Jonathan Strange And Mr Norrell Part 16

He seemed to dislike the question. "I suppose a magician might," he admitted, "but a gentleman never could."

23.

The Shadow House July 1809

ON A SUMMER'S day in 1809 two riders were travelling along a dusty country lane in Wilts.h.i.+re. The sky was of a deep, brilliant blue, and beneath it England lay sketched in deep shadows and in hazy reflections of the sky's fierce light. A great horse-chestnut leant over the road and made a pool of black shadow, and when the two riders reached the shadow it swallowed them up so that nothing remained of them except their voices.

". . . and how long will it be before you consider publication?" said one. "For you must, you know. I have been considering the matter and I believe it is the first duty of every modern magician to publish. I am surprized Norrell does not publish."

"I dare say he will in time," said the other. "As to my publis.h.i.+ng, who would wish to read what I have written? These days, when Norrell performs a new miracle every week, I cannot uppose that the work of a purely theoretical theoretical magician would be of much interest to any body." magician would be of much interest to any body."

"Oh! You are too modest," said the first voice. "You must not leave every thing to Norrell. Norrell cannot do every thing."

"But he can. He does," sighed the second voice.

How pleasant to meet old friends! For it is Mr Honeyfoot and Mr Segundus. Yet why do we find them on horseback? a kind of exercise which agrees with neither of them and which neither takes regularly, Mr Honeyfoot being too old and Mr Segundus too poor. And on such a day as this! So hot that it will make Mr Honeyfoot first sweat, and then itch, and then break out in red pimples; a day of such dazzling brightness that it is certain to bring on one of Mr Segundus's headachs. And what are they doing in Wilts.h.i.+re?

It had so happened that, in the course of his labours on behalf of the little stone figure and the girl with the ivy-leaves in her hair, Mr Honeyfoot had discovered something. He believed that he had identified the murderer as an Avebury man. So he had come to Wilts.h.i.+re to look at some old doc.u.ments in Avebury parish church. "For," as he had explained to Mr Segundus, "if I discover who who he was, then perhaps it may lead me to discover who was the girl and what dark impulse drove him to destroy her." Mr Segundus had gone with his friend and had looked at all the doc.u.ments and helped him unpick the old Latin. But, though Mr Segundus loved old doc.u.ments (no one loved them more) and though he put great faith in what they could achieve, he secretly doubted that seven Latin words five centuries old could explain a man's life. But Mr Honeyfoot was all optimism. Then it occurred to Mr Segundus that, as they were already in Wilts.h.i.+re, they should take the opportunity to visit the Shadow House which stood in that county and which neither of them had ever seen. he was, then perhaps it may lead me to discover who was the girl and what dark impulse drove him to destroy her." Mr Segundus had gone with his friend and had looked at all the doc.u.ments and helped him unpick the old Latin. But, though Mr Segundus loved old doc.u.ments (no one loved them more) and though he put great faith in what they could achieve, he secretly doubted that seven Latin words five centuries old could explain a man's life. But Mr Honeyfoot was all optimism. Then it occurred to Mr Segundus that, as they were already in Wilts.h.i.+re, they should take the opportunity to visit the Shadow House which stood in that county and which neither of them had ever seen.

Most of us remember hearing of the Shadow House in our school-rooms. The name conjures up vague notions of magic and ruins yet few of us have any very clear recollection of why it is so important. The truth is that historians of magic still argue over its significance and some will be quick to tell you that it is of no significance whatsoever. No great events in English magical history took place there; furthermore, of the two magicians who lived in the house, one was a charlatan and the other was a woman neither attribute likely to recommend its possessor to the gentleman-magicians and gentleman-historians of recent years-and yet for two centuries the Shadow House has been known as one of the most magical places in England.

It was built in the sixteenth century by Gregory Absalom, court magician to King Henry VIII and to Queens Mary and Elizabeth. If we measure a magician's success by how much magic he does, then Absalom was no magician at all, for his spells hardly ever took effect. However, if instead we examine the amount of money a magician makes and allow that to be our yardstick, then Absalom was certainly one of the greatest English magicians who ever lived, for he was born in poverty and died a very rich man.

One of his boldest achievements was to persuade the King of Denmark to pay a great handful of diamonds for a spell which, Absalom claimed, would turn the flesh of the King of Sweden into water. Naturally the spell did nothing of the sort, but with the money he got for half these jewels Absalom built the Shadow House. He furnished it with Turkey carpets and Venetian mirrors and gla.s.s and a hundred other beautiful things; and, when the house was completed, a curious thing happened or may have happened or did not happen at all. Some scholars believe and others do not that the magic which Absalom had pretended to do for his clients began to appear of its own accord in the house.

On a moonlit night in 1610 two maids looked out of a window on an upper floor and saw twenty or thirty beautiful ladies and handsome gentlemen dancing in a circle on the lawn. In February 1666 Valentine Greatrakes, an Irishman, held a conversation in Hebrew with the prophets Moses and Aaron in a little pa.s.sageway near the great linen press. In 1667 Mrs Penelope Chelmorton, a visitor to the house, looked in a mirror and saw a little girl of three or four years old looking out. As she watched, she saw the child grow up and grow older and she recognized herself. Mrs Chelmorton's reflection continued to age until there was nought but a dry, dead corpse in the mirror. The reputation of the Shadow House is based upon these and a hundred other such tales.

Absalom had one child, a daughter named Maria. She was born in the Shadow House and lived there all her life, scarcely ever leaving it for more than a day or two. In her youth the house was visited by kings and amba.s.sadors, by scholars, soldiers and poets. Even after the death of her father, people came to look upon the end of English magic, its last strange flowering on the eve of its long winter. Then, as the visitors became fewer, the house weakened and began to decay and the garden went to the wild. But Maria Absalom refused to repair her father's house. Even dishes that broke were left in cracked pieces on the floor.1 In her fiftieth year the ivy was grown so vigorous and had so far extended itself that it grew inside all the closets and made much of the floor slippery and unsafe to walk upon. Birds sang as much within the house as without. In her hundredth year the house and woman were ruinous together though neither was at all extinguished. She continued another forty-nine years, before dying one summer morning in her bed with the leaf shadows of a great ash-tree and the broken sunlight falling all around her.

As Mr Honeyfoot and Mr Segundus hurried towards the Shadow House on this hot afternoon, they were a little nervous in case Mr Norrell should get to hear of their going (for, what with admirals and Ministers sending him respectful letters and paying him visits, Mr Norrell was growing greater by the hour). They feared lest he should consider that Mr Honeyfoot had broken the terms of his contract. So, in order that as few people as possible should know what they were about, they had told no one where they were going and had set off very early in the morning and had walked to a farm where they could hire horses and had come to the Shadow House by a very roundabout way.

At the end of the dusty, white lane they came to a pair of high gates. Mr Segundus got down from his horse to open them. The gates had been made of fine Castillian wrought iron, but were now rusted to a dark, vivid red and their original form was very much decayed and shrivelled. Mr Segundus's hand came away with dusty traces upon it as if a million dried and powdered roses had been compacted and formed into the dreamlike semblance of a gate. The curling iron had been further ornamented with little bas-reliefs of wicked, laughing faces, now ember-red and disintegrating, as if the part of h.e.l.l where these heathens were now resident was in the charge of an inattentive demon who had allowed his furnace to get too hot.

Beyond the gate were a thousand pale pink roses and high, nodding cliffs of sunlit elm and ash and chestnut and the blue, blue sky. There were four tall gables and a mult.i.tude of high grey chimneys and stone-latticed windows. But the Shadow House had been a ruined house for well over a century and was built as much of elder-trees and dog roses as of silvery limestone and had in its composition as much of summer-scented breezes as of iron and timber.

"It is like the Other Lands," said Mr Segundus, pressing his face into the gate in his enthusiasm, and receiving from it an impression of its shape apparently in powdered roses.2He pulled open the gate and led in his horse. Mr Honeyfoot followed. They tied up their horses by a stone basin and began to explore the gardens.

The grounds of the Shadow House did not perhaps deserve the name, "gardens". No one had tended them for over a hundred years. But nor were they a wood. Or a wilderness. There is no word in the English language for a magician's garden two hundred years after the magician is dead. It was richer and more disordered than any garden Mr Segundus and Mr Honey-foot had ever seen before.

Mr Honeyfoot was highly delighted with everything he saw. He exclaimed over a great avenue of elms where the trees stood almost to their waists, as it were, in a sea of vivid pink foxgloves. He wondered aloud over a carving of a fox which carried a baby in its mouth. He spoke cheerfully of the remarkable magical atmosphere of the place, and declared that even Mr Norrell might learn something by coming here.

But Mr Honeyfoot was not really very susceptible to atmospheres; Mr Segundus, on the other hand, began to feel uneasy. It seemed to him that Absalom's garden was exerting a strange kind of influence on him. Several times, as Mr Honeyfoot and he walked about, he found himself on the point of speaking to someone he thought he knew. Or of recognizing a place he had known before. But each time, just as he was about to remember what he wanted to say, he realized that what he had taken for a friend was in fact only a shadow on the surface of a rose bush. The man's head was only a spray of pale roses and his hand another. The place that Mr Segundus thought he knew as well as the common scenes of childhood was only a chance conjunction of a yellow bush, some swaying elder branches and the sharp, sunlit corner of the house. Besides he could not think who was the friend or what was the place. This began to disturb him so much that, after half an hour, he proposed to Mr Honeyfoot that they sit for a while.

"My dear friend!" said Mr Honeyfoot, "What is the matter? Are you ill? You are very pale your hand is trembling. Why did you not speak sooner?"

Mr Segundus pa.s.sed his hand across his head and said some-what indistinctly that he believed that some magic was about to take place. He had a most definite impression that that was the case.

"Magic?" exclaimed Mr Honeyfoot. "But what magic could there be?" He looked about him nervously in case Mr Norrell should appear suddenly from behind a tree. "I dare say it is nothing more than the heat of the day which afflicts you. I myself am very hot. But we are blockheads to remain in this condition. For here is comfort! Here is refreshment! To sit in the shade of tall trees such as these by a sweet, chattering brook such as this is generally allowed to be the best restorative in the world. Come, Mr Segundus, let us sit down!"

They sat down upon the gra.s.sy bank of a brown stream. The warm, soft air and the scent of roses calmed and soothed Mr Segundus. His eyes closed once. Opened. Closed again. Opened slowly and heavily . . .

He began to dream almost immediately.

He saw a tall doorway in a dark place. It was carved from a silver-grey stone that shone a little, as if there was moonlight. The doorposts were made in the likeness of two men (or it might only be one man, for both were the same). The man seemed to stride out of the wall and John Segundus knew him at once for a magician. The face could not clearly be seen, only enough to know that it would be a young face and a handsome one. Upon his head he wore a cap with a sharp peak and raven wings upon each side.

John Segundus pa.s.sed through the door and for a moment saw only the black sky and the stars and the wind. But then he saw that there was indeed a room, but that it was ruinous. Yet despite this, such walls as there were, were furnished with pictures, tapestries and mirrors. But the figures in the tapestries moved about and spoke to each other, and not all the mirrors gave faithful reproductions of the room; some seemed to reflect other places entirely.

At the far end of the room in an uncertain compound of moonlight and candlelight someone was sitting at a table. She wore a gown of a very ancient style and of a greater quant.i.ty of material than John Segundus could have supposed necessary, or even possible, in one garment. It was of a strange, old, rich blue; and about the gown, like other stars, the last of the King of Denmark's diamonds were s.h.i.+ning still. She looked up at him as he approached two curiously slanting eyes set farther apart than is generally considered correct for beauty and a long mouth curved into a smile, the meaning of which he could not guess at. Flickers of candlelight suggested hair as red as her dress was blue.

Suddenly another person arrived in John Segundus's dream a gentleman, dressed in modern clothes. This gentleman did not appear at all surprized at the finely dressed (but somewhat outmoded) lady, but he did appear very astonished to find John Segundus there and he reached out his hand and took John Segundus by the shoulder and began to shake him . . .

Mr Segundus found that Mr Honeyfoot had grasped his shoulder and was gently shaking him.

"I beg your pardon!" said Mr Honeyfoot. "But you cried out in your sleep and I thought perhaps you would wish to be woken."

Mr Segundus looked at him in some perplexity. "I had a dream," he said. "A most curious dream!"

Mr Segundus told his dream to Mr Honeyfoot.

"What a remarkably magical spot!" said Mr Honeyfoot, approvingly. "Your dream so full of odd symbols and portents is yet another proof of it!"

"But what does it mean mean?" asked Mr Segundus.

"Oh!" said Mr Honeyfoot, and stopt to think a while. "Well, the lady wore blue, you say? Blue signifies let me see immortality, chast.i.ty and fidelity; it stands for Jupiter and can be represented by tin. Hmmph! Now where does that get us?"

"Nowhere, I think," sighed Mr Segundus. "Let us walk on."

Mr Honeyfoot, who was anxious to see more, quickly agreed to this proposal and suggested that they explore the interior of the Shadow House.

In the fierce sunlight the house was no more than a towering, green-blue haze against the sky. As they pa.s.sed through the doorway to the Great Hall, "Oh!" cried Mr Segundus.

"Why! What is it now?" asked Mr Honeyfoot, startled.

Upon either side of the doorway stood a stone image of the Raven King. "I saw these in my dream," said Mr Segundus.

In the Great Hall Mr Segundus looked about him. The mirrors and the paintings that he had seen in his dream were long since gone. Lilac and elder trees filled up the broken walls. Horse-chestnuts and ash made a roof of green and silver that flowed and dappled against the blue sky. Fine gold gra.s.ses and ragged robin made a latticework for the empty stone windows.

At one end of the room there were two indistinct figures in a blaze of sunlight. A few odd items were scattered about the floor, a kind of magical debris: some pieces of paper with sc.r.a.ps of spells scribbled upon them, a silver basin full of water and a half-burnt candle in an ancient bra.s.s candlestick.

Mr Honeyfoot wished these two shadowy figures a good morning and one replied to him in grave and civil tones, but the other cried out upon the instant, "Henry, it is he! That is the fellow! That is the very man I described! Do you not see? A small man with hair and eyes so dark as to be almost Italian though the hair has grey in it. But the expression so quiet and timid as to be English without a doubt! A shabby coat all dusty and patched, with frayed cuffs that he has tried to hide by snipping them close. Oh! Henry, this is certainly the man! You sir!" he cried, suddenly addressing Mr Segundus. "Explain yourself!"

Poor Mr Segundus was very much astonished to hear himself and his coat so minutely described by a complete stranger and the description itself of such a peculiarly distressing sort! Not at all polite. As he stood, trying to collect his thoughts, his interlocutor moved into the shade of an ash-tree that formed part of the north wall of the hall and for the first time in the waking world Mr Segundus beheld Jonathan Strange.

Somewhat hesitantly (for he was aware as he said it how strangely it sounded) Mr Segundus said, "I have seen you, sir, in my dream, I think."

This only enraged Strange more. "The dream, sir, was mine! I lay down on purpose to dream it. I can bring proofs, witnesses that the dream was mine. Mr Woodhope," he indicated his companion, "saw me do it. Mr Woodhope is a clergyman the rector of a parish in Gloucesters.h.i.+re I cannot imagine that his word could be doubted! I am rather of the opinion that in England a gentleman's dreams are his own private concern. I fancy there is a law to that effect and, if there is not, why, Parliament should certainly be made to pa.s.s one immediately! It ill becomes another man to invite himself into them." Strange paused to take breath.

"Sir!" cried Mr Honeyfoot hotly. "I must beg you to speak to this gentleman with more respect. You have not the good fortune to know this gentleman as I do, but should you have that honour you will learn that nothing is further from his character than a wish to offend others."

Strange made a sort of exclamation of exasperation.

"It is certainly very odd that people should get into each other's dreams," said Henry Woodhope. "Surely it cannot really have been the same dream?"

"Oh! But I fear it is," said Mr Segundus with a sigh. "Ever since I entered this garden I have felt as if it were full of invisible doors and I have gone through them one after the other, until I fell asleep and dreamt the dream where I saw this gentleman. I was in a greatly confused state of mind. I knew it was not me that had set these doors ajar and made them to open, but I did not care. I only wanted to see what was at the end of them."

Henry Woodhope gazed at Mr Segundus as if he did not entirely understand this. "But I still think it cannot be the same same dream, you know," he explained to Mr Segundus, as if to a rather stupid child. "What did you dream of?" dream, you know," he explained to Mr Segundus, as if to a rather stupid child. "What did you dream of?"

"Of a lady in a blue gown," said Mr Segundus. "I supposed that it was Miss Absalom."

"Well, of course of course, it was Miss Absalom!" cried Strange in great exasperation as if he could scarcely bear to hear any thing so obvious mentioned. "But unfortunately the lady's appointment was to meet one gentleman. She was naturally disturbed to find two and so she promptly disappeared." Strange shook his head. "There cannot be more than five men in England with any pretensions to magic, but one of them must come here and interrupt my meeting with Absalom's daughter. I can scarcely believe it. I am the unluckiest man in England. G.o.d knows I have laboured long enough to dream that dream. It has taken me three weeks working night and day! to prepare the spells of summoning, and as for the . . ."

"But this is marvellous!" interrupted Mr Honeyfoot. "This is wonderful! Why! Not even Mr Norrell himself could attempt such a thing!"

"Oh!" said Strange, turning to Mr Honeyfoot. "It is not so difficult as you imagine. First you must send out your invitation to the lady any spell of summoning will do. I used Ormskirk.3Of course the troublesome part was to adapt Ormskirk so that both Miss Absalom and I arrived in my dream at the same time Ormskirk is so loose that the person one summons might go pretty well anywhere at any time and feel that they had fulfilled their obligations that that, I admit, was not an easy task. And yet, you know, I am not displeased with the results. Second I had to cast a spell upon myself to bring on a magic sleep. Of course I have heard of such spells but confess that I have never actually seen one, and so, you know, I was obliged to invent my own I dare say it is feeble enough, but what can one do?"

"Good G.o.d!" cried Mr Honeyfoot. "Do you mean to say that practically all this magic was your own invention?"

"Oh! well," said Strange, "as to that . . . I had Ormskirk I based everything on Ormskirk."

"Oh! But might not Hether-Gray be a better foundation than Ormskirk?" asked Mr Segundus.4"Forgive me. I am no practical magician but Hether-Gray has always seemed to me so much more reliable than Ormskirk."

"Indeed?" said Strange. "Of course I have heard of Hether-Gray. I have recently begun to correspond with a gentleman in Lincolns.h.i.+re who says he has a copy of Hether-Gray's The Anatomy of a Minotaur The Anatomy of a Minotaur. So Hether-Gray is really worth looking into, is he?"

Mr Honeyfoot declared that Hether-Gray was no such thing, that his book was the most thick-headed nonsense in the world; Mr Segundus disagreed and Strange grew more interested, and less mindful of the fact that he was supposed to be angry with Mr Segundus.

For who can remain angry with Mr Segundus? I dare say there are people in the world who are able to resent goodness and amiability, whose spirits are irritated by gentleness but I am glad to say that Jonathan Strange was not of their number. Mr Segundus offered his apologies for spoiling the magic and Strange, with a smile and a bow, said that Mr Segundus should think of it no more.

"I shall not ask, sir," said Strange to Mr Segundus, "if you are a magician. The ease with which you penetrate other people's dreams proclaims your power." Strange turned to Mr Honeyfoot, "But are you a magician also, sir?"

Poor Mr Honeyfoot! So blunt a question to be applied to so tender a spot! He was still a magician at heart and did not like to be reminded of his loss. He replied that he had had been a magician not so many years before. But he had been obliged to give it up. Nothing could have been further from his own wishes. The study of magic of good English magic was, in his opinion, the most n.o.ble occupation in the world. been a magician not so many years before. But he had been obliged to give it up. Nothing could have been further from his own wishes. The study of magic of good English magic was, in his opinion, the most n.o.ble occupation in the world.

Strange regarded him with some surprize. "But I do not very well comprehend you. How could any one make you give up your studies if you did not wish it?"

Then Mr Segundus and Mr Honeyfoot described how they had been members of the Learned Society of York Magicians, and how the society had been destroyed by Mr Norrell.

Mr Honeyfoot asked Strange for his opinion of Mr Norrell.

"Oh!" said Strange with a smile. "Mr Norrell is the patron saint of English booksellers."

"Sir?" said Mr Honeyfoot.

"Oh!" said Strange. "One hears of Mr Norrell in every place where the book trade is perpetrated from Newcastle to Penzance. The bookseller smiles and bows and says, 'Ah sir, you are come too late! I had had a great many books upon subjects magical and historical. But I sold them all to a very learned gentleman of Yorks.h.i.+re.' It is always Norrell. One may buy, if one chuses, the books that Norrell has left behind. I generally find that the books that Mr Norrell leaves behind are really excellent things for lighting fires with." a great many books upon subjects magical and historical. But I sold them all to a very learned gentleman of Yorks.h.i.+re.' It is always Norrell. One may buy, if one chuses, the books that Norrell has left behind. I generally find that the books that Mr Norrell leaves behind are really excellent things for lighting fires with."

Mr Segundus and Mr Honeyfoot were naturally all eagerness to be better acquainted with Jonathan Strange, and he seemed just as anxious to talk to them. Consequently, after each side had made and answered the usual inquiries ("Where are you staying?" "Oh! the George in Avebury." "Well, that is remarkable. So are we."), it was quickly decided that all four gentlemen should ride back to Avebury and dine together.

As they left the Shadow House Strange paused by the Raven King doorway and asked if either Mr Segundus or Mr Honeyfoot had visited the King's ancient capital of Newcastle in the north. Neither had. "This door is a copy of one you will find upon every corner there," said Strange. "The first in this fas.h.i.+on were made when the King was still in England. In that city it seems that everywhere you turn the King steps out of some dark, dusty archway and comes towards you." Strange smiled wryly. "But his face is always half hidden and he will never speak to you."

At five o'clock they sat down to dinner in the parlour of the George inn. Mr Honeyfoot and Mr Segundus found Strange to be a most agreeable companion, lively and talkative. Henry Wood-hope on the other hand ate diligently and when he was done eating, he looked out of the window. Mr Segundus feared that he might feel himself neglected, and so he turned to him and complimented him upon the magic that Strange had done at the Shadow House.

Henry Woodhope was surprized. "I had not supposed it was a matter for congratulation," he said. "Strange did not say it was anything remarkable."

"But, my dear sir!" exclaimed Mr Segundus. "Who knows when such a feat was last attempted in England?"

"Oh! I know nothing of magic. I believe it is quite the fas.h.i.+onable thing I have seen reports of magic in the London papers. But a clergyman has little leisure for reading. Besides I have known Strange since we were boys and he is of a most capricious character. I am surprized this magical fit has lasted so long. I dare say he will soon tire of it as he has of everything else." With that he rose from the table and said that he thought he would walk about the village for a while. He bade Mr Honeyfoot and Mr Segundus a good evening and left them.

"Poor Henry," said Strange, when Mr Woodhope had gone. "I suppose we must bore him horribly."

"It is most good-natured of your friend to accompany you on your journey, when he himself can have no interest in its object," said Mr Honeyfoot.

"Oh, certainly!" said Strange. "But then, you know, he was forced to come with me when he found it so quiet at home. Henry is paying us a visit of some weeks, but ours is a very retired neighbourhood and I believe I am a great deal taken up with my studies."

Mr Segundus asked Mr Strange when he began to study magic.

"In the spring of last year."

"But you have achieved so much!" cried Mr Honeyfoot. "And in less than two years! My dear Mr Strange, it is quite remarkable!"

"Oh! Do you think so? It seems to me that I have hardly done any thing. But then, I have not known where to turn for advice. You are the first of my brother-magicians that I ever met with, and I give you fair warning that I intend to make you sit up half the night answering questions."

"We shall be delighted to help you in any way we can," said Mr Segundus, "But I very much doubt that we can be of much service to you. We have only ever been theoretical theoretical magicians." magicians."

"You are much too modest," declared Strange. "Consider, for example, how much more extensive your reading has been than mine."

So Mr Segundus began to suggest authors whom Strange might not yet have heard of and Strange began to scribble down their names and works in a somewhat haphazard fas.h.i.+on, sometimes writing in a little memorandum book and other times writing upon the back of the dinner bill and once upon the back of his hand. Then he began to question Mr Segundus about the books.

Poor Mr Honeyfoot! How he longed to take part in this interesting conversation! How, in fact, he did did take part in it, deceiving no one but himself by his little stratagems. "Tell him he must read Thomas Lanchester's take part in it, deceiving no one but himself by his little stratagems. "Tell him he must read Thomas Lanchester's The Language of Birds The Language of Birds," he said, addressing Mr Segundus, rather than Strange. "Oh!" he said. "I know you have no opinion of it, but I think one may learn many things from Lanchester."

Whereupon Mr Strange told them how, to his certain knowledge, there had been four copies of The Language of Birds The Language of Birds in England not more than five years ago: one in a Gloucester bookseller's; one in the private library of a gentleman-magician in Kendal; one the property of a blacksmith near Penzance who had taken it in part payment for mending an iron-gate; and one stopping a gap in a window of the boys' school in the close of Durham Cathedral. in England not more than five years ago: one in a Gloucester bookseller's; one in the private library of a gentleman-magician in Kendal; one the property of a blacksmith near Penzance who had taken it in part payment for mending an iron-gate; and one stopping a gap in a window of the boys' school in the close of Durham Cathedral.

"But where are they now?" cried Mr Honeyfoot. "Why did you not purchase a copy?"

"By the time that I came to each place Norrell had got there before me and bought them all," said Mr Strange. "I never laid eyes upon the man, and yet he thwarts me at every turn. That is why I hit upon this plan of summoning up some dead magician and asking him or her questions. I fancied a lady lady might be more sympathetic to my plight, and so I chose Miss Absalom." might be more sympathetic to my plight, and so I chose Miss Absalom."5 Mr Segundus shook his head. "As a means of getting knowledge, it strikes me as more dramatic than convenient. Can you not think of an easier way? After all, in the Golden Age of English magic, books were much rarer than they are now, yet men still became magicians."

"I have studied histories and biographies of the Aureates Aureates to discover how they began," said Strange, "but it seems that in those days, as soon as any one found out he had some apt.i.tude for magic, he immediately set off for the house of some other, older, more experienced magician and offered himself as a pupil." to discover how they began," said Strange, "but it seems that in those days, as soon as any one found out he had some apt.i.tude for magic, he immediately set off for the house of some other, older, more experienced magician and offered himself as a pupil."6 "Then you should apply to Mr Norrell for a.s.sistance!" cried Mr Honeyfoot, "Indeed you should. Oh! yes, I know," seeing that Mr Segundus was about to make some objection, "Norrell is a little reserved, but what is that? Mr Strange will know how to overcome his timidity I am sure. For all his faults of temper, Norrell is no fool and must see the very great advantages of having such an a.s.sistant!"

Mr Segundus had many objections to this scheme, in particular Mr Norrell's great aversion to other magicians; but Mr Honeyfoot, with all the enthusiasm of his eager disposition, had no sooner conceived the idea than it became a favourite wish and he could not suppose there would be any drawbacks. "Oh! I agree," he said, "that Norrell has never looked very favourably upon us theoretical theoretical magicians. But I dare say he will behave quite differently towards an magicians. But I dare say he will behave quite differently towards an equal equal."

Strange himself did not seem at all averse to the idea; he had a natural curiosity to see Mr Norrell. Indeed Mr Segundus could not help suspecting that he had already made up his mind upon the point and so Mr Segundus gradually allowed his doubts and objections to be argued down.