But just as in a dream where the most extraordinary events arrive complete with their own explanation and become reasonable in an instant, Stephen found nothing to be surprized at. Rather, it seemed to him that he had always known that Piccadilly stood in close proximity to a magical wood.

He began to walk along the path.

The wood was very dark and quiet. Above his head the stars were the brightest he had ever seen and the trees were nothing more than black shapes, mere absences of stars.

The thick grey misery and stupidity which had enveloped his mind and spirit all day disappeared and he began to muse upon the curious dream he had the night before about meeting a strange green-coated person with thistle-down hair who had taken him to a house where he had danced all night with the queerest people.

The sad bell sounded much clearer in the wood than it had in London and Stephen followed the sound along the path. In a very short while he came to an immense stone house with a thousand windows. A feeble light shone out of some of these openings. A high wall surrounded the house. Stephen passed through (though he did not quite understand how, for he saw no sign of a gate) and found himself in a wide and dreary courtyard where skulls, broken bones, and rusting weapons were scattered about, as if they had lain there for centuries. Despite the size and grandeur of the house its only entrance was a mean little door and Stephen had to bend low to pass through. Immediately he beheld a vast crowd of people all dressed in the finest clothes.

Two gentlemen stood just inside the door. They wore fine dark coats, spotless white stockings and gloves and dancing pumps. They were talking together, but the moment Stephen appeared, one turned and smiled.

“Ah, Stephen Black!” he said. “We have been waiting for you!”

At that moment the viol and pipe started up again.

18
Sir Walter consults gentlemen in several professions

February 1808

Lady Pole sat by the window, pale and unsmiling. She said very little and whenever she did say any thing her remarks were odd and not at all to the point. When her husband and friends anxiously inquired what the matter was, she replied that she was sick of dancing and wished to dance no more. As for music, it was the most detestable thing in the world – she wondered that she had never realized it before.

Sir Walter regarded this lapse into silence and indifference as highly alarming. It was altogether too like that illness which had caused her ladyship so much suffering before her marriage and ended so tragically in her early death. Had she not been pale before? Well, she was pale now. Had she not been cold before? She was so again.

During her ladyship’s previous illness no doctor had ever attended her and naturally doctors everywhere resented this as an insult to their profession. “Oh!” they cried whenever Lady Pole’s name was mentioned, “the magic which brought her back to life was no doubt very wonderful, but if only the proper medicines had been administered in time then there would have been no need for the magic in the first place.”