- end_line
- 10783
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T03:48:16.153Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 10672
- text
- ‘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‘Now tell me,’ said she, addressing me, as soon as they had withdrawn,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.
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- Chunk 11