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It
was
near
the
docks
along
the
southerly
part
of
the
Town
Street
,
however
,
that
the
worst
things
were
muttered
about
Joseph
Curwen
.
Sailors
are
superstitious
folk
;
and
the
seasoned
salts
who
manned
the
infinite
rum
,
slave
,
and
molasses
sloops
,
the
rakish
privateers
,
and
the
great
brigs
of
the
Browns
,
Crawfords
,
and
Tillinghasts
,
all
made
strange
furtive
signs
of
protection
when
they
saw
the
slim
,
deceptively
young-looking
figure
with
its
yellow
hair
and
slight
stoop
entering
the
Curwen
warehouse
in
Doubloon
Street
or
talking
with
captains
and
supercargoes
on
the
long
quay
where
the
Curwen
ships
rode
restlessly
.
Curwen
's
own
clerks
and
captains
hated
and
feared
him
,
and
all
his
sailors
were
mongrel
riff-raff
from
Martinique
,
St.
Eustatius
,
Havana
,
or
Port
Royal
.
It
was
,
in
a
way
,
the
frequency
with
which
these
sailors
were
replaced
which
inspired
the
acutest
and
most
tangible
part
of
the
fear
in
which
the
old
man
was
held
.
A
crew
would
be
turned
loose
in
the
town
on
shore
leave
,
some
of
its
members
perhaps
charged
with
this
errand
or
that
;
and
when
reassembled
it
would
be
almost
sure
to
lack
one
or
more
men
.
That
many
of
the
errands
had
concerned
the
farm
of
Pawtuxet
Road
,
and
that
few
of
the
sailors
had
ever
been
seen
to
return
from
that
place
,
was
not
forgotten
;
so
that
in
time
it
became
exceedingly
difficult
for
Curwen
to
keep
his
oddly
assorted
hands
.
Almost
invariably
several
would
desert
soon
after
hearing
the
gossip
of
the
Providence
wharves
,
and
their
replacement
in
the
West
Indies
became
an
increasingly
great
problem
to
the
merchant
.
By
1760
Joseph
Curwen
was
virtually
an
outcast
,
suspected
of
vague
horrors
and
daemoniac
alliances
which
seemed
all
the
more
menacing
because
they
could
not
be
named
,
understood
,
or
even
proved
to
exist
.
The
last
straw
may
have
come
from
the
affair
of
the
missing
soldiers
in
1758
,
for
in
March
and
April
of
that
year
two
Royal
regiments
on
their
way
to
New
France
were
quartered
in
Providence
,
and
depleted
by
an
inexplicable
process
far
beyond
the
average
rate
of
desertion
.
Rumor
dwelt
on
the
frequency
with
which
Curwen
was
wont
to
be
seen
talking
with
the
red-coated
strangers
;
and
as
several
of
them
began
to
be
missed
,
people
thought
of
the
odd
conditions
among
his
own
seamen
.
What
would
have
happened
if
the
regiments
had
not
been
ordered
on
,
no
one
can
tell
.
Meanwhile
the
merchant
's
worldly
affairs
were
prospering
.
He
had
a
virtual
monopoly
of
the
town
's
trade
in
saltpeter
,
black
pepper
,
and
cinnamon
,
and
easily
led
any
other
one
shipping
establishment
save
the
Browns
in
his
importation
of
brassware
,
indigo
,
cotton
,
woolens
,
salt
,
rigging
,
iron
,
paper
,
and
English
goods
of
every
kind
.
Such
shopkeepers
as
James
Green
,
at
the
Sign
of
the
Elephant
in
Cheapside
,
the
Russells
,
at
the
Sign
of
the
Golden
Eagle
across
the
Bridge
,
or
Clark
and
Nightingale
at
the
Frying-Pan
and
Fish
near
New
Coffee-House
,
depended
almost
wholly
upon
him
for
their
stock
;
and
his
arrangements
with
the
local
distillers
,
the
Narragansett
dairymen
and
horse-breeders
,
and
the
Newport
candle-makers
,
made
him
one
of
the
prime
exporters
of
the
Colony
Ostracized
though
he
was
,
he
did
not
lack
for
civic
spirit
of
a
sort
.
When
the
Colony
House
burned
down
,
he
subscribed
handsomely
to
the
lotteries
by
which
the
new
brick
one
--
still
standing
at
the
head
of
its
parade
in
the
old
main
street
--
was
built
in
1761
.
In
that
same
year
,
too
,
he
helped
rebuild
the
Great
Bridge
after
the
October
gale
.
He
replaced
many
of
the
books
of
the
public
library
consumed
in
the
Colony
House
fire
,
and
bought
heavily
in
the
lottery
that
gave
the
muddy
Market
Parade
and
deep-rutted
Town
Street
their
pavement
of
great
round
stones
with
a
brick
footwalk
or
"
causey
"
in
the
middle
.
About
this
time
,
also
,
he
built
the
plain
but
excellent
new
house
whose
doorway
is
still
such
a
triumph
of
carving
.
When
the
Whitefield
adherents
broke
off
from
Dr.
Cotton
's
hill
church
in
1743
and
founded
Deacon
Snow
's
church
across
the
Bridge
,
Curwen
had
gone
with
them
;
though
his
zeal
and
attendance
soon
abated
.
Now
,
however
,
he
cultivated
piety
once
more
;
as
if
to
dispel
the
shadow
which
had
thrown
him
into
isolation
and
would
soon
begin
to
wreck
his
business
fortunes
if
not
sharply
checked
.
The
sight
of
this
strange
,
pallid
man
,
hardly
middle-aged
in
aspect
yet
certainly
not
less
than
a
full
century
old
,
seeking
at
last
to
emerge
from
a
cloud
of
fright
and
detestation
too
vague
to
pin
down
or
analyze
,
was
at
once
a
pathetic
,
a
dramatic
,
and
a
contemptible
thing
.
Such
is
the
power
of
wealth
and
of
surface
gestures
,
however
,
that
there
came
indeed
a
slight
abatement
in
the
visible
aversion
displayed
toward
him
;
especially
after
the
rapid
disappearances
of
his
sailors
abruptly
ceased
.
He
must
likewise
have
begun
to
practice
an
extreme
care
and
secrecy
in
his
graveyard
expeditions
,
for
he
was
never
again
caught
at
such
wanderings
;
whilst
the
rumors
of
uncanny
sounds
and
maneuvers
at
his
Pawtuxet
farm
diminished
in
proportion
.
His
rate
of
food
consumption
and
cattle
replacement
remained
abnormally
high
;
but
not
until
modern
times
,
when
Charles
Ward
examined
a
set
of
his
accounts
and
invoices
in
the
Shepley
Library
,
did
it
occur
to
any
person
--
save
one
embittered
youth
,
perhaps
--
to
make
dark
comparisons
between
the
large
number
of
Guinea
blacks
he
imported
until
1766
,
and
the
disturbingly
small
number
for
whom
he
could
produce
bona
fide
bills
of
sale
either
to
slave-dealers
at
the
Great
Bridge
or
to
the
planters
of
the
Narragansett
Country
.
Certainly
,
the
cunning
and
ingenuity
of
this
abhorred
character
were
uncannily
profound
,
once
the
necessity
for
their
exercise
had
become
impressed
upon
him
.
But
of
course
the
effect
of
all
this
belated
mending
was
necessarily
slight
.
Curwen
continued
to
be
avoided
and
distrusted
,
as
indeed
the
one
fact
of
his
continued
air
of
youth
at
a
great
age
would
have
been
enough
to
warrant
;
and
he
could
see
that
in
the
end
his
fortunes
would
be
likely
to
suffer
.
His
elaborate
studies
and
experiments
,
whatever
they
may
have
been
,
apparently
required
a
heavy
income
for
their
maintenance
;
and
since
a
change
of
environment
would
deprive
him
of
the
trading
advantages
he
had
gained
,
it
would
not
have
profited
him
to
begin
anew
in
a
different
region
just
then
.
Judgment
demanded
that
he
patch
up
his
relations
with
the
townsfolk
of
Providence
,
so
that
his
presence
might
no
longer
be
a
signal
for
hushed
conversation
,
transparent
excuses
or
errands
elsewhere
,
and
a
general
atmosphere
of
constraint
and
uneasiness
.
His
clerks
,
being
now
reduced
to
the
shiftless
and
impecunious
residue
whom
no
one
else
would
employ
,
were
giving
him
much
worry
;
and
he
held
to
his
sea-captains
and
mates
only
by
shrewdness
in
gaining
some
kind
of
ascendancy
over
them
--
a
mortgage
,
a
promissory
note
,
or
a
bit
of
information
very
pertinent
to
their
welfare
.
In
many
cases
,
diarists
have
recorded
with
some
awe
,
Curwen
showed
almost
the
power
of
a
wizard
in
unearthing
family
secrets
for
questionable
use
.
During
the
final
five
years
of
his
life
it
seemed
as
though
only
direct
talks
with
the
long-dead
could
possibly
have
furnished
some
of
the
data
which
he
had
so
glibly
at
his
tongue
's
end
.
About
this
time
the
crafty
scholar
hit
upon
a
last
desperate
expedient
to
regain
his
footing
in
the
community
.
Hitherto
a
complete
hermit
,
he
now
determined
to
contract
an
advantageous
marriage
;
securing
as
a
bride
some
lady
whose
unquestioned
position
would
make
all
ostracism
of
his
home
impossible
.
It
may
be
that
he
also
had
deeper
reasons
for
wishing
an
alliance
;
reasons
so
far
outside
the
known
cosmic
sphere
that
only
papers
found
a
century
and
a
half
after
his
death
caused
anyone
to
suspect
them
;
but
of
this
nothing
certain
can
ever
be
learned
.
Naturally
he
was
aware
of
the
horror
and
indignation
with
which
any
ordinary
courtship
of
his
would
be
received
,
hence
he
looked
about
for
some
likely
candidate
upon
whose
parents
he
might
exert
a
suitable
pressure
.
Such
candidates
,
he
found
,
were
not
at
all
easy
to
discover
;
since
he
had
very
particular
requirements
in
the
way
of
beauty
,
accomplishments
,
and
social
security
.
At
length
his
survey
narrowed
down
to
the
household
of
one
of
his
best
and
oldest
ship-captains
,
a
widower
of
high
birth
and
unblemished
standing
named
Dutee
Tillinghast
,
whose
only
daughter
Eliza
seemed
dowered
with
every
conceivable
advantage
save
prospects
as
an
heiress
.
Capt.
Tillinghast
was
completely
under
the
domination
of
Curwen
;
and
consented
,
after
a
terrible
interview
in
his
cupolaed
house
on
Power
's
Lane
hill
,
to
sanction
the
blasphemous
alliance
.
