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The
vast
marble
dome
of
the
State
House
stood
out
in
massive
silhouette
,
its
crowning
statue
haloed
fantastically
by
a
break
in
one
of
the
tinted
stratus
clouds
that
barred
the
flaming
sky
.
When
he
was
larger
his
famous
walks
began
;
first
with
his
impatiently
dragged
nurse
,
and
then
alone
in
dreamy
meditation
.
Farther
and
farther
down
that
almost
perpendicular
hill
he
would
venture
,
each
time
reaching
older
and
quainter
levels
of
the
ancient
city
.
He
would
hesitate
gingerly
down
vertical
Jenckes
Street
with
its
bank
walls
and
colonial
gables
to
the
shady
Benefit
Street
corner
,
where
before
him
was
a
wooden
antique
with
an
Ionic-pilastered
pair
of
doorways
,
and
beside
him
a
prehistoric
gambrel-roofer
with
a
bit
of
primal
farmyard
remaining
,
and
the
great
Judge
Durfee
house
with
its
fallen
vestiges
of
Georgian
grandeur
.
It
was
getting
to
be
a
slum
here
;
but
the
titan
elms
cast
a
restoring
shadow
over
the
place
,
and
the
boy
used
to
stroll
south
past
the
long
lines
of
the
pre-Revolutionary
homes
with
their
great
central
chimneys
and
classic
portals
.
On
the
eastern
side
they
were
set
high
over
basements
with
railed
double
flights
of
stone
steps
,
and
the
young
Charles
could
picture
them
as
they
were
when
the
street
was
new
,
and
red
heels
and
periwigs
set
off
the
painted
pediments
whose
signs
of
wear
were
now
becoming
so
visible
.
Westward
the
hill
dropped
almost
as
steeply
as
above
,
down
to
the
old
"
Town
Street
"
that
the
founders
had
laid
out
at
the
river
's
edge
in
1636
.
Here
ran
innumerable
little
lanes
with
leaning
,
huddled
houses
of
immense
antiquity
;
and
fascinated
though
he
was
,
it
was
long
before
he
dared
to
thread
their
archaic
verticality
for
fear
they
would
turn
out
a
dream
or
a
gateway
to
unknown
terrors
.
He
found
it
much
less
formidable
to
continue
along
Benefit
Street
past
the
iron
fence
of
St.
John
's
hidden
churchyard
and
the
rear
of
the
1761
Colony
House
and
the
mouldering
bulk
of
the
Golden
Ball
Inn
where
Washington
stopped
.
At
Meeting
Street
--
the
successive
Gaol
Lane
and
King
Street
of
other
periods
--
he
would
look
upward
to
the
east
and
see
the
arched
flight
of
steps
to
which
the
highway
had
to
resort
in
climbing
the
slope
,
and
downward
to
the
west
,
glimpsing
the
old
brick
colonial
schoolhouse
that
smiles
across
the
road
at
the
ancient
Sign
of
Shakespeare
's
Head
where
the
Providence
Gazette
and
Country-Journal
was
printed
before
the
Revolution
.
Then
came
the
exquisite
First
Baptist
Church
of
1775
,
luxurious
with
its
matchless
Gibbs
steeple
,
and
the
Georgian
roofs
and
cupolas
hovering
by
.
Here
and
to
the
southward
the
neighborhood
became
better
,
flowering
at
last
into
a
marvelous
group
of
early
mansions
;
but
still
the
little
ancient
lanes
led
off
down
the
precipice
to
the
west
,
spectral
in
their
many-gabled
archaism
and
dipping
to
a
riot
of
iridescent
decay
where
the
wicked
old
water-front
recalls
its
proud
East
India
days
amidst
polyglot
vice
and
squalor
,
rotting
wharves
,
and
blear-eyed
ship-chandleries
,
with
such
surviving
alley
names
as
Packet
,
Bullion
,
Gold
,
Silver
,
Coin
,
Doubloon
,
Sovereign
,
Guilder
,
Dollar
,
Dime
,
and
Cent
.
Sometimes
,
as
he
grew
taller
and
more
adventurous
,
young
Ward
would
venture
down
into
this
maelstrom
of
tottering
houses
,
broken
transoms
,
tumbling
steps
,
twisted
balustrades
,
swarthy
faces
,
and
nameless
odors
;
winding
from
South
Main
to
South
Water
,
searching
out
the
docks
where
the
bay
and
sound
steamers
still
touched
,
and
returning
northward
at
this
lower
level
past
the
steep-roofed
1816
warehouses
and
the
broad
square
at
the
Great
Bridge
,
where
the
1773
Market
House
still
stands
firm
on
its
ancient
arches
.
In
that
square
he
would
pause
to
drink
in
the
bewildering
beauty
of
the
old
town
as
it
rises
on
its
eastward
bluff
,
decked
with
its
two
Georgian
spires
and
crowned
by
the
vast
new
Christian
Science
dome
as
London
is
crowned
by
St.
Paul
's
.
He
like
mostly
to
reach
this
point
in
the
late
afternoon
,
when
the
slanting
sunlight
touches
the
Market
House
and
the
ancient
hill
roofs
and
belfries
with
gold
,
and
throws
magic
around
the
dreaming
wharves
where
Providence
Indiamen
used
to
ride
at
anchor
.
After
a
long
look
he
would
grow
almost
dizzy
with
a
poet
's
love
for
the
sight
,
and
then
he
would
scale
the
slope
homeward
in
the
dusk
past
the
old
white
church
and
up
the
narrow
precipitous
ways
where
yellow
gleams
would
begin
to
peep
out
in
small-paned
windows
and
through
fanlights
set
high
over
double
flights
of
steps
with
curious
wrought-iron
railings
.
At
other
times
,
and
in
later
years
,
he
would
seek
for
vivid
contrasts
;
spending
half
a
walk
in
the
crumbling
colonial
regions
northwest
of
his
home
,
where
the
hill
drops
to
the
lower
eminence
of
Stampers
'
Hill
with
its
ghetto
and
negro
quarter
clustering
round
the
place
where
the
Boston
stage
coach
used
to
start
before
the
Revolution
,
and
the
other
half
in
the
gracious
southerly
realm
about
George
,
Benevolent
,
Power
,
and
Williams
Streets
,
where
the
old
slope
holds
unchanged
the
fine
estates
and
bits
of
walled
garden
and
steep
green
lane
in
which
so
many
fragrant
memories
linger
.
These
rambles
,
together
with
the
diligent
studies
which
accompanied
them
,
certainly
account
for
a
large
amount
of
the
antiquarian
lore
which
at
last
crowded
the
modern
world
from
Charles
Ward
's
mind
;
and
illustrate
the
mental
soil
upon
which
fell
,
in
that
fateful
winter
of
1919-20
,
the
seeds
that
came
to
such
strange
and
terrible
fruition
.
Dr.
Willett
is
certain
that
,
up
to
this
ill-omened
winter
of
first
change
,
Charles
Ward
's
antiquarianism
was
free
from
every
trace
of
the
morbid
.
Graveyards
held
for
him
no
particular
attraction
beyond
their
quaintness
and
historic
value
,
and
of
anything
like
violence
or
savage
instinct
he
was
utterly
devoid
.
Then
,
by
insidious
degrees
,
there
appeared
to
develop
a
curious
sequel
to
one
of
his
genealogical
triumphs
of
the
year
before
;
when
he
had
discovered
among
his
maternal
ancestors
a
certain
very
long-lived
man
named
Joseph
Curwen
,
who
had
come
from
Salem
in
March
of
1692
,
and
about
whom
a
whispered
series
of
highly
peculiar
and
disquieting
stories
clustered
.
