‘But you’ve forgotten the most important five words of the entire Act,’ Biddy now continues. ‘A person commits an offence if he hunts a wild mammal with a dog. Unless. His. Hunting. Is. Exempt.’

Mimi is fascinated.

‘It really is amazing, all this, Rose,’ she says, pulling at my sleeve. ‘What I now see is that the Hunting Act has given a tremendous fillip to the countryside simply by making it illegal.’ She observes this as if no one has ever noticed this paradox before. ‘In just one muddle-headed act of parliament, the Labour party has contrived to make the ancestral pastimes of hunting and shooting and fishing cool, something the Royal Family has seemingly made impossible for hundreds of years.’

I start remembering something else about Henry Pike, and tune out, while Mimi warms to her theme.

‘Everyone from Kate Moss downwards is doing rock star rural now… Alex James… Daylesford Organics… Damien Hirst… Eric Clapton and fly fishing… Guy Ritchie and Madonna…’ (I’m just giving the main points and namechecks) ‘and Ralph told me that there’s a company called Deerstalking.com that has its Land Rovers all parked in Lansdowne Road! I really think there might be a feature in how celebrities are going back to the land, or think they are. I’m going to ring the Telegraph and offer them an exclusive’ – her eyes shine – ‘from the horse’s mouth. When I get back to Home Farm,’ she announces generally, ‘I’ll ring up and offer them a Mimi Malone special on the trend of Rock Star Rural. I’ll try Will, that’s Will Lewis, the editor. Or darling Sue Crewe at House and Garden. I know her, quite well actually. And I could use some pin money. And Sue’s utter bliss. You should meet her, Rose, what with your hampers and apple crisps and the Dairy – it’s a Condé Nast wet dream!’

Watts takes a packet of Rothmans from his pocket during Mimi’s luvvie outburst. He has rather elegant hands, even if the forefinger is nicotine-stained. I notice Gwenda watching him, rather than Mimi, like a hawk. I haven’t seen anyone smoking Rothmans for years. I thought the land’s few remaining smokers all smoked Marlboro Lights or Silk Cut.

But then, as I know, products you haven’t seen for years, like condensed milk, Camp coffee essence, tinned mandarin segments, butterscotch Angel Delight, Fray Bentos pies – things one assumed died a retail death some time in the reign of George V – are among the only items available for purchase in the remote parts of Dorset.

‘Sorry, but did Henry and Martin Thomas actually, urn, break the Hunting Act, or are they just being made examples of?’ Mimi asks, while I move out of the way as Watt lights up and puffs at me, in case I die of passive smoking and smell like a pub used to… for Jesse Marlon.

‘It doesn’t seem fair if they were hunting within the law… and with all these exemptions… I don’t see how the police had the right to arrest them. I didn’t think that hunting was a crime even if it did breach the Hunting Act, I thought it was, you know –’