Calico Illustrated Calssics: The House of the Seven Gables
Finally the lieutenant governor arrived and expected to be greeted by his host He demanded explanation for Pyncheon’s absence A servant explained that the colonel had ordered that he not be disturbed Colonel Pyncheon has simply lost track of the time the aristocrat insisted He will want to be told of my arrival Even so the servant said nervously my master’s orders were clear and I dare not vary from them Pooh said the lieutenant governor I will take the matter into my own hands And the man stomped loudly to the colonel’s door with a cluster of guests following him He pounded on the door several times with no response Very strange the man muttered As he turned the door handle a gust of wind flung the door open wide Colonel Pyncheon sat in an oaken chair beneath a huge portrait of himself At first the portrait and the man seemed to glare together 6
at the group But then the colonel’s young grandson darted into the room He made his way halfway to the glaring figure when he stopped and began screaming Pyncheon’s beard was soaked through with blood and more blood ran down his collar The iron-hearted old Puritan was dead A single sentence passed among the group in whispered awe God hath given him blood to drink Now the heirs of Colonel Pyncheon received his house and wealth but one thing they did not get as they expected The colonel had spoken often of his ownership of a great piece of land in Maine This land would be of enormous worth but the paperwork to support it was never found Over the years it became less and less likely such papers would be honored even if they were found But the story of this great land was handed down from Pyncheon to Pyncheon to be dreamed about and longed for 8
The Pyncheon wealth seemed to grow less with each generation while misfortune increased One elderly Pyncheon had the misfortune of being murdered by his own nephew or so the courts decided before sending the young man to prison Finally there remained only one truly wealthy Pyncheon heir This heir was a lawyer with the same grasping nature of the original ancestor Such a grand family was reduced to a lawyer a murderer a young country cousin and the sole inhabitant of the Pyncheon house an elderly spinster And it is with her that we begin 9
