Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/409

 Lily was the real designation, the alteration in name being simply made to deceive. Their 'goddess' was Yen's own wife, and she pretended to be able to summon wind and bring down rain, enslave bogies and exorcise spirits, being assisted in her performances by her para- mour, a man named Hu, who called himself the Immortal of Pencil Peak. He used to aid in writing out charms, spirting water, curing diseases, and praying for heirs ; and he could enable widows to hold converse with their departed husbands. The whole district was taken in by these people, and went quite mad about them, people travelling from afar to worship them as spiritual guides, and, with many offerings of money, meats, and wines, enrolling themselves as their humble disciples, until one would have said it was market-day in the neighbour- hood. I heard of their doings one day as I was returning from the prefectural city. They had already established themselves in a large building to the north of the dis- trict; they had opened a preaching-hall, collected several hundred persons together, and for the two previous days had been availing themselves of the services of some play-actors to sing and perform at their banquets. I immediately sent off constables to arrest them ; but the constables were afraid of incurring the displeasure of the spirits and being seized by the soldiers of the infernal regions, while so much protection was afforded by various families of wealth and position that the guilty parties succeeded in preventing the arrest of a single one of their number. Therefore I proceeded in person to their establishment, knocked at the door, and seized the goddess, whom I subjected to a searching examination as to the whereabouts of her accomplices ; but the interior of the place being, as it was, a perfect maze of

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