The Greeks call them [Greek: mormolucheia], which so terrify their souls, or if they be but affrighted by some counterfeit devils in jest, "ut pueri trepidant, atque omnia caecis In tenebris metuunt" as children in the dark conceive hobgoblins, and are so afraid, they are the worse for it all their lives.

Even under the trees it was not wholly dark, for the moon's light filtered through here and there, making a quaint patchwork on the ground, and filling the air with a peculiar iridescence which transformed the ragged trunks of the sycamores into fantastic hobgoblins.

It is a sensitive sore that will never heal, a grim hobgoblin that nought can scare away.

It will be sufficient to state that Andy glided from extreme infancy to early youth with astonishing celerityat the rate of one year per night, if I remember correctly; andmust I confess it?before the week came to an end, this invisible hobgoblin of a boy was only little less of a reality to me than to Mr. Jaffrey.

In the twilight, figures in black cloaks glided by on their way to the sacristy, stopping to make genuflections before each image; and in the distance, invisible in the darkness, you could still divine the presence of the bell-ringer, like a restless hobgoblin, by the rattle of his bunch of keys and the creaking of the doors he opened on his round.