“Fairy roads are not like Christian roads,” he said. “Often they do not go where they are supposed to at all. But what does it matter? Nobody here is going to put so much as a foot upon the wicked thing.”

“Thank you,” said Lascelles, “but I believe I shall make up my own mind upon that point.” He hesitated a moment and then strode forward on to the fairy bridge.

Several of the servants called out to him to come back.

“Oh, let him go!” cried Lucas, tightening his hold upon a basket which contained his cat. “Let him be damned if he wishes! I am sure no one could deserve it more.” He threw Lascelles one last, hearty look of dislike and followed the others into the Park.

Behind them the Black Pillar rose up into the grey Yorkshire sky and the end of it could not be seen.

Twenty miles away Childermass was crossing over the packhorse bridge that led into Starecross village. He rode through the village to the Hall and dismounted.

“Hey! Hey!” He banged on the door with his whip. He shouted some more and gave the door a few vigorous kicks.

Two servants appeared. They had been alarmed enough by all the shouting and banging, but when they held up their candle and found that its author was a wild-eyed, cutthroat-looking person with a slit in his face and his shirt all bloody, they were not in the least reassured.

“Do not stand there gawping!” he told them. “Go fetch master! He knows me!”

Ten minutes more brought Mr Segundus in a dressing-gown. Childermass, waiting impatiently just within the door, saw that as he came along the passage his eyes were closed and the servant led him by the hand. It looked for all the world as if he had gone blind. The servant placed him just before Childermass. He opened his eyes.

“Good Lord, Mr Childermass!” he cried. “What happened to your face?”

“Someone mistook it for an orange. And you, sir? What has happened to you? Have you been ill?”

“No, not ill.” Mr Segundus looked embarrassed. “It is living in constant proximity to strong magic. I had not realized before how weakening that can be. To a person who is susceptible to it, I mean. The servants feel no effects whatsoever, I am glad to say.”

There was a queer insubstantiality about him. He looked as if he were painted on the air. The merest draught from a gap in the casement took his hair and made little corkscrews and curlicues of it, as if it weighed nothing at all.

“I suppose that is what you have come about,” he continued. “But you should tell Mr Norrell that I have done nothing but study the occurrences that presented themselves. I confess I have made a few notes, but really he has nothing to complain about.”