Amos's father dies suddenly, and the business goes to Amos. What Amos discovers is that in the last two years his father borrowed money from Alderman Hornbeam, and now he owes him money. Intending to work hard to pay him back in a couple of years, Amos goes to see him, but Hornbeam says that his father was his friend, but Amos is nothing to him, so he gives him four days to pay him the money, and if he fails to do so, Hornbeam will take the business. Amos tells Spade, a weaver who is a friend, and the man says that there may be a way for him to solve the problem. What Spade does is to gather the weavers belonging to the Methodist church, and they all agree to borrow the money to Amos, which he will pay in four years. Hornbeam is angry when Amos gives him the money to pay, and he knows that he has made an enemy of the man.
Little Kit has an accident when Will Riddick's horse kicks him in the head when he was in the barn to clean the horse straps. The doctor is called and he says that he needs to rest for a month, and he is moved to the guest room in the manor. Sal comes to see him every week. When the month passes, the doctor tells him that he needs to rest a few more weeks, and he can go to his mothers. Sal comes to the house, and when she and Kit are on their way out of the house, Will stands on the stairs, preventing Sal to pass. The man is nasty and cruel, and when he says that Kit is nothing and should have died, Sal can't help herself and hits him, making him fall down the stairs. As a consequence, Sal is called by the squire, who is also the alderman and judge. Sal fears that she will be pusnished and flogged, but when the squire understands that Sal has reacted to his son's horrible behaviour, he tells her that he won't punish her, but she has to leave Badford because he can't have people thinking that he has let her get away with this.
Sal has no option but leave, and she decides to go to Kingsbridge and go to see Amos because he may help her. Amos is now in the process of modernising his business and has bought a spinning jenny and needs spinners.So Sal gets the job.
The next part of the novel takes place in 1795, two years later. Sal and Kit now have a good life in Kingsbridge. They live in a shared house with another spinner, Joane, and her daughter, Sue, who is Kit's best friend. Joanie has a brother, Jarge, who is sweet on Sal, but she decided long ago that she would not marry again. Now Amos has bought a bigger machine, a scribbling machine, and that means that he won't need children in the workshop.
Sal gets together with other works, and they agree that they need some kind of association to discuss about things that are important to them like the London Corresponding Society. They know that it could be dangerous to start something like that because they may be arrested for being considered traitors, but Sal thinks that this is something she needs to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment