When I first saw the table, dingy and dusty, in the furthest corner of
the old hopper-shaped garret, and set out with broken, be-crusted old
purple vials and flasks, and a ghostly, dismantled old quarto, it seemed
just such a necromantic little old table as might have belonged to Friar
Bacon. Two plain features it had, significant of conjurations and
charms--the circle and tripod; the slab being round, supported by a
twisted little pillar, which, about a foot from the bottom, sprawled out
into three crooked legs, terminating in three cloven feet. A very
satanic-looking little old table, indeed.
In order to convey a better idea of it, some account may as well be
given of the place it came from. A very old garret of a very old house
in an old-fashioned quarter of one of the oldest towns in America. This
garret had been closed for years. It was thought to be haunted; a
rumour, I confess, which, however absurd (in my opinion), I did not, at
the time of purchasing, very vehemently contradict; since, not
improbably, it tended to place the property the more conveniently within
my means.
It was, therefore, from no dread of the reputed goblins aloft, that, for
five years after first taking up my residence in the house, I never
entered the garret. There was no special inducement. The roof was well
slated, and thoroughly tight. The company that insured the house, waived
all visitation of the garret; why, then, should the owner be
over-anxious about it?--particularly as he had no use for it, the house
having ample room below. Then the key of the stair-door leading to it
was lost. The lock was a huge old-fashioned one. To open it, a smith
would have to be called; an unnecessary trouble, I thought. Besides,
though I had taken some care to keep my two daughters in ignorance of
the rumour above-mentioned, still, they had, by some means, got an
inkling of it, and were well enough pleased to see the entrance to the
haunted ground closed. It might have remained so for a still longer
time, had it not been for my accidentally discovering, in a corner of
our glen-like, old, terraced garden, a large and curious key, very old
and rusty, which I at once concluded must belong to the garret door--a
supposition which, upon trial, proved correct. Now, the possession of a
key to anything, at once provokes a desire to unlock and explore; and
this, too, from a mere instinct of gratification, irrespective of any
particular benefit to accrue.
Behold me, then, turning the rusty old key, and going up, alone, into
the haunted garret. It embraced the entire area of the mansion. Its
ceiling was formed by the roof, showing the rafters and boards on which
the slates were laid. The roof shedding the water four ways from a high
point in the centre, the space beneath was much like that of a general’s
marquee--only midway broken by a labyrinth of timbers, for braces, from
which waved innumerable cobwebs, that, of a summer’s noon, shone like
Bagdad tissues and gauzes. On every hand, some strange insect was seen,
flying, or running, or creeping, on rafter and floor.
Under the apex of the roof was a rude, narrow, decrepit step-ladder,
something like a Gothic pulpit-stairway, leading to a pulpit-like
platform, from which a still narrower ladder--a sort of Jacob’s
ladder--led somewhat higher to the lofty scuttle. The slide of this
scuttle was about two feet square, all in one piece, furnishing a
massive frame for a single small pane of glass, inserted into it like a
bull’s-eye. The light of the garret came from this sole source,
filtrated through a dense curtain of cobwebs. Indeed, the whole stairs,
and platform, and ladder, were festooned, and carpeted, and canopied
with cobwebs; which, in funereal accumulations, hung, too, from the
groined, murky ceiling, like the Carolina moss in the cypress forest. In
these cobwebs swung, as in aerial catacombs, myriads of all tribes of
mummied insects.
Climbing the stairs to the platform, and pausing there, to recover my
breath, a curious scene was presented. The sun was about half-way up.
Piercing the little skylight, it slopingly bored a rainbowed tunnel
clear across the darkness of the garret. Here, millions of butterfly
moles were swarming. Against the skylight itself, with a cymbal-like
buzzing, thousands of insects clustered in a golden mob.
Wishing to shed a clearer light through the place, I sought to withdraw
the scuttle-slide. But no sign of latch or hasp was visible. Only after
long peering, did I discover a little padlock, imbedded, like an oyster
at the bottom of the sea, amid matted masses of weedy webs, chrysalides,
and insectivorous eggs. Brushing these away, I found it locked. With a
crooked nail, I tried to pick the lock, when scores of small ants and
flies, half-torpid, crawled forth from the keyhole, and, feeling the
warmth of the sun in the pane, began frisking around me. Others
appeared. Presently I was overrun by them. As if incensed at this
invasion of their retreat, countless bands darted up from below, beating
about my head, like hornets. At last, with a sudden jerk, I burst open
the scuttle. And ah! what a change. As from the gloom of the grave and
the companionship of worms, men shall at last rapturously rise into the
living greenness and glory-immortal, so, from my cobwebbed old garret, I
thrust forth my head into the balmy air, and found myself hailed by the
verdant tops of great trees, growing in the little garden below--trees,
whose leaves soared high above my topmost slate.
Refreshed by this outlook, I turned inward to behold the garret, now
unwontedly lit up. Such humped masses of obsolete furniture. An old
escritoire, from whose pigeon-holes sprang mice, and from whose secret
drawers came subterranean squeakings, as from chipmunks’ holes in the
woods; and broken-down old chairs, with strange carvings, which seemed
fit to seat a conclave of conjurors. And a rusty, iron-bound chest,
lidless, and packed full of mildewed old documents; one of which, with a
faded red ink-blot at the end, looked as if it might have been the
original bond that Doctor Faust gave to Mephistopheles. And, finally, in
the least lighted corner of all, where was a profuse litter of
indescribable old rubbish--among which was a broken telescope, and a
celestial globe staved in--stood the little old table, one hoofed foot,
like that of the Evil One, dimly revealed through the cobwebs. What a
thick dust, half paste, had settled upon the old vials and flasks; how
their once liquid contents had caked, and how strangely looked the
mouldy old book in the middle--Cotton Mather’s _Magnalia_.
Table and book I removed below, and had the dislocations of the one and
the tatters of the other repaired. I resolved to surround this sad
little hermit of a table, so long banished from genial neighbourhood,
with all the kindly influences of warm urns, warm fires, and warm
hearts, little dreaming what all this warm nursing would hatch.
I was pleased by the discovery that the table was not of the ordinary
mahogany, but of apple-tree wood, which age had darkened nearly to
walnut. It struck me as being an appropriate piece of furniture for our
cedar-parlour--so called, from its being, after the old fashion,
wainscoted with that wood. The table’s round slab, or orb, was so
contrived as to be readily changed from a horizontal to a perpendicular
position; so that, when not in use, it could be snugly placed in a
corner. For myself, wife, and two daughters, I thought it would make a
nice little breakfast and tea-table. It was just the thing for a
whist-table, too. And I also pleased myself with the idea that it would
make a famous reading-table.
In these fancies, my wife, for one, took little interest. She
disrelished the idea of so unfashionable and indigent-looking a stranger
as the table intruding into the polished society of more prosperous
furniture. But when, after seeking its fortune at the cabinet-maker’s,
the table came home, varnished over, bright as a guinea, no one exceeded
my wife in a gracious reception of it. It was advanced to an honourable
position in the cedar-parlour.
But, as for my daughter Julia, she never got over her strange emotions
upon first accidentally encountering the table. Unfortunately, it was
just as I was in the act of bringing it down from the garret. Holding it
by the slab, I was carrying it before me, one cobwebbed hoof thrust out,
which weird object at a turn of the stairs suddenly touched my girl, as
she was ascending; whereupon, turning, and seeing no living
creature--for I was quite hidden behind my shield--seeing nothing
indeed, but the apparition of the Evil One’s foot, as it seemed, she
cried out, and there is no knowing what might have followed, had I not
immediately spoken.
From the impression thus produced, my poor girl, of a very nervous
temperament, was long recovering. Superstitiously grieved at my
violating the forbidden solitude above, she associated in her mind the
cloven-footed table with the reputed goblins there. She besought me to
give up the idea of domesticating the table. Nor did her sister fail to
add her entreaties. Between my girls there was a constitutional
sympathy. But my matter-of-fact wife had now declared in the table’s
favour. She was not wanting in firmness and energy. To her, the
prejudices of Julia and Anna were simply ridiculous. It was her maternal
duty, she thought, to drive such weakness away. By degrees, the girls,
at breakfast and tea, were induced to sit down with us at the table.
Continual proximity was not without effect. By and by, they would sit
pretty tranquilly, though Julia, as much as possible, avoided glancing
at the hoofed feet, and, when at this I smiled, she would look at me
seriously--as much as to say, Ah, papa, you, too, may yet do the same.
She prophesied that, in connection with the table, something strange
would yet happen. But I would only smile the more, while my wife
indignantly chided.
Meantime, I took particular satisfaction in my table, as a night
reading-table. At a ladies’ fair, I bought me a beautifully worked
reading-cushion, and, with elbow leaning thereon, and hand shading my
eyes from the light, spent many a long hour--nobody by, but the queer
old book I had brought down from the garret.
All went well, till the incident now about to be given--an incident, be
it remembered, which, like every other in this narration, happened long
before the time of the ‘Fox Girls.’
It was late on a Saturday night in December. In the little old
cedar-parlour, before the little old apple-tree table, I was sitting up,
as usual, alone. I had made more than one effort to get up and go to
bed; but I could not. I was, in fact, under a sort of fascination.
Somehow, too, certain reasonable opinions of mine, seemed not so
reasonable as before. I felt nervous. The truth was, that though, in my
previous night-readings, Cotton Mather had but amused me, upon this
particular night he terrified me. A thousand times I had laughed at such
stories. Old wives’ fables, I thought, however entertaining. But now,
how different. They began to put on the aspect of reality. Now, for the
first time it struck me that this was no romantic Mrs. Radcliffe, who
had written the _Magnalia_; but a practical, hard-working, earnest,
upright man, a learned doctor, too, as well as a good Christian and
orthodox clergyman. What possible motive could such a man have to
deceive? His style had all the plainness and unpoetic boldness of truth.
In the most straightforward way, he laid before me detailed accounts of
New England witchcraft, each important item corroborated by respectable
townsfolk, and, of not a few of the most surprising, he himself had been
eye-witness. Cotton Mather testified himself whereof he had seen. But is
it possible? I asked myself. Then I remembered that Dr. Johnson, the
matter-of-fact compiler of a dictionary, had been a believer in ghosts,
besides many other sound, worthy men. Yielding to the fascination, I
read deeper and deeper into the night. At last, I found myself starting
at the least chance sound, and yet wishing that it were not so very
still.
A tumbler of warm punch stood by my side, with which beverage, in a
moderate way, I was accustomed to treat myself every Saturday night; a
habit, however, against which my good wife had long remonstrated;
predicting that, unless I gave it up, I would yet die a miserable sot.
Indeed, I may here mention that, on the Sunday mornings following my
Saturday nights, I had to be exceedingly cautious how I gave way to the
slightest impatience at any accidental annoyance; because such
impatience was sure to be quoted against me as evidence of the
melancholy consequences of over-night indulgence. As for my wife, she,
never sipping punch, could yield to any little passing peevishness as
much as she pleased.
But, upon the night in question, I found myself wishing that, instead of
my usual mild mixture, I had concocted some potent draught. I felt the
need of stimulus. I wanted something to hearten me against Cotton
Mather--doleful, ghostly, ghastly Cotton Mather. I grew more and more
nervous. Nothing but fascination kept me from fleeing the room. The
candles burnt low, with long snuffs, and huge winding-sheets. But I
durst not raise the snuffers to them. It would make too much noise. And
yet, previously, I had been wishing for noise. I read on and on. My hair
began to have a sensation. My eyes felt strained; they pained me. I was
conscious of it. I knew I was injuring them. I knew I should rue this
abuse of them next day; but I read on and on. I could not help it. The
skinny hand was on me.
All at once--Hark!
My hair felt like growing grass.
A faint sort of inward rapping or rasping--a strange, inexplicable
sound, mixed with a slight kind of wood-pecking or ticking.
Tick! tick!
Yes, it was a faint sort of ticking.
I looked up at my great Strasbourg clock in one corner. It was not that.
The clock had stopped.
Tick! tick!
Was it my watch?
According to her usual practice at night, my wife had, upon retiring,
carried my watch off to our chamber to hang it up on its nail.