- end_line
- 10477
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:26.985Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 10389
- text
- 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!’
- title
- Chunk 4