He took his hand away. ‘I barely touched you!’ he complained. ‘And I wasn’t pulling, I was…’ he searched for a word. ‘Patting. Like I would a horse.’

I giggled. ‘Well, don’t pat me then,’ I said. ‘I’m not a pony.’

He grinned back at me and kept his hands to himself as I had bid him. Friendly-like.

He was a healthy young animal at the pitch of fitness, hot for a mate. He would have flirted with me if I had given him the smallest of welcomes. He eyed Katie when he thought no one was watching. And Dandy and he strayed off the road together to kiss and hump every day or so. Purely for lust, I think he did not even like her.

For Dandy he was the first man she had ever had, and she revelled in the pleasure he gave her. Jack was no virgin, but with Dandy he had discovered a passionate partner whose desire matched his own. They were never in love, but they were addicted. That spring, as we headed east into the sunrise every morning, they sought and found each other, regular as a water-wheel turning over, every other day. Between times they were merely civil.

Katie watched them with her knowledgeable smile. She thought Jack would tire of Dandy, and she was right. She gave him not a word of encouragement nor a smile – she had her mind on my gold guinea. But I was sure that once the debt had been paid the bargain would be off and she would flirt and tease Jack until he took her, in preference to Dandy. What would happen then I could not imagine. But I did turn it over and over in my mind, worrying whether Dandy would fly out at her, or whether she would disdain to struggle.

‘Mother Merry!’ Dandy said laughing as she saw my downcast face.

Least happy of us all was William. He did not complain but his round face grew moonlike and his eyes were sad. Robert asked him at the end of the second week what was troubling him and he confessed that he did not like travelling. He felt as if we ought to arrive somewhere; not just go on and on. Dandy and I stared at him in utter incomprehension but Katie nodded as if she understood.

‘I ‘specs he’s never been out of Warminster in all his life until now,’ she said. ‘Is that right, William?’

He nodded mournfully.

Robert tossed his enamel plate on the grass and leaned back, picking his teeth with a grass stem.

‘Well, if you dislike it so much I daresay I can send you home,’ he offered. ‘There’s work enough for you there, lord knows. Mrs Greaves would have had to take on a lad to do the garden and the vegetables alone.’

William’s face lit up as if someone had placed a candle behind a round Chinese lantern.