“It’ll look more natural like to take twelve.”
“But more dangerous. They’ll have some left, then, for a pattern.”
“I say twelve.”
“Don’t forget,” said the pedlar smoothly, “that it was I who arranged the sale, Jeremy Oldfield.”
“I could ha’ done that mysen.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Howd thy gab,” said Jeremy viciously. “And get to work. Or by gum, I’ll make thee.”
“There is no need to lose your temper, my dear Jeremy,” said the pedlar in his smoothest tones.
I do not know whether it was their hateful talk, or the remembrance of the many vile ways in which Jeremy had tried to get rid of me from Upper High Royd, or the cunning of the pedlar’s skilful lie about Mrs. Firth’s father—I do not know, I say, what put it into my head; but I was wearing my jacket and the scissors Gracie had given me were in my inner pocket as always, and the pedlar’s full-skirted coat lay only a few inches from my head. I drew it softly into the deep black shadow and turned it partly over, and I took out my scissors, and pinched up the lining in the fold of the back skirt of the pedlar’s coat and cut out a small piece like this.
Just as I began I remembered Sir Henry cutting my indentures in a zigzag line, and I remembered the reason he had given me for doing so, and I cut the edges of my piece of the pedlar’s lining zig-zag too. I shall never forget the shape.
I tucked the scissors and the piece of lining firmly into my pocket, and I gathered my courage, and then I stood up and stepped out of the black shadow into the silver moonlight.
It would be a lie to pretend that I was not afraid. I was so much afraid that my voice shook and my stomach seemed to fall out of me as I said:
“What are you about, Jeremy?”
Jeremy turned and saw me. His face contorted into a grimace so evil that it haunts me yet in my dreams, and with a scream of rage he hurled himself upon me. The force of his charge bore me to the ground; he held me down with his left hand and began to beat my head with his clenched right fist. I kicked at his ankles; my left hand being free I caught his wrist and tried to throw him off, and we rolled over and over on the ground. His right arm was so strong (from continually throwing the shuttle) that I could not retain it for long in my grasp, but I pushed it back upwards as hard as I was able. In this posture my own left arm was at full stretch, exposed to the view of the pedlar, whose smooth face I could see from time to time; he stood to one side of the fight, not moving, his eyebrows raised sardonically. At this point he raised his right foot, and with a smile of pleasure kicked my forearm hard.
I heard the bone crack, and could not forbear a cry of pain. My arm dropped useless at my side, and Jeremy’s face above me grinned with satisfaction.
“Don’t kill him, Jeremy,” said the pedlar smoothly, bending over us.
“Why not? I should have finished him off in the stream at Mearclough and then we wouldn’t have had all this bother,” said Jeremy.
He leaned on my broken arm with all his weight, so that the pain was agonising, and again I gave a cry.
“Now you’ve told him about Mearclough you’ll be obliged to kill him,” said the pedlar, in a tone of slight vexation, as if the matter in question were a broken teacup or something of that kind. “Well, it’s no matter. We’ll leave the body here. He will appear to have died defending Mr. Firth’s tenters against unknown thieves—you must shed a tear and speak well of him tomorrow, Jeremy.”
Jeremy replied to this with an oath.
“Give me a stone to finish him off,” he said.
The pedlar moved aside to search for one. I made a tremendous effort—probably the last of my life, I thought, but one should die fighting—and rolled to one side, and shouted:
“Help! Help!” at the top of my voice.
I did not think, of course, that there could be any help for me nearer than a couple of miles, but there I was wrong, for as the pedlar stooped to pick up a stone, something flew through the air from the wall and landed on Jeremy’s shoulders. It was Sandy, who must have escaped from the house when the thieves opened the door to go to the tenters. Spitting, biting, clawing, he vented all his hate, and it was now Jeremy’s turn to scream with pain.
“Get this cat off me, blast you!” he yelled.
“I can’t abide cats,” said the pedlar, standing well back.
Jeremy put up his hands to seize hold of the cat. My arms being thus released, I got my right hand against his chin and pushed with all my might. He was obliged to draw back or have his neck broken; my upper body was free, I rolled myself out from under him and sprang for the wall.
How I got over it with one arm useless, I do not know; partly perhaps I vaulted, partly jumped, partly scrambled, partly just fell; at any rate I found myself in the harvested oats field, and rushed down it headlong. The stubble was hard on my stockinged feet, but at least it was kinder than the stones of the lane. There was no shadow here; the moon just beamed relentlessly down the field. I hurled myself over the wall at the foot of the field, and lay in the shadow there for a moment to decide what I should do next.
The shouts and mewing from the tentercroft had now died away—what had happened to poor Sandy, I wondered? Cats have a great turn of speed, I thought hopefully, thanking Sandy for coming to the sound of my voice. He had always hated Jeremy. Think about yourself, not Sandy, I told myself, but I could not at first take my thoughts away from the cat. At last, however, I seemed to collect my breath and my thoughts; I became conscious of the fierce pain in my left arm, and managed with my right hand to pull my left between the buttons of my jacket to hold the broken forearm in place.
Where should I go for help? Mr. Gledhill’s was the obvious answer; Gracie was there and she would believe my tale. To do that I should have to cross the lane leading down from Upper High Royd to Barseland, which lay in full moonlight to my right, where it joined the road, and even as I thought this I heard footsteps coming down the lane. As they approached I could hear Jeremy cursing the wounds he had received from Sandy’s claws, and reproaching the pedlar for not having come more quickly to his rescue, while the pedlar replied soothingly in his mincing tones. They reached the foot of the lane and stood there, talking. The pedlar, I saw through a chink in the wall, had donned his coat, which did not surprise me, for indeed the wind blew chill.
“Where the hell will t’lad have gone?” grumbled Jeremy.
“That is for you to say,” said the pedlar.
“How should I know?”
“Give it a little thought.”
“Well—happen to Gledhill’s. Gracie’s there and she’s sweet on him. She’ll believe owt he says.”
“Then we mustn’t let him get there.”
“That’s right. We shall have to finish him off this time. Pity we didn’t do it that night in Mearclough.”
“‘We?’ It was you who struck the boy with a stone, Jeremy.”
“Tha wert as deep in it as I was, pedlar,” said Jeremy in an ugly threatening tone. “Nay, deeper!”
“We were in it together,” said the pedlar smoothly.
“Aye—and don’t thee forget it.”
“I’m not likely to do so while this tiresome boy is roaming round. He came down the oats field. He must be somewhere hereabout. Let me see, now. Gledhill’s place is over to the right. We want to scare him out into the moonlight. Then we’ll finish him off, and you go back to Upper High Royd and sleep the sleep of the just, and I’ll be off to you know where with the cloth. Remember, Jeremy, you haven’t seen me since this afternoon.”
“I’m non a fool, tha knows. But how can we get hold of Tom?”
“Oh, we’ll soon smoke out dear Tom,” said the pedlar, laughing.
Suddenly there rang through the moonlit air a strong clear cry:
“Keep to the left, Jeremy! He’s over there!”
I shuddered, and the hair at the base of my neck prickled, as I heard these words. Keep to the left was the cry th
at had sent my father to his death; and th e voice was the same voice which had cried the words that night in Mearclough. It was the pedlar’s voice; his real voice, let loose from the shrill primness he usually affected.
I sprang up and turned to the right, for my natural impulse was to go in a direction away from that urged on Jeremy, and I believed the pedlar had in truth seen me; but luckily my knowledge of his character, of his lying, scheming ways, served me well; to frighten me into turning right was that clever devil’s intention. I halted, then ran away to the left as hard as I could.
They heard me brushing through the grass.
“He’s off!” cried Jeremy.
“After him!” cried the pedlar.
“After him thysen—I’ve had all the knocks I want from that lad tonight,” grumbled Jeremy.
“Don’t be a fool, Jeremy—we don’t want him to reach Gledhill’s.”
“He’s running away from Gledhill’s.”
“All the better. After him, you fool!”
Although all this was spoken very quickly, still Jeremy’s hesitation gave me a few yards’ start, and as Mr. Gledhill had noticed I had grown a good deal in the last few months and had long legs. I outdistanced them at first, but then uncertainty—and perhaps the pain of my arm, which hurt excruciatingly when jolted—began to slow my steps. Where could I go for help? I could not now reach Mr. Gledhill without turning and passing my pursuers. I tried to think how I could make a wide enough circle to avoid them; it must be a route where there was shadow to hide me, for the moon was still piercingly bright. I thought longingly of the great bushes round Sir Henry’s mansion—and that of course gave me my answer: Harry! Harry would shelter me. The high wall of Sir Henry’s estate began on the far side of the road; I rushed across, got a hand-hold on the wall and threw myself over.
Jeremy and the pedlar saw me in the moonlight and gave a shout and hurried their steps, and my crash into the bushes broke enough twigs to be heard a mile away, but I wriggled along beneath the bushes as fast as I could. I thought quickly: Jeremy could climb the wall but would hardly dare to do so, for gentlemen are not fond of labouring men who climb their walls in the middle of the night; the pedlar was too plump and lazy for climbing; they needs must go round to the great gates. I had a moment to gain the house.
I came to the edge of the bushes, and scratched up some dirt, and ran across the courtyard and threw a handful of dirt up at what I remembered to be Harry’s window. I was in moonlight here again, and I thought I heard distant exclamations behind me, as though Jeremy and the pedlar were at the gates and had seen me. There was no sign from Harry’s window. I threw at it again. There was still no sign, and I heard the squeak of the gate as it swung open. In despair I snatched up a pebble which lay beside my foot, and threw it with all my might, so that it struck sharply on the glass pane. Then at last one of the mullioned windows opened and Harry leaned out.
“They have broken my arm and mean to kill me, Harry,” I cried softly. “For God’s sake let me in.”
Harry’s face changed and he turned aside. For one awful moment I thought he meant not to help me and I was doomed. Then he was at the window again and threw down one end of a big greatcoat.
“I’ve tied its sleeve here. Get hold of the end and help yourself up.”
“I have only one arm, Harry, the other’s broken,” I said despairingly.
“There are toe-holds in the wall. I’ve often climbed it,” said Harry. “Put your foot there, see—and then here.”
I did his bidding, and he hauled me upward on the coat, which I clutched in one hand. There came a moment when my senses reeled so with pain that I feared I could not keep my grip. But Harry seized my hand and then my arm and pulled me up and I got my head through the window-opening. The casemen t looke d very narrow.
“I shall never get my shoulders through,” I thought despairingly.
But Harry turned my body so that my shoulders lay up and down to the casement instead of across, and he pushed his hands into my armpits and heaved, and suddenly I fell through the window on to the floor of Harry’s bedchamber. As I fell I knocked my broken arm against the dressing table to which he had tied the greatcoat. The pain was so acute that I groaned and fainted.
8
My Word is Doubted
This fainting of mine was the most unfortunate event (save my father’s death, of course) in my life, because it caused delay, and this delay gave the thieves time to appear to shed some of their guilt. For Harry tried to revive me but could not, so fetched a serving-man, who likewise could not; it was only then, when they began to fear I was dead, that Harry went for Sir Henry. I was brought to my senses somewhat ungently by the jar to my arm as Robert and another man of Sir Henry’s lifted me up on to Harry’s bed. I opened my eyes and saw above me in the candlelight a figure which at first I did not recognise, but presently perceived to be Sir Henry in a long gown and without his wig. Harry too was in a nightgown, and the two men were in shirt-sleeves, without their livery coats, so that at first I was quite perplexed, and gazed at them all dreamily. Then the candles flickered in the draught from the open window and I remembered my climb into Harry’s room and its cause and I sat up and cried:
“Catch them! Sir Henry, send after them! They are stealing the cloth from Mr. Firth’s tenters! Jeremy! The pedlar! They are stealing the cloth!”
“Who is Jeremy?” asked Sir Henry.
“Jeremy Oldfield—he is Mr. Firth’s journeyman weaver, who lives with us in the house.”
“Journeyman weavers do not usually live in their masters’ houses,” said Sir Henry.
“Jeremy has no kin nigh at hand with whom to live. The pedlar is a man who has been to the house before, he is a friend of Jeremy’s—”
“How do you know that?”
“Mr. Defoe saw them talking together in the inn.”
“Well, well, come to the point,” said Sir Henry impatiently.
“This afternoon the pedlar came to Upper High Royd with a message for Mrs. Firth that her father was ill. Then Mr. and Mrs. Firth set off at once to visit him, and took Miss Gracie down to Mr. Gledhill’s, so that the house was empty save for Jeremy and me. I think the message was false, meant to empty the house.”
“Why? Did the pedlar remain at Upper High Royd?”
“No, sir, he left at once, but returned after dark.”
I went on to tell how Jeremy had sent me up to bed; how the cat’s mewing had sent me to try my door and I had found myself locked in; how I had escaped by the taking-in doors—Harry’s eyes gleamed with pleasure at this—how I had crept in shadow to the tenters and watched Jeremy and the pedlar taking off the cloth, how I had challenged them.
“Bravo!” cried Harry.
How Jeremy had sprung on me and knocked me down and we had fought on the ground together.
“And then the pedlar kicked my arm and broke it,” I concluded.
Sir Henry exclaimed and stepping to the bedside took my forearm very carefully in his hands.
“Yes, it is broken,” he said. “Heark’ee, Tom,” he went on after a moment’s thought, “I will send down to the valley for a surgeon to attend your arm, but meanwhile my groom here, Robert, will tie it for you—he has set a dog’s leg, there is not much difference between that and a man’s arm.”
“But the tenters, sir!” I cried. “They are stealing the cloth from Mr. Firth’s tenters!”
“Are you sure you did not dream all this, Tom? And wake up startled and rush from the house, and break your arm tumbling over the wall?”
“Send to Upper High Royd, and see! You will find the cloth torn off the tenters, and the taking-in doors open! Mr. Swain had cloth stolen, too, do you not remember, Sir Henry?”
“Yes, that is true. And others also. You tell a wild tale, but it must be investigated. James,” he said to the older serving-man, “saddle a horse and go to Mr. Gledhill. Present my compliments and tell him Tom’s story, and say I think he should proceed at once to Upper High Royd,
and find Jeremy Oldfield and this pedlar, and bring them here to me to answer these allegations. We had better have the clerk present, too, to record their depositions.”
“Oh, make haste, make haste,” I cried. “They will be miles away by now!”
“Nonsense,” said Sir Henry. “They have no horses.”
“They will have hidden the cloth. They are stealing the cloth from Mr. Firth’s tenters,” I wailed.
By this time my voice had grown weak and my speech uncertain, for I was faint again with pain and fatigue.
“I think the lad hath a fever,” said Robert.
“It may well be so, and these may be ravings. But yet we must examine into the matter,” said Sir Henry. His voice was cold and unfriendly, and he made to leave the room. “Tell me, Tom Leigh,” he said: “If what you say is true, and these men attacked you—”
“It was only Jeremy, sir. The pedlar stood by and watched—oh! and he put on his coat,” I cried, remembering. “Sir Henry, I—”
“How did you escape from Jeremy?”
“Sandy the cat sprang at him—he hates Jeremy—he clawed the back of Jeremy’s neck and Jeremy took his hands from me in order to defend himself, and I rolled clear. But the pedlar stood aside—he cannot touch a cat—he put on his coat—he had thrown aside his coat before. And I cut this,” I said eagerly, trying to reach inside my jacket. “Harry, help me! I have a piece of lining I cut from the pedlar’s coat. He threw off his coat beside the tenter, to help Jeremy, and he tore his finger, and I cut a piece of lining—”
“Robert,” Sir Henry nodded to the groom.
The man put his hand inside my jacket and fumbled for the pocket; this was agony for my arm, but I endured greater agony in my mind when it seemed for a moment as if he could not find the piece of stuff. However, presently his hand fell on it and he drew it out and passed it to Sir Henry.
“A jagged piece,” said Sir Henry thoughtfully, fingering it. “Why did you cut it this strange shape, Tom?”
His tone was kinder, and I felt heartened.
The Adventures of Tom Leigh Page 10
