Robert sent me back to the inn where we had left the whisky cart and I led Sea into a loose box and curled up in the corner myself on a bale of straw, too tired and too battered and bruised to care where I was; and much too shy and dirty to order myself a hot drink and my dinner in the parlour as Robert had instructed. Hours later, when the stable was getting dark and the cold winter twilight was closing the horse fair, he came clattering into the yard with two big horses and three little ponies tied reins to tail behind him.

I stumbled to my feet as groggy and weary as if I had been riding all day and peered over the stable door. Sea blew gently down my neck.

‘Good God,’ Robert said. ‘You look like a little witch, Merry. Stick your head under the pump for the Lord’s sake. I can’t take you home like that.’

I put my hand up to my head and found my cap was lost and my curls all matted with dried blood. The eye which I had bruised was almost closed, and smeared all around my mouth and nose was dried blood.

‘Are you badly hurt?’ Robert asked as I came carefully out of the stable.

‘No,’ I said. ‘It probably looks worse than it is.’

He shouted for a stable lad and tossed the reins of the two big horses towards him.

‘Come here,’ he said gruffly, and worked the pump for me as I dipped my head underneath it.

The icy water hit me like a blow and rushed into my ear and made me gasp with shock. But I felt better as soon as my face was clean. I rinsed most of the blood out of my hair as well.

Robert sent another lad running for a kitchen towel and I rubbed my hair dry. I was shivering with the cold and I had horrid trickles of icy water running down my neck inside my gown, but at least I had woken up and felt fit enough to face the drive home.

‘Or do you want me to ride?’ I asked, eyeing the string of horses we had to get home somehow.

‘Nay,’ Robert said contentedly. ‘You’ve done a day and a half’s work today, Merry, and I’m better pleased with you than I ever have been with any living soul, and that’s the truth. You won me £300 in bets, Merry, and it’s a gamble I’d never have dared take if you hadn’t urged me to it. I’m obliged to you. You can have your horse with my blessing, and I’ll give you ten guineas for your bottom drawer as well. You’re a fine lass. I wish I had a dozen of you.’