Chapter 181

168 MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE or to one or two outhouses that lay to the north, beyond the brook, and were thoroughly concealed by a few locusts and catalpas. Not more than six steps from the main door of the cottage stood the dead trunk of a fantastic pear-tree, so clothed from head to foot in the gorgeous bignonia blossoms that one required no little scrutiny to determine what manner of sweet thing it could be. From various arms of this tree hung cages of different kinds. In one, a large wicker cylinder with a ring at top, reveled a mocking-bird; in another, an oriole; in a third, the impudent bobolink — while three or four more delicate prisons were loudly vocal with canaries. The pillars of the piazza were enwreathed in jasmine and sweet honeysuckle, while from the angle formed by the main structure and its west wing in front sprang a grape-vine of unexampled luxuriance. Scorning all restraint, it had clambered first to the lower roof, then to the higher, and along the ridge of this latter it continued to writhe on, throwing out tendrils to the right and left, until at length it fairly attained the east gable, and fell trailing over the stairs. The whole house, with its wings, was constructed of the old-fashioned Dutch shingles, broad, and with unrounded corners. It is a peculiarity of this material to give houses built of it the appearance of being wider at bottom than at top, after the manner of Egyptian architecture; and in the present instance this exceedingly picturesque effect was aided by numerous pots of gorgeous flowers that almost encompassed the base of the buildings. The shingles were painted a dull gray, and the happiness with which this neutral tint melted into the vivid green of the tulip-tree leaves that partially over-shadowed the cottage can readily be conceived by an artist. From the position near the stone wall, as described, the buildings were seen at great advantage, for the south