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"The sound which you hear is merely the throbbing or the trembling of the mechanism with which it is intended that the box should be opened. The mechanism is placed just where you are tapping it with the hammer. Every tap causes it to jar." "It sounds to me like the ticking of a deathwatch. However, on such subjects, Tress, I know what you are."
There was a sighing of the wind about the windows, as if it sought admittance to reason and remonstrate with her. A cricket sang his monotonous song on the hearth. In the wainscot of the room a deathwatch ticked its doleful omen. The dog in the courtyard howled plaintively as the hour of midnight sounded upon the Convent bell, close by.
And now the tiresome chirping of a cricket that no human ingenuity could locate, began. Next the ghastly ticking of a deathwatch in the wall at the bed's head made Tom shudder it meant that somebody's days were numbered. Then the howl of a far-off dog rose on the night air, and was answered by a fainter howl from a remoter distance. Tom was in an agony.
And now the tiresome chirping of a cricket that no human ingenuity could locate, began. Next the ghastly ticking of a deathwatch in the wall at the bed's head made Tom shudder it meant that somebody's days were numbered. Then the howl of a far-off dog rose on the night air, and was answered by a fainter howl from a remoter distance. Tom was in an agony.
Every pulse-beat is in exact time with the cricket's chant and the tickings of the deathwatch in the wall. Alternate with these if you can. About two hundred and eighty birds either reside permanently in the State, or spend the summer only, or make us a passing visit. Those which spend the winter with us have obtained our warmest sympathy.
'If I get better, my dear, said he, as he gave his purse to his son to pay the man, 'we can hire horses from hence' 'but, alas! the poor gentleman will never get from hence, said the landlady to me, 'for I heard the deathwatch all night long; and when he dies, the youth, his son, will certainly die with him, for he's broken-hearted already. I was hearing this account, when the youth came into the kitchen, to order the thin toast the landlord spoke of.
"This is a pretty puzzle of Pugh's. He would say that that is the tapping of a deathwatch. For my part I have not much faith in deathwatches, et hoc genus omne, but it certainly is a curious tapping; I wonder what is going to happen next?" Apparently nothing, except a continuation of those mysterious sounds. That the box had increased in size I had, and have, no doubt whatever.
"It sounds to me like the echoing tick, tick of some great beetle; like the sort of noise which a deathwatch makes, you know." Trust Pugh to find a remarkable explanation for a simple fact; if the explanation leans toward the supernatural, so much the more satisfactory to Pugh. I knew better.
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