Tick! tick!
It grew in precision and audibleness. I retreated from the wainscot. It
seemed advancing to meet me.
I looked round and round, but saw nothing, only one cloven foot of the
little apple-tree table.
Bless me, said I to myself, with a sudden revulsion, it must be very
late; ain’t that my wife calling me? Yes, yes; I must to bed. I suppose
all is locked up. No need to go the rounds.
The fascination had departed, though the fear had increased. With
trembling hands, putting Cotton Mather out of sight, I soon found
myself, candlestick in hand, in my chamber, with a peculiar rearward
feeling, such as some truant dog may feel. In my eagerness to get well
into the chamber, I stumbled against a chair.
‘Do try and make less noise, my dear,’ said my wife from the bed.
‘You have been taking too much of that punch, I fear. That sad habit
grows on you. Ah, that I should ever see you thus staggering at night
into your chamber.’
‘Wife,’ hoarsely whispered I, ‘there is--is something tick-ticking in
the cedar-parlour.’
‘Poor old man--quite out of his mind--I knew it would be so. Come to
bed; come and sleep it off.’
‘Wife, wife!’
‘Do, do come to bed. I forgive you. I won’t remind you of it to-morrow.
But you must give up the punch-drinking, my dear. It quite gets the
better of you.’
‘Don’t exasperate me,’ I cried now, truly beside myself; ‘I will quit
the house!’
‘No, no! not in that state. Come to bed, my dear. I won’t say another
word.’
The next morning, upon waking, my wife said nothing about the past
night’s affair, and, feeling no little embarrassment myself, especially
at having been thrown into such a panic, I also was silent.
Consequently, my wife must still have ascribed my singular conduct to a
mind disordered, not by ghosts, but by punch. For my own part, as I lay
in bed watching the sun in the panes, I began to think that much
midnight reading of Cotton Mather was not good for man; that it had a
morbid influence upon the nerves, and gave rise to hallucinations. I
resolved to put Cotton Mather permanently aside. That done, I had no
fear of any return of the ticking. Indeed, I began to think that what
seemed the ticking in the room, was nothing but a sort of buzzing in my
ear.
As is her wont, my wife having preceded me in rising, I made a
deliberate and agreeable toilet. Aware that most disorders of the mind
have their origin in the state of the body, I made vigorous use of the
flesh-brush, and bathed my head with New England rum, a specific once
recommended to me as good for buzzing in the ear. Wrapped in my
dressing-gown, with cravat nicely adjusted, and finger-nails neatly
trimmed, I complacently descended to the little cedar-parlour to
breakfast.
What was my amazement to find my wife on her knees, rummaging about the
carpet nigh the little apple-tree table, on which the morning meal was
laid, while my daughters, Julia and Anna, were running about the
apartment distracted.
‘Oh, papa, papa!’ cried Julia, hurrying up to me, ‘I knew it would be
so. The table, the table!’
‘Spirits! spirits!’ cried Anna, standing far away from it, with pointed
finger.
‘Silence!’ cried my wife. ‘How can I hear it, if you make such a noise?
Be still. Come here, husband; was this the ticking you spoke of? Why
don’t you move? Was this it? Here, kneel down and listen to it. Tick,
tick, tick!--don’t you hear it now?’
‘I do, I do,’ cried I, while my daughters besought us both to come away
from the spot.
Tick! tick! tick!
Right from under the snowy cloth, and the cheerful urn, and the smoking
milk-toast, the unaccountable ticking was heard.
‘Ain’t there a fire in the next room, Julia?’ said I, ‘let us breakfast
there, my dear,’ turning to my wife--‘let us go--leave the table--tell
Biddy to remove the things.’
And so saying I was moving toward the door in high self-possession, when
my wife interrupted me.
‘Before I quit this room, I will see into this ticking,’ she said with
energy.
‘It is something that can be found out, depend upon it. I don’t believe
in spirits, especially at breakfast-time. Biddy! Biddy! Here, carry
these things back to the kitchen,’ handing the urn. Then, sweeping off
the cloth, the little table lay bare to the eye.
‘It’s the table, the table!’ cried Julia.
‘Nonsense,’ said my wife. ‘Who ever heard of a ticking table? It’s on
the floor. Biddy! Julia! Anna! move everything out of the room--table
and all. Where are the tack-hammers?’
‘Heavens, mamma--you are not going to take up the carpet?’ screamed
Julia.
‘Here’s the hammers, marm,’ said Biddy, advancing tremblingly.
‘Hand them to me, then,’ cried my wife; for poor Biddy was, at long
gun-distance, holding them out as if her mistress had the plague.
‘Now, husband, do you take up that side of the carpet, and I will this.’
Down on her knees she then dropped, while I followed suit.
The carpet being removed, and the ear applied to the naked floor, not
the slightest ticking could be heard.
‘The table--after all, it is the table,’ cried my wife. ‘Biddy, bring it
back.’
‘Oh no, marm, not I, please, marm,’ sobbed Biddy.
‘Foolish creature!--Husband, do you bring it.’
‘My dear,’ said I, ‘we have plenty of other tables; why be so
particular?’
‘Where is that table?’ cried my wife, contemptuously, regardless of my
gentle remonstrance.
‘In the wood-house, marm. I put it away as far as ever I could, marm,’
sobbed Biddy.
‘Shall I go to the wood-house for it, or will you?’ said my wife,
addressing me in a frightful, businesslike manner.
Immediately I darted out of the door, and found the little apple-tree
table, upside down, in one of my chip-bins. I hurriedly returned with
it, and once more my wife examined it attentively. Tick, tick, tick!
Yes, it was the table.
‘Please, marm,’ said Biddy, now entering the room, with hat and
shawl--‘please, marm, will you pay me my wages?’
‘Take your hat and shawl off directly,’ said my wife; ‘set this table
again.’
‘Set it,’ roared I, in a passion, ‘set it, or I’ll go for the police.’
‘Heavens! heavens!’ cried my daughters, in one breath. ‘What will become
of us!--Spirits! spirits!’
‘Will you set the table?’ cried I, advancing upon Biddy.
‘I will, I will--yes, marm--yes, master--I will, I will. Spirits!--Holy
Vargin!’
‘Now, husband,’ said my wife, ‘I am convinced that, whatever it is that
causes this ticking, neither the ticking nor the table can hurt us; for
we are all good Christians, I hope. I am determined to find out the
cause of it, too, which time and patience will bring to light. I shall
breakfast on no other table but this, so long as we live in this house.
So, sit down, now that all things are ready again, and let us quietly
breakfast. My dears,’ turning to Julia and Anna, ‘go to your room, and
return composed. Let me have no more of this childishness.’
Upon occasion my wife was mistress in her house.
During the meal, in vain was conversation started again and again; in
vain my wife said something brisk to infuse into others an animation
akin to her own. Julia and Anna, with heads bowed over their tea-cups,
were still listening for the tick. I confess, too, that their example
was catching. But, for the time, nothing was heard. Either the ticking
had died quite away, or else, slight as it was, the increasing uproar of
the street, with the general hum of day so contrasted with the repose of
night and early morning, smothered the sound. At the lurking inquietude
of her companions, my wife was indignant; the more so, as she seemed to
glory in her own exemption from panic. When breakfast was cleared away
she took my watch, and, placing it on the table, addressed the supposed
spirits in it, with a jocosely defiant air:
‘There, tick away, let us see who can tick loudest!’
All that day, while abroad, I thought of the mysterious table. Could
Cotton Mather speak true? Were there spirits? And would spirits haunt a
tea-table? Would the Evil One dare show his cloven foot in the bosom of
an innocent family? I shuddered when I thought that I myself, against
the solemn warnings of my daughters, had wilfully introduced the cloven
foot there. Yea, three cloven feet. But, toward noon, this sort of
feeling began to wear off. The continual rubbing against so many
practical people in the street, brushed such chimeras away from me. I
remembered that I had not acquitted myself very intrepidly either on the
previous night or in the morning. I resolved to regain the good opinion
of my wife.
To evince my hardihood the more signally, when tea was dismissed, and
the three rubbers of whist had been played, and no ticking had been
heard--which the more encouraged me--I took my pipe, and, saying that
bed-time had arrived for the rest, drew my chair toward the fire, and,
removing my slippers, placed my feet on the fender, looking as calm and
composed as old Democritus in the tombs of Abdera, when one midnight the
mischievous little boys of the town tried to frighten that sturdy
philosopher with spurious ghosts.
And I thought to myself, that the worthy old gentleman had set a good
example to all times in his conduct on that occasion. For, when at the
dead hour, intent on his studies, he heard the strange sounds, he did
not so much as move his eyes from his page, only simply said: ‘Boys,
little boys, go home. This is no place for you. You will catch cold
here.’ The philosophy of which words lies here: that they imply the
foregone conclusion, that any possible investigation of any possible
spiritual phenomena was absurd; that upon the first face of such things,
the mind of a sane man instinctively affirmed them a humbug, unworthy
the least attention; more especially if such phenomena appear in tombs,
since tombs are peculiarly the place of silence, lifelessness, and
solitude; for which cause, by the way, the old man, as upon the occasion
in question, made the tombs of Abdera his place of study.
Presently I was alone, and all was hushed. I laid down my pipe, not
feeling exactly tranquil enough now thoroughly to enjoy it. Taking up
one of the newspapers, I began, in a nervous, hurried sort of way, to
read by the light of a candle placed on a small stand drawn close to the
fire. As for the apple-tree table, having lately concluded that it was
rather too low for a reading-table, I thought best not to use it as such
that night. But it stood not very distant in the middle of the room.
Try as I would, I could not succeed much at reading. Somehow I seemed
all ear and no eye; a condition of intense auricular suspense. But ere
long it was broken.
Tick! tick! tick!
Though it was not the first time I had heard that sound; nay, though I
had made it my particular business on this occasion to wait for that
sound, nevertheless, when it came, it seemed unexpected, as if a cannon
had boomed through the window.
Tick! tick! tick!
I sat stock-still for a time, thoroughly to master, if possible, my
first discomposure. Then rising, I looked pretty steadily at the table;
went up to it pretty steadily; took hold of it pretty steadily; but let
it go pretty quickly; then paced up and down, stopping every moment or
two, with ear pricked to listen. Meantime, within me, the contest
between panic and philosophy remained not wholly decided.
Tick! tick! tick!
With appalling distinctness the ticking now rose on the night.
My pulse fluttered--my heart beat. I hardly know what might not have
followed, had not Democritus just then come to the rescue. For shame,
said I to myself, what is the use of so fine an example of philosophy,
if it cannot be followed? Straightway I resolved to imitate it, even to
the old sage’s occupation and attitude.
Resuming my chair and paper, with back presented to the table, I
remained thus for a time, as if buried in study, when, the ticking still
continuing, I drawled out, in as indifferent and dryly jocose a way as I
could: ‘Come, come, Tick, my boy, fun enough for to-night.’
Tick! tick! tick!
There seemed a sort of jeering defiance in the ticking now. It seemed to
exult over the poor affected part I was playing. But much as the taunt
stung me, it only stung me into persistence. I resolved not to abate one
whit in my mode of address.
‘Come, come, you make more and more noise, Tick, my boy; too much of a
joke--time to have done.’
No sooner said than the ticking ceased. Never was responsive obedience
more exact. For the life of me, I could not help turning round upon the
table, as one would upon some reasonable being, when--could I believe my
senses? I saw something moving, or wriggling, or squirming upon the slab
of the table. It shone like a glow-worm. Unconsciously, I grasped the
poker that stood at hand. But bethinking me how absurd to attack a
glow-worm with a poker, I put it down. How long I sat spellbound and
staring there, with my body presented one way and my face another, I
cannot say; but at length I rose, and, buttoning my coat up and down,
made a sudden intrepid forced march full upon the table. And there, near
the centre of the slab, as I live, I saw an irregular little hole, or,
rather, short nibbled sort of crack, from which (like a butterfly
escaping its chrysalis) the sparkling object, whatever it might be, was
struggling. Its motion was the motion of life. I stood becharmed. Are
there, indeed, spirits, thought I; and is this one? No; I must be
dreaming. I turned my glance off to the red fire on the hearth, then
back to the pale lustre on the table. What I saw was no optical
illusion, but a real marvel. The tremor was increasing, when, once
again, Democritus befriended me. Supernatural coruscation as it
appeared, I strove to look at the strange object in a purely scientific
way. Thus viewed, it appeared some new sort of small shining beetle or
bug, and, I thought, not without something of a hum to it, too.
I still watched it, and with still increasing self-possession. Sparkling
and wriggling, it still continued its throes. In another moment it was
just on the point of escaping its prison. A thought struck me. Running
for a tumbler, I clapped it over the insect just in time to secure it.
After watching it a while longer under the tumbler, I left all as it
was, and, tolerably composed, retired.
Now, for the soul of me, I could not, at that time, comprehend the
phenomenon. A live bug come out of a dead table? A fire-fly bug come out
of a piece of ancient lumber, for one knows not how many years stored
away in an old garret? Was ever such a thing heard of, or even dreamed
of? How got the bug there? Never mind. I bethought me of Democritus, and
resolved to keep cool. At all events, the mystery of the ticking was
explained. It was simply the sound of the gnawing and filing, and
tapping of the bug, in eating its way out. It was satisfactory to think,
that there was an end forever to the ticking. I resolved not to let the
occasion pass without reaping some credit from it.
‘Wife,’ said I, next morning, ‘you will not be troubled with any more
ticking in our table. I have put a stop to all that.’
‘Indeed, husband,’ said she, with some incredulity.
‘Yes, wife,’ returned I, perhaps a little vaingloriously, ‘I have put a
quietus upon that ticking. Depend upon it, the ticking will trouble you
no more.’
In vain she besought me to explain myself. I would not gratify her;
being willing to balance any previous trepidation I might have betrayed,
by leaving room now for the imputation of some heroic feat whereby I had
silenced the ticking. It was a sort of innocent deceit by implication,
quite harmless, and, I thought, of utility.
But when I went to breakfast, I saw my wife kneeling at the table again,
and my girls looking ten times more frightened than ever.
‘Why did you tell me that boastful tale,’ said my wife, indignantly.
‘You might have known how easily it would be found out. See this crack,
too; and here is the ticking again, plainer than ever.’
‘Impossible,’ I explained; but upon applying my ear, sure enough, tick!
tick! tick! The ticking was there.
Recovering myself the best way I might, I demanded the bug.
‘Bug?’ screamed Julia. ‘Good heavens, papa!’
‘I hope, sir, you have been bringing no bugs into this house,’ said my
wife, severely.
‘The bug, the bug!’ I cried; ‘the bug under the tumbler.’
‘Bugs in tumblers!’ cried the girls; ‘not _our_ tumblers, papa? You have
not been putting bugs into our tumblers? Oh, what does--what _does_ it
all mean?’
‘Do you see this hole, this crack here?’ said I, putting my finger on
the spot.
‘That I do,’ said my wife, with high displeasure. ‘And how did it come
there? What have you been doing to the table?’
‘Do you see this crack?’ repeated I, intensely.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Julia; ‘that was what frightened me so; it looks so
like witch-work.’
‘Spirits! spirits!’ cried Anna.
‘Silence!’ said my wife. ‘Go on, sir, and tell us what you know of the
crack.’
‘Wife and daughters,’ said I, solemnly, ‘out of that crack, or hole,
while I was sitting all alone here last night, a wonderful----’
Here, involuntarily, I paused, fascinated by the expectant attitudes and
bursting eyes of Julia and Anna.
‘What, what?’ cried Julia.
‘A bug, Julia.’
‘Bug?’ cried my wife. ‘A bug come out of this table? And what did you do
with it?’
‘Clapped it under a tumbler.’
‘Biddy! Biddy!’ cried my wife, going to the door. ‘Did you see a tumbler
here on this table when you swept the room?’
‘Sure I did, marm, and ’bomnable bug under it.’
‘And what did you do with it?’ demanded I.
‘Put the bug in the fire, sir, and rinsed out the tumbler ever so many
times, marm.’
‘Where is that tumbler?’ cried Anna. ‘I hope you scratched it--marked it
some way. I’ll never drink out of that tumbler; never put it before me,
Biddy. A bug--a bug! Oh, Julia! Oh, mamma! I feel it crawling all over
me, even now. Haunted table!’
‘Spirits! spirits!’ cried Julia.
‘My daughters,’ said their mother, with authority in her eyes, ‘go to
your chamber till you can behave more like reasonable creatures. Is it a
bug--a bug that can frighten you out of what little wits you ever had?
Leave the room. I am astonished, I am pained by such childish conduct.’
‘Now tell me,’ said she, addressing me, as soon as they had withdrawn,
‘now tell me truly, did a bug really come out of this crack in the
table?’
‘Wife, it is even so.’
‘Did you see it come out?’
‘I did.’
She looked earnestly at the crack, leaning over it.
‘Are you sure?’ said she, looking up, but still bent over.
‘Sure, sure.’
She was silent. I began to think that the mystery of the thing began to
tell even upon her. Yes, thought I, I shall presently see my wife
shaking and shuddering, and, who knows, calling in some old dominie to
exorcise the table, and drive out the spirits.
‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ said she suddenly, and not without
excitement.
‘What, wife?’ said I, all eagerness, expecting some mystical
proposition; ‘what, wife?’
‘We will rub this table all over with that celebrated “roach powder”
I’ve heard of.’
‘Good gracious! Then you don’t think it’s spirits?’
‘Spirits?’
The emphasis of scornful incredulity was worthy of Democritus himself.
‘But this ticking--this ticking?’ said I.
‘I’ll whip that out of it.’
‘Come, come, wife,’ said I, ‘you are going too far the other way, now.
Neither roach powder nor whipping will cure this table. It’s a queer
table, wife; there’s no blinking it.’
‘I’ll have it rubbed, though,’ she replied, ‘well rubbed’; and calling
Biddy, she bade her get wax and brush, and give the table a vigorous
manipulation. That done, the cloth was again laid, and we sat down to
our morning meal; but my daughters did not make their appearance. Julia
and Anna took no breakfast that day.
When the cloth was removed, in a business-like way my wife went to work
with a dark-coloured cement, and hermetically closed the little hole in
the table.
My daughters looking pale, I insisted upon taking them out for a walk
that morning, when the following conversation ensued:
‘My worst presentiments about that table are being verified, papa,’ said
Julia; ‘not for nothing was that intimation of the cloven foot on my
shoulder.’
‘Nonsense,’ said I. ‘Let us go into Mrs. Brown’s, and have an
ice-cream.’
The spirit of Democritus was stronger on me now. By a curious
coincidence, it strengthened with the strength of the sunlight.
‘But is it not miraculous,’ said Anna, ‘how a bug should come out of a
table?’
‘Not at all, my daughter. It is a very common thing for bugs to come out
of wood. You yourself must have seen them coming out of the ends of the
billets on the hearth.’
‘Ah, but that wood is almost fresh from the woodland. But the table is
at least a hundred years old.’
‘What of that?’ said I, gaily. ‘Have not live toads been found in the
hearts of dead rocks, as old as creation?’
‘Say what you will, papa, I feel it is spirits,’ said Julia. ‘Do, do
now, my dear papa, have that haunted table removed from the house.’
‘Nonsense,’ said I.
By another curious coincidence, the more they felt frightened, the more
I felt brave.
Evening came.
‘This ticking,’ said my wife; ‘do you think that another bug will come
of this continued ticking?’
Curiously enough, that had not occurred to me before. I had not thought
of there being twins of bugs. But now, who knew; there might be even
triplets.
I resolved to take precautions, and, if there was to be a second bug,
infallibly secure it. During the evening, the ticking was again heard.
About ten o’clock I clapped a tumbler over the spot, as near as I could
judge of it by my ear. Then we all retired, and locking the door of the
cedar-parlour, I put the key in my pocket.
In the morning, nothing was to be seen, but the ticking was heard. The
trepidation of my daughters returned. They wanted to call in the
neighbours. But to this my wife was vigorously opposed. We should be the
laughing-stock of the whole town. So it was agreed that nothing should
be disclosed. Biddy received strict charges; and, to make sure, was not
allowed that week to go to confession, lest she should tell the priest.
I stayed home all that day; every hour or two bending over the table,
both eye and ear. Toward night, I thought the ticking grew more
distinct, and seemed divided from my ear by a thinner and thinner
partition of the wood. I thought, too, that I perceived a faint heaving
up, or bulging of the wood, in the place where I had placed the tumbler.
To put an end to the suspense, my wife proposed taking a knife and
cutting into the wood there; but I had a less impatient plan; namely,
that she and I should sit up with the table that night, as, from present
symptoms, the bug would probably make its appearance before morning. For
myself, I was curious to see the first advent of the thing--the first
dazzle of the chick as it chipped the shell.
The idea struck my wife not unfavourably. She insisted that both Julia
and Anna should be of the party, in order that the evidence of their
senses should disabuse their minds of all nursery nonsense. For that
spirits should tick, and that spirits should take unto themselves the
form of bugs, was, to my wife, the most foolish of all foolish
imaginations. True, she could not account for the thing; but she had all
confidence that it could be, and would yet be, somehow explained, and
that to her entire satisfaction. Without knowing it herself, my wife was
a female Democritus. For my part, my present feelings were of a mixed
sort. In a strange and not unpleasing way, I gently oscillated between
Democritus and Cotton Mather. But to my wife and daughters I assumed to
be pure Democritus--a jeerer at all tea-table spirits whatever.
So, laying in a good supply of candles and crackers, all four of us sat
up with the table, and at the same time sat round it. For a while my
wife and I carried on an animated conversation. But my daughters were
silent. Then my wife and I would have had a rubber of whist, but my
daughters could not be prevailed upon to join. So we played whist with
two dummies literally; my wife won the rubber and, fatigued with
victory, put away the cards.
Half-past eleven o’clock. No sign of the bug. The candles began to burn
dim. My wife was just in the act of snuffing them, when a sudden,
violent, hollow, resounding, rumbling, thumping was heard.
Julia and Anna sprang to their feet.
‘All well!’ cried a voice from the street. It was the watchman, first
ringing down his club on the pavement, and then following it up with
this highly satisfactory verbal announcement.
‘All well! Do you hear that, my girls?’ said I, gaily.
Indeed it was astonishing how brave as Bruce I felt in company with
three women, and two of them half frightened out of their wits.