Free The Adventures of Tom Leigh by Phyllis Bentley

into the yard to be out of the way.
    For just as I grasped the big hook in one hand to put it through the rings, there was a sudden violent jerk and I found myself swinging in mid-air. Jeremy had hauled on the rope. I brought my other hand to the hook quickly, and held on; I had no desire to fall ten feet, especially with those iron rings below me.
    â€œJeremy! Let me down!” I cried.
    I had thought, of course, that this was just a spiteful joke, very uncomfortable for me but not meant to be dangerous, but as I looked up into Jeremy’s face I felt a pang of fear; such a look of hatred, of evil will, I had never seen in any man’s eyes before. Moreover, he now wound the end of the rope round its staples in the workshop wall, so that I was held in mid-air; and then, reaching out, he began to sway the rope from side to side, and twist it, so that I spun round. I felt sick and dizzy, and tried to make up my mind to jump, while Jeremy’s sneering face seemed to swing back and forward above me, when Gracie screamed suddenly:
    â€œMother! Mother! Come quick! Mother!”
    A scream from Gracie always brought everyone at Upper High Royd to her at the run. So now Mrs. Firth came rushing round the corner, Josiah lumbered after, and Harriet (Josiah’s daughter) followed gaping with a broom in her hand.
    â€œWhat are you about, Jeremy? Let the boy down at once! Josiah, hold him up! Help him down!” shrilled Mrs. Firth, while Josiah shouted:
    â€œJump, lad! I’ll catch thee!”
    Gracie broke into loud sobs. Harriet said: “Eh! I never!” and they all stood gazing up at me, their open mouths and upturned eyes giving a comical effect.
    Jeremy writhed his face into an expression of surprised consternation, loosed the rope and let me down with a bump. I fell into Josiah’s arms and knocked him over, and we rolled together in the yard.
    I own I felt shaken, and did not resist when Mrs. Firth, calling me “Poor lad”, led me into the house and put me into a chair by the fire and brought me a mug of dandelion beer to drink. Jeremy came down and laid his hand as if fondly on my shoulder, with many expressions of regret and explanations how he had not seen me on the hook, he thought it was the piece he was hauling up, and so on. But these were all lies and I shrank from him.
    He was very solicitous about me for the next few days, the more so as Mr. Firth, who had doubtless heard all about the hook affair from Mrs. Firth and Gracie, was decidedly ill-tempered with him. To distract Mr. Firth’s attention from the matter, as I thought, Jeremy began to be urgent with him to weave broadcloths instead of kerseys. A kersey is usually about a yard (thirty-six inches) wide, whereas a broadcloth is fifty-four inches at least, often more. Broadcloths, of course, command a bigger price than kerseys, not only because they have more stuff in them but because it is easier to cut suits and coats from broader cloth—tailoring from narrow cloth is very wasteful and needs more seams. A broadcloth must be very evenly and closely woven, lest it sag, but as Jeremy kept saying, with Mrs. Firth’s fine, even yarn and the good, close weaving of himself and Mr. Firth, he was sure that Upper High Royd broadcloth could soon become quite renowned.
    Mrs. Firth could not but be flattered by all this, and pleased, because at her father’s they wove broadcloths; and Mr. Firth seemed to be coming gradually round to the idea.
    â€œAfter all, why keep an apprentice and make no use of him?” urged Jeremy.
    â€œTrue. Dost think tha could do it, Tom?” said Mr. Firth, who was apt to become more Yorkshire in his speech when he was out of his wife’s hearing.
    â€œHe has done it for his father many a time, isn’t that so, Tom?” said Jeremy smoothly.
    â€œWhy, yes,” said I.
    The point of this lies in the different widths of the two cloths. With a narrow kersey, the weaver sitting