Meridon (Wideacre Trilogy 3) Read Online Free Page A

apart as strangers would put them, and there were some good horses cropping the short grass. I looked them over as I led our horse, Jess, from the shafts.
    ‘Good animals,’ I said to Da. His glance around was sharp.
    ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘And a good price we should get for ours.’
    I said nothing. Tied on the back of the wagon was a hunter so old and broken-winded that you could hear its roaring breathsfrom the driving seat, and another of Da’s young ponies, too small to be ridden by anyone heavier than me, and too wild to be managed by any normal child.
    ‘The hunter will go to a flash young fool,’ he predicted confidently. ‘And that young ‘un should go as a young lady’s ride.’
    ‘He’s a bit wild,’ I said carefully.
    ‘He’ll sell on his colour,’ Da said certainly, and I could not disagree. He was a wonderful pale grey, a grey almost silver with a sheen like satin on his coat. I had washed him this morning, and been thoroughly wetted and kicked for my pains, but he looked as bright as a unicorn.
    ‘He’s pretty,’ I conceded. ‘Da, if he sells – can Dandy and me go to the fair and buy her some ribbons, and some stockings?’
    Da grunted, but he was not angry. The prospect of the fair and big profits had made him as sweet as he could be – which, God knew, was sour enough.
    ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’ll give you some pennies for fairings.’ He slid the tack off Jess’s back and tossed it carelessly up on the step of the caravan. Jess jumped at the noise and stepped quickly sideways, her heavy hoof scraping my bare leg. I swore and rubbed the graze. Da paid no attention to either of us.
    ‘Only if these horses sell,’ he said. ‘So you’d better start working the young one right away. You can lunge him before your dinner, and then work him all the day. I want you on his back by nightfall. If you can stay on, you can gad off to the fair. Not otherwise.’
    The look I gave him was black enough. But I dared do nothing more. I pulled Jess’s halter on and staked her out where she would graze near the caravan and went, surly, to the new grey pony tied on the back of the wagon. ‘I hate you,’ I said under my breath. The caravan tipped as Da went inside. ‘You are mean and a bully and a lazy fool. I hate you and I wish you were dead.’
    I took the long whip and the long reins and got behind the grey pony and gently, patiently, tried to teach it two months’training in one day so that Dandy and me could go to the fair with a penny in our pockets.
    I was so deep in the sullens that I hardly noticed a man watching me from one of the other caravans. He was seated on the front step of his wagon, a pipe in his hand, tobacco smoke curling upwards in the still hot air above his head. I was concentrating on getting the grey pony to go in a circle around me. I stood in the centre, keeping the whip low, sometimes touching him to keep him going on, mostly calling to him to keep his speed going steady. Sometimes he went well, round and around me, and then suddenly he would kick out and rear and try to make a bolt for it, dragging me for shuddering strides across the grass until I dug my heels in and pulled him to a standstill and started the whole long process of making him walk in a steady circle again.
    I was vaguely aware of being watched. But my attention was all on the little pony – as pretty as a picture and keen-witted. And as unwilling to work in the hot morning sunshine as I was. As angry and resentful as me.
    Only when Da had got down from the caravan, pulled on his hat and headed off in the direction of the fair did I stop the pony and let him dip his head down and graze. I slumped down then myself for a break and laid aside the whip and spoke gently to him while he was eating. His ears – which had been back on his head in ill humour ever since we had started – flickered forward at the sound of my voice, and I knew the worst of it was over until I had to give him the shock of