Jonathan Strange And Mr Norrell Part 30

Place a a swarm swarm of of bees bees at at my my ears ears (he thought) (he thought). Bees Bees love love truth truth and and will will destroy destroy the the deceiver's deceiver's lies lies.

A low murmuring noise filled his ears, blocking out the music of the flute-player. It was very like language and Strange thought that in a little while he would understand it. It grew, filling his head and his chest to the very tips of his fingers and toes. Even his hair seemed electrified and his skin buzzed and shook with the noise. For one horrible moment he thought that his mouth was full of bees and that there were bees buzzing and flying under his skin, in his guts and his ears.

The buzzing stopped. Strange heard the flute-player's music again but it did not sound as sweet as before and it no longer seemed to be describing his life.

Place salt salt in in my my mouth mouth (he thought) (he thought) lest lest the the deceiver deceiver attempt attempt to to delight delight me me with with the the taste taste of of honey honey or or disgust disgust me me with with the the taste taste of of ashes ashes.

This part of the spell had no effect whatsoever.2Nail my my hand hand with with an an iron iron nail nail so so that that I I shall shall not not raise raise it it to to do do the the deceiver's deceiver's bidding bidding.

"Aaaghh! Dear G.o.d!" screamed Strange. There was an excruciating pain in the palm of his left hand. When it ceased (as suddenly as it had begun) he no longer felt compelled to hurry towards the wood.

Place my my heart heart in in a a secret secret place place so so that that all all my my desires desires shall shall be be my my own own and and the the deceiver deceiver shall shall find find no no hold hold there there.

He pictured Arabella, as he had seen her a thousand times, prettily dressed and seated in a drawing-room among a crowd of people who were all laughing and talking. He gave her his heart. She took it and placed it quietly in the pocket of her gown. No one observed what she did.

Strange next applied the spell to the King and at the last step he gave the King's heart to Arabella to keep in her pocket. It was interesting to observe the magic from the outside. There had been so many unusual occurrences in the King's poor head that the moon's sudden appearance there seemed to occasion him no surprize. But he did not care for the bees; he was brus.h.i.+ng them away for some time afterwards.

When the spell was finished, the flute-player abruptly ceased playing.

"And now, Your Majesty," said Strange, "I think it is time we returned to the Castle. You and I, Your Majesty, are a British King and a British magician. Though Great Britain may desert us, we have no right to desert Great Britain. She may have need of us yet."

"True, true! I swore an oath at my coronation always to serve her! Oh, my poor country!" The King turned and waved in the direction he supposed the mysterious flute-player to be. "Goodbye! Goodbye, dear sir! G.o.d bless you for your kindness to George III!"

Revelations of of Thirty-Six Thirty-Six Other Other Worlds Worlds lay half-covered up by the snow lay half-covered up by the snow. Strange picked it up and brushed off the snow. He looked back. The dark wood had gone. In its place was a most innocent clump of five leafless beech trees. Strange picked it up and brushed off the snow. He looked back. The dark wood had gone. In its place was a most innocent clump of five leafless beech trees.

On the ride back to London Strange was deep in thought. He was aware that he ought to have been disturbed by his experience at Windsor, perhaps even frightened. But his curiosity and excitement far exceeded his uneasiness. Besides, whatever, or whoever, had done the magic, he had defeated them and imposed his will upon theirs. They had been strong, but he had been stronger. The whole adventure had confirmed something he had long suspected: that there was more magic in England than Mr Norrell admitted.

Consider the matter from whichever point of view he would, he continually came back to the silver-haired person whom only the King could see. He tried to recall what exactly the King had said about this person, but he could recall nothing beyond the simple fact of his silver hair.

He reached London at about half past four. The city was growing dark. Lights were glowing in all the shops, and the lamplighters were out in the streets. When he got to the corner of Oxford-street and New Bond-street he turned aside and rode to Hanover-square. He found Mr Norrell in his library, drinking tea.

Mr Norrell was, as ever, delighted to see the other magician and he was eager to hear all about Strange's visit to the King.

Strange told him how the King was kept a solitary prisoner in his own palace, and he listed the spells he had done. But of the drenching of the Willises, the enchanted wood and the invisible flute-player he said not a word.

"I am not at all surprized that you could not help His Majesty," said Mr Norrell. "I do not believe that even the Aureate Aureate magicians could cure madness. In fact I am not sure that they tried. They seem to have considered madness in quite a different light. They held madmen in a sort of reverence and thought they knew things sane men did not things which might be useful to a magician. There are stories of both Ralph Stokesey and Catherine of Winchester consulting with madmen." magicians could cure madness. In fact I am not sure that they tried. They seem to have considered madness in quite a different light. They held madmen in a sort of reverence and thought they knew things sane men did not things which might be useful to a magician. There are stories of both Ralph Stokesey and Catherine of Winchester consulting with madmen."

"But it was not only magicians, surely?" said Strange. "Fairies too had a strong interest in madmen. I am sure I remember reading that somewhere."

"Yes, indeed! Some of our most important writers have remarked upon the strong resemblance between madmen and fairies. Both are well known for talking without sense or connexion I dare say you noticed something of the sort with the King. But there are other similarities. Chaston, as I remember, has several things to say upon the subject. He gives the example of a lunatic in Bristol who each morning told his family of his intention to take his walk in company with one of the dining chairs. The man was quite devoted to this article of furniture, considered it one of his closest friends, and held imaginary conversations with it in which they discussed the walk they would take and the likelihood of meeting other tables and chairs. Apparently, the man became quite distressed whenever any one proposed sitting upon the chair. Clearly the man was mad, but Chaston says that fairies would not consider his behaviour as ridiculous as we do. Fairies do not make a strong distinction between the animate and the inanimate. They believe that stones, doors, trees, fire, clouds and so forth all have souls and desires, and are either masculine or feminine. Perhaps this explains the extraordinary sympathy for madness which fairies exhibit. For example, it used to be well known that when fairies hid themselves from general sight, lunatics were often able to perceive them. The most celebrated instance which I can recall was of a mad boy called Duffy in Chesterfield in Derbys.h.i.+re in the fourteenth century, who was the favourite of a mischievous fairy-spirit which had tormented the town for years. The fairy took a great fancy to this boy and made him extravagant presents most of which would have scarcely been of any use to him in his right mind and were certainly no use to him in his madness a sailing boat encrusted with diamonds, a pair of silver boots, a singing pig . . ."

"But why did the fairy pay Duffy all these attentions?"

"Oh! He told Duffy they were brothers in adversity. I do not know why. Chaston wrote that a great many fairies harboured a vague sense of having been treated badly by the English. Though it was a mystery to Chaston as it is to me why they should have thought so. In the houses of the great English magicians fairies were the first among the servants and sat in the best places after the magician and his lady. Chaston has a great many interesting things to say upon the subject. His best work is the Liber Liber Novus Novus." Mr Norrell frowned at his pupil. "I am sure I have recommended it to you half a dozen times," he said. "Have you not read it yet?"

Unfortunately, Mr Norrell did not always recall with absolute precision which books he wished Strange to read and which books he had sent to Yorks.h.i.+re for the express purpose of keeping them out of Strange's reach. The Liber Liber Novus Novus was safe on a shelf in the library at Hurtfew Abbey. Strange sighed and remarked that the moment Mr Norrell put the book into his hand he would be very glad to read it. "But in the meantime, sir, perhaps you would be so good as to finish the tale of the fairy of Chesterfield." was safe on a shelf in the library at Hurtfew Abbey. Strange sighed and remarked that the moment Mr Norrell put the book into his hand he would be very glad to read it. "But in the meantime, sir, perhaps you would be so good as to finish the tale of the fairy of Chesterfield."

"Oh, yes! Now where was I? Well, for a number of years nothing went wrong for Duffy and nothing went right for the town. A wood grew up in the market square and the townspeople could not conduct their business. Their goats and swine grew wings and flew away. The fairy turned the stones of the half-built parish church into sugar loaves. The sugar grew hot and sticky under the sun and part of the church melted. The town smelt like a giant pastrycook's. Worse still dogs and cats came and licked at the church, and birds, rats and mice came and nibbled at it. So the townspeople were left with a half-eaten, misshapen church which was not at all the effect that they had in mind. They were obliged to apply to Duffy and beg him to plead with the fairy on their behalf. But he was sullen and would not help them because he remembered how they had mocked him in the past. So they were obliged to pay the poor, mad wretch all sorts of compliments on his cleverness and handsomeness. So then Duffy pleaded with the fairy and, ah!, what a difference then! The fairy stopped tormenting them and he turned the sugar church back into stone. The townspeople cut down the wood in the market place and bought new animals. But they could never get the church quite right again. Even today there is something odd about the church in Chesterfield. It is not quite like other churches."

Strange was silent a moment. Then he said, "Is it your opinion, Mr Norrell, that fairies have left England completely?"

"I do not know. There are many stories of Englishmen and women meeting with fairies in out-of-the-way places in the last three or four hundred years, but as none of these people were scholars or magicians their evidence cannot be said to be worth a great deal. When you and I summon fairies I mean," he added hastily, "if we were so ill-advised as to do such a thing then, providing we cast our spells correctly, the fairies will appear promptly. But where they come from or by what paths they travel is uncertain. In John Uskgla.s.s's day very plain roads were built that led out of England into Faerie wide green roads between high green hedges or stone walls. Those roads still exist, but I do not think fairies use them nowadays any more than Christians. The roads are all overgrown and ruined. They have a lonely look and I am told that people avoid them."

"People believe that fairy roads are unlucky," said Strange.

"They are foolish," said Norrell. "Fairy roads cannot hurt them. Fairy roads lead nowhere at all."3 "And what of the half-human descendants of fairies? Do they inherit their forefathers' knowledge and powers?" asked Strange.

"Oh! That is quite another question. Many people nowadays have surnames that reveal their ancestors' fairy origins. Otherlander and Fairchild are two. Elfick is another. And Fairey, obviously. I remember there was a Tom Otherlander who worked upon one of our farms when I was a child. But it is quite rare for any of these descendants of fairies to exhibit the least magical talent. Indeed more often than not they have a reputation for malice, pride and laziness all vices for which their fairy-ancestors were well known."

The next day Strange met with the Royal Dukes and told them how much he regretted that he had been unable to alleviate the King's madness. Their Royal Highnesses were sorry to hear it, but they were not at all surprized. It was the outcome they had expected and they a.s.sured Strange that they did not blame him in the least. In fact they were pleased with all he had done and they particularly liked that he had not charged them a fee. As a reward they granted him their Royal Warrants. This meant that he could, if he wished, put gilt and plaster images of all their five coats of arms above his door in Soho-square, and he was at liberty to tell any one he liked that he was Magician to the Royal Dukes by appointment.

Strange did not tell the Dukes that he deserved their grat.i.tude more than they knew. He was quite certain he had saved the King from some horrible fate or other. He simply did not know what it was.

1 Charles James Fox, a radical politician who had died some eight years before. This remark proves how far the King's wits were deranged: Mr Fox was a celebrated atheist who would never upon any inducement have entered a church.

2 When Strange reviewed the morning's events afterwards he could only suppose that the flute-player had made no attempt to deceive him by his sense of taste.

3 Whether Mr Norrell was right to say that fairy roads can do no harm is debatable. They are eerie places and there are dozens of tales of the strange adventures which befell people who attempted to travel along them. The following is one of the better known. It is hard to say what precisely was the fate suffered by the people in the road certainly it is not a fate you or I would wish to share.

In Yorks.h.i.+re in the late sixteenth century there was a man who had a farm. Early one morning in summer he went out with two or three of his men to begin the hay-making. A white mist lay upon the land and the air was cool. Along one side of the field there was an ancient fairy road bounded by high hawthorn hedges. Tall gra.s.s and young saplings grew in the road and even on the brightest day it was dim and shadowy. The farmer had never seen any one on the fairy road, but that morning he and his men looked up and saw a group of people coming along it. Their faces were strange and they were outlandishly dressed. One among them a man strode ahead of the others. He left the road and came into the field. He was dressed in black and was young and handsome; and though they had never seen him before, the farmer and his men knew him immediately it was the Magician King, John Uskgla.s.s. They knelt before him and he raised them up. He told them that he was on a journey and they brought him a horse, and some food and drink. They went and fetched their wives and children, and John Uskgla.s.s blessed them and gave them good fortune.

The farmer looked doubtfully at the strange people who remained in the fairy road; but John Uskgla.s.s told the farmer not to be afraid. He promised him that the people could do him no harm. Then he rode away.

The strange people in the ancient road lingered a little while, but when the first rays of the strong summer sun touched them they disappeared with the mist.

34.

On the edge of the desert November 1814 STEPHEN AND THE gentleman with the thistle-down hair were walking through the streets of a strange town.

"Are you not growing weary, sir?" asked Stephen. "I know that I am. We have been walking here for hours."

The gentleman let out a burst of high-pitched laughter. "My dear Stephen! You have only just this instant arrived! A moment ago you were at Lady Pole's house, being forced to perform some menial task at the bidding of her wicked husband!"

"Oh!" said Stephen. He realized that the last thing he remembered was cleaning the silver in his little room near the kitchen, but that seemed like, oh!, years ago.

He looked around him. There was nothing here he recognized. Even the smell of the place, a mixture of spices, coffee, rotting vegetables and roasting meats, was new to him.

He sighed. "It is this magic, sir. It is so very confusing."

The gentleman squeezed his arm affectionately.

The town appeared to be built upon a steep hillside. There did not seem to be any proper streets, but only narrow alleyways composed mainly of steps that wound up and down between the houses. The houses themselves were of the utmost simplicity; one might say severity. The walls were made of earth or clay, painted white, the doorways had plain wooden doors and the windows had plain wooden shutters. The steps of the alleys were also painted white. In all the town there did not seem to be so much as a spot of colour anywhere to relieve the eye: no flower in a flowerpot upon a windowsill, no painted toy left where a child had abandoned it in a doorway. Walking through these narrow streets was, thought Stephen, rather like losing oneself in the folds of an enormous linen napkin.

It was eerily silent. As they went up and down the narrow steps they heard the murmur of grave conversation coming from the houses, but there was no laughter, no song, no child's voice raised in excitement. From time to time they met an inhabitant of the town; a solemn, dark-faced man dressed in a white robe and pantaloons with a white turban upon his head. All carried walking-sticks even the young men though in truth none of them seemed to be very young; the inhabitants of this town had been born old.

They saw only one woman (at least the gentleman with the thistle-down hair said it was a woman). She stood at her husband's side robed from the crown of her head to the tip of her toe in a single garment the colour of shadows. When Stephen first saw her she had her back to him and it seemed in keeping with the dreamlike atmosphere of the place that as she turned slowly towards him, he saw that her face was not a face at all, but a panel of densely embroidered cloth of the same dusky hue as the rest of her garment.

"These people are very strange," whispered Stephen. "But they do not appear to be surprized to find us here."

"Oh!" said the gentleman. "It is part of the magic I have done that you and I should appear to them as two of their number. They are quite convinced that they have known us since childhood. Moreover you will find that you understand them perfectly and they will understand you in spite of the obscurity of their language which is scarcely comprehensible to their own countrymen twenty-five miles away!"

Presumably, Stephen thought, it was also part of the magic that the town's inhabitants should not notice how loud the gentleman spoke and how his words echoed from every white-washed corner.

The street they were descending turned a corner and ended abruptly at a low wall that had been put there to prevent unwary pedestrians from tumbling off the hill. From this spot the surrounding country could be viewed. A desolate valley of white rock lay before them under a cloudless sky. A hot wind blew across it. It was a world from which all flesh had been stripped, leaving only the bones.

Stephen would have supposed that this place was a dream or part of his enchantment, had not the gentleman with the thistle-down hair informed him excitedly that this was, ". . . Africa! Your ancestral soil, my dear Stephen!"

"But," thought Stephen, "my ancestors did not live here, I am sure. These people are darker than Englishmen, but they are far fairer than me. They are Arabs, I suppose." Out loud he said, "Are we going anywhere in particular, sir?"

"To see the market, Stephen!"

Stephen was glad to hear it. The silence and emptiness were oppressive. The market presumably would have some noise, some bustle.

But the market of this town proved to be of a very curious character. It was situated close to the high town walls just by a great wooden gate. There were no stalls, no crowds of eager people going about to view the wares. Instead everyone who felt at all inclined to buy any thing sat silently upon the ground with his hands folded while a market official a sort of auctioneer carried the goods about and shewed them to the prospective buyers. The auctioneer named the last price he had been offered and the buyer either shook his head or offered a higher one. There was not a great deal of variety in the goods there were some bales of fine cloth and some embroidered articles, but mostly it was carpets. When Stephen remarked upon this to his companion, the gentleman replied, "Their religion is of the strictest sort, Stephen. Almost everything is forbidden to them except carpets."

Stephen watched them as they went mournfully about the market, these men whose mouths were perpetually closed lest they spoke some forbidden word, whose eyes were perpetually averted from forbidden sights, whose hands refrained at every moment from some forbidden act. It seemed to him that they did little more than half-exist. They might as well have been dreams or ghosts. In the silent town and the silent countryside only the hot wind seemed to have any real substance. Stephen felt he would not be surprized if one day the wind blew the town and its inhabitants entirely away.

Stephen and the gentleman seated themselves in a corner of the market beneath a tattered brown awning.

"Why are we here, sir?" asked Stephen.

"So that we may have some quiet conversation, Stephen. A most serious matter has arisen. I am sorry to have to tell you that all our wonderful plans have been rudely overturned and once again it is the magicians who thwart us! Never was there such a rascally pair of men! Their only pleasure, I think, is in demonstrating their contempt of us! But one day, I believe . . ."

The gentleman was a great deal more interested in abusing the magicians than he was in making his meaning clear and so it was some time before Stephen was able to understand what had happened. It seemed that Jonathan Strange had paid a visit to the King of England for what reason the gentleman did not explain and the gentleman had gone too with the idea first of seeing what the magician did and secondly of looking at the King of England.

". . . and I do not know how it is, but for some reason I never paid my respects to His Majesty before. I discovered him to be a most delightful old person! Very respectful to me! We had a great deal of conversation! He has suffered much from the cruel treatment of his subjects. The English take great pleasure in humbling the great and the n.o.ble. A great many Worthies throughout history have suffered from their vicious persecutions people such as Charles I, Julius Caesar and, above all, you and me!"

"I beg your pardon, sir. But you mentioned plans. What plans are these?"

"Why, our plans to make you King of England, of course! You had not forgotten?"

"No, indeed! But . . ."

"Well! I do not know what may be your opinion, dearest Stephen," declared the gentleman, not waiting to find out, "but I confess I grow weary of waiting for your wonderful destiny to happen of its own accord. I am very much inclined to antic.i.p.ate the tardy Fates and make you King myself. Who knows? Perhaps I am meant to be the n.o.ble instrument that raises you to the lofty position that is yours by right! Nothing seems so likely! Well! While the King and I were talking, it occurred to me that the first step to making you King was to get rid of him! Observe! I meant the old man no harm. Upon the contrary! I wrapped his soul in sweetness and made him happier than he has been in many a long year. But this would not do for the magician! I had barely begun to weave an enchantment when the magician began to work against me. He employed ancient fairy magic of immense power. I was never more surprized in my life! Who could have supposed that he would have known how to do such a thing?"

The gentleman paused in his tirade long enough for Stephen to say, "Grateful as I am for your care of me, sir, I feel obliged to observe that the present King has thirteen sons and daughters, the eldest of whom is already governing the country. Even if the King were dead, the Crown would certainly pa.s.s to one of them."

"Yes, yes! But the King's children are all fat and stupid. Who wishes to be governed by such frights? When the people of England understand that they might instead be governed by you, Stephen who are all elegance and charm and whose n.o.ble countenance would look so well upon a coin why! they must be very dull indeed if they are not immediately delighted and rush to support your cause!"

The gentleman, thought Stephen, understood the character of Englishmen a great deal less than he supposed.

At that moment their conversation was interrupted by a most barbaric sound a great horn was being blown. A number of men rushed forward and heaved the great town gates shut. Thinking that perhaps some danger threatened the town, Stephen looked round in alarm. "Sir, what is happening?"

"Oh, it is these people's custom to shut the gate every night against the wicked heathen," said the gentleman, languidly, "by which they mean everyone except themselves. But tell me your opinion, Stephen? What should we do?"

"Do, sir? About what?"

"The magicians, Stephen! The magicians! It is clear to me now that as soon as your wonderful destiny begins to unfold, they are certain to interfere. Though why it should matter to them who is King of England, I cannot tell. I suppose being ugly and stupid themselves, they prefer to have a king the same. No, they are our enemies and consequently it behoves us to seek a way to destroy them utterly. Poison? Knives? Pistols? . . ."

The auctioneer approached, holding out yet another carpet. "Twenty silver pennies," he said in a slow, deliberate tone as if he were p.r.o.nouncing a righteous doom upon all the world.

The gentleman with the thistle-down hair regarded the carpet thoughtfully. "It is possible, of course," he said, "to imprison someone within the pattern of a carpet for a thousand years or so. That is a particularly horrible fate which I always reserve for people who have offended me deeply as have these magicians! The endless repet.i.tion of colour and pattern not to mention the irritation of the dust and the humiliation of stains never fails to render the prisoner completely mad! The prisoner always emerges from the carpet determined to wreak revenge upon all the world and then the magicians and heroes of that Age must join together to kill him or, more usually, imprison him a second time for yet more thousands of years in some even more ghastly prison. And so he goes on growing in madness and evil as the millennia pa.s.s. Yes, carpets! Perhaps . . ."

"Thank you," said Stephen to the auctioneer, quickly, "but we have no wish to buy this carpet. Pray, sir, pa.s.s on."

"You are right, Stephen," said the gentleman. "Whatever their faults these magicians have proved themselves most adept at avoiding enchantments. We must find some other way to crush their spirits so that they no longer have the will to oppose us! We must make them wish they had never taken up the practice of magic!"

35.

The Nottinghams.h.i.+re gentleman November 1814 DURING STRANGE'S THREE-YEAR absence Mr Drawlight and Mr Lascelles had enjoyed a little revival of their influence over Mr Norrell. Any one wis.h.i.+ng to talk to Mr Norrell or ask for Mr Norrell's a.s.sistance had been obliged to apply first to them. They had advised Mr Norrell upon the best way of managing the Ministers and the Ministers upon the best way of managing Mr Norrell. As friends and counsellors of England's most eminent magician their acquaintance had been solicited by all the wealthiest and most fas.h.i.+onable people in the kingdom.

After Strange's return they continued to wait upon Mr Norrell as a.s.siduously as ever, but now it was Strange's opinion which Mr Norrell most wished to hear and Strange's advice which he sought before any other. Naturally, this was not a state of affairs to please them and Drawlight, in particular, did all that was in his power to increase those little annoyances and resentments which each magician occasionally felt at the behaviour of the other.

"I cannot believe that I do not know something that would harm him," he said to Lascelles. "There are some very odd stories about what he did in Spain. Several people have told me that he raised a whole army of dead soldiers to fight the French. Corpses with shattered limbs and eyes hanging by a thread and every sort of horror that you can imagine! What do you suppose Norrell would say if he heard that?"

Lascelles sighed. "I wish I could convince you of the futility of trying to manufacture a quarrel between them. They will do that themselves sooner or later."

A few days after Strange's visit to the King a crowd of Mr Norrell's friends and admirers gathered in the library at Hanover-square with the object of admiring a new portrait of the two magicians by Mr Lawrence.1Mr Lascelles and Mr Drawlight were there, as were Mr and Mrs Strange and several of the King's Ministers.

The portrait shewed Mr Norrell in his plain grey coat and his old-fas.h.i.+oned wig. Both coat and wig seemed a little too large for him. He appeared to have withdrawn inside them and his small, blue eyes looked out at the world with a curious mixture of fearfulness and arrogance that put Sir Walter Pole in mind of his valet's cat. Most people, it seemed, were having to put themselves to a little effort to find any thing flattering to say of Mr Norrell's half of the picture, but everyone was happy to admire Strange's half. Strange was painted behind Mr Norrell, half-sitting, half-leaning against a little table, entirely at his ease, with his mocking half-smile and his eyes full of smiles and secrets and spells just as magicians' eyes should be.

"Oh! it is an excellent thing," enthused a lady. "See how the darkness of the mirror behind the figures sets off Mr Strange's head." "People always imagine that magicians and mirrors go together," complained Mr Norrell. "There is no mirror in that part of my library."

"Artists are tricky fellows, sir, forever reshaping the world according to some design of their own," said Strange. "Indeed they are not unlike magicians in that. And yet he has made a curious piece of work of it. It is more like a door than a mirror it is so dark. I can almost feel a draught coming from it. I do not like to see myself sitting so close to it I am afraid that I may catch cold."

One of the Ministers, who had never been in Mr Norrell's library before, made some admiring remark about its harmonious proportions and style of fitting up, which led other people to say how beautiful they thought it.

"It is certainly a very fine room," agreed Drawlight, "but it is really nothing in comparison with the library at Hurtfew Abbey! That is truly a charming room. I never in my life saw any thing so delightful, so complete. There are little pointed arches and a dome with pillars in the Gothic style and the carvings of leaves dried and twisted leaves, as if withered by some horrid winter blast, all done in good English oak and ash and elm are the most perfect things I ever saw. 'Mr Norrell,' I said, when I saw them, 'there are depths in you that we have not suspected. You are quite a Romantic, sir.' "

Mr Norrell looked as if he did not much like to hear the library at Hurtfew talked about so much, but Mr Drawlight continued regardless: "It is like being in a wood, a pretty little wood, late in the year, and the bindings of the books, being all tan and brown and dry with age, compound that impression. Indeed there are as many books, it seems, as the leaves in a wood." Mr Drawlight paused. "And were you ever at Hurtfew, Mr Strange?"

Strange replied that he had not yet had that pleasure.