floor, and seemed to be taking out partitions as he and his grandfather had done upstairs four years before. He was living in one of the sheds, and Sawyer thought he seemed unusually worried and tremulous. People generally suspected him of knowing something about his mother’s disappearance34, and very few ever approached his neighbourhood now. His height had increased to more than seven feet, and showed no signs of ceasing its development.
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morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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recur
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| vi.复发，重现，再发生 | |
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portentous
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| adj.不祥的，可怕的，装腔作势的 | |
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professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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lumber
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| n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动 | |
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attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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chirp
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| v.(尤指鸟)唧唧喳喳的叫 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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yew
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| n.紫杉属树木 | |
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kin
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| n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的 | |
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tussles
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| n.扭打，争斗( tussle的名词复数 ) | |
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lashed
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| adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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stertorous
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| adj.打鼾的 | |
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disquieting
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| adj.令人不安的，令人不平静的v.使不安，使忧虑，使烦恼( disquiet的现在分词 ) | |
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rhythmical
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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diabolically
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wheezing
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| v.喘息，发出呼哧呼哧的喘息声( wheeze的现在分词 )；哮鸣 | |
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gasps
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| v.喘气( gasp的第三人称单数 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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tempo
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| n.(音乐的)速度；节奏，行进速度 | |
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busts
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| 半身雕塑像( bust的名词复数 )； 妇女的胸部； 胸围； 突击搜捕 | |
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rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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glazing
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| n.玻璃装配业；玻璃窗；上釉；上光v.装玻璃( glaze的现在分词 )；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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sobbed
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| 哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说 | |
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chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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rumbled
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| 发出隆隆声，发出辘辘声( rumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 轰鸣着缓慢行进； 发现…的真相； 看穿（阴谋） | |
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bass
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| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
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dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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disappearances
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| n.消失( disappearance的名词复数 )；丢失；失踪；失踪案 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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unnaturally
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| adv.违反习俗地；不自然地；勉强地；不近人情地 | |
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farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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overdue
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| adj.过期的，到期未付的；早该有的，迟到的 | |
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