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- 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 favor. 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-parlor, 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.
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