The Watchers Out of Time

by H. P. Lovecraft

  Though I had had some experience with the rustics of remote corners of the earth, I was hardly prepared for my reception by the bearded, gaunt-faced old man who advanced to wait upon me, and who produced almost all the articles I wanted without a word, until I had finished and paid him.

  Then he looked me full in the face for the first time. “Ye’ll be a stranger here?”

  “I—yes,” I said. “Come from England. But I once had relatives here. Name of Bishop.”

  “Bishop,” he said in a voice that had fallen to a whisper. “Yew said ‘Bishop’?” Then, as if to reassure himself of something beyond my knowledge, he added in a stronger voice, “There be Bishops still hereabouts. Yew’ll likely belong to them?”

  “Not likely,” I said. “My uncle was Septimus Bishop.”

  At mention of the name, Whateley went a shade paler than his normal pallor. Then he made a move to sweep the articles I had bought back from the counter.

  “No, you don’t,” I said. “I paid you for these things.”

  “Ye kin have ye’re money back,” he said. “I don’t want truck with any kin o’ Septimus Bishop’s.”

  I had little trouble taking from him the articles I had bought for he had no strength in his lean arms. He backed away from the counter and stood over against the shelves behind.

  “Ye’ll not be goin’ to that house?” he asked, again in a whisper, and with some alarm manifest on his old face.

  “There’s nobody to stop me,” I said.

  “Ain’t nobody from Dunwich ’d set foot on that ground—let alone the house,” he said fervently.

  “Why?” I demanded.

  “Don’t yew know?” he asked.

  “If I did, I wouldn’t ask. All I know is that my great-uncle disappeared from his home nineteen years ago, and I’m here to lay claim to his property. Wherever he is, he must be dead by now.”

  “He was dead then,” said the proprietor, again in little more than a whisper. “Kilt.”

  “Who killed him?”

  “The people. Them as lived all around. Him and his.”

  “My great-uncle lived alone.”

  I had begun to tire of this yokel’s fears and superstitions, and at his manifest lack of knowledge about Great-uncle Septimus, I felt justified in concluding that his attitude represented the typical response of the illiterate and ignorant to knowledge and education, such as my great-uncle Septimus had possessed.

  Whateley had begun to mumble “…In the night…buried him and that other alive…cursed ’em…an’ their houses fell an’ they died one after t’ other….”

  On this disagreeable note I left the store, determined to do any further shopping I needed to do in Arkham. Yet the aged proprietor’s words had stirred sufficient doubt to impel me forthwith to drive to Arkham, there to consult the files of the Arkham Advertiser—an impulse that was but ill-rewarded, for the entire month of June carried but two stories date-lined Dunwich—the one concerning Septimus—

  “Nothing has been heard of Septimus Bishop, who apparently vanished from his home in the country above Dunwich ten days ago. Mr. Bishop was a recluse and a bachelor, to whom the folk of Dunwich were in the habit of ascribing many superstitious abilities, calling him at various times, a ‘healer’ and a ‘warlock.’ Mr. Bishop was a tall, spare man, aged about 57 at the time of his disappearance.”

  —and the other an amusing account of the strengthening of one of the piers, that supported the middle span of a disused bridge over the Miskatonic above Dunwich, evidently by private initiative, since the county in charge stoutly denied—refuting the voluble criticism directed at it for repairing a bridge no longer in use—having had anything to do with it.

  Nevertheless, I reflected on my return drive toward and beyond Dunwich that the superstitions of the natives doubtless accounted for the attitude of Tobias Whateley, who only reflected the general beliefs, however laughable they might be to someone decently educated in this scientific age, when all such ridiculous concepts as healing by the laying on of hands or any other method and of witchcraft were known to be but the product of ignorance. My great-uncle Septimus had been educated at Harvard, and was known to the English branch of the Bishop family as a bookish man, profoundly inimical to any form of superstition, surely.

  It was dusk when I returned to the old Bishop place. My great-uncle had evidently never laid in electricity or gas, but there were both candles and kerosene lamps—some of the latter still containing kerosene. I lit one of the lamps and made myself a frugal meal, after which I cleared a place in the study where I could lie down without too much discomfort, and readily fell asleep.

  II

  In the morning I set about tidying up the place, though there was little that could be done about the mildewed books in my great-uncle’s library, other than to get a roaring fire going in the fireplace—for all that it was midsummer and there was no lack of warmth—and so drying out this area of the house.

  In time I had dusted and swept the lower floor—which consisted of the study, a bedroom adjacent, a small kitchen, a pantry, and a room that was obviously intended as a dining-room but clearly used for more, for mounds of books and papers indicated some kind of storage. I mounted to the second storey, but before beginning work there, I continued to the cupola, by way of a narrow stairs which permitted only one person at a time to move along it.

  The cupola proved to be somewhat larger than I had thought it, with ample room for a man to stand and move about without impediment. It had patently been used for astronomical observation, for there was a telescope there, and the floor, for some reason I could not fathom, was covered with all manner of designs, in which circles, pentacles, and stars predominated, and there were, quaintly, in addition to texts on astronomy, some on astrology and divination, all quite old, one dating to 1623, some of them in German, but the majority in Latin, which certainly were the property of my great-uncle, though I could not conceive of any use to which he could put them. There was, in addition to a sky-light on the north, an opening through which the telescope could be thrust, once its covering was removed.

  This cupola was surprisingly free of dust and lint, for all that there were openings in its wall, where some of the wood had rotted away, as I had observed on my approach to the house; at these openings there was some manifest water damage from rain and snow, but none of this was beyond repair, and it seemed to me—if I did ultimately conclude to make my home here for even a short time—that such repair could be accomplished with but comparatively little cost.

  I had yet, however, to ascertain the condition of the foundation of the house; and, leaving the second storey—which consisted, I saw in a brief examination, of but two bedrooms, two closets, and a store-room, only one bedroom being furnished and looking as if it had never been put to the use for which it was intended—I descended again to the ground floor and made my way to the cellar below through the door that opened to it off the kitchen.

  Somewhat to my surprise I saw by the light of the lamp I carried that the floor of the cellar, which extended to only about half of the area covered by the house, was of laid brick, while the walls were of limestone all of a foot and a half thick, as the window embrasures showed. I had expected a floor of earth, as was commonly to be found in the cellars of old houses; but on closer examination, I concluded that the brick had been laid considerably after the building of the house, quite probably by my great-uncle Septimus.

  In this floor, at opposite corners, there were two square trapdoors with large iron rings in them, the one, I judged by the evidence of a drainage pipe leading from the side of the wall to it, and the presence of a pump rising out of it, to cover a cistern. The other, however, gave no indication of its purpose, though I assumed that it might cover a fruit or root cellar, and went over confidently to lift it and prove my assumption correct.

  Much to my astonishment, however, there was disclosed a succession of brick steps leading downward—certainly not, as the rays of the lamp revealed whe
n I thrust it into the stair-well—any kind of cellar, but rather a passageway of some sort, into which I promptly climbed to find myself in a tunnel leading away from the house and, as nearly as I could determine, into the hill and away from the house along the slope to the northwest. I walked, crouching, a little way along this tunnel, following a turn, and then hesitated, unsure of the tunnel’s purpose.

  I was, however, reasonably certain that the tunnel had been constructed by my great-uncle, and was prepared to turn back when I caught sight of something gleaming only a little way ahead, and went forward, only to find myself gazing down at yet another trapdoor. This too I opened, and looked down into a large circular room, reached by seven brick steps.

  I could not forbear descending into it, and, holding the lamp high, looked around. A brick floor had been laid here, as well, and some curious structures had been erected in it—something very much like an altar, of stone, for one, and benches, also of stone. And on the floor there were crude drawings very similar to those in the cupola of the house; though I could readily explain those astronomical designs in the cupola, which was open to the skies, I found it impossible to adduce any reason for their presence here.

  There was, too, yet another opening into the floor before the altar. The great iron ring tempted me, but for some reason caution held me back from lifting the trapdoor. I went only close enough to detect a draft that indicated the circulation of air and suggested another opening to the outside below this subterranean chamber. Then I retreated to the passageway above, and, instead of returning to the house, pressed on.

  In perhaps three quarters of a mile I came to a great wooden door, barred on the inside. I put down the lamp and lifted the bar. Opening the door, I found myself looking into a tangle of growth that effectively concealed the opening into the tunnel from anyone outside. I pushed through this tangle sufficiently to find myself looking down the hill toward the countryside below, where I could see the Miskatonic some distance away, and a stone bridge across it—but nowhere a dwelling of any kind, only the ruins of what had once been isolated farms. For a long minute I stood looking out upon that prospect; then I returned the way I had come, pondering the reason for being of the elaborate tunnel and the room below it—and whatever lay below that; for there was no key to their use, save only, remotely, as a secret way out of the house, if any were needed.

  Once back in the house, I abandoned the cleaning of the second storey to another day, and set myself to bring about some order in the study, which, with papers on the desk and the floor around it, and the chair hurriedly pushed back, bore the aspects of having been precisely so left at my great-uncle’s departure, as if he had been suddenly summoned and had gone straightaway, and had then never returned to right the room.

  I had always understood that Great-uncle Septimus Bishop was a man of independent means, and that he had been engaged in some kind of scholarly research. Astronomy perhaps—perhaps even in its relation to astrology, however unlikely that seemed. If only he had corresponded freely with those of his brothers who remained in England or if he had kept up some kind of diary or journal or daybook; but there was nothing of that kind in his desk or among the papers there, and the papers themselves were concerned with abstruse matters, filled with many diagrams and drawings, which I took to be related to geometry since they were all angles and curves and represented nothing familiar to me; and such lettering as was set down on them was little more than gibberish, since it was not in English but in some language too ancient to be known to me, though I could have read anything in Latin and in half a dozen other languages still spoken on the Continent.

  But there were some letters, carefully tied together, and, after a light lunch of cheese and bread and coffee, I undertook to look into them. The very first of these letters amazed me. It was headed “Starry Wisdom” and bore no address. Written in a broad-pointed pen and in a flourishing hand, it read:

  “Dear Brother Bishop,

  “In the Name of Azathoth, by the sign of the Shining Trapezohedron, all things will be known to you when the Haunter of Dark is summoned. There must be no light, but He who comes by darkness goes unseen and flees the light. All the secrets of Heaven and Hell will be made known. All the mysteries of worlds unknown to Earth will be yours.

  “Be patient. Despite many setbacks, we flourish still, however secretly, here in Providence.”

  The signature was not decipherable, but I thought it read “Asenath Bowen” or “Brown.” This first astonishing letter set the tone for almost all the rest. They were almost to a letter the most esoteric communications, dealing with mystical matters beyond my ken—and also beyond that of any modern man, belonging as these matters did to an age of superstition all but lost since the Dark Ages, and what my great-uncle had to do with such matters—unless, indeed, he were studying the survival of superstitious rites and practices in his time—I could not estimate.

  I read them one after another. My great-uncle was hailed in the name of Great Cthulhu, of Hastur the Unspeakable, of Shub-Niggurath, of Belial and Beelzebub, and many another. My great-uncle seemed to have been in correspondence with every kind of quack and mountebank, with self-professed wizards and renegade priests alike. There was one quasi-scholarly letter, however, that was unlike the others. It was written in a difficult script, though the signature—Wilbur Whateley—was easily read, and the date, January 17, 1928, as well as the place of origin—nearby Dunwich—offered me no difficulty. The letter itself, once deciphered, was arresting.

  “Dear Mr. Bishop.

  “Yes, by the Dho formula it is possible to see the inner city at the magnetic poles. I have seen it, and hope soon to go there. When the earth is cleared off. When you come to Dunwich, come to the farm, and I will say the Dho formula for you. And the Dho-Hna. And tell you the angles of the planes and the formulas between the Yr and the Nhhngr.

  “They from the air cannot help without human blood. They take body from it, as you know. As you, too, will be able to do if you are destroyed other than by the Sign. There are those hereabouts who know the Sign and its power. Do not speak idly. Guard your tongue, even at the Sabbat.

  “I saw you there—and what walks with you in the guise of a woman. But by the sight given me by those I had summoned I saw it in its true form, which you must have seen; so I guess some day you may look upon what I can call forth in my own image, and it may not affright you.

  “I am yours in the Name of Him Who Is Not To Be Named.”

  Certainly the writer must have belonged to the same family as Tobias, who so shunned this house. Small wonder, then, at the fellow’s fear and superstition; he must have had some first hand acquaintance with it in more tangible form than my great-uncle could have offered him. And if Great-uncle Septimus had been friendly with Wilbur Whateley, it was not surprising that another Whateley might suspect him, too, of being what Wilbur was. Whatever that was. But how to explain that friendship? Clearly, there were many things about my great-uncle I did not know.

  I tied the letters up again and put them back where I had found them. I turned next to an envelope of newspaper clippings—all, I took it, recognizing the typeface, from the Arkham Advertiser, and found them no less puzzling than the letters, for they were accounts of mysterious disappearances in the Dunwich and Arkham region, principally of children and young adults—evidently just such as my great-uncle Septimus had ultimately fallen victim to. There was one clipping that concerned the fury of the local inhabitants and their suspicion of one of their neighbors, who was unnamed, as the author of the disappearances; and their threatening to take matters into their own hands, the local constabulary having failed them. Perhaps my great-uncle had interested himself in solving the disappearances.

  I put these, too, away, and sat for some time pondering what I had read, disquieted by something recalled from Wilbur Whateley’s letter. “I saw you there—and what walks with you in the guise of a woman.” And I remembered how Tobias Whateley had referred to my great-uncle—“Him and h
is.” Slain. Perhaps the superstitious natives had blamed Great-uncle Septimus for the disappearances and had indeed taken vengeance on him.

  Abruptly I felt the need to escape the house for a little while. It was now mid-afternoon, and the need of fresh air after so long in the musty house was strong. So I walked outside, and again to the road, and turned away from Dunwich, almost as if impelled to do so, curious to know what the country beyond the Bishop house was like, and certain that the view I had seen from the mouth of the tunnel on the side of the hill lay in this general direction.

  I expected that country to be wild, and indeed it was. The road carried through it, obviously little used, perhaps chiefly by the rural mailman. Trees and shrubbery pressed upon the road from both verges, and from time to time the hills loomed over on the one side, for on the other was the valley of the Miskatonic, drawing in now parallel to the road, then again swinging wide away from it. The land was utterly deserted, though there were fields that were clearly being worked, for grain flourished there for those non-resident farmers who came in to work it. There were no houses, only ruins or abandoned buildings; there were no cattle; there was nothing but the road to point to human habitation of recent date, for the road led somewhere, and presumably to another place where people lived.

  It was at a point some distance from the river that I came upon a side road that wound away to the right. A leaning sign-post identified it as Crary Road, and an ancient barrier across it—itself all overgrown—marked it as “Closed,” with another sign tacked below it that read: “Bridge out.” It was this latter that inclined me to take the road; so I walked in along it, struggling through shrubbery and brambles for a distance of a little over half a mile, and thus came upon the Miskatonic where a stone bridge had once carried traffic across.