Dandy undressed me and put me to bed when we got home, exclaiming over my hurts, and the loss of my cap, and the bloodstains on my grey gown and white apron. Mrs Greaves brought a tray with soup and new-baked bread, a breast of chicken and some stewed apples for me to have dinner in bed. Jack came up to our room with a basketful of logs and lit the fire for me in the little grate in our room, and then he and Dandy sat on the floor and demanded to know the whole story of the horse fair, and the winning of Sea.

‘He’s a beautiful animal but he hardly let me near him,’ Jack said. ‘He went for my shoulder when I took his bridle off. You’ll have your work cut out for you trying to train that one, Merry.’

Dandy wanted to know how much Robert had earned, and they both opened their eyes wide when I told them of the guinea bets which had been called all around me, and that Robert had promised me ten of my very own.

‘Ten guineas!’ Dandy exclaimed. ‘Merry, what will you do with so much money?’

‘I shall save it,’ I said sagely, dipping my bread into the rich gravy around the chicken. ‘I don’t know what money we will need in the future, Dandy. I’m going to start saving for a house of our own.’

They both gaped at me for that ambition, and I laughed aloud though my bruised ribs made me gasp and say: ‘Oh! Don’t make me laugh! Please don’t make me laugh! I hurts so when I laugh!’

Then I asked them to tell me what they had been doing all the day; but they both complained that it was the same as the day before, and looked like being the same for ever. They had both swung up high on the trapeze in the roof of the barn, but most of their work had been on the practice trapeze at ground level, and pulling themselves up and down on the bar.

‘I’m aching all over,’ Dandy complained. ‘And that dratted David just makes us work and work and work.’

Jack nodded in discontented agreement.

‘I’m starving too,’ he said. ‘Merry, we’ll go over and get our dinners and come back to you after. Is there anything you need?’

‘No,’ I said smiling in gratitude. ‘I’ll lie here and watch the firelight. Thank you for making the fire, Jack.’

He leaned towards me and ruffled my hair so my curls stood on end.

‘It was nothing, my little gambler,’ he said. ‘We’ll see you in a little while.’

The two of them clattered down the stairs to the stable, I heard Dandy groan as she had to pull the trapdoor at the head of the stairs shut with her aching arms, and then their voices as they crossed the yard and went through the little gateway to the house. Then I heard the kitchen door open and close and there was silence.