‘Good lad,’ Harry said. ‘Tek him nice and steady. Let him know it’s a holiday and not a work day.’

Smith rolled his eyes, but Harry grinned. It wasn’t for Jim’s benefit but for the horse’s.

‘What’s he called? Does he have a name?’ Harry called after the lad.

Jim Smith turned his head. ‘I don’t know!’

‘Well, give him one,’ Harry shouted. ‘How can you give him a command if you don’t know his name? You wouldn’t like it if you didn’t have one.’

He set off again, once more heading in the same direction, but this time going to the far end of the road and coming out in the Witham district. He hesitated for only a moment and then struck out across North Bridge, drove along the edge of the large dock, then headed northwards across the outer edge of the town.

Nellie seemed to want to go the other way and he guessed that would be the way she might routinely take to the railway station with the goods for dispatch, but he called out gee back and steered her in the direction he wanted. It wasn’t a straight road, there were many smaller streets and clusters of old dwellings to negotiate, but Nellie seemed to know the area and kept trotting on, eventually passing an imposing side-winged building with iron gates which proclaimed it to be the Hull General Infirmary.

A little further along and they turned right on to the road leading to the market town of Beverley, and one of the first buildings he saw was the notable workhouse, which he had recently been told about. The description had been very apt, for it could have been a palace, save for the beggars and ill-clad people standing outside its gates.

It was a delightful tree-lined country road which was in the throes of having splendid villas and private housing built upon it. He mused that if ever his ship came in Ellen would like a house here, but he thought that it wasn’t even worth dreaming about. These houses with their balconies looking over their long front gardens were not anywhere near within their means, nor ever likely to be.

Nellie trotted on and they passed the avenue leading to a new park – probably the one the letting agent had mentioned when he first came to Hull, Harry thought – then another with fine houses and trees running down the centre, which he thought would back on to the park; and then they came to a crossroad. To the left was a country road, with Queen’s Road pointing down it on a wooden signpost; the road on the right, where it seemed that Nellie wanted to turn, bore a sign saying ‘Sculcoates’, which Harry knew pointed to Church Road where they had celebrated Christmas only two days since, and which would then lead them back to Wincomlee.