The Rope Carrier (6 page)

Chapman Barber paid the toll, and Minnie climbed onto Chalky's back, not from weariness, but from wanting to get a good view of all that went on. She didn't want to do anything but look and listen, to stare at it all.

The road widened and curved round by a small group of cottages.

“Bents Green, this bend in the road,” Chapman said. He walked by Chalky's head, his hand resting on the mule's rough hairy neck. They'd not gone far when he clicked his tongue gently. “Nah then, nah then.”

Chalky slowed his pace. Chapman said nothing more, but stared across the road at a gang of men, busy in the scrubby gorse-covered common land. They carried poles and lengths of string which they pulled straight and level, then hammered some kind of marking sticks into the ground. One man was scratching away at a roll of parchment he carried, making notes and drawing lines.

“What is it?” Minnie asked, sensing Chapman's disquiet.

“I don't like it. I don't like it at all. Them's Fairbanks' men
that's a-doing all that measuring and marking.”

“But what's it mean? What is it that they're marking out?”

“Commons. Marking it into plots.”

“Ah.” Minnie caught her breath, for her parents had been speaking about it. They'd been worried. “Are they marking it off, so as to close it up?”

“Aye, that's it. Fence it off and give it to those as has plenty of land already.”

“Mam was afraid of it happening, back at home. She said she couldn't see as how we'd manage to fatten the pig and keep the goats.”

“I'd heard it said that enclosures had been applied for round Sheffield, but this is the first I've seen of it coming about. There's going to be trouble before long.”

He set the mules moving and walked on, shaking his head. As they followed the road, they passed through tiny hamlets and villages. The traffic grew still faster and noisier. Steep hillsides and valleys, dotted with cottages, spread out before them, and here and there was a large, rich-looking house, and a church steeple . . . until at last the buildings seemed to gather together and fill the sides of a deep ravine where many valleys met. Workshops and chimneys threw trails of grey smoke up into the sky.

“There you are. There's Sheffield yonder,” Chapman showed her.

“It looks a grand, mucky place,” said Minnie.

They followed the road downhill and turned along the packhorse road, Salter Lane.

“'Tis the old salt route, this,” he told her. “Nags like mine have been carrying salt down here since the days of the Romans. Wait while we reach the top of this hill then I'll set them racking, and we'll be in Sheffield before you know. I should climb down now, or else tha'll be shaken to pieces.”

Minnie was glad that she'd done as he said for when the last mule breasted the hill, Chapman shouted, “Rack on, Chalky!” and the white mule broke into a fast rolling trot that almost turned into a gallop.

Minnie's hands flew up to protect her ears from the noise of the clattering hooves as the others followed Chalky. The baggage bobbed and lurched, held in place only by her father's strong packthread. It was deafening, but somehow wild and cheering; she sensed that the tough little animals were longing for the bran and fresh straw at the journey's end and would gladly run like this all the way to the inn. Minnie and Chapman had to move fast to keep up with them.

They racked their way down to the bottom of Salter Lane, then another lane called Sharrow. Chapman turned Chalky up a gentle slope of open land known as Sheffield Moor. They could see that the land here had been marked out for more enclosures, on the very edges of the city.

Minnie, perched high on Chalky's back once again, rode past new buildings and up to The Bird in Hand public house. This was the main stabling and stopping place for the packhorse trains, but it was not quite the end of her journey. Minnie sat up there long after they'd stopped. Her neck ached from staring up at the buildings and the church. Crowds of shoving people filled the streets where the centre gutters were piled high with filth and rubbish; a rotting pile of stinking vegetables was heaped around the town stocks which faced the main gates of the churchyard.

Chapman chuckled at her amazement.

“Tha might well gawp, little lass. It's a sight to see and no mistaking, but tha' must shift thee'sen if I've to get thee down to Josh and Netty before dusk.”

So Minnie slithered down from the mule's back and wandered dazed and stiff-legged towards the market-place, while Chapman shouted orders to his lad and to the ostlers
from The Bird in Hand. She stepped carefully around the rubbish and dung, watching with delight as a fine-dressed lady, followed by her maid, wobbled and teetered her way across the street. As she daintily lifted her skirts, slim white-stockinged ankles could be seen above soft leather slippers, then heavy iron pattens, keeping her feet high above the mess. Minnie put up her hand to cover her mouth, hiding her giggles.

“Now then,” shouted Chapman. “Stop tha staring and let's get thee down to yonder nicker peckers.” He was leading Chalky, separated now from the rest, laden with Minnie's baggage and Annie's woollen rugs.

“Hasn't Chalky done enough today?” Minnie asked.

“Nay, this little racker can go for ever.”

Minnie threw her arm across the mule's neck and patted him. “Like me,” she whispered. Then she frowned. “What's nicker peckers?”

Chapman laughed. “Has't never heard of it afore? Nicker peckers, nicker peckers,
tap, tap, tap
? Why it's what they call the file cutters. That's where we're off to . . . the nicker peckers'
cottages, down by the river. Sheffield is full of nicker peckers and yellow bellies. Them's the grinders, yellow bellies.”

“Why are the file cutters called nicker peckers?”

“Ha! Tha shall know when we get there. I hope we find your Netty's getting over her sickness, though there's no chance for the old fella.”

“Is he so very old?”

“Why bless you, no. Not old for thee and me. He must be forty though. Old for a file cutter, that.”

“Forty?” Minnie was shocked. To her that was not so old at all. Though life in the cave was hard, those that managed to survive their childhood grew fit and healthy for the most. Grandma had been eighty when she'd died, and John Dakin was a fine strong man at sixty.

“Do all the file cutters die so young then?”

“Them as works long hours day in, day out – and which of them can afford not to do that these days? 'Tis the disease, you see. File cutters' disease, they call it. Tha'd best be prepared lass, for tha'll see it. Grey-coloured skin they get, and trouble
with their stomach that will not go away. Then there's the blue line comes.”

“What's that?”

“Tha sees it when they smile. A blue line round the gums above the teeth. Them that has the blue line . . . for them it's bad.”

Minnie's face was grim. Her excitement turned to fear. It was not the old man she feared to see with a blue line around his teeth, but strong, handsome Josh.

“Why do they do such work, if it makes them so ill?”

“It's not easy to find work that doesn't make thee ill, lass. These new machines and working gear mean work, work and no stopping. The grinders' disease is maybe worse. Can't breathe, can't yellow bellies. Tha can hear a grinder coming from the wheezing and coughing that he does. It makes me think at times that I'm not so badly off with wicked robbers and freezing snow. At least I can breathe and walk.”

Minnie fell quiet as they passed the marshy area that Chapman called the Ponds, and walked down towards the file cutters' cottages which were huddled together for convenience close to the River Sheaf.

The light was fading as they got closer and Minnie heard the sounds, faint at first, then louder. It came from the backs of the cottages.
Tap, tap, tap.
Flickering lights in the lean-to sheds showed where the file cutters continued their work, candling into the night.
Tap, tap, tap.
It came from all around, as though rising up from the very earth; like the sound of a thousand woodpeckers at work in their trees.

Minnie smiled. “I hear the nicker peckers,” she said.

THE COTTAGE DOOR
was opened by a thin woman with smooth greying hair pulled tight back beneath a close-fitting blue cap. Minnie knew that she must be Josh's mother. Her wrap-over gown was made of strong blue-checked cotton, and a crisp blue apron was fastened round her narrow waist.

Minnie took a step back, closer to Chapman. She'd never seen any woman that looked so sharp in every way. Pale grey eyes, bony wrists, pointed elbows, thin tight lips without a trace of welcoming smile. For a moment Minnie thought of clinging to Chapman and begging him to take her home.

Josh's mother took a good look at Minnie, noticing every detail of her appearance: her dusty boots, the good woollen shawl, her uncovered curly hair. Not a flicker of friendliness changed the stern expression on her face, but she moved back and stood to one side.

“Tha sister's waiting for thee upstairs. Don't tha waken the little 'uns.”

Netty. That was why she'd come. Her own, kind Netty, whom she had not seen for so long, was upstairs, sick and needing her. But still it took a bit of courage for Minnie to step over the threshold, past that daunting woman. She squashed her curiosity about the insistent tapping that came from the back of the house, and went quietly up the stairs.

“Netty?” she called, near to tears.

“Hush!” A single candle burned in the small loft of the cottage, and it took a moment or two for Minnie's eyes to get
used to the gloom. She saw Netty over in the far corner, in a wooden box-bed, pulling herself up to sit. Minnie moved towards her, opening her eyes wide to see better, quickly taking in the sleeping children: two tiny boys curled together in a small box-bed, then another child – it must be the girl – rolling in her sleep, clutching some kind of doll. Carefully she crept past them, on tiptoes, then turned to hurl herself at Netty. But as she went, she caught her foot on something hard and wooden that took the skin off her ankle, and she skidded towards the bed with a thud.

“Ouch and dammit,” she yelled, rolling around on the floor beside Netty's bed.

“Oh, Minnie!” Netty burst into tears. The two little lads woke up, grabbed hold of each other and set up a great wailing. The girl sat up in her bed, still clutching the doll, yawning and rubbing her eyes. She threw back her blanket then, holding up the skirt of her nightshirt, she jigged up and down.

“Auntie Minnie. Auntie Minnie's come. Dance with me, Minnie. Me and my doll.”

The tapping from downstairs seemed to get louder. Minnie froze; it was not the tapping of the file cutting, but quick angry footsteps on the stairs. The old woman hissed and clicked her tongue in annoyance.

“How long did it take to settle them, Netty? How long? And now this. 'Shamed you should be, young woman. What a to-do.”

Minnie pulled herself up, rubbing her ankle, and plonked herself down on Netty's bed.

“Well, I'm sorry I'm sure, but you've got something sharp sticking out from your floor.”

She grabbed hold of the wooden object that had tripped her and pulled it closer to the light. The girl stopped her dancing and the two boys fell quiet. It was a wooden cradle. Minnie held it upside-down.

“I said it should be put away.” The old woman pressed her lips together. “'Tis bad luck to get out the cradle before the babe is ready to come.”

Netty's face was buried in her hands, her shoulders shook.

“Oh, Netty, I am so sorry. I never meant to cause such fuss and commotion,” Minnie said.

Netty looked up at them all through her fingers and, as she pulled her hands away, they saw that she was smiling. She was giggling.

“You were right, Mother. Put it away. I shouldn't be getting cradles out yet. And I've no need to worry, now that our Minnie's here.”

The two sisters hugged each other and cried, ignoring the older woman and the staring children. Then heavier footsteps on the stairs made them turn. Josh stood in the doorway, his arms held open wide.

“How's my saucy Minnie? Have you not a hug for your old Josh?”

Minnie flung herself at him and he swung her up into the air. “Not-so-old Josh. Not yet.” She insisted.

She laughed at the strength in his arms and his bright eyes, but in the candlelight's gloom she could not tell the colour of his skin nor see if there could be a hint of blue in his smile.

Even though she was exhausted, Minnie could not sleep that night. She wasn't used to the creaking and rustling that came from the thatched roof of the cottage, nor to the cramped sleeping arrangements.

The worst thing of all was having to share a bed with Josh's mother, who'd inspected her for fleas before Minnie had been allowed to creep beneath the quilt. Minnie's patience had been tried to its limit and it was only beseeching looks from Netty that had kept her from remarking on the discomforts, and even dangers, of sleeping with someone whose elbows might spear
you when she turned over in the night. No cuddling up to that!