“Please, Mr Lascelles,” said Childermass, “if the place has a strong appeal for you, then go! Do not stay upon our account.”

Lascelles looked thoughtfully at the field and the gap in the hedge. But he did not move.

“You do not like the ravens perhaps?” said Childermass in a quietly mocking tone.

“No one likes them!” declared Mr Norrell. “Why are they here? What do they mean?”

Childermass shrugged. “Some people think that they are part of the Darkness that envelops Strange, and which, for some reason, he has made incarnate and sent back to England. Other people think that they portend the return of John Uskglass.”

“John Uskglass. Of course,” said Lascelles. “The first and last resort of vulgar minds. Whenever any thing happens, it must be because of John Uskglass! I think, Mr Norrell, it is time for another article in The Friends reviling that gentleman. What shall we say? That he was unChristian? UnEnglish? Demonic? Somewhere I believe I have a list of the Saints and Archbishops who denounced him. I could easily work that up.”

Mr Norrell looked uncomfortable. He glanced nervously at the Tuxford postillion.

“If I were you, Mr Lascelles,” said Childermass, softly, “I would speak more guardedly. You are in the north now. In John Uskglass’s own country. Our towns and cities and abbeys were built by him. Our laws were made by him. He is in our minds and hearts and speech. Were it summer you would see a carpet of tiny flowers beneath every hedgerow, of a bluish-white colour. We call them John’s Farthings. When the weather is contrary and we have warm weather in winter or it rains in summer the country people say that John Uskglass is in love again and neglects his business.¹ And when we are sure of something we say it is as safe as a pebble in John Uskglass’s pocket.”

Lascelles laughed. “Far be it from me, Mr Childermass, to disparage your quaint country sayings. But surely it is one thing to pay lip-service to one’s history and quite another to talk of bringing back a King who numbered Lucifer himself among his allies and overlords? No one wants that, do they? I mean apart from a few Johannites and madmen?”

“I am a North Englishman, Mr Lascelles,” said Childermass. “Nothing would please me better than that my King should come home. It is what I have wished for all my life.”

It was nearly midnight when they arrived at Hurtfew Abbey. There was no sign of Strange. Lascelles went to bed, but Mr Norrell walked about the house, examining the condition of certain spells that had long been in place.

Next morning at breakfast Lascelles said, “I have been wondering if there were ever magical duels in the past? Struggles between two magicians? – that sort of thing.”

Mr Norrell sighed. “It is difficult to know. Ralph Stokesey seems to have fought two or three magicians by magic – one a very powerful Scottish magician, the Magician of Athodel.² Catherine of Winchester was once driven to send a young magician to Granada by magic. He kept disturbing her with inconvenient proposals of marriage when she wanted to study and Granada was the furthest place she could think of at the time. Then there is the curious tale of the Cumbrian charcoal-burner …”³