"When I say ghosts, I would not have you imagine anything so stupid as spectres wrapped in sheets and chained with fetters. The thing that is here is a perfectly simple object which can be held in your hand. Perhaps you would like to see it?"
What a question! I was immediately on my feet.
"Where's your ghost? Let me see it!"
Squire Gabriel led me to one of the niches which was covered by a green curtain, and drawing aside the curtain, pointed out to me two skulls which were covered by a round glass, and, curiously enough, were turned back to back.
I had seen something of the sort before, and was by no means inclined to recognize anything ghostly in them. They were simply fragments of a human skeleton, as little alarming as an extracted tooth, of which it never occurs to anybody to be afraid.
"These are the skulls of two brothers, the Counts Kalmanffy, to whom this property formerly belonged, and who built a wing of the castle. Their history is very tragic. They were constantly opposed to each other and wrangling about the possession of the castle, and one day, soon after a reconciliation, the elder brother suddenly invited the younger one to be his guest, and when he had well filled him with strong wine, drove a long nail into his head while he lay there in a drunken sleep. The nail is also here. A servant who was privy to the evil deed subsequently betrayed the elder brother, who was beheaded for his crime. His body they buried as usual under the place of execution, but the severed head they allowed to be buried in the family vault, where the bones of the murdered brother were also deposited. The heads of the two brothers were placed side by side in a niche, and so these mortal enemies, who could not endure each other during their life-time, were turned face to face. On one occasion, however, some one who had to do some work or other in the vault, was amazed to perceive that the heads of the two brothers were now turned back to back. The fellow was not very frightened. He had had a good deal to do with human remains, and fancied some truant rats might have effected the change, so he simply put the two skulls face to face again. Next day he went down to have another look at them, and again they were turned in the opposite direction.
"And so it went on for a whole week. The fellow turned the skulls round every day, and every night they changed their positions of their own accord. The guardian of the vault got quite ill over it. He began to pine and grow melancholy mad, till at length the young chaplain took the bull by the horns, and asked him what ailed him, or if he had anything on his mind.
"The old family retainer, with some agitation, confessed the ghostly secret, on account of which he was in a fair way of becoming a ghost himself.
"The parson was an enlightened man, and was determined to convince the superstitious old fellow that he was mistaken, so he went down into the vault himself to look at this alleged marvel.
"There, then, the two skulls were, turned back to back, and the old servant solemnly swore that the evening before he had placed them cheek by jowl.