The Footnotes at Hurtfew

The other servants were a little surprized to find they were put under a black man -- a sort of person that many of them had never even seen before. Some were inclined to be indignant at first and told each other that if he dared to give them an order they would return him a very rude answer. But whatever their intentions, they discovered that when they were actually in Stephen's presence they did nothing of the sort. His grave looks, air of authority and reasonable instructions made it very natural to do whatever he told them.

David Montefiore had counted the innumerable towers in 1764. There were fourteen of them.

Mr Aubrey was once a very rich man with lands; estates; pleasant farmes; cowes; sheepe, etc., etc., and (I thinke) great boxes of silver and gold. But he haz lost it all through Law-suites, Misfortunes and the Unkindnesse of his Relations. Mr Aubrey sayz that nothing so distracts a Scholar or drawes so many teares from a Scholar's head as Law-suites. But, sayz Mr Aubrey, I am now very merry, Miranda, my Troubles are at an end. And he asked me to lend him three pounds.

"You seem, sir, to be of a somewhat inconsistent, somewhat contradictory character," said Miss Tobias. "Indeed, madam, other people have remarked upon it."

Robin Goodfellow, I knew all along that it was you that sent me those dreams. But I am an English human child and therefore cleverer than you and when those wicked creatures come to do me harm I shall be cleverer than them. I am a human child and all the vast stony, rainy English earth belongs to me. I am an English child and all the wide grey English air, full of black wings beating and grey ghosts of rain sighing, belongs to me. This being so, Robin Goodfellow, tell me, why should I be afraid?

Suddenly there was a shout from outside in the hall. Afterwards no one could say whose voice it had been. Several of Strange's neighbours who were standing nearest the door went to sec what the matter was. Then the exclamations of those people drew out the rest. The hall was dark at first, but in a moment candles were brought and they could see that someone was standing at the foot of the stairs. It was Arabella. Henry rushed forward and embraced her; Mr Hyde and Mrs Ayrton told her how glad they were to see her safe and sound; other people began to express their amazement and to inform any one who would listen that they had not had the least idea of her being there. Several of the ladies and maids gathered around her, asking her questions. Was she hurt? Where had she been? Had she got lost? Had something happened to distress her? Then, as sometimes will happen, several people became aware at the same time of something rather odd: Strange had said nothing, made no movement towards her -nor, for that matter, had she spoken to him or made any movement towards him. The magician stood, staring silently at his wife. Suddenly he exclaimed, "Good God, Arabella! What have you got on?" Even by the candles' uncertain, flickering light it was quite plain that she was wearing a black gown.

I detest Weymouth. I spent one of the most miserable weeks of my life there. I was horribly in love with a girl called Marianne and she snubbed me for a fellow with an estate in Jamaica and a glass eye.

Nothing would have pleased Mr Segundus better than to work for Jonathan Strange, but his natural modesty would not allow him to propose it. It would be a shocking thing to put himself forward in such a way. Mr Strange might be embarrassed to know how to answer him. It might even look as if he, John Segundus, considered himself Mr Strange's equal!

Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians. They met upon the third Wednesday of every month and read each other long, dull papers upon the history of English magic.

A sort of breeze rushed by. It was not unpleasant –indeed it had the refreshing fragrance of the ocean. Hadley-Bright looked out of the windows. Beyond the houses, churches, palaces and parks were mountain-ridges that had not been there a moment ago. They were black, as if covered with pine trees. The air was much fresher –like air that had never been breathed before. "Where are we?" asked Hadley-Bright. "America," said Strange. And then by way of an explanation he added, "It always looks so empty on the maps." "Dear God! But this is no better than before! Have you forgotten that we have only just signed a peace treaty with America? Nothing will excite the Americans' displeasure so much as the appearance of a European city on their soil!" "Oh, probably! But there is no need for concern, I assure you. We are a long way from Washington or New Orleans or any of those places where the battles were. Hundreds of miles I expect. At least . . . That is to say I am not sure where exactly. Do you think it matters?"

They came to a crossroads. The coachman halted the horses and stared gloomily at the place where, in his opinion, the fingerpost ought to have been. "There are no milestones," said Stephen, "nothing to say where any of these roads might lead to." "Always supposing they go anywhere at all," said the coachman, "which I am beginning to doubt." He took a snuff-box from his pocket and inhaled a large pinch of it. The footman who sat on the box beside the coachman (and who was by far the coldest and most miserable of the three) comprehensively cursed Yorkshire, all Yorkshiremen and all Yorkshire roads.

The new manservant thanked them for the information and promised to remember what they had said. But what the other servants did not know was that the new manservant had a temper to rival Mr Strange's own; that he was sometimes sarcastic, often rude, and that he had a very high opinion of his own abilities and a correspondingly low one of other people's. The new manservant did not mention his failings to the other servants for the simple reason that he knew nothing of them. Though he often found himself quarrelling with his friends and neighbours, he was always puzzled to discover the reason and always supposed that it must be their fault. But in case you should imagine that this chapter will treat of none but disagreeable persons, it ought to be stated at once that, whereas malice was the beginning and end of Laurence Strange's character, the new manservant was a more natural blend of light and shade. He possessed a great deal of good sense and was as energetic in defending others from real injury as he was in revenging imaginary insults to himself.

"Yet I hope," said Sir Walter eagerly, leaning over the back of his chair to speak to his betrothed, "that you like novels as well, and then, you know, we could read to each other. What is your opinion of Mrs Radcliffe? Of Madame d'Arblay?"

"Bankruptcy," she said in a fierce, low voice. "Lunacy. Fire. A disfiguring disease. A horse to trample upon him! A villain to lie in wait for him and cut his face with a knife! A vision of horror to haunt him and drive away sleep night after night!" She rose and began to pace about the room. "Let every mean and dishonourable action he ever did be published in the newspaper! Let everyone in London shun him! Let him seduce some country girl who will go mad for love of him. Let her follow him wherever he goes for years and years. Let him become an object of ridicule because of her. Let her never leave him in peace. Let some mistake upon the part of an honest man lead to his being accused of a crime. Let him suffer all the indignities of trial and imprisonment. Let him be branded! Let him be beaten! Let him be whipped! And let him be executed!

In the late spring of 18__ a lady in the village of Kissingland in D__shire suffered a bitter disappointment.

"He is not here," said the tall man, giving each word an emphasis with a poke of his finger in the other's shoulder. "Where are the fiercely burning eyes that you promised us? Where the trances that none of us can explain? Has anyone been cursed? –I do not think so. You have called him up like a spirit from the vasty deep, and he has not come."

Sir Walter had a generous spirit and was often kind-hearted. He told someone once that he hoped his enemies all had reason to fear him and his friends reason to love him –and I think that upon the whole they did. His cheerful manner, his kindness and cleverness, the great station he now held in the world –these were even more to his credit as he maintained them in the face of problems that would almost certainly have brought down a lesser man.