in September I should have served my overlong apprenticeship and be earning. Hope stirred once more.
The town itself was growing; every market day brought more people. A ship-owner from Bywater came inland and began to build a fine new house which employed a number of masons and carpenters. Master Webster, the chief wool merchant in the town, bought a new string of pack ponies. At the forge we were very busy. But when, at the end of six weeks, Kate began looking for work, she found it hard to come by. One reason was that she refused to leave Stephen in the charge of Dummy’s wife who had offered to look after him with her own, for twopence a week.
‘I know her looking after,’ Kate said. ‘One of hers has been run down by a bullock, and one drowned in the Ditch. Stephen goes with me.’
By that time I was beginning to be anxious again.
‘If she had twopence a week for minding him it would be to her own interest to keep him out of the Ditch. In any case it might be as well toleave him while you hunt for work, even if later, having proved your value, you took him with you.’
Nothing however would persuade Kate from her course; she was sure the right job would turn up. And in mid-May she found work as a picker in Master Webster’s woolsheds.
The fleeces were cut off the sheep in the spring and bundled up, just as they were and brought into Baildon. Master Webster paid a price which took into account a certain amount of rubbish, burrs, caked dung, leaves, bits of stick and mud. The bigger merchants – many of them oversea in Flanders – paid so much a pound for clean wool, so the fleeces had to be picked over carefully. The picker knelt or squatted as she worked her way through the wool, and the unchanging position became tiring. The oil and odour of the fleeces saturated her clothes, her hair, her flesh even. Kate bore it cheerfully, saying that she was used to the smell of sheep, and that Master Webster had been kind about letting her take Stephen. When he could crawl, she pointed out, the woolshed would be a far safer place for him than the bakehouse would have been.
Alas, before Stephen could crawl, Kate was with child again. This time she was dismayed.
‘There’ll be only eleven months between them. If Stephen isn’t walking I shall have to carry them both to work.’
‘But I shall be earning,’ I told her.
She smiled as though it hurt her.
‘I know. But there will be four to feed then.’
She had carried Stephen cheerfully and willingly and never ailed much. This was different. She was sick, and miserable. I was little comfort. To me there was something wrong, almost obscene about this begetting without being able to support. I was ashamed, and that made me peevish. It was at this time that something went out of our hut, something which had made it, despite its squalor, a happy home. Kate and I now seemed to take an unholy pleasure in making sharp remarks to one another. One day, when she was complaining, I said,
‘I warned you, didn’t I. You would have been better off at Abhurst.’
She swung round on me like a swordsman.
‘You mean you’d have been better off as an unmarried apprentice, with your feet under somebody else’s table.’
The weapon to wound was there, at my hand, and I seized it.
‘If it comes to that, I am an unmarried apprentice,’ I said.
Kate shot me a glance of hatred and then began to cry.
‘That’s right. Throw that in my face!’
We had never been married. We had arrived in Baildon as man and wife and never dared risk drawing attention to ourselves by offering ourselves to be wed. There was that question, ordinarily so harmless, to us so dangerous, ‘Of what parish?’ It would have been easy to lie, but Holy Church has a long arm. It might have occurred to the priest to make inquiries whether these unknown people were free to marry, and that would have been disastrous. Sailing under false colours we had come into Baildon, voiced for by Old Betsy, and under
The town itself was growing; every market day brought more people. A ship-owner from Bywater came inland and began to build a fine new house which employed a number of masons and carpenters. Master Webster, the chief wool merchant in the town, bought a new string of pack ponies. At the forge we were very busy. But when, at the end of six weeks, Kate began looking for work, she found it hard to come by. One reason was that she refused to leave Stephen in the charge of Dummy’s wife who had offered to look after him with her own, for twopence a week.
‘I know her looking after,’ Kate said. ‘One of hers has been run down by a bullock, and one drowned in the Ditch. Stephen goes with me.’
By that time I was beginning to be anxious again.
‘If she had twopence a week for minding him it would be to her own interest to keep him out of the Ditch. In any case it might be as well toleave him while you hunt for work, even if later, having proved your value, you took him with you.’
Nothing however would persuade Kate from her course; she was sure the right job would turn up. And in mid-May she found work as a picker in Master Webster’s woolsheds.
The fleeces were cut off the sheep in the spring and bundled up, just as they were and brought into Baildon. Master Webster paid a price which took into account a certain amount of rubbish, burrs, caked dung, leaves, bits of stick and mud. The bigger merchants – many of them oversea in Flanders – paid so much a pound for clean wool, so the fleeces had to be picked over carefully. The picker knelt or squatted as she worked her way through the wool, and the unchanging position became tiring. The oil and odour of the fleeces saturated her clothes, her hair, her flesh even. Kate bore it cheerfully, saying that she was used to the smell of sheep, and that Master Webster had been kind about letting her take Stephen. When he could crawl, she pointed out, the woolshed would be a far safer place for him than the bakehouse would have been.
Alas, before Stephen could crawl, Kate was with child again. This time she was dismayed.
‘There’ll be only eleven months between them. If Stephen isn’t walking I shall have to carry them both to work.’
‘But I shall be earning,’ I told her.
She smiled as though it hurt her.
‘I know. But there will be four to feed then.’
She had carried Stephen cheerfully and willingly and never ailed much. This was different. She was sick, and miserable. I was little comfort. To me there was something wrong, almost obscene about this begetting without being able to support. I was ashamed, and that made me peevish. It was at this time that something went out of our hut, something which had made it, despite its squalor, a happy home. Kate and I now seemed to take an unholy pleasure in making sharp remarks to one another. One day, when she was complaining, I said,
‘I warned you, didn’t I. You would have been better off at Abhurst.’
She swung round on me like a swordsman.
‘You mean you’d have been better off as an unmarried apprentice, with your feet under somebody else’s table.’
The weapon to wound was there, at my hand, and I seized it.
‘If it comes to that, I am an unmarried apprentice,’ I said.
Kate shot me a glance of hatred and then began to cry.
‘That’s right. Throw that in my face!’
We had never been married. We had arrived in Baildon as man and wife and never dared risk drawing attention to ourselves by offering ourselves to be wed. There was that question, ordinarily so harmless, to us so dangerous, ‘Of what parish?’ It would have been easy to lie, but Holy Church has a long arm. It might have occurred to the priest to make inquiries whether these unknown people were free to marry, and that would have been disastrous. Sailing under false colours we had come into Baildon, voiced for by Old Betsy, and under
Similar Books
