Free The Town House by Norah Lofts Page A

one another as we could be, a good wife, a good husband, good parents so far as our means allowed. Kate still washed and mended and cooked. I mended the roof and hunted for firewood, and every morning and evening I went to the woolshed so that I could carry the heavier child.
    On one cold March evening, miserable with falling sleet, I found Kate awaiting me at the gate, with something of liveliness back in her face again. When I went to lift Stephen she stopped me, laying a hand on my arm.
    ‘The ponies from Bywater have just come in,’ she said, ‘and without Old John. He dropped dead on the road. If you went to Master Webster now you might get the job.’
    It was a sensible suggestion; and Kate knew that ever since SeptemberI had longed for a chance to leave Armstrong; for I held in my mind the certainty that if he had stood up for me strongly enough, saying that he needed me as a journeyman, his word would have carried weight, even against the rules. Yet pride is a curious thing and will pop up in the unlikeliest places.
    ‘But I’m a skilled smith,’ I said, without thinking. Those few words said it all. I’d strained and sweated, and waited and almost starved in order to be a smith, not a pack-whacker to a pony train.
    ‘On half pay,’ Kate said.
    I knew the need to defend myself. ‘Should I earn much more, if anything? Pack-whacking is an unskilled job; anybody can do it and that sort of job comes cheap.’
    ‘They get about. They pick up things. They do errands for people along the road and get gifts that way. I’ve seen Old John come in with food for a week.’ She tightened her arms about Robin and braced herself to move.
    ‘If it’s beneath you to care whether we eat or not…’ she began sourly.
    ‘I’ll do it. Where shall I find him?’
    ‘In his office. Through the yard, there, to the right, where the light is.’
    ‘You take the baby home,’ I said, ‘I’ll bring Stephen.’ He could by this time walk a little, and holding his hand I went into the wool yard and knocked on the door.
    The room inside served as office and living room, was well-lighted and warm. Tally sticks stood in every corner. Master Webster stood by an open cupboard on whose shelves lay samples of wool.
    ‘Well?’ he said.
    ‘I’m told that one of your pack-whackers is dead. I wondered if you would give me his job.’
    He pinched his upper lip between his finger and thumb, pulled it out and let it go again.
    ‘You’re a foreigner. I’d sooner hev a man that knew the roads.’
    ‘I could learn my way about, master,’ I said, humbly.
    ‘Wasting my time meanwhile. You’re the smith they wouldn’t let into the Guild, ain’t you?’
    I nodded, gritting my teeth together, for I saw in this the beginning of a hard bargain. The man nobody wanted.
    ‘Pack ponies are hard on their shoes,’ he said. ‘Now suppose I rigged up a forge, right here in the yard. Could you shoe the ponies as well as drive ‘em?’
    ‘Of course I could.’
    ‘It’d hev to be done on the quiet. Now and agin I’d hev to send a beast to Armstrong or Smithson, and if they queried why my trade dropped off, thass easy explained, ain’t it? Pony’s likely to cast a shoe anywhere.’
    ‘That is so,’ I said.
    ‘Mark you,’ he said,‘I’m doing you a favour. Making a job for you, you might say.’
    I’m truly grateful.’
    ‘So you should be. Now, as to wages.…’
    I saw his fingers working as he reckoned. They tapped out a sum which was fourpence more than I was earning at Armstrong’s. With a gallon loaf costing a penny it was an increase worth considering; and I bore in mind Kate’s words about a pack-whacker’s chances to earn a little extra here and there. So I sold myself into another bondage for an extra fourpence a week.
IX
    Within a week I was well aware of the advantages in my new job. For a trained craftsman, who had mastered his trade and passed his apprenticeship to become a mere driver of pack ponies was a come down,