"Alas, Will," I said, "I think your particular tabard will have to be altered."

"It's not worth the expense, Sir," said Will, heaving the thing over his hard little head, "for I shall not wear it."

"You will wear it," I declared. "This entire household will keep these things upon them until springtime, thus preventing chills and agues and all manner of ailments."

"Forgive me, Sir Robert," said Will, "but I shall not."

"You will, Will," I said feebly, but though I am master of my house and Will is an excellent servant, I could plainly see that upon this subject there is going to be some conflict between us.

Having dressed myself and put my own tabard on, I went in search of the Musikmeister, to whom I would offer to lend one during our chilly hours in the summer-house. Though my tabard feels, I admit, somewhat heavy, it imparts to the body an immediate and agreeable warmth. Furthermore, I look outlandish in it and require only some bizarre hat or headdress of fur to resemble very nicely the Russians of my dreams. And then a teasing thought entered my mind: Would the King not be amused by such a garment? Should I dare, on this my birthday that promised to be empty of gifts, to despatch one to Whitehall? Was it possible that my imagination could be father to a new Royal fashion? How excellent it would be if, when Celia returned to Court, she found all the fops and gallants hung with badger fur and the words "tablier Merivel" upon all their laughing lips!

Determining to give the matter some deep thought (the King had sent me his gift of surgical instruments; would he be offended by some return gift from me?), I got my oboe and went to the room of Herr Hummel and from there we made our way, unseen by any, to the summer-house.

The place was indeed cold and not a little triste, the windows latticed over with cobwebs and the floor strewn with downy feathers, as if a dove chick had flown into the humble habitation and exploded in mid-air. I apologised to Herr Hummel, who had wisely put on his tabard, informing him that in summer the place was very pleasant and expressing my hope that he would return to visit me during that kinder season. He thanked me and suggested we begin upon the lesson straight away, before our fingers became too numb. He requested that I play a few scales for him, followed by "some short piece of your choice". This could only be Swans Do All A-Swimming Go, it being the one thing I could play from beginning to end without fault.

He listened. His face betrayed no scorn or dismay. When I had finished, he did allow himself the ghost of a sigh. "Very well," he said. "I think we must begin again. You are self-tutored, perhaps?"

"Yes, entirely."

"And, alas, the fingering is awkward, Sir Robert, and the position of the lips upon the reed too forward. You must whisper to your reed, you see. Not kiss or suck it."

"Ah."

"But you will learn quickly, I think. You have the zeal to learn."

"Yes. Zeal I have."

"So."

Here, Herr Hummel gently took my instrument from me, blew away my spittle and raised it to his own mouth, making some strange contortions with his lips before allowing them to settle in a hesitant-seeming posture around the reed. He then bid me watch carefully the fingering he employed for the scale of C, his hands seeming hardly to move at all. I noticed that his fingers are white and slender, as if the bone had coloured the flesh, whereas mine are somewhat red and plump. Clearly, I have not been fashioned to be an oboe player. I determined, however, that this would not make me lose heart. Music – that plaintive song at my wedding – had made me turn my face from medicine. For all those lost years of work, it owed me some recompense.

This first lesson lasted for the best part of an hour, during which time our breath clouded the glass panels of the summer-house and my feet seemed clamped into iron shoes, so achingly chill did they become. Did I make a little progress? I do not really know. And so cold was I by the end of the hour that I did not care. Such is the burden of our human clay: our spirits soar to some icy heaven while our bodies creep back to the tame hearth.

My invitation to Dégeulasse and his family had been accepted with alacrity and (still giftless towards two o'clock, no one at all having made any reference to my birthday) I was comforting myself by planning my soirée when a village boy rode up my drive on a donkey bringing a message from the vicar of Bidnold, the Reverend Timothy Sackpole. I was requested to come at once to the church.

"Why?" I enquired of the boy.

"I do not know, Sir."

"How like a clergyman, not to give a reason!"

"Except that it be dire and urgent."

"That is not a reason, lad. That is a tick of the ecclesiastical mind."

As my horse was being saddled, this thought assailed me: had the conceited Sackpole somehow found out that this day saw the dawn of my thirty-ninth year? Did he foresee some divine punishment for this stumbling Aquarian if he were not brought before an altar before the sun set? Being only a little past the shortest day of the year, the sun was indeed going down already – hence the supposed urgency of the message? Though it amuses me to go now and again to hear a sermon from Sackpole, I am not seen at church as often as I should be, preferring to send my prayers to God in the quiet of my room or (as already described) in the company of a lardy cake. It was thus quite possible that this clergyman, who strikes me as a petulant person, should wish to deliver himself of some reprimand, the tone and substance of which I could already hear in my mind. He would begin by asking me to what I had given any thought on this the anniversary of my birth. I would reply that my mind had circled vainly about an empty table on which I had imagined Celia placing the gift of an embossed music case or a handsome picture frame. He would answer that such preoccupations will bar me from the Kingdom of Heaven…

But it was not to be thus. When I arrived at the churchyard, I saw in the light of the declining sun a small throng of people grouped about the gate and heard the sound of voices and weeping.

"Whatever is it?" I enquired of the boy on the donkey, but he did not reply; he was staring at the scene with some alarm.

I dismounted. As I did so, the Reverend Sackpole came towards me.

"Ah," I said, "what have we here, Vicar?"

"Thank you for coming, Sir Robert," Sackpole said courteously, thus putting from my mind the suspicion that he was about to lecture me upon my lack of faith. "It seems we have need of a medical man and Doctor Murdoch is not to be found."

"Sackpole," I said, "I was once a student of medicine, but my studies were never completed. I am not equipped – "

"No great skill is being asked of you. Let us step aside a little from these good people – the boy will hold your horse -and I will explain what has happened."

"Assure me first that you do not expect me to start saving lives."

"What is requested of you, Sir, is your judgement."

"My judgement? Well, let me tell you, Vicar, that that is not perhaps as sound as it once was. I am most prone to error."

"Not one of us is infallible, Sir Robert, but this may prove to be a simple matter for you. Come."

I followed Sackpole and we passed through a small door into the vestry of the church. The place was dark and smelled of hayseed. Sackpole closed the door and laid his hand upon my arm.

"There is," he now whispered, "a most horrible suspicion come among the village people: the suspicion of witchcraft."

"Witchcraft? In Bidnold?"

"Yes. I shall tell you the tale as briefly as I may. The people outside, many of them weeping, as you heard, were mourners at a burial I performed at noon. The deceased was a young girl, Sarah Hodge, not seventeen years old and died in a sudden and terrible manner."