In stormy wind, or clear moonlight,
We must wash the death-shroud white.”
As soon as they perceived this boon companion, they all rushed forward with loud cries, offering each her winding-sheet, that he might help them to wring out the water.
“Amongst friends we must not scruple to do a good turn,” replied Wilherm gaily; “but one at a time, my pretty laundresses, a man has but two hands.”
So laying down his walking-stick, he took the end of the shroud offered by one of the ghosts, taking care to wring the same way that she did; for he had heard of old that this was the only way to escape being shivered to atoms.
But whilst they thus wrung the winding-sheet, behold, the other spectres surrounded Wilherm, who recognised amongst them his aunt, his wife, his mother, and his sisters, who cried aloud,
“A thousand curses upon him who leaves his own flesh and blood to suffer torments! A thousand curses!”
And they shook their streaming locks, and whirled aloft their snow-white beetles; while from all the douez of the valley, along the hedgerows, and floating over the commons far and wide, there came the sound of ghostly voices echoing the same cry,