knew, that the skull would only scream when it was buried, and so we
hoped to get leave to inter it in the churchyard. The village of
Bettiscombe was at length reached, and we found our way to the old
farmhouse, which stood at the end of the village by itself. It had
evidently been a manor house, and a very handsome one, too. We were
admitted into a fine paved hall, and attempted to break the ice by
asking for milk. We then endeavoured to draw the good woman of the
house into conversation by admiring the place, and asking in a guarded
manner respecting the famous skull. On this subject she was most
reserved. She had only lately had the farmhouse, and had been obliged
to take possession of the skull also; but she did not wish us to
suppose that she knew much about it; it was a veritable 'skeleton in
the closet' to her. After exercising great diplomacy, we persuaded her
to allow us a sight of it. We tramped up the fine old staircase till
we reached the top of the house, when, opening a cupboard door, she
showed us a steep, winding staircase, leading to the roof, and from
one of the steps the skull sat grinning at us. We took it in our hands
and examined it carefully; it was very old and weather-beaten, and
certainly human. The lower jaw was missing, the forehead very low and
badly proportioned. One of our party, who was a medical student,
examined it long and gravely, and then, after first telling the good
woman that he was a doctor, pronounced it to be, in his opinion, the
skull of a negro. After this oracular utterance, she resolved to make
a clean breast of all she knew, which, however, did not amount to
much. The skull, we were informed, was that of a negro servant, who
had lived in the service of a Roman Catholic priest. Some difference
arose between them; but whether the priest murdered the servant, in
order to conceal some crimes known to the negro, or whether the negro,
in a fit of passion, killed his master, did not clearly appear.