This was all at the back of the house, which looked upon the orchard as
you know. But on a Tuesday night, at about half-past nine, there came
precisely the same rapping at the hall-door, and went on, to the great
annoyance of the master and terror of his wife, at intervals, for nearly
two hours.
After this, for several days and nights, they had no annoyance
whatsoever, and began to think that nuisance had expended itself. But on
the night of the 13th September, Jane Easterbrook, an English maid,
having gone into the pantry for the small silver bowl in which her
mistress's posset was served, happening to look up at the little window
of only four panes, observed through an auger-hole which was drilled
through the window frame, for the admission of a bolt to secure the
shutter, a white pudgy finger--first the tip, and then the two first
joints introduced, and turned about this way and that, crooked against
the inside, as if in search of a fastening which its owner designed to
push aside. When the maid got back into the kitchen we are told 'she
fell into "a swounde," and was all the next day very weak.
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