Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/112

 from old people in the neighbourhood is, that a young man of the Downes family, being in London, one night in his frolics vowed to his companions that he would kill the first man he met; and accordingly he ran his sword through a man immediately, a tailor by trade. However, justice overtook him in his career of wickedness; for in some while after, he being in a riot upon London Bridge, a watchman made a stroke at him with his bill, and severed his head from his body, which head was enclosed in a box, and sent to his sister, who then lived at Wardley, where it hath continued ever since." Barritt adds—"There is likewise a skull near Wigan of this surprising sort, of which I have heard stories too ridiculous to relate." In the "Traditions," the substance of this legend is given with graphic effect under the appellation of the "Skull House." It is there remarked of Wardley that,—"A human skull is still shown here, which is usually kept in a little locked recess in the staircase wall, and which the occupiers of the Hall would never permit to be removed. This grim caput mortuum being, it is said, much averse to any change of place or position, never failed to punish the individual severely which should dare to lay hands upon it with any such purpose. If removed, drowned in the neighbouring pond (which is in fact a part of the old moat which formerly surrounded the house), or buried, it was sure to return; so that, in the end, each succeeding tenant was fain to endure its presence rather than be subject to the terrors and annoyances consequent upon its removal. Even the square aperture in the wall was not permitted to be glazed without the skull or its long-defunct owner creating some disturbance. It was almost bleached white by exposure to the weather, and many curious persons have made a pilgrimage there,