*I saw you flopped over this gate like a sack of grain. You opened it, as though letting someone in.'

*Weren't me, sir,' she answered, injured. *Don't ya believe us?'

*Frankly, no.' He thudded to his feet. *Do you take me for an imbecile?'

*It wun't be hard,' she muttered.

Eppie wanted to laugh, but kept quiet.

He threw back the chain.

A horse cantered towards the trough. The ground shook.

*Don't come in, sir!' Pip shrieked. *You'll get flattened.'

*I am not concerned about your stupid pony.'

*But t'uther day Hopper bit clean through the seat of me brother's breeches!'

Thurstan quickly remounted. Bullet galloped away.

A dun-coloured pony stood beside the trough, his head weaving from side to side.

*Hey up, our Pip,' yelled Flip, her brother. *Pa says hurry up with that pony.'

Pip dipped into the pocket of her grubby smock for loose oats. *Here, Eppie, you grab him. I ain't boverin'.'

Eppie warmed to the trusting pony as he munched the treat from her palm.

Stroking Hopper's muzzle, she slid her fingers beneath the noseband and guided him to the stable, all the time speaking soothingly.

Pip tossed the saddle onto the pony's back. *Hopper don't like leathers. It reminds him o' work, and he ain't fussed about that.'

*Don't you think you ought to fix it on a tighter hole?' Eppie asked. *When you buckled it he pulled a grumpy face and breathed out.'

*He don't like it tight.'

Dozily, the pony stood in the yard, one hind leg resting, and his eyes half closed.

Mark, the children's father, strode towards them, scratching curling hairs that showed above the buttons of his filthy shirt.

Flip straddled a wall. Pretending it was a horse, he tormented it with a whip.

*That cob's a mean-tempered beast,' his father warned. *You*ll have to get into the saddle sharpish if ya wanna get there at all.'

Sally, their mother, picked her way through the thistle-dried garden. *Just don't go breaking your neck in the doing of it.'

Eppie noticed the puffed bruising beneath one eye, evidence that Sally had stumbled upon her husband's hasty fists. She recalled what Martha had told her. After getting Sally with child, Mark did not want to marry her. The parish had forced it upon him. He had been led handcuffed to the church.

Mark sauntered off with a halter, ready to catch another horse. He regularly bought nags cheap, the ones no one wanted, ill-tempered, or all rib and bone, broke them in and sold them back at horse fairs.

Pip led the pony to where Flip waited. *Hopper don't need no rough stuff to break him in.'

*It's always best to do as yer father says,' Sally cautioned.

Flip snatched the reins and sprang into the saddle. He gave the pony a hearty kick in the hindquarters as he wriggled in his seat, quickly following this with a fierce dig in the ribs with his boot. With a snort of alarm, the whites of his eyes wildly protruding, Hopper jibbed backwards, crab-like, toward the wall, clattering into buckets. Instinctively, Flip gave the cob another kick in the ribs to disentangle him.

Dashing back, Mark wrenched the reins. *Ya clumsy oaf.'

Hopper reared. The saddle went awry. Flip slithered, his fall broken by a heap of mouldering straw.

*You ain't fixed his saddle on proper,' Mark said, giving Pip a clip around the ear.

Terrified of her father's wrath, she jabbed a finger towards Eppie. *It were *er. She told me to keep the buckle loose so Hopper didn't kick out.'

*Did she!' Staring savagely, Mark bore down on Eppie.

Too astonished for words, she ran.

Pip caught up with her halfway along the track. *Not so fast! You owe me.'

Eppie skidded to a halt. *I ain't got o't.'

Pip rubbed her smarting ear. *I'll take *er.'

*Not Elizabeth! I take her to bed with me.'

Shoulder-barging Eppie, Pip grabbed the doll and ran. *Well, ya don't no more!'

Eppie could not bring herself to open the field gate. *I can't leave without Elizabeth. She'll think I don't love her.' Sinking beside the briar-entangled hedge she cried until she felt as dry as Gillow's stored beans.

Dusk deepened.

She awoke to the sound of Oss Cordwainer, the herdsman, calling in the cows. *Cush! Cush!'

How peaceful the heavens looked, the curved blade of the moon as sharp as a sickle, the stars wheeling in its silver light.

She thrust out her numb legs and rubbed away pins and needles.

Ebernezer still toiled in his forge, a stream of flickering firelight flooding the yard. The reverberating clank-clunk of his hammer sounded strangely remote.

She took a glance of longing at the distant farmhouse, its parlour glowing with lamplight, and trudged off down the lane.

Black-silhouetted, a rider lay in wait in the high-hedged lane that led to the manor stockyard. Though she knew it was not he, she spoke in a fearful, wavering voice, *Pa?'

Thurstan touched Bullet's flanks with his spurs and rode up, slowly. In his black cape and tricorn hat he looked every inch a highwayman.

Her face lengthened in horror as, drawing level with her, he pointed a cavalry pistol between her eyes.

She took a step backwards. *Is he going to kill me?' she thought in terror. *Kill me here? Now? Will I never see mammy again?'

A sudden surge of blood around her body lent wings to her feet.

As she increased the distance between Thurstan and herself, a shot, so loud that the earth seemed to shatter beneath her, rent the chilly air. Something breezed past her ear, lifting her hair with a sickening caress. A bullet!

*I could kill you, know that!' Thurstan laughed short and cold. He kicked his capering horse into stillness. *But I will not,' he muttered maliciously. *I will derive greater pleasure knowing that you are living your life in grime and misery. Though you know it not, Dung Heap, you did me a favour when you stole Cousin Genevieve. It was a feeble weapon without a thrust.'

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

A STUFFED RABBIT.

*I can't imagine what's keeping him,' Martha fretted.

Gillow had gone to the manor to pay the land agent the quit rent for the past three years.

*Are you looking forward to the church concert?' Eppie asked.

*Very much. It'll make a change to listen to pleasant music. All I hear these days is the stale singing of drunkards hanging over Miller's Bridge.'

*That's pa and Wakelin, ain't it?'

*Like as not!'

*Before pa gets back, I'll finish my sewing. I want to give him a surprise.' Working steadily in the loft, a perplexed look crossed her face. She called down to Martha, *Wakelin was in church yesterday, talking to the tomb of Gabriel's baby sister.'

*That's odd.'

*D'ya reckon we ought to ask him what he was up to?'

*Safest to leave him be.'

Eppie climbed down with the rabbit pelt stuffed with straw, its head and paws intact. *What do you think?'

Martha gazed in wonder. *How clever! Dressed in his little clothes he looks alive.'

*Which bit of him do you like best?'

*I like all of him,' she answered admiringly, *though he smells. You've done a good job of sewing the buttons on the shirt. I like his frilly lace cuffs and shoe buckles.'

*Lord du Quesne has shiny buckles so I thought my rabbit would like some. They're too big; they're off Jenny's old bridle.'

*Why did you want to stuff a rabbit?'

Eppie nipped into the front garden. *After pa set the snare I asked him why, in the Ten Commandments, Thou Shalt Not Kill doesn't apply to killing rabbits. He said because they aren't like us. I told him they was.'

*What did your pa say?'

*That God only made rabbits so people can eat them. I told pa that every life is special. He got mad and told me to hop it.'

*I can't say I'm surprised. You do pester him with your questions.'

The room filled with the aroma of freshly-baked bread. Martha set the table. *You can't really think rabbits are like us?'

Eppie sliced the pheasant pie. *They jump around, have bairns, eat, breathe and do droppings. We could've been born rabbits instead of people.'

*You eat rabbit meat.'

*I think of it as a gift from the rabbit, to keep me alive.'

*Rabbits don't chatter like us.'

*Gabriel and I spotted a guard rabbit on top of a warren. It thumped with its paws, warning other rabbits that a fox was coming. That's a rabbit's way of talking.'

*One thing you can't deny is that rabbits don't look like us.'

*That's what pa said. So I asked him if rabbits looked like us would he stop putting out traps. He said he supposed.'

*That's why you decided to make your rabbit?'

*Exactly! When he sees my rabbit he'll take that horrid snare away.' Hearing hurried footsteps, she glanced through the window. *Here's pa. He's running!'

*Running? That's a first. I never recall seeing him run before.'

Gillow burst in. *Where is he?'

*Who?' Martha asked.

*Don't answer me back, woman. You know who.'

*If you mean Wakelin, he hasn't come in for his tack.'

*I need to find him, quick. I've been to the woods. He and Haggard aren't there. I have to warn him.'

*That's a good *un, Gillow,' Jacob said, chuckling in the lane.

*What's he spouting on about?' Gillow muttered angrily.

*I've used pigeon decoys to lure pigeons for shooting,' Jacob said, *but in all my time I've never heard of anyone dressing a rabbit to lure coneys to the trap.'

Gillow stomped down the path.

Martha spoke in a hushed voice. *Eppie, you never said you were going to put it there. Now we're in trouble.'