Chapter 5

I mind once, when Father leathered us very bad, after the long preaching on Easter Sunday, Gideon being seven and me five, how Gideon stood up in the middle of the kitchen and said, “I do will and wish to be Maister Beguildy’s son, and the devil shall have my soul. Amen.” Father got his temper up that night, no danger! He shouted at Mother terrible, saying she’d done very poorly with her children, for the girl had the devil’s mark on her, and now it seemed as if the boy came from the same smithy. This I know, becau…