“Some months later Nan was in a tavern, listening to an account of a hanging at York that someone was reading from a newspaper. Nan loved to hear of a good hanging and this report particularly impressed her because the name of the man who had been executed was Clegg. It stuck in her mind and that evening she told Vinculus. To her surprize, she found that he already knew all about it and that it was indeed his father. Vinculus was delighted Clegg had been hanged. He said Clegg richly deserved it. He said Clegg had been guilty of a terrible crime – the worst crime committed in England in the last hundred years.”

“What crime?” asked Lascelles.

“At first Nan could not bring it to mind,” said Childermass. “But with a little persistent questioning and the promise of more gin she remembered. He had stolen a book.”

“A book!” exclaimed Mr Norrell.

“Oh, Mr Norrell!” cried Drawlight. “It must be the same book. It must be Vinculus’s book!”

“Is it?” asked Mr Norrell.

“I believe so,” said Childermass.

“But did this woman know what the book was?” said Mr Norrell.

“No, that was the end of Nan’s information. So I rode north to York, where Clegg had been tried and executed, and I examined the records of the Quarter Sessions. The first thing I discovered was that Clegg was originally from Richmond in Yorkshire. Oh yes!” Here Childermass glanced meaningfully at Mr Norrell. “Vinculus is, by descent at least, a Yorkshireman.1 Clegg began life as a tightrope walker at the northern fairs, but as tightrope-walking is not a trade that combines well with drinking – and Clegg was a famous drinker – he was obliged to give it up. He returned to Richmond and hired himself out as a servant on a prosperous farm. He did well there and impressed the farmer with his cleverness, so that he began to be entrusted with more and more business. From time to time he would go drinking with bad companions and on these occasions he never stopped at one bottle or two. He drank until the spigots gave out and the cellars were emptied. He was mad-drunk for days and in that time he got up to all sorts of mischief – thieving, gambling, fighting, destruction of property – but he always made sure that these wild adventures took place far away from the farm and he always had some plausible excuse to explain his absence so that his master, the farmer, never suspected any thing was amiss, though the other servants knew all about it. The farmer’s name was Robert Findhelm. He was a quiet, kindly, respectable sort of man – the sort of man easily deceived by a rogue like Clegg. The farm had been in his family for generations, but once, long ago, it had been one of the granges of the Abbey of Easby …”

Mr Norrell drew in his breath sharply and fidgeted in his chair.