MY aunt has often told me that, when she was staying with her mother
at a friend's house in the city, at night time a curious tapping, as
if with a thimble, on the door of her room used to awaken her, and
then something seemed to appear at the bottom of the bed which was
one of the old-fashioned four-post type. Then she would feel the bed
shake beneath her, the shaking increasing in volume. The tapping was
heard about a quarter to twelve, and everything ceased on the stroke
of midnight.
Her mother used to think she was dreaming, but, as she was so emphatic
in her story, they agreed to change rooms, my grandmother sleeping in
her daughter’s room. Soon after twelve o'clock my grandmother entered
my aunt’s bedroom, looking very frightened. “You are quite right,” she
said, “I can’t sleep there another night; I don't know how you managed
to sleep there so long.”
The next day my aunt inquired as to the occupants of the room who had
preceded her. The host looked rather anxious. “Why,” he said, “my
mother used to sleep there; she died rather suddenly a year or two
ago, and I don’t think anybody has ever occupied it since.” My aunt
told him of what had happened, and he said that his mother was always
accustomed to wearing a thimble, and, on entering a room, used to
knock on the door with it. He was unable to give an explanation of the
shaking of the bed, so that must be put down as an unfathomable
mystery.