In the course of the following afternoon, Miss Brancker, Hermia, and Clement arrived at Stavering, and, under the guidance of the latter, proceeded to take up their quarters at the "King's Arms" Hotel.
A few hours later, Clement walked over to the "Chequers Inn," at Dritton, in search of Barney Dale, whom he found seated among his cronies in his usual corner. Drawing the old man aside, Clement said. "Miss Hermia Rivers is in Stavering--at the 'King's Arms' Hotel. How soon can you make it convenient to call and see her?"
"And have you brought her--the bonnie darling?" exclaimed Barney. "Well, well, I suppose I must do what I promised. But the mistress grows queerer every day, and what the upshot will be when I bring 'em together, I canna as much as guess. But I'll be there to-morrow some time in the afternoon, and maybe--but I mun think it all over between now and then;" and with that Barney went back to his pipe and tankard of ale.
Next morning Clement hired a conveyance, and drove Aunt Charlotte and Hermia as far as the park entrance to Broome, where they all alighted. Everything remained as when Clement had been there last. Leading the way through the door in the wall, he brought the ladies to where the mutilated griffin, which he had sketched, lay unheeded among the weeds and grass. Hermia sighed as she looked at it.
"How vividly the sight of it brings back that wet and gloomy afternoon," she said, "when the carriage came to a halt at those very gates, and I sat staring out of the window, more tired than curious. So tired out, indeed, was I, that I felt utterly indifferent as to where I was being taken, or what was going to be done with me. It seems to me, however, that I have to thank the old griffin for a good deal. But for it we might not have been here to-day."
After that they strolled along the grass-grown drive as far as a point whence they could obtain a view of the front of the Hall. Clem, on whose arm Hermia was leaning, felt her shiver involuntarily.
"It gives me quite an eerie feeling to look at it, even by broad daylight," she said. "What it must look like when the shades of evening are closing round it, or by the dim light of a clouded moon, I dare scarcely imagine. I shall dream about it more than once in time to come."
"Were I a story writer, and wanted to describe a haunted house, I should come to Broome," remarked Aunt Charlotte, sententiously.
She also felt the influence of the place and scene.
"It is a sort of feeling that would wear off upon further acquaintance," said Clem. "If, now, one could give a free hand to a London upholsterer, not forgetting the landscape-gardener, and if after they had done their best, one could fill the old house with a party of gay young people, with the addition of half-a-dozen romping children, what a transformation should we behold!"