dead! Dead, in his new house! There is a tradition, only worth
alluding to as lending a tinge of superstitious awe to a scene
perhaps gloomy enough without it, that a voice spoke loudly among
the guests, the tones of which were like those of old Matthew
Maule, the executed wizard,--"God hath given him blood to drink!"

Thus early had that one guest,--the only guest who is certain,
at one time or another, to find his way into every human dwelling,
--thus early had Death stepped across the threshold of the House
of the Seven Gables!

Colonel Pyncheon's sudden and mysterious end made a vast deal
of noise in its day. There were many rumors, some of which have
vaguely drifted down to the present time, how that appearances
indicated violence; that there were the marks of fingers on his
throat, and the print of a bloody hand on his plaited ruff; and
that his peaked beard was dishevelled, as if it had been fiercely
clutched and pulled. It was averred, likewise, that the lattice
window, near the Colonel's chair, was open; and that, only a few
minutes before the fatal occurrence, the figure of a man had been
seen clambering over the garden fence, in the rear of the house.
But it were folly to lay any stress on stories of this kind, which
are sure to spring up around such an event as that now related,
and which, as in the present case, sometimes prolong themselves
for ages afterwards, like the toadstools that indicate where the
fallen and buried trunk of a tree has long since mouldered into
the earth. For our own part, we allow them just as little
credence as to that other fable of the skeleton hand which the
lieutenant-governor was said to have seen at the Colonel's throat,
but which vanished away, as he advanced farther into the room.