The Adventures of Tom Leigh by Phyllis Bentley

smiled at her, and felt friendly. But I hid my smile and my thoughts, and bent over the hook, threading it through the rings so that Josiah’s piece hung from the hook in a kind of parcel, for Jeremy was my enemy already (heaven knew why) and I did not wish to increase his dislike of me further.
    â€œGo up and help Jeremy haul the piece in,” commanded Mr. Firth.
    I did so; it came up easily enough as we hauled the rope.
    â€œDoes Mr. Firth employ other weavers to weave for him, then?” I asked.
    â€œOnly one,” said Jeremy with contempt. “He likes to call himself a clothier, but he’s not much more than a common weaver to my mind. Now I’ve worked for a man who was a right clothier, a right manufacturer, as they call them nowadays; he had twenty weavers in his pay.”
    â€œI wonder you left him,” said I.
    My tone was rather sarcastic, for I disliked to hear good Mr. Firth diminished; besides, I thought that a man who had a cow and a horse and a field of oats and a journeyman weaver and an apprentice in his house and one cottageweaver weaving for him was more than a mere weaver. Jeremy gave me one of his evil glances.
    â€œIt’ll be long before you’re a weaver, or anything at all beside a pauper nuisance,” he said. “Get on with your carding.”
    Presently Josiah left and Mr. Firth came up, and there was a long discussion between him and Jeremy, in which I was glad to see Mr. Firth assert his authority. Jeremy wanted to take Josiah’s piece down to the fulling-mill in the valley—where it would be beaten upon in water by the great wooden stocks, to bring the threads together—that morning, but Mr. Firth said his own piece was nearly finished, and he would take the two pieces down by horseback tomorrow. Jeremy argued this beyond the limits of civility, I thought, but Mr. Firth would not give way, so Jeremy returned to his loom with an ill grace. He was threading the threads of yarn through the healds and the reed with a hook—always a delicate job—when Gracie suddenly bounced into the workshop, her hair a ball of fire in the sunlight.
    â€œA pedlar’s come and mother says will you please come down to him, father,” she said.
    Mr. Firth groaned, but threw his legs over the loom bench and rose, obediently.
    â€œWhat a woman can spend wi’ a pedlar is nobody’s business,” said he ruefully as he left the room.
    To my surprise Jeremy threw down his hook and glided after him. I went on carding for a minute or two, but then my curiosity got the better of me and I followed them. Again I was surprised, for at the turn of the stairs I almost crashed into Jeremy, who was crouched down behind the balustrade, watching unseen. I crouched down myself beside him. Jeremy gave me an evil glance but said nothing.
    The pedlar had come inside the house and taken off his pack, and was standing by the door with his tray in front of him, slung by a leather band about his neck. He was giving one of those quick, glib speeches which all pedlars seemed to abound in, praising his goods to Mr. and Mrs.Firth and Gracie, who all stood in front of him gazing at his tray; Mrs. Firth seemed quite enthralled.
    â€œRibbons, buttons, hooks and eyes, scissors, gloves, tapes, caps, aprons, all of the very best quality. Ah, madam, now there you have some of the finest silk on the market,” he said, as Mrs. Firth fingered a patterned piece of stuff. “I salute your taste. Woven in London—pure silk—came overland from far Cathay. Costly, as is natural—” here Mrs. Firth dropped the silk—“but very fine. Or would little Missie like a ribbon for a knot? Hard-wearing—delightful blue—just the colour for Missie’s golden hair.”
    He put out a hand and made to stroke Gracie’s head, but she shrank back, for which I was glad, as, for what reason I know not, I did not like this pedlar. Yet he was a handsome