Page:Libussa, Duchess of Bohemia; also, The Man Without a Name.djvu/105

Rh Amazons, who defended their rights and claims upon the soil of their former property so firmly, that the exorcisers themselves were sometimes compelled to take to their heels with their sacred relics.

At length it fell to the lot of a travelling exorcist, whose sole occupation it was to travel from place to place to find out sorceresses, to banish hobgoblins, and to purify demoniacs from the caterpillar brood of sprites,—it fell to his lot to tame these ghostly night-revellers, and to lock them up again in their dark death-chamber, where they were permitted to roll about their skulls, and to rattle and clatter as much as they liked with their bones. Everything was now quiet in the castle, and the nuns once more reposed in their silent death-sleep. But, after the lapse of seven years, one of these turbulent spirits, having slept its fill, again made itself visible at night, and carried on the former game till it was tired, and then took another repose of seven years, when it again came to this upper world, and disturbed the castle. The inhabitants got in time used to the sight of the ghost; and when the period of its appearance came, the servants took care to avoid the principal gallery in the evening, or kept, if possible, altogether in their rooms.