ve the existing sidewalk level, forming
a terrace bounded by a high bank wall of damp, mossy stone pierced by a
steep flight of narrow steps which led inward between canyon-like
surfaces to the upper region of mangy lawn, rheumy brick walks, and
neglected gardens whose dismantled cement urns, rusted kettles fallen
from tripods of knotty sticks, and similar paraphernalia set off the
weather-beaten front door with its broken fanlight, rotting Ionic
pilasters, and wormy triangular pediment.

* * * * *

What I heard in my youth about the shunned house was merely that people
died there in alarmingly great numbers. That, I was told, was why the
original owners had moved out some twenty years after building the
place. It was plainly unhealthy, perhaps because of the dampness and
fungous growths in the cellar, the general sickish smell, the drafts of
the hallways, or the quality of the well and pump water. These things
were bad enough, and these were all that gained belief among the persons
whom I knew. Only the notebooks of my antiquarian uncle, Doctor Elihu
Whipple, revealed to me at length the darker, vaguer surmises which
formed an undercurrent of folklore among old-time servants and humble
folk; surmises which never travelled far, and which were largely
forgotten when Providence grew to be a metropolis with a shifting modern
population.

The general fact is, that the house was never regarded by the solid part
of the community as in any real sense "haunted." There were no
widespread tales of rattling chains, cold currents of air, extinguished
lights, or faces at the window. Extremists sometimes said the house was
"unlucky," but that is as far as even they went. What was really beyond
dispute is that a frightful proportion of persons died there; or more
accurately, _had_ died there, since after some peculiar happenings over
sixty years ago the building had become deserted through the sheer
impossibility of renting it. These persons were not all cut off suddenly
by any one cause; rather did it seem that their vitality was insidiously
sapped, so that each one died the sooner from whatever tendency to
weakness he may have naturally had. And those who did not die displayed
in varying degree a type of anemia or consumption, and sometimes a
decline of the mental faculties, which spoke ill for the salubriousness
of the building. Neighboring houses, it must be added, seemed entirely
free from the no