Will smiled. ‘Oh, little enough,’ he said. ‘We will meet every two months or so for debate and discussion, but we have more than enough trouble with spies and the government to want to do more than that.’

‘Spies?’ I asked blankly.

Will nodded. ‘They think they see traitors and Boney’s agents in every bush,’ he said. ‘It’s the way of this government – aye and others! They can’t bear to think that they might be in the wrong. They can’t bear to think that another Englishman might disagree with them. So they will only believe that if you disagree with them you have to be a paid spy, or a foreigner.’ He paused for a moment. ‘They think they own the world,’ he said simply. ‘The landlords and those in power. They think they own what it is to be an Englishman. If you think differently from them they make you feel like you don’t belong in their country. It’s not their country, but they won’t hear a word of dissent.’

His face was dark. ‘It’s a nuisance,’ he said. ‘I have all my letters opened and read before I ever see them, and it makes them late. Since the last meeting there were two men prowling around Wideacre asking people in the village if I was a rick-burner!’ Will snorted. ‘Damn fools,’ he said.

‘I never knew,’ I said. The enemies of my childhood had been the thief-takers and the gamekeepers. I did not know there were gamekeepers of ideas too.

‘They make little difference,’ Will said. ‘They sit by the door and every single thing you say they scribble down in their little books and then they run off and copy it all out fair for their masters to read. Everyone makes sure they speak civil and say not a word against the government or the king. And I never write if I can send a message.’

‘Oh,’ I said blankly.

‘But it was a good meeting,’ Will said. ‘There were some northern gentlemen there who are planning experimental farms in the north. One of them took me out to dine afterwards. We talked till late into the night. He wants to set up an experimental farm outside his potteries for the workers. I was telling him about the children’s school on Wideacre, and about how we farm. He’s coming down to see it when he’s next in the south. He seemed a likely man.’

I nodded. I was dimly aware of a world outside my knowledge, outside my understanding, where neither a gypsy brat nor a pretty young lady would be of much account, and for a moment I envied Will his contact with a weightier world.

‘That’s enough of me,’ Will said abruptly. ‘What of you? You look a bit pale, Sarah. And what of this trouble of yours?’