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. . . it’s better if they don’t catch the people who were working it. Particularly if those people were printing something the Parliament-men dislike. In January our other press was found, and those who were printing on it were used very ill. Poor Mary Overton, who was stitching the pamphlets, was barbarously dragged through the mire and over the stones to Bridewell, even with her infant crying in her arms. She’s still there, poor brave woman! Now, they might not treat a stranger so inhumanly – but, still, the more I think of it, the less I like the risk of exposing you to such danger. What would I say to your father? No, in good conscience I must disappoint my friend William!’
    Lucy took several steps on along the road, imagining a woman with a baby in her arms being dragged along the street to prison – for stitching a pamphlet! So, it seemed that Aunt Agnes hadn’t just been trying to scare her.
    She felt, though, that if she went back now she would be trapped for ever. She would become her aunt’s unpaid serving-maid, and everyone around her would gradually forget that she might ever have been anything else. I don’t care if it’s dangerous , she thought fiercely: I want to do it. At least I’d eventually be released from Bridewell!
    â€˜Is it against the law for me to stitch your friend’s pamphlets?’ she asked cautiously.
    He sighed. ‘Of that, I’m not sure. It’s against the law to print them or sell them, but is it against the law to stitch them? A lawyer could argue not. But, ah, the present government is most grievously offended by our pamphlets. They very much wish to silence us.’ He hesitated, then went on, ‘I doubt that Will would have been so eager to take you on if he’d properly understood how little you know of all this. He’s been managing this press for us since poor Mr Tew was imprisoned and he finds it hard, or he would have asked more about you.’
    â€˜Managing it?’ repeated Lucy, confused again.
    â€˜It’s Nicholas Tew’s press,’ said Thomas. He peered at her. ‘The petition Will brought me last night – remember? Will’s run back and forth between the press and his own bookshop ever since Tew was cast in prison, and that’s dangerous, since Will’s known to the authorities and might be followed. That was one reason why he was so eager to have you there instead. You’re unknown in the city, and yet, as my niece, you’re trustworthy.’
    Lucy wondered if he would have assumed a nephew was trustworthy, just because an uncle was: men never seemed to get lumped in with their relatives the way women did. ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘Who is “us”?’
    â€˜Eh?’
    â€˜ Our pamphlets, you said; the government wishes to silence us ,’ she pointed out. ‘Who’s “us”?’
    â€˜Oh! I see. Well.’ Thomas drew a deep breath, then showed her over to the side of the road and stopped in a doorway, out of the traffic.
    â€˜When this war began,’ he said, speaking suddenly with clarity and fervour, ‘we were told that we must support Parliament to secure our liberties from an oppressive tyranny. We believed it – at least, I believed it! – and we spent our treasure, and shed our blood, and lost – God knows how I loved my sweet boy; I would rather have lost my own life! And now that we’ve given Parliament the victory, what do we find? A persecuting prelacy is to be replaced with a persecuting presbytery, and we are to have no more rights than we did before! Still it goes on: imprisonment without charge, monopolies and corruption, punishment for those who complain, privilege for the rich and misery for everyone else. Aye, and this present everlasting Parliament, that was elected nigh on eight years ago and has waded through so much blood – when will it stand down and call fresh