It is surrounded by a high wall. In the east side of the wall is a double
door or gate of thick oak, which you will find locked and barred. The
house is of brick, save a tower at the southeast corner, which is of
stone three stories high. To reach the house, you must travel on the
Oxford Road a distance of six leagues and two furlongs, where you will
find a broken shrine, erected hundreds of years ago to the Blessed
Virgin. The shrine is on the left side of the road as you travel west,
one hundred paces back, on the top of a low hill surrounded by a bleak
moor. The shrine has gone to decay, but it holds a sacred relic of the
Blessed Virgin."
Betty, who was a Catholic, crossed herself and murmured an Ave. Lilly
continued:--
"On the apex of the shrine there is a broken cross. The night is dark
and you may pass without seeing it, therefore I shall direct you how to
find it. A short distance this side of the shrine the road turns sharply
to the left, just before crossing a bourne which is six leagues from
Westminster. After you have crossed the bourne, bring your horses to a
walk, and when you have counted a number equal to the sum of seven times
the square of eleven, counting as the clock ticks, halt, and you will
find the shrine on a hillock in a bleak moor. You may easily see it, as
it will be dark against the snow. Neither rain nor snow touches it, and
the storm spares it. It has been abandoned by men hundreds of years,
therefore the Blessed Virgin protects it from further decay.
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