“As far as neighbours go, those trees are quite exemplary. They mind their own affairs and have never troubled me. I rather think that I will return the compliment.”

“But they are blocking the light.”

“So are you, Henry, but I have not yet taken an axe to you.”

The truth was that, though Henry saw much to criticize in the grounds and position of Ashfair, this was not his real complaint. What really disturbed him about the house was the all-pervading air of magic. When Strange had first taken up the profession of magic, Henry had not thought any thing of it. At that time news of Mr Norrell’s wonderful achievements was only just beginning to spread throughout the kingdom. Magic had seemed little more than an esoteric branch of history, an amusement for rich, idle gentlemen; and Henry still somehow contrived to regard it in that light. He prided himself upon Strange’s wealth, his estate, his important pedigree, but not upon his magic. He was always a little surprized whenever any one congratulated him on his close connexion with the Second Greatest Magician of the Age.

Strange was a long way from Henry’s ideal of a rich English gentleman. He had pretty well abandoned those pursuits with which gentlemen in the English countryside customarily occupy their time. He took no interest in farming or hunting. His neighbours went shooting – Henry heard their shots echoing in the snowy woods and fields and the barking of their dogs – but Strange never picked up a gun. It took all Arabella’s persuasion to make him go outside and walk about for half an hour. In the library the books that had belonged to Strange’s father and grandfather – those works in English, Greek and Latin which every gentleman has upon his shelves – had all been removed and piled up upon the floor to make room for Strange’s own books and notebooks.3 Periodicals concerned with the practice of magic, such as The Friends of English Magic and The Modern Magician, were everywhere scattered about the house. Upon one of the tables in the library there stood a great silver dish, which was sometimes full of water. Strange would often sit for half an hour peering into the water, tapping the surface and making odd gestures and writing down notes of what he saw there. On another table amid a jumble of books there lay a map of England upon which Strange was marking the old fairy roads which once led out of England to who-knows-where.