"Will you take your Bible oath you don't want them to raise the devil
with?"

"Willingly," said Mr. Escot. "I have an abstruse reason for the
inquiry."

"Why, if you have an _obtuse_ reason," said the sexton, "that alters the
case."

So saying, he led the way to the bone-house, from which he began to
throw out various bones and skulls, and amongst them a skull of very
extraordinary magnitude, which he swore by St. David was the skull of
Cadwallader.

"How do you know this to be his skull?" said Mr. Escot.

"He was the biggest man that ever lived, and he was buried here; and
this is the biggest skull I ever found. You see now----"

"Nothing could be more logical," said Mr. Escot. "My good friend, will
you allow me to take away this skull with me?"

"St. Winifred bless us!" exclaimed the sexton. "Would you have me
haunted by his ghost for taking his blessed bones out of consecrated
ground? For, look you, his epitaph says:

"'He that my bones shall ill bestow,
Leek in his ground shall never grow.'"