and clanked at night time from below, and made a most fearful noise and rattling in the principal gallery, which was yet unimpaired. A procession of nuns often traversed in solemn train the castle yard, paraded through the apartments, and slammed the doors, so that the proprietor was continually disturbed in his sleep. At other times they rambled about in the servants’ hall, or in the stables, frightened the maids by twitching and pinching them, and tormented the cattle so that the cows had their milk dried up, and the horses snorted and reared, and broke the bars.
Owing to this misbehaviour of the pious sisters, and their unceasing pestering, the people as well as the beasts had their lives embittered, and lost all courage, from his worship the squire down to the grim bull-dog. The lord of the manor did not spare any expense to get rid of these troublesome inmates, and to bring them to silence by means of the most reputed exorcisms. But the most powerful benedictions, which in other cases would have made the whole satanic brood tremble, and even the sprinkling-bush saturated with holy water, which usually makes as much havoc among evil spirits as the fly-flap among domestic flies, were for a long time unavailing against the obstinacy of these spectral
