On one of the side streets of a New England town stands a seven-gabled house with an enormous elm tree before its door. It is the ancestral Pyncheon house, owned by a family with a long tradition. It was built on the site of the house of Matthew Maule. Envious of the fine location, Colonel Pyncheon had helped convict the house's owner of witchcraft and was instrumental in having him hanged. From the gallows, however, Matthew Maule cursed Colonel Pyncheon: "God will give him blood to drink!" Later, on the day that the Colonel opened his new seven-gabled mansion, a hundred sixty years ago, his guests found him dead in his study, his ruff and beard smeared red with blood. Generations of Pyncheons have come and gone, and the family has suffered many sorrows; a claim to an extensive tract of land in Maine remains unsubstantiated; a Pyncheon turned Tory during the Revolution, but he repented in time to save the house from confiscation; and a cousin of the present leading Pyncheon, Judge Jaffrey, has been convicted of murdering his uncle and has been sent to prison. The present inhabitant of the house, Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon, has reopened its dusty little cent-shop. The descendants of Maule seem to have disappeared, although one, Matthew's son Thomas, superintended the building of the Pyncheon house, which has a brow-like second story, a murky, sour well, a weedy garden, mossy windows, and flowers in a high nook near the chimney.
