Ghost Stories of an Antiquary Volume I Part 15

'Well, there is my story; and, if you don't believe it, I can't help it.

But I think you do.'

'Indeed,' said Mr Gregory, 'I can find no alternative. I _must_ believe it! I saw the well and the stone myself, and had a glimpse, I thought, of the bags or something else in the hole. And, to be plain with you, Somerton, I believe my door was watched last night, too.'

'I dare say it was, Gregory; but, thank goodness, that is over. Have you, by the way, anything to tell about your visit to that dreadful place?'

'Very little,' was the answer. 'Brown and I managed easily enough to get the slab into its place, and he fixed it very firmly with the irons and wedges you had desired him to get, and we contrived to smear the surface with mud so that it looks just like the rest of the wall. One thing I did notice in the carving on the well-head, which I think must have escaped you. It was a horrid, grotesque shape--perhaps more like a toad than anything else, and there was a label by it inscribed with the two words, "Depositum custodi".'[9]

[9] 'Keep that which is committed to thee.'