THE ELOPEMENT.
On the banks of the rivulet Lockwitz, in Hungary, and upon the borders of Thuringia, where a convent formerly stood, which was destroyed in the time of the Hussites, is situated the Castle of Lauenstein. This church property, in process of time, came under the secular arm, and became the possession of the Count of Orlamunda, who gave this deserted domain as a feu to one of his vassals, who, upon the ruins of the convent, built himself a castle, and either gave his name to the property, or took his from it, for he was called the Baron of Lauenstein.
It soon became manifest that the property of the church does not prosper in the hands of the laity, and that such sacrilege is always punished in one way or another. The bones of the holy nuns, which for ages had reposed in peace in the gloomy caverns of the grave, could not, with indifference, endure this profanation of their sanctuary. These mouldy dead bones rebelled against the violation, rattled and rustled in the silence of night, and raised a fearful clattering and noise in the passage leading to the church, which had not been destroyed. The nuns, with solemn pomp, often made a procession round the castle, wandered through the apartments, opened and dashed to the doors, by which the Baron was disturbed in his sleep, and could not get rest in his bed. They raged in the hall, or in the stables, terrified the maids, twitched and pinched them, sometimes here, sometimes there;—plagued the cattle—the cows were drained of their milk, and the horses pranced and snorted, and beat their stalls to pieces. This mischievous behaviour of the pious sisters, and their incessant tricks, which embittered the life of both man and beast, touk away all spirit from every member of the household, down to the very bull-dog.
[Original Size]
The Baron spared no expense, by means of the most renowned exorcists, to bring these tumultuary inmates to peace and silence; but the most powerful exorcisms, before which the whole kingdom of Belial trembled, and the sprinkling brush dipped in holy water, which generally chases away the evil spirits, as a fly-flap chases away the flies from the apartment, for a long time could do nothing against the obstinacy of those spectre Amazons, who so stoutly maintained their right to their former possessions, that the exorcists, with the holy implements of relics, were sometimes obliged to take to flight, and leave them masters of the field. At last, a conjuror, who was travelling about the country for the purpose of spying out witches, catching goblins, and delivering the possessed from the brood of evil spirits, succeeded in bringing the spectral night revellers to obedience, and again shut them up in their gloomy vaults, with permission there to wag their skulls, and rattle and clatter their bones, as much as they pleased.