‘How am I to get the harvests in? There’s no fellers and . . .’ She stopped and bit her lip. She had been about to tell him that she no longer had the usual help from her neighbours now that they were ostracizing her at the instigation of Martha Willoughby and – yes, she had to admit it – even Ma Harris.

‘I really am sorry,’ the official was saying again. ‘The squire has been allowed to keep three horses on condition that he loans them out to anyone nearby who has real need . . .’

‘How do you think just three horses can cope with all the work around here at harvest? The grass and the corn dun’t wait, mester.’

The man sighed. ‘I do understand . . .’

‘No, ya don’t. Ya can’t!’ She turned away before he should see her tears. Before she would let any man – other than Jonathan – see her cry, she turned her back on him. With an angry gesture she waved him away. ‘Oh, take ’em, then. Only, don’t let me see.’

She sat in the kitchen, her hands lying idly on the table, staring out of the window that faced on to the front garden, determined not to risk catching sight of her beloved horses being led out of the meadow and up the lane towards the town.

Two pairs of small feet pounded across the yard and Kate, followed by Danny Eland, came bursting into the kitchen.

‘Mam, Mam, they’re taking Punch and Prince. Mam, stop them.’ Tears ran down her daughter’s face and even the boy seemed to be having difficulty in holding his mouth from quivering. Esther held out her hand and Kate came and stood at the side of her chair. The child leant her head on her mother’s breast and the tears flowed. Esther held out her other hand to Danny and he came and stood close beside her, and rested his head against her shoulder.

‘It dun’t seem fair,’ he muttered. ‘They’re old, yar ’osses, anyway. What use can they be in – in the war?’

‘I know,’ Esther murmured. ‘I can’t rightly understand it myself, Danny. But there it is, they’ve got to go.’

Through the open back door the three of them listened to the distant sound of clopping hooves going up the lane, growing fainter and fainter until they could hear them no more.

So many leavings, Esther thought sadly. How many more beings she loved – human and animal – were to walk away down that lane never to return?

Danny twisted his head and looked up into her face. ‘I’m sorry about the mester.’