never divulge anything you may tell me or anything I may see while you live. Now, then—we’re wasting time. What do you say?”
She hesitated, turning my proposition over in her mind, and as she did so, I saw to the north the spreading of a cloud sheet across the sky and sensed that peculiar change of atmosphere that ever precedes bad weather. Again I prompted her: “The sky is growing more sullen all the time. We’re in for plenty of snow—probably tonight. We really can’t afford to waste time if we want to find Kirby before the worst of the weather sets in. Soon the glass will begin to fall, and—”
“The cold won’t bother Kirby, Mr. Lawton—but you’re right, there’s no time to waste. From now on our breaks must be shorter, and we must try to travel faster. Later today I’ll tell you what I can of…of everything. Believe what you will, it makes little difference, but for the last time I warn you—if we find Kirby, then in all probability we shall also find the utmost horror!”
IV
With regard to the weather, I was right. Having turned again to the north, skirting dense fir forests and crossing frozen streams and low hills, by 10:30 A.M. we were driving through fairly heavy snow. The glass was far down, though mercifully there was little wind. All this time—despite a certainty in my heart that there would be none—nevertheless, I found myself watching out for more of those strange and inexplicable hollows in the snow.
A dense copse where the upper branches interlaced, forming a dark umbrella to hold up a roof of snow, served us for a midday camp. There, while we prepared a hot meal and as we ate, Mrs. Bridgeman began to tell me about her son, about his remarkable childhood and his strange leanings as he grew into a man. Her first revelation, however, was the most fantastic, and plainly the Judge had been quite right to suspect that the events of twenty years gone had turned her mind, at least as far as her son was concerned.
“Kirby,” she started without preamble, “is not Sam’s son. I love Kirby, naturally, but he is in no wise a child of love. He was born of the winds. No, don’t interrupt me, I want no rationalizations.
“Can you understand me, Mr. Lawton? I suppose not. Indeed, at first I, too, thought that I was mad, that the whole thing had been a nightmare. I thought so right until the time—until Kirby was born. Then, as he grew up from a baby, I became less sure. Now I know that I was never mad. It was no nightmare that came to me here in the snow but a monstrous fact! And why not? Are not the oldest religions and legends known to man full of stories of gods lusting after the daughters of men? There were giants in the olden times, Mr. Lawton. There still are.
“Do you recall the Wendy-Smith expedition of ’33? What do you suppose he found, that poor man, in the fastnesses of Africa? What prompted him to say these words, which I know by heart: ‘There are fabulous legends of star-born creatures who inhabited this Earth many millions of years before Man appeared and who were still here, in certain black places, when he eventually evolved. They are, I am sure, to an extent here even now.’
“Wendy-Smith was sure, and so am I. In 1913 two monsters were born in Dunwich to a degenerate half-wit of a woman. They are both dead now, but there are still whispers in Dunwich of the affair, and of the father who is hinted to have been other than human. Oh, there are many examples of survivals from olden times, of beings and forces that have reached godlike proportions in the minds of men, and who is to deny that at least some of them could be real?
“And where Ithaqua is concerned—why!—there are elementals of the air mentioned in every mythology known to man. Rightly so, for even today, and other than this Ithaqua of the Snows, there are strange winds that blow madness and horror into the minds of men. I mean winds like the Foehn, the south wind of Alpine valleys. And what of
She hesitated, turning my proposition over in her mind, and as she did so, I saw to the north the spreading of a cloud sheet across the sky and sensed that peculiar change of atmosphere that ever precedes bad weather. Again I prompted her: “The sky is growing more sullen all the time. We’re in for plenty of snow—probably tonight. We really can’t afford to waste time if we want to find Kirby before the worst of the weather sets in. Soon the glass will begin to fall, and—”
“The cold won’t bother Kirby, Mr. Lawton—but you’re right, there’s no time to waste. From now on our breaks must be shorter, and we must try to travel faster. Later today I’ll tell you what I can of…of everything. Believe what you will, it makes little difference, but for the last time I warn you—if we find Kirby, then in all probability we shall also find the utmost horror!”
IV
With regard to the weather, I was right. Having turned again to the north, skirting dense fir forests and crossing frozen streams and low hills, by 10:30 A.M. we were driving through fairly heavy snow. The glass was far down, though mercifully there was little wind. All this time—despite a certainty in my heart that there would be none—nevertheless, I found myself watching out for more of those strange and inexplicable hollows in the snow.
A dense copse where the upper branches interlaced, forming a dark umbrella to hold up a roof of snow, served us for a midday camp. There, while we prepared a hot meal and as we ate, Mrs. Bridgeman began to tell me about her son, about his remarkable childhood and his strange leanings as he grew into a man. Her first revelation, however, was the most fantastic, and plainly the Judge had been quite right to suspect that the events of twenty years gone had turned her mind, at least as far as her son was concerned.
“Kirby,” she started without preamble, “is not Sam’s son. I love Kirby, naturally, but he is in no wise a child of love. He was born of the winds. No, don’t interrupt me, I want no rationalizations.
“Can you understand me, Mr. Lawton? I suppose not. Indeed, at first I, too, thought that I was mad, that the whole thing had been a nightmare. I thought so right until the time—until Kirby was born. Then, as he grew up from a baby, I became less sure. Now I know that I was never mad. It was no nightmare that came to me here in the snow but a monstrous fact! And why not? Are not the oldest religions and legends known to man full of stories of gods lusting after the daughters of men? There were giants in the olden times, Mr. Lawton. There still are.
“Do you recall the Wendy-Smith expedition of ’33? What do you suppose he found, that poor man, in the fastnesses of Africa? What prompted him to say these words, which I know by heart: ‘There are fabulous legends of star-born creatures who inhabited this Earth many millions of years before Man appeared and who were still here, in certain black places, when he eventually evolved. They are, I am sure, to an extent here even now.’
“Wendy-Smith was sure, and so am I. In 1913 two monsters were born in Dunwich to a degenerate half-wit of a woman. They are both dead now, but there are still whispers in Dunwich of the affair, and of the father who is hinted to have been other than human. Oh, there are many examples of survivals from olden times, of beings and forces that have reached godlike proportions in the minds of men, and who is to deny that at least some of them could be real?
“And where Ithaqua is concerned—why!—there are elementals of the air mentioned in every mythology known to man. Rightly so, for even today, and other than this Ithaqua of the Snows, there are strange winds that blow madness and horror into the minds of men. I mean winds like the Foehn, the south wind of Alpine valleys. And what of
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