a cut from a sword. The black man went to his master’s room at night, and the latter, believing him to be a burglar, killed him by mistake. He was killed in the bedroom over the dining-room. The owners of Waddon were the Grove family of Zeals, in Wiltshire. When Miss Chafyn Grove died some years ago, her cousin, Mr. Troyte Bullock, inherited, but with the property had to take the name of Chafyn Grove.
A few miles distant from Waddon is Bettiscombe. Here also is a ‘screaming skull.’ The house was rebuilt in Queen Anne’s reign, but the richly carved wainscoting and fine old oak stairs pertain to the earlier house that was pulled down when the present mansion was built. This was done by Azariah Pinney, who had joined Monmouth’s forces, and was exiled to the West Indies, he being one of those who escaped sentence of death by Judge Jeffreys at the ‘Bloody Assizes,’ held at Dorchester, after the Rebellion. His life was spared through the influence of a friend at the Court of James II. He remained in the West Indies for a period of ten years, and then returned with a black servant, to whom he was much attached; and then the man died; but whether the skull be his, or, if so, why it was preserved
