"Ran into them once at a Ridotto, actually," acknowledges Mr. LeSpark. "Must've been that first year or two."
"John!"
"Ages before we met, my Treasure."
"But my Nonpareil, you know how I resent and begrudge even the least allusion to any Life of yours, before we met." At this the Revd blinks, and may be seen slightly to cringe, for he knows his Sister.
"Thus depriving me," LeSpark at least game, "of all but, what's it been now...ten years? twenty?"
"Fifteen, my stout Chestnut. As before me you had no Life, fifteen is your true Age, putting you yet in the Bloom of Youth—"
"Um, Zab," the Revd can't keep from inquiring, "you...regard your Husband, as some sort of...Sprout?"
She pretends to think about this for a while. "Zabby!" Mr. LeSpark in a hurt tone.
"Would this Ridotto, Sir, have been at Lepton Castle, by Chance?"
"The very Oasis, Wicks. We'd done some Business out that way, I and his Lordship,— I'd a standing Invitation from them to pop in whenever I wish'd."
"Didn't know I'd married Quality, did you?" Elizabeth chirps.
" 'Twas a part of the Expedition I miss'd, Zab, and, as the Surveyors were on about it for weeks after, was often to be reminded of,— the infa?mous Lepton Ridotto.”
In those days, out past the reach of civic Lanthorns, as of Nail-hung Lamps in Sheds, and Tallow Dips, and the last feeble Rush-Light,— beyond, in the Forest, where the supernatural was less a matter of Publick-Room trickery or Amusement, Mr. LeSpark, as he tells it, was us'd to visit with potential customers, as well as tour his sources of sup?ply,— Gunsmithies, Forges, Bloomeries, and Barrel Mills,— passing as in a glide, thro' the Country, safe inside a belief as unquestioning as in any form of Pietism you could find out there that he, yes little JWL, goeth likewise under the protection of a superior Power,— not, in this case, God, but rather, Business. What turn of earthly history, however per?verse, would dare interfere with the workings of the Invisible Hand? Even the savages were its creatures,— a merchant's Pipe-Reverie, and, if consider'd as a class of Purchasers-at-retail,— well,— more admirable even than Dutch housewives, in the single-minded joy with
which they brows'd and chose....
In his first Trips out, he engag'd local Guides, who kept to the shad?ows and did not speak, to show him the way to the well-guarded, and in the estimate of some, iniquitous, Iron-Plantation of Lord and Lady Lep-ton. Each time, 'twas like stepping across out of the difficult world and into that timeless Encyclopedia-Light, where Apprentices kept a monas?tic silence, entirely dedicated to the tasks at hand, did not fall asleep in mid-afternoon, nor moon about in states of Erection for hours at a time. All noxious smokes and gases were being vented someplace distant, invisible. The dogs loaf'd, well fed, in the alleyways. Iron in an hundred shapes was being produced, exactly to plan. The women chatted as they work'd in a small studio of their own, casting from small Crucibles spe?cially formulated Batches of Steel. Sunlight flooded thro' open'd win?dows, the faces of the workers remaining attentive, uninflected, eyes only upon the Work. This, LeSpark must remind himself, each time he rounded one particular unfolding of the Trail,— Hazel branches parting, river noise suddenly in the air, Dogs on route and at the Gallop,— this was how the world might be. To see with nothing but this Simplicity, to take only these unpolluted Breaths, to leave the shop after the last of the light, with a face as willingly free of Affliction as that presented at Dawn,— 'twas a moment, hard come by out here, of viewing things whole, and he grew with each Visit more and more to depend upon it.
It is something he cannot explain to many people,— he knows that few distinguish between the Metal itself, and the Forms it happens to end up in, the uses it is widely known for being put to, against living Bodies,— cutting, chaining, penetrating sort of Activities,— a consider?able Sector of the iron market, indeed, directed to offenses against Human, and of course Animal, flesh.... "All too true," he can imagine himself saying, "yet, once you have felt the invisible Grasp of the Mag?netic, or gazed, unto transport, as the Gangue falls away before the veined and billowing molten light, oh the blinding purity—"
"Oh, Mr. LeSpark," being the likely reply.
"What is not visible in his rendering," journalizes the Revd to himself, later, "is the Negro Slavery, that goes on making such no doubt exquisite moments possible,— the inhuman ill-usage, the careless abundance of pain inflicted, the unpric'd Coercion necessary to yearly Profits beyond the projectings even of proud Satan. In the shadows where the Forge's glow does not reach, or out uncomforted beneath the vaporous daylight of Chesapeake, bent to the day's loads of Fuel from the vanishing Hard?wood Groves nearby, or breathing in the mephitic Vapors of the bloomeries,— wordlessly and, as some may believe, patiently, they bide everywhere, these undeclared secular terms in the Equations of Propri?etary Happiness."
Mason and Dixon, happening to be lost at nightfall (as they will later tell it), in the last possible light come upon a cabin, hardly more than a shed, of weathered fragrant old wood, beneath a sagging roof, show?ing no lights, to Apparition, abandoned for years,— yet, its ancient doorsill once traversed, the Surveyors find more room inside than could possibly be contained in the sorrowing ruin they believ'd they were entering.
To their alarm, Light shines ev'rywhere,— Chandelier Light, silver Sconce and Sperm-Taper Light,— striking them both to an all-but-sympathetick Squint. The Plafond,— as their slowly unclenching eyes ascend in wonder,— runs to a full spectrum of colors, depicting not the wing'd beings of Heaven, but rather the Denizens of Hell, and quite busy at their Pleasures, too— "Yes yes very interesting indeed," Dixon hastily, "yet if it's all the same to thee, I think, having grasped the point, I, for one, am now arriv'd at the moment of D. Ahh. Oah,— and thee...?"
"There's no Moon," Mason reminds him. "Going out there now would be as dangerous as jumping into the open sea. We must shelter here, we've no choice." 'Tis only then that they hear the Music, though once acknowledg'd, it seems to've been playing all the time. Indeed it now emerges, that they have entered something long in Progress, existing without them, not for their Benefit, nor even their Attention. Some twenty or thirty musicians, by the sound of it,— new music, advanced music, as far from the Oboick Reveries of the Besozzis, as the Imperial Melismata of Quantz,— its modalities rather suggesting some part of the Globe dis?tant from Britain, a dangerous jangling that nonetheless acts as an hyp?notic Draught upon the Surveyors.
Cautiously, drawn, following a Gradient of loudness as best they can, they pass through doorways, cross anterooms filled with expensive sur?faces and knick-knack intricacies they are moving among too briskly to examine, beginning to pick up the murmur of a Gathering, peaks of falsetto insincerity,— suddenly a grand Archway, above which, carv'd in glowing pink Marble, naked Men, Women, and Animals writhe together in a single knotted Curve of Lustfulness. The Surveyors have been gaz?ing at it for somewhat longer than is considered sophisticated, when a Voice, from someplace they cannot see, announces them,— "Mr. Mason, and Mr. Dixon, Astronomers of London."
Mason snorts. "Congratulations."
Dixon pretends to look about for the Voice. "Really, I'm oahnly a county Surveyor... ? He's the Astronomer... ?"
"Overdoing the Rusticisms," Mason mutters. "And do try not to fling your head about so?"
Thus do they come stumbling into what, in London, is term'd an "Hurricanoe,"— a thick humidity of Intrigue and Masks realiz'd in locally obtain'd Fur and Plumage, clamorous with Chatter and what seems now more to resemble Dancing-Music,— dominated from one wall by a gigantic rococo Mirror, British Chippendale to the innocent eye, engrossing easily the hundredth part of an acre,— Dixon trying to stand his ground even as his partner has begun to walk away rapidly
 backward, for an Eye-blink there having pass'd over his Face a look of Alarm that has not possess'd it since the Seahorse, during the worst of that encounter.
"I cannot explain," as Dixon overtakes him, " 'tis a sort of Moral Panick."
"Manners first,— we must go in, as we can't offend our Hostess,— there's sure to be a Hostess...?" Dixon frantically resorting to what he knows of Climbers' Discourse. "If we offend her, she will at best behave inconveniently to her Husband,— at but slightly worse, she will advise him to have us expell'd from the Province. Are you there? Sheriffs will be instructed to make our lives even more difficult,— Children will play rude hoaxes upon us,— Water-Men will contrive to put us in the Water...."
"My Wig," Mason grasping and shifting it frantically about, "it doesn't feel quite...symmetrick,— no, and the Coat,— the moment we arose, I said it, remember? 'Shouldn't I wear the blue brocade?' But, in that case, I should have had to change the Breeches,—
"Sir,— " a calm Voice at his elbow suggests, "take hold of yourself, lest another be obliged to."
"Aye? Another what?" Irascible Mason, known up and down the Churs of Stroud, on occasions like this, as a lightning Shin-Kicker, has actually begun shuffling to seek some purchase upon the gleaming floor, when he belatedly recognizes the notorious Calvert agent Captain Dasp, to smoak whose Dangerousness even those of an Idiocy far more advanc'd than Mason's require but an anxious few seconds.
"Gentlemen," advises this ominous Shadow, "— you have fallen, willy-nilly, among a race who not only devour Astronomers as a matter of habitual Diet, but may also make of them vile miniature 'Sandwiches,' and lay them upon a mahogany Sideboard whose Price they never knew, and then forget to eat them. Your only hope, in this room, is to imperson?ate so perfectly what they assume you to be, that instincts of Predation will be overcome by those of Boredom."
"I was just about to tell him thah'... ?" nods Dixon.
Lady Lepton has appeared,— the Hostess there is sure to be one of. "Captain, how pleasant." With a gaze, met calmly by that of the agent, that invitee at least Conjecture.
Dixon, ignoring the Captain's sensible advice, is giving her the once?over. "Eeh! Why, Lady, I've seen thee...?— years ago at Raby Castle, where tha came to visit. We were both about the same age... ? still children, it was nearly winter,— Thee in a riding-habit, a sort of Brunswick style? scarlet and blue, and gold buttons,"— which is about where the Captain throws up his hands and walks off, shaking his head,— "a full skirt, a pet?ticoat, and beautiful small boots of wine-colored Cordovan, with French Court heels.. .aye and a cocked hat with green Parrot feathers, all against a Winter Sky, and thine Hair, left loose, falling nearly to the saddle—"
Ordinarily their Hostess would have been expected to rejoin, "And you were the muddy boy at the side of the ditch with his hand upon his Willie," and everyone would have laughed gaily, except, of course, Dixon. Instead, she peers directly in his eyes, and whispers slowly, "Aye, you. At first I thought you were one of the Castle's Ghosts. Following me,— keeping just out of the Light. Even when I didn't see you, I felt you. They told me you were wild, poor, a Dissenter, an Outlaw, to pay you no attention. But I must have disobeyed, if, after all these years, I still remember you." Whereupon a golden Edge of Pleasure proceeds to bisect him upwardly all the way from his Ballocks to his Heart, which these days is a lengthy journey.
Tonight's Slave Orchestra includes the best musicians the Colonies, British and otherwise, have to offer,— for the melody-maddened Iron-Nabob has searched them out, a Harpsichord Virtuoso from New Orleans, a New-York Viol-Master, Pipers direct from the Forests of Africa,— and bought up their Contracts, as others might buy objects of art. The string instruments are from workshops in Cremona, the winds from France, and the music they are playing here for the guests at Cas?tle Lepton, tho' at the moment little more than a suite of airs of the Street and Day, is nonetheless able somehow, perhaps in the unashamed preva?lence of British modality,— that is, Phrygioid, if not Phrygian,— to lend weight to (where it does not in fact ennoble) even the most brainless con?versation upon the great Floor,— which can usually be heard in His Lordship's vicinity, though nowhere at the moment near............