Chapter I: And My Chimney (2)

It was one of the first of the chill nights in autumn. There was a fire on the hearth, burning low. The air without was torpid and heavy; the wood, by an oversight, of the sort called soggy.

‘Do look at the chimney,’ she began; ‘can’t you see that something must be in it?’

‘Yes, wife. Truly there is smoke in the chimney, as in Mr. Scribe’s note.’

‘Smoke? Yes, indeed, and in my eyes, too. How you two wicked old sinners do smoke!--this wicked old chimney and you.’

‘Wife,’ said I, ‘I and my chimney like to have a quiet smoke together, it is true, but we don’t like to be called names.’

‘Now, dear old man,’ said she, softening down, and a little shifting the subject, ‘when you think of that old kinsman of yours, you _know_ there must be a secret closet in this chimney.’

‘Secret ash-hole, wife, why don’t you have it? Yes, I dare say there is a secret ash-hole in the chimney; for where do all the ashes go to that we drop down the queer hole yonder?’

‘I know where they go to; I’ve been there almost as many times as the cat.’

‘What devil, wife, prompted you to crawl into the ash-hole! Don’t you know that St. Dunstan’s devil emerged from the ash-hole? You will get your death one of these days, exploring all about as you do. But, supposing there be a secret closet, what then?’

‘What then? Why, what should be in a secret closet but----’

‘Dry bones, wife,’ broke in I with a puff, while the sociable old chimney broke in with another.

‘There again! Oh, how this wretched old chimney smokes,’ wiping her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘I’ve no doubt the reason it smokes so is, because that secret closet interferes with the flue. Do see, too, how the jambs here keep settling; and it’s down hill all the way from the door to this hearth. This horrid old chimney will fall on our heads yet; depend upon it, old man.’

‘Yes, wife, I do depend on it; yes, indeed, I place every dependence on my chimney. As for its settling, I like it. I, too, am settling, you know, in my gait. I and my chimney are settling together, and shall keep settling, too, till, as in a great feather-bed, we shall both have settled away clean out of sight. But this secret oven; I mean, secret closet of yours, wife; where exactly do you suppose that secret closet is?’

‘That is for Mr. Scribe to say.’

‘But suppose he cannot say exactly; what then?’

‘Why, then, he can prove, I am sure, that it must be somewhere or other in this horrid old chimney.’

‘And if he can’t prove that; what then?’

‘Why then, old man,’ with a stately air, ‘I shall say little more about it.’

‘Agreed, wife,’ returned I, knocking my pipe-bowl against the jamb; ‘and now, to-morrow, I will a third time send for Mr. Scribe. Wife, the sciatica takes me; be so good as to put this pipe on the mantel.’

‘If you get the step-ladder for me, I will. This shocking old chimney, this abominable old-fashioned old chimney’s mantels are so high, I can’t reach them.’

No opportunity, however trivial, was overlooked for a subordinate fling at the pile.

Here, by way of introduction, it should be mentioned, that besides the fireplaces all round it, the chimney was, in the most haphazard way, excavated on each floor for certain curious out-of-the-way cupboards and closets, of all sorts and sizes, clinging here and there, like nests in the crotches of some old oak. On the second floor these closets were by far the most irregular and numerous. And yet this should hardly have been so, since the theory of the chimney was, that it pyramidically diminished as it ascended. The abridgment of its square on the roof was obvious enough; and it was supposed that the reduction must be methodically graduated from bottom to top.

‘Mr. Scribe,’ said I, when, the next day, with an eager aspect, that individual again came, ‘my object in sending for you this morning is, not to arrange for the demolition of my chimney, nor to have any particular conversation about it, but simply to allow you every reasonable facility for verifying, if you can, the conjecture communicated in your note.’

Though in secret not a little crestfallen, it may be, by my phlegmatic reception, so different from what he had looked for; with much apparent alacrity he commenced the survey; throwing open the cupboards on the first floor, and peering into the closets on the second; measuring one within, and then comparing that measurement with the measurement without. Removing the fire-boards, he would gaze up the flues. But no sign of the hidden work yet.

Now, on the second floor the rooms were the most rambling conceivable. They, as it were, dovetailed into each other. They were of all shapes; not one mathematically square room among them all--a peculiarity which by the master mason had not been unobserved. With a significant, not to say portentous expression, he took a circuit of the chimney, measuring the area of each room around it; then going downstairs, and out of doors, he measured the entire ground area; then compared the sum-total of all the areas of all the rooms on the second floor with the ground area; then, returning to me in no small excitement, announced that there was a difference of no less than two hundred and odd square feet--room enough, in all conscience, for a secret closet.

‘But, Mr. Scribe,’ said I, stroking my chin, ‘have you allowed for the walls, both main and sectional? They take up some space, you know.’

‘Ah, I had forgotten that,’ tapping his forehead; ‘but,’ still ciphering on his paper, ‘that will not make up the deficiency.’

‘But, Mr. Scribe, have you allowed for the recesses of so many fireplaces on a floor, and for the fire-walls, and the flues; in short, Mr. Scribe, have you allowed for the legitimate chimney itself--some one hundred and forty-four square feet or thereabouts, Mr. Scribe?’

‘How unaccountable. That slipped my mind too.’

‘Did it, indeed, Mr. Scribe?’

He faltered a little, and burst forth with, ‘But we must now allow one hundred and forty-four square feet for the legitimate chimney. My position is, that within those undue limits the secret closet is contained.’

I eyed him in silence a moment; then spoke:

‘Your survey is concluded, Mr. Scribe; be so good now as to lay your finger upon the exact part of the chimney wall where you believe this secret closet to be; or would a witch-hazel wand assist you, Mr. Scribe?’

‘No, sir, but a crowbar would,’ he, with temper, rejoined.

Here, now, thought I to myself, the cat leaps out of the bag. I looked at him with a calm glance, under which he seemed somewhat uneasy. More than ever now I suspected a plot. I remembered what my wife had said about abiding by the decision of Mr. Scribe. In a bland way, I resolved to buy up the decision of Mr. Scribe.

‘Sir,’ said I, ‘really, I am much obliged to you for this survey. It has quite set my mind at rest. And no doubt you, too, Mr. Scribe, must feel much relieved. Sir,’ I added, ‘you have made three visits to the chimney. With a business man, time is money. Here are fifty dollars, Mr. Scribe. Nay, take it. You have earned it. Your opinion is worth it. And by the way’--as he modestly received the money--‘have you any objections to give me a--a--little certificate--something, say, like a steamboat certificate, certifying that you, a competent surveyor, have surveyed my chimney, and found no reason to believe any unsoundness; in short, any--any secret closet in it. Would you be so kind, Mr. Scribe?’

‘But, but, sir,’ stammered he with honest hesitation.

‘Here, here are pen and paper,’ said I, with entire assurance.

Enough.

That evening I had the certificate framed and hung over the dining-room fireplace, trusting that the continual sight of it would forever put at rest at once the dreams and stratagems of my household.

But, no. Inveterately bent upon the extirpation of that noble old chimney, still to this day my wife goes about it, with my daughter Anna’s geological hammer, tapping the wall all over, and then holding her ear against it, as I have seen the physicians of life insurance companies tap a man’s chest, and then incline over for the echo. Sometimes of nights she almost frightens one, going about on this phantom errand, and still following the sepulchral response of the chimney, round and round, as if it were leading her to the threshold of the secret closet.

‘How hollow it sounds,’ she will hollowly cry. ‘Yes, I declare,’ with an emphatic tap, ‘there is a secret closet here. Here, in this very spot. Hark! How hollow!’

‘Psha! wife, of course it is hollow. Who ever heard of a solid chimney?’

But nothing avails. And my daughters take after, not me, but their mother.

Sometimes all three abandon the theory of the secret closet, and return to the genuine ground of attack--the unsightliness of so cumbrous a pile, with comments upon the great addition of room to be gained by its demolition, and the fine effect of the projected grand hall, and the convenience resulting from the collateral running in one direction and another of their various partitions. Not more ruthlessly did the Three Powers partition away poor Poland, than my wife and daughters would fain partition away my chimney.

But seeing that, despite all, I and my chimney still smoke our pipes, my wife reoccupies the ground of the secret closet, enlarging upon what wonders are there, and what a shame it is, not to seek it out and explore it.

‘Wife,’ said I, upon one of these occasions, ‘why speak more of that secret closet, when there before you hangs contrary testimony of a master mason, elected by yourself to decide. Besides, even if there were a secret closet, secret it should remain, and secret it shall. Yes, wife, here, for once, I must say my say. Infinite sad mischief has resulted from the profane bursting open of secret recesses. Though standing in the heart of this house, though hitherto we have all nestled about it, unsuspicious of aught hidden within, this chimney may or may not have a secret closet. But if it have, it is my kinsman’s. To break into that wall, would be to break into his breast. And that wall-breaking wish of Momus I account the wish of a church-robbing gossip and knave. Yes, wife, a vile eavesdropping varlet was Momus.’

‘Moses?--Mumps? Stuff with your mumps and your Moses!’

The truth is, my wife, like all the rest of the world, cares not a fig for my philosophical jabber. In dearth of other philosophical companionship, I and my chimney have to smoke and philosophise together. And sitting up so late as we do at it, a mighty smoke it is that we two smoky old philosophers make.

But my spouse, who likes the smoke of my tobacco as little as she does that of the soot, carries on her war against both. I live in continual dread lest, like the golden bowl, the pipes of me and my chimney shall yet be broken. To stay that mad project of my wife’s, naught answers. Or, rather, she herself is incessantly answering, incessantly besetting me with her terrible alacrity for improvement, which is a softer name for destruction. Scarce a day I do not find her with her tape-measure, measuring for her grand hall, while Anna holds a yard-stick on one side, and Julia looks approvingly on from the other. Mysterious intimations appear in the nearest village paper, signed ‘Claude,’ to the effect that a certain structure, standing on a certain hill, is a sad blemish to an otherwise lovely landscape. Anonymous letters arrive, threatening me with I know not what, unless I remove my chimney. Is it my wife, too, or who, that sets up the neighbours to badgering me on the same subject, and hinting to me that my chimney, like a huge elm, absorbs all moisture from my garden? At night, also, my wife will start as from sleep, professing to hear ghostly noises from the secret closet. Assailed on all sides, and in all ways, small peace have I and my chimney.

Were it not for the baggage, we would together pack up, and remove from the country.

What narrow escapes have been ours! Once I found in a drawer a whole portfolio of plans and estimates. Another time, upon returning after a day’s absence, I discovered my wife standing before the chimney in earnest conversation with a person whom I at once recognised as a meddlesome architectural reformer, who, because he had no gift for putting up anything, was ever intent upon pulling down; in various parts of the country having prevailed upon half-witted old folks to destroy their old-fashioned houses, particularly the chimneys.

But worst of all was that time I unexpectedly returned at early morning from a visit to the city, and upon approaching the house, narrowly escaped three brickbats which fell, from high aloft, at my feet. Glancing up, what was my horror to see three savages, in blue jean overalls, in the very act of commencing the long-threatened attack. Ay, indeed, thinking of those three brickbats, I and my chimney have had narrow escapes.

It is now some seven years since I have stirred from home. My city friends all wonder why I don’t come to see them, as in former times. They think I am getting sour and unsocial. Some say that I have become a sort of mossy old misanthrope, while all the time the fact is, I am simply standing guard over my mossy old chimney; for it is resolved between me and my chimney, that I and my chimney will never surrender.

-----

Footnote 12:

In the margin of the MS. of this Essay, Melville’s wife wrote the
following note:--

‘All this about his wife, applied to his mother--who was very vigorous
and energetic about the farm, etc. The proposed removal of the chimney
is purely mythical.’

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THE APPLE-TREE TABLE

OR ORIGINAL SPIRITUAL MANIFESTATIONS

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.

I listened with all my ears.

Tick! tick!

Was it a death-tick in the wainscot?

With a tremulous step I went all round the room, holding my ear to the wainscot.

No; it came not from the wainscot.

Tick! tick!

I shook myself. I was ashamed of my fright.

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.