[1] Harland's "Lancashire Legends" (1882), 4, 5. [2] See Sir J. Bernard Burke's "Family Romance," 1853. [3] "Popular Rhymes of Scotland" (1870), 217-18. [4] See "Book of Days," I., 559. [5] "The Rise of Great Families," 191-202. CHAPTER II. THE SCREAMING SKULL. "Look on its broken arch, its ruined wall, Its chambers desolate, its portals foul; Yes, this was once Ambition's airy hall-- The dome of thought, the palace of the soul." BYRON. There are told of certain houses, in different parts of the country, many weird skull stories, the popular idea being that if any profane hand should be bold enough to remove, or in any way tamper with, such gruesome relics of the dead, misfortune will inevitably overtake the family. Hence, for years past, there have been carefully preserved in some of our country homes numerous skulls, all kinds of romantic traditions accounting for their present isolated and unburied condition. An old farmstead known as Bettiscombe, near Bridport, Dorsetshire, has long been famous for its so-called "screaming skull," generally supposed to be that of a negro servant who declared before his death that his spirit would not rest until his body was buried in his native land. But, contrary to his dying wish, he was interred in the churchyard of Bettiscombe, and hence the trouble which this skull has ever since occasioned. In the August of 1883, Dr. Richard Garnett, his daughter, and a friend, while staying in the neighbourhood determined to pay this eccentric skull a visit, the result of which is thus amusingly told by Miss Garnett: