Free The Adventures of Tom Leigh by Phyllis Bentley Page B

with crops. Mr. Firth was put-out by this at first, but was glad enough that there was a piece ready for him to take to market on Saturday. He got a good price for it too, for it seemed all clothiers were busy harvesting so there was a scarcity of cloth for sale. Presently he and Josiah harvested the oats together; what with helping in these works and spreading lime on the fields, for some three weeks I was out of doors all day, and what was even better, away from Jeremy; so I grew quite tanned and cheerful.
    Then we began to thresh the oats on the threshing floor beside the barn, and it was here that the accident happened which made me so wretched.
    It was a cold, gusty morning, and, though still August, the summit of the highest hills around had a thin covering of snow. Mr. Firth and Josiah and myself were all threshing, that is, banging a flail down on the oats to separate the grain from the husk, so that the wind could blow the light husks away. It is warm work, and in spite of the cold wind I had left my jacket in the house and rolled up my shirt sleeves. Josiah and Mr. Firth were exchanging reminiscences about harvests when Mr. Firth was a boy—Josiah, it seemed, had been apprenticed in those long-ago times to Mr. Firth’s father. I was swinging the flail with a will when suddenly with a sharp crack something hit the tip of my elbow. I gave a yelp of pain, for of all places in the body the tip of the elbow is the most sensitive to a blow; my arm went numb, and the flail flew out of my hand. I was bent over double, rubbing my arm and exclaiming at the pain, when I heard a roar from Mr. Firth, who was hopping about and then clinging to the side of the barn, his face distorted with pain and rage; my flail had flown through the air and come down heavily on his foot. Josiah and I both ran to him and held him up, for he could not put his foot to the ground.
    â€œI am sorry, master,” I cried. “Something hit my elbow.”
    â€œDang thee for a daft clumsy blockhead!” he shouted. “Wherever tha goes, summat goes wrong!”
    He struck at me with the back of his fist, and the blow fell on my cheek.
    â€œYou’d best carry me to the house,” he said. “I can do no more here.”
    Josiah and I crossed hands beneath him and he put his arms round our shoulders, and so we carried him, roaring and swearing. In the yard we met Jeremy, whose look of consternation gave me a grim pleasure; he had not meant to hurt Mr. Firth, I judged, when he threw the stone at me.
    We seated Mr. Firth in his armchair by the fire and Mrs. Firth ran to him and pulled off his shoe and stocking; she felt his foot with some skill, and said she thought that thoughit was severely bruised, no bones were broken. But Mr. Firth did not believe her.
    â€œJosiah, be off down the valley and fetch me the surgeon,” he said.
    â€œShall I go, master?” I suggested timidly.
    â€œNo! You’d get lost or bring me the blacksmith,” snorted Mr. Firth. “Ill luck attends owt you do.”
    Josiah set off, and I went back to the threshing floor.
    I own I felt very wretched and also resentful. There on the ground lay the stone which had made me loose the flail; a nasty sharp-pointed piece of millstone grit, as they call the very hard stone round here. That Jeremy had thrown it I did not doubt. I was grieved and troubled over Mr. Firth’s foot. But although I knew his quick fiery temper, and knew too that his first angry responses were often belied by his second more kindly thoughts, I could not help resenting his blow. It was not so much the pain of it, though my cheek stung; it was the indignity. There is something about a blow which insults a man. A boy feels insult as much as a man, I thought; more perhaps. It is wrong for a man to strike an apprentice, who has not the right to strike back. Besides, it was not true that things went wrong wherever I was; what had gone wrong since I came to Upper High