Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

by Susanna Clarke

“It is altogether too dangerous. I will begin with light, indifferent subjects – the adventures of this journey for example. Now, what has happened that will amuse her?” He looked up. Dark, dripping trees surrounded him. “There must have been something.” He remembered a windmill he had seen near Hereford with a child’s red cloak caught up on one of the sails. As the sails turned the cloak was one moment being dragged through the slush and the mud and the next flying through the air like a vivid scarlet flag. “Like an allegory of something or other. Then I can tell her about the empty village and the children at the window peeping out between the curtains, one with a doll in her hand and the other with a wooden horse. Next come the silent crowd with their weapons and the man beneath the hedge.” Oh! she was certain to say, Poor man! What happened to him? – I do not know, Strange would say. But surely you stayed to help him, she would say. No, Strange would say. Oh!, she would say … “Wait!” cried Strange, reining in his horse. “This will not do at all! We must go back. I do not feel easy in my mind about the man under the hedge.”