When Mr Norrell had first come to London, his opinions had seemed very new and not a little eccentric. But since then people had grown accustomed to them and he had seemed no more than the Mirror of the Times when he said that magic, like the oceans themselves, should agree to be governed by Englishmen. Its boundaries were to be drawn up and all that was not easily comprehensible to modern ladies and gentlemen – John Uskglass’s three-hundred-year reign, the strange, uneasy history of our dealings with fairies – might be conveniently done away with. Now Strange had turned the Norrellite view of magic on its head. Suddenly it seemed that all that had been learnt in every English childhood of the wildness of English magic might still be true, and even now on some long-forgotten paths, behind the sky, on the other side of the rain, John Uskglass might be riding still, with his company of men and fairies.

Most people thought the partnership between the two magicians must be broken up. In London there was a rumour that Strange had been to Hanover-square and the servants had turned him away. And there was another, contradictory rumour to the effect that Strange had not been to Hanover-square, but that Mr Norrell was sitting night and day in his library, waiting for his pupil, pestering the servants every five minutes to go and look out of the window to see if he were coming.

On a Sunday evening in early February Strange did at last call upon Mr Norrell. This much was certain because two gentlemen on their way to St George’s, Hanover-square saw him standing on the steps of the house; saw the door opened; saw Strange speak to the servant; and saw him instantly admitted as one who had been long expected. The two gentlemen continued on their way to church where they immediately told their friends in the neighbouring pews what they had seen. Five minutes later a thin, saintly-looking young man arrived at the church. Under the pretext of saying his prayers, he whispered that he had just spoken to someone who was leaning out of the first-floor window of the house next door to Mr Norrell’s and this person believed he could hear Mr Strange ranting and haranguing his master. Two minutes later it was being reported throughout the church that both magicians had threatened each other with a kind of magical excommunication. The service began and several of the congregation were seen to gaze longingly at the windows, as if wondering why those apertures were always placed so high in ecclesiastical buildings. An anthem was sung to the accompaniment of the organ and some people said later that above the sound of the music they had heard great rolls of thunder – a sure sign of magical disturbances. But other people said that they had imagined it.

All of which would have greatly astonished the two magicians who were at that moment standing silently in Mr Norrell’s library, regarding each other warily. Strange, who had not seen his tutor for some days, was shocked at his appearance. His face was haggard and his body shrunken – he looked ten years older.