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somehow mingled with the bleakness of the prison against the sunset the evening before. More was to come. Towards midday we watched a column of smoke rising near a farmhouse on a hill about a mile away. The smell of burning hay and shouts of men fighting the fire travelled across to us.
    â€˜Somebody’s rick,’ Amos said. ‘Leave him short for winter, that will.’
    He thought it probably came from careless stacking of the hay. If it were piled in the rick with any damp in it, it would gradually ferment and heat up from the centre. Then, with full summer sun, the whole thing would suddenly burst into flame.
    Soon after that we came to a rough inn at a crossroads. Both we and the horses were thirsty, so we dismounted and I held the reins while Amos ducked under the low doorway of the inn’s one room to arrange refreshment. A lad came out from the back with two buckets of water and then Amos emerged, holding two rough pottery mugs.
    â€˜Just home-brewed ale. Will it do?’
    It did very well, though Amos reckoned it was thin stuff. He emptied his mug at two gulps and nodded over his shoulder towards the column of smoke, now no more than a wavering line.
    â€˜Some people talking about it inside there. Reckon it wasn’t an accident.’
    â€˜Oh?’
    â€˜Farmer’s got a bad name for laying off men and cutting wages. They say he got the warning last week and, sure enough, his rick’s gone up.’
    â€˜Warning?’
    â€˜Dead thorn bush tied to his gate one night. Seems there’s a gang of troublemakers round here, and if they don’t like what a farmer’s doing, they give him the thorn bush, and if he doesn’t mend his ways, they set fire to his ricks or barns.’
    More bad news for Mr Godwit, I thought. Rick burning was scaring farmers all over the country as labourers reacted to lost jobs and low wages. If it was breaking out round here, a jury certainly wouldn’t look tolerantly on a known agitator. We remounted and rode on downhill into the afternoon sun. After an hour or so, we stopped to ask directions from farm workers at a crossroads near Mr Godwit’s village and were advised to head for a church spire about a mile away. His was the second biggest house in the village, opposite the vicarage, they said; couldn’t miss it. It was a small village and the second biggest house was no more than medium-sized – three storeys of honey-coloured Cotswold stone, with a short gravel driveway leading to a blue front door between rather stunted Doric columns. The first thing we noticed wasn’t the house but a small figure under a horse chestnut tree some yards away from the gate: Tabby, sitting on my trunk, peaceful as a pigeon on a branch. She stood up when she saw us.
    â€˜Thought you weren’t coming today, after all.’
    â€˜How long have you been sitting there?’ I said.
    She shrugged. Hours didn’t mean much to her.
    â€˜Dunno. A boy came out of the house and asked what was I doing and then an old man came out and said was I your maid and why didn’t I come in and get comfortable? I said I supposed I was, more or less, but I’d wait till you got here.’
    I sighed, any hope of presenting Tabby as a proper maid destroyed again. Mr Godwit was clearly a man sensitive to public opinion and this changeling camped at his gates couldn’t have helped matters.
    â€˜Well, you’d better come in with us now. Leave the trunk. They’ll send somebody out for it.’
    We went up the drive in procession, Rancie and I first, Amos and Senator at groom’s distance, Tabby trudging along in the rear. Mr Godwit must have been watching from a window because he opened the front door in person, his smile of welcome so determinedly fixed that it looked painful. I guessed he already regretted that I’d accepted his invitation, and I entirely agreed with him.

THREE
    â€˜T he fact is . . .’ Mr Godwit said and