hath burst its cold tabernacle, and risen from the dust.”  No human power could drive it away.  It hath “been torn in pieces, burnt, and otherwise destroyed, but even on the subsequent day it is seen filling its wonted place.  Yet it was always observed that sore vengeance lighted on its persecutors.  One who hacked it in pieces was seized with such horrible torments in his limbs that it seemed as though he might be undergoing the same process.  Sometimes, if only displaced, a fearful storm would arise, so loud and terrible that the very elements themselves seemed to become the ministers of its wrath.”  Nor will this eccentric piece of mortality allow the little aperture in which it rests to be walled up, for it remains there still, whitened and bleached by the weather, “looking forth from those rayless sockets upon the scenes which, when living, they had once beheld.”  Towards the close of the last century, Thomas Barritt, the Manchester antiquary, visited this skull—­“this surprising piece of household furniture,” as he calls it, and adds that “one of us who was last in company with it, removed it from its place into a dark part of the room, and there left it, and returned home.”  But on the following night a violent storm arose in the neighbourhood, causing an immense deal of damage—­trees being blown down and roofs unthatched—­and the cause, as it was supposed, being ascertained, the skull was replaced, when these terrific disturbances ceased.  And yet, as Thomas Barritt sensibly remarks, “All this might have happened had the skull never been removed; but withal it keeps alive the credibility of the tradition.”  Formerly two keys were provided for this “place of a skull,” one being kept by the tenant of the Hall, and the other by the Countess of Ellesmere, the owner of the property.  The Countess occasionally accompanied visitors from the neighbouring Worsley Hall, and herself unlocked the door, and revealed to her friends the grinning skull of Wardley Hall.[10]

[Illustration:  She opened it in secret.]

Another romantic story is associated with Burton Agnes Hall, between Bridlington and Driffield, Yorkshire, which is haunted by the spirit of a lady a former co-heiress of the estate—­who is popularly known as “Awd Nance.”  The skull of this lady is carefully preserved in the Hall, and so long as it is left undisturbed all goes well, but whenever any attempt is made to remove it, the most unearthly noises are heard in the house, and last until it is restored.  According to a local tradition, many years ago the three co-heiresses of the estate of Burton Agnes were possessed of considerable wealth, and finding the ancient mansion, in which they resided, not in harmony with their ideas of what a home should be suited to their position, determined to erect a house in such a style as should eclipse all others in the neighbourhood.  The most prominent organiser of the scheme was the younger sister, Anne, who could