The Adventures of Tom Leigh by Phyllis Bentley Read Free Book Online

near it Jeremy suddenly skipped ahead and threw the leaves wide. I stepped back, startled, for another couple of steps forward would have taken me right out into the air. Mr. Firth was vexed.
    â€œBe careful, Jeremy,” he said. “We don’t want the lad to take a tumble.”
    â€œNo, indeed, Mr. Firth,” agreed Jeremy; but his black eyes glittered with malice so that I felt he would have been only too pleased to see me fall.
    â€œWhat are the doors for?” I asked.
    â€œIt’s a taking-in place,” said Mr. Firth carelessly. “Now, Jeremy, you show Tom round and then let him help you; or you can put him to carding. I’m going to weave.”
    He spoke like a man who withdrew from vexations to a loved craft, and so it proved. He sat down at one of the looms and began to work the treadles and throw the shuttle from side to side—at least “throw” is the word they use for this action; it is really more like sliding. I watched him for a moment or two; the cloth grew rapidly. Mr. Firthwith his quick temper might be a trifle uncertain in everyday life, I thought, but he knows cloth, he weaves evenly and well.
    The other loom was empty; probably the piece of cloth now drying on the tenters had been woven there. Jeremy set to work warping, that is getting the yarn on to the beam in the loom, for a fresh piece of cloth.
    This warping is such a difficult and complicated business to explain, though simple enough to do when you know how, that I most earnestly hope I do not have to explain it in court. I do not really see why I should have to do so, as it does not concern the story of the thefts, except that from the moment I began to turn the beam handle for Jeremy as he stood ready with the loops of yarn over his left arm, it was settled for good that I should get no fair dealing from him. For I had often done this for my father, and knew just how it should be done, so there was no reason for Jeremy to be continually “calling” me, as they say here when they mean scolding. He complained that I stood in his light, that my feet were in the way, that I turned the handle before he was ready and too quick and too sudden and too late—in fact, everything I did was wrong. My heart swelled as I listened to him; I thought: “Seven years of this!” However, presently Mr. Firth rescued me, saying irritably:
    â€œPut him to carding, Jeremy, if he frames so ill.”
    Carding is hardish work but not unpleasant. A pair of cards is something between a pair of hairbrushes and a pair of wooden hands for patting butter into shape; each card is flat and square, with a flat handle off one side, and covered all over with little metal bristles. You put a lump of wool, a lump of sheep’s fleece, on to one card, and then you draw it off with the other card, and so back and forth until what has been a curly, yellowish fleece turns into a soft white flat tissue. It is always a pleasure to me to see this happen. When the wool is all soft and white like this it is ready for spinning into yarn. It is an odd and amusing thing about cloth making, as my father used to say to me;you go from breadth to length and then from length to breadth. The fleece, broad across the sheep’s back, has to be turned into a long fine thread of yarn, and then many threads of yarn have to be woven together to make a broad piece of cloth. This wool had been dyed blue; it was a cheerful colour and made a bright tissue. I got on well enough at carding, for I had done it before; Mr. Firth looked at my work himself, and approved it, so Jeremy could not complain.
    All the same, the afternoon seemed terribly long; I was most truly thankful when at last the light began to dim a little, and Mr. Firth stopped work. The evening passed drearily enough; we ate a good supper; then Mrs. Firth went upstairs to put Gracie to bed, and Jeremy slipped out while she was absent; Mr. Firth sat smoking a long white pipe and