A faint sort of inward rapping or rasping—a strange, inexplicable sound, mixed with a slight kind of woodpecking 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, 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 tomorrow. But you must give up the punch- drinking, my dear. It quite gets the better of you.’