try of Foreign Affairs and Propaganda
(places of that kind want a deal of watching). The grenadier was
probably as bored as any sentry can be up till midnight sharp, when
things began to happen. First of all, the dark mass of the cathedral was
suddenly brilliantly illuminated from within. Then from that little side
entrance to the cathedral emerged a tall figure all in white. The sentry
challenged, as a sentry should. No use. The tall figure strode up to the
sentry, halted before him, cast a handful of corn at his feet and
stalked back the way it came. Lights out!... The next night at the same
hour the programme was repeated before a new sentry, also a grenadier:
the former one had probably reported himself sick. On the second night
the apparition cast down a handful of silver coin. The grenadier left
them all lying on the ground--this is the only part of the story that
strikes me as weak. On the third night, the military being represented
as before, the tall figure reappeared with commendable punctuality. On
this occasion the management had arranged a display of moonlight in
order to show up the pallid features, blood-stained clouts and other
accessories suitable to a first-class apparition. Moreover, this being
positively its last appearance in public, the tall figure spake: "1754
rich harvest, 1755 gold in plenty, 1756 blood in streams." And so it
happened. In the year 1754 there was a record harvest in Bohemia, the
year 1755 brought considerable wealth into the country (the handful of
silver was probably something on account), and in 1756 the Seven Years'
War broke out. So the story must be true, all except that little bit
about the grenadier leaving all the silver lying on the ground.

* * * * *

We were really still watching the Hrad[vs]any grow out of Libu[vs]a's
prophecy. The chronicler left it to others to find out where the
building stood for which the man in the forest was carpentering the
door-sill as described by Libu[vs]a. That great lady simply said that
the work was going on in the forest which surely extended down to the
river-bank in those days. This may have encouraged the belief that the
first house, built by Libu[vs]a herself, of course, stood somewhere
below the Castle Hill--it is said on the site of the old posting house,
but some one obliterated all trace of it by erecting a church, dedicated
to St. Procopius, above it, no doubt as part of the business of stamping