Read Online Goblin Moon by Teresa Edgerton - Free Book Online Page A

thanks to Master Ule. Oh, I don’t say he hasn’t taken a scoundrel
or two in by mistake, but he’s a very good judge of character and
most of his charity cases turn out well.
    “We don’t mind taking our turn and helping you to get
on,” he added. “Why should we? We are all Master Ule’s
beneficiaries, in one way or the other. Work hard and learn all you
can—that will please the Master—and if you please him, you please
us as well. But if you are too proud or too lazy to take the
opportunity he has offered you . . . why then, you will disappoint
us all.”
    With the matter presented to him in that light, Jed
could only conclude that he would be a bit of a scoundrel himself,
did he refuse Master Ule’s help. He went back to his ledgers with a
good will, and a firm resolution that he
would
work hard, learn all that he could, and prove
himself one of the deserving ones.
    When evening came, Master Ule took his hand and
pumped it vigorously. “You are a hard worker, and a very good boy.
I am pleased to employ you.”
    Under the circumstances, Jed felt uncomfortable
bringing up the subject of money—but gratitude, and good
resolutions notwithstanding, he could not afford to work for
nothing. “We never did come to no agreement on the matter of
wages.”
    “No more we did,” said the dwarf. “I thank you for
reminding me. Now, let me see—you have been out of work for some
time now, so I think I may safely assume that your financial
circumstances are . . . somewhat embarrassed?”
    There was no denying that, but Jed was still
reluctant to take advantage of the dwarf’s good nature. “There
ain’t been any talk of throwing me and Uncle Caleb out of our
lodgings . . . not yet, anyways.”
    Master Ule considered for a few moments more. “What
do you say to fifteen shillings a week—the first fortnight in
advance? In that way you may pay off some of your more pressing
debts, as well as buy yourself garments of . . . rather more recent
vintage.”
    Jed was too dazed to answer. Fifteen shillings a
week, thirty a fortnight—that was close to a season’s pay for his
gleanings on the river, except when the moon and the tides were
particularly generous.
    Master Ule continued on: “In general, we begin our
day here an hour after sunrise, but you needn’t trouble yourself
about that tomorrow. I expect you will wish to spend the morning
settling your affairs and seeing to that new suit of clothes.”
     
     
    When Jed arrived home that evening, he found Uncle
Caleb waiting up for him, in the little room they shared above a
grog shop, seated in the one good chair the room could boast of: a
rocking chair pulled up by the tiny fireplace.
    Even at this season, nights by the river were often
cold and damp, so Caleb had lit a little driftwood fire on the
hearth and set Jed’s evening bowl of porridge on the hob to keep
warm.
    “We can save the porridge for morning and fry it up
in grease,” said Jedidiah, unwrapping a brown paper parcel he had
carried in and arranging the contents on a little table by the
fire: a side of bacon, six sausages, a pot of fresh cheese, and a
loaf of bread.
    The room was not an elegant one, but it possessed a
certain broken-down charm. Besides the rocking chair, there was a
footstool and two or three less reliable chairs. The walls had been
papered some fifteen years before—during a period of comparative
prosperity following the sale of a jeweled brooch—in a pattern of
blushing gillyflowers and curling green ivy on a cream ground, but
the paper was scarred and faded now, and a large oak sideboard (the
result of another windfall) was filled with mismatched china in
blues and roses and antique golds, most of it chipped or
broken.
    These amenities had been purchased to please Jed’s
mother, who had abandoned the family roof three years past, to live
with Jed’s sister and her sea-faring husband, declaring that
neither the sideboard nor the wallpaper was conveniently portable,
and she