Crack! That is the old chest of drawers; you never hear it crack in the daytime.

Creak! There's a door ajar; you know you shut them all.
Where can that latch be that rattles so?
Is anybody trying it softly?
or, worse than any body, is----?
(Cold shiver.) Then a sudden gust that jars all the windows;--very strange!--there does not seem to be any wind about that it belongs to.

When it stops, you hear the worms boring in the powdery beams overhead.

Then steps outside,--a stray animal, no doubt.

All right,--but a gentle moisture breaks out all over you; and then something like a whistle or a cry,--another gust of wind, perhaps; that accounts for the rustling that just made your heart roll over and tumble about, so that it felt more like a live rat under your ribs than a part of your own body; then a crash of something that has fallen,--blown over, very likely----Pater noster, qui es in coelis! for you are damp and cold, and sitting bolt upright, and the bed trembling so that the death-watch is frightened and has stopped ticking! No,--night is an awful time for strange noises and secret doings.