Carey used this story to show that in the eighteenth century "the laying of spirits frequently formed part of the duties of the clergy in Guernsey". Mr Blondel's request was simple: the big bell rung to announce his death. When the rector did not do it, Blondel's spirit set out to show "that promises to the dying were not to be trifled with".
There were two sides to the haunting. Outside, parishioners saw a figure climbing the church tower, as if to reach the bell himself. Inside the rectory the trouble was noise and breakage: the china on the kitchen dresser rattled and was finally swept onto the floor by nothing anyone could see. Life at the rectory "became so unendurable" that Mr Brock decided to lay the ghost and confine it to its own house.
He went to Blondel's house with twelve other local clergymen. They shut every door and window and blocked every crevice and keyhole the spirit might slip through, then prayed in each room in turn, driving it before them, and shut it in a cupboard, locked either with the church door key or with a specially made silver key. Miss Le Pelley could not find out which. The Brock family were not troubled again, although the old servants at Prospect Place told Carey that the ghost was still in its cupboard and that they could hear it groan. Carey noted that the rector's grandson, Mr H. Walter Brock, was rector in her own day. The house is private. The map point is placed near the church and is approximate.
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