‘If we do decide to use it for bathing you can be sure we’ll have a good look around each time, in case you’re hiding anywhere to watch us!’
Nessa began to apologize to Goran at her sister’s words but stopped when he smiled at her. He had only just met the three girls but he felt it might be pleasant having them around … especially Nessa.
Agnes Roach was not amused when Goran told her of his encounter with the girls – omitting their state of undress when he had first discovered them. ‘There’s me thinking you’d come to grief on the moor and all the while you were passing the time of day with some girls! As for the milking-cow, it’s as well she went off in the direction of the village and not up on the moor. At least there was someone down there with sense enough to recognize her and bring her back, even though I had to give him threepence for doing it. I ought to dock it off your wages.’
‘Would you rather I’d have left the girls where they were so they could get caught by Marcus Grimble?’
Goran was not too concerned by Agnes’s threats. She was basically a kind and generous woman and he was aware she liked neither Grimble nor his employer.
Capitulating, Agnes said, ‘You know the answer to that. They were lucky you got to them before Grimble did … but where’s this house of theirs and the mine their father’s supposed to be captain of? I’ve heard no mention of it from anyone hereabouts?’
‘I never actually saw the cottage, but it sounds as though the mine’s going to be up on the moor, just beyond our high grazing lands.’
‘Is it, now? Well they’re not driving any road through my farm to get at it.’
‘I shouldn’t think they’ll need to. As they’re already up there and built their cottage it must mean they’ve found another way to reach the spot – probably by coming across the moor.’
‘You’re probably right, but it makes me uneasy. When miners start working in an area they’re not particular who they upset and have no consideration for anyone or anything but themselves and their mining. All they’re interested in is making a profit for them as are backing them – “adventurers” I think they’re called. For the most part these adventurers are men like Sir John Spurre, paying little attention to the rights of others.’
Her mood changed suddenly and, looking at Goran speculatively, Agnes said, ‘But you might not have wasted all your time today after all, young Goran. Now you’ve met with this mine captain’s daughters we might be able to make some use of it if you get to know him and can find out what it is he expects to find and how far the mine is likely to extend. I’d like to know how deep and in which direction they’re going to be tunnelling. We can’t have land collapsing under our sheep or cows, or us when we’re driving a loaded wagon. Besides, if he’s coming beneath our farm there are dues to be paid. You might be able to find out what it is they’re up to. When you do, be sure you let me know about it.’
‘I don’t think they are likely to affect us too much and we might be able to sell milk, butter and eggs to them … wheat too if you’d let me till a couple of the fields down by the river.’
For almost as long as he had been working for Agnes, Goran had wanted to sow wheat on the farm, but she had always dismissed the idea – unreasonably, in his opinion. He felt it would be profitable, especially during the times when it was in short supply – as it was at the moment – but Agnes Roach was in no mood to change her mind on the subject.
‘If you think you have time to do all the work involved in growing and harvesting wheat then it’s obvious I’m not giving you enough to do about the farm. Now, the cow’s in the shed waiting to be milked and there’s butter to be made; you’d best be getting on with it if you want to be home before nightfall.’
When Goran returned home to the Trebarthas’ small cottage on Elworthy Farm that evening and told his mother about the events of the day, he found her no more enthusiastic about the new mine than Agnes had been.
A small, tidy woman, Mabel Trebartha had not had the easiest of lives. Married to a tin-miner and widowed when Goran was seven years old she had needed to work hard to bring him up ‘properly’, despite suffering from debilitating asthma. When Goran reached the age of ten she had been fortunate enough to find work in the house of Elworthy Coumbe, the simple-minded brother of Agnes Roach, and she and Goran moved into a small cottage that was part of the Elworthy Farm complex.
Her work involved running the house for Elworthy and carrying out light work about the farm, but it was not long before Goran began working for both Elworthy and Agnes on their adjacent farms. With the income he brought in, although it was by no means generous, she was able to take things easier than at any time in her adult life. Goran’s news of the opening of a mine near the farm troubled her.
‘I don’t like the thought of having a mine as close to us as this one,’ she said, ladling out a thick potato and ham-bone stew from a pot suspended by a hook above the open fire. Carrying the brimming plate to the table and placing it carefully in front of him, she added, ‘Miners bring trouble with them. If the mine doesn’t produce as well as it should there’ll be hungry families scouring the countryside for anything they can lay their hands on to keep from starving and nothing will be safe. If they strike it rich the miners will spend much of their earnings on drink and causing mayhem as a result. I’d sooner they all stayed up Caradon way where they belong. That’s plenty close enough.’
‘I thought you’d be understanding, Ma, especially as Pa was a miner.’
‘It’s because he was a miner that I know what we can expect from them! Your pa was a good man, but he was as wild as any of them before I married him. Mind you, my mother used to tell me that was the reason I married him in the first place. Perhaps she was right, but she never really approved of him, even though he was as good to her as he was to me. Mind you, things weren’t easy for us and living among miners and their families was very different to the life I’d known as the daughter of a farm worker.’
Intrigued by what she had revealed to him, Goran said, ‘You’ve never talked very much about your life before you married, Ma. How did you and Pa come to meet each other?’
‘Hard times are best forgotten, but the way you found those miner’s girls today has brought back memories. Your pa and me met up in a very similar manner. It was harvest time on the farm and rain was threatening, so everyone who could be rounded up was working hard to gather the crop in before the weather broke. Then someone noticed that a couple of old ewes being fattened up for the winter had got out of their field. As I couldn’t work as hard as the others I was sent off to fetch ’em back. They led me a merry dance right up to the moor but your pa happened to be up there. He’d hurt a hand and was off work. When he saw what was happening he headed off the ewes and turned ’em back. Then he helped me drive ’em back to the farm.’
Giving the fire an unnecessary poke with the iron rod that was used as a poker, her mind took her back many years. Gazing into the red ashes that had been stirred into flickering life, she continued, ‘I was just seventeen at the time and don’t think I’d ever spoken to a miner before, but we got to talking about his work and how he’d come to hurt his hand and I thought it must be very exciting to be working far underground doing something so dangerous. Well, when we got the sheep back to where they belonged he helped me build up the wall where they’d got out, then he went back to the place where he lived, close to the mine.
‘I thought that was the last I’d ever see of him and was very disappointed, but the very next day he came back to the farm asking if we had any butter and eggs we could sell him. I knew he must have really come back to see me because while we were bringing the sheep back he’d told me his family kept chickens up at the mine. I was thrilled to bits because he seemed so much more exciting than the boys I’d met around the farm.
‘He came back a few times after that and I began walking out with him. Ma never approved but Pa was relieved I’d found someone. Because of my asthma I couldn’t work as hard as other gi
rls and I think he believed he’d need to look after me for the rest of his life!
‘Well, we got married and had you and although life was never easy we were happy enough. Then, when times became really hard, he took a job on a mine that had a bad record for accidents. I didn’t want him to and had we not been so desperate for money he’d never have gone there. But he did … and only a couple of weeks later part of one of the tunnels collapsed killing him and three other miners.’
Recalling her husband’s death distressed Mabel and bringing herself back to the present with a visible effort, she said, ‘But there’s no sense dwelling on such things. Your pa’s been gone a long time now and so have my ma and pa too. All that’s in the past, but I’d be much happier if mines and everything to do with them stayed well away from us.’
Aware how upset his mother was, Goran said, ‘Don’t let it worry you overmuch, Ma, I don’t suppose I’ll ever meet up with the girls again. Agnes wants me to find out in which direction their pa thinks he’ll be tunnelling, but he and his miners will have plenty of work to do up on the moor so I doubt if they’ll be any bother to us down here.’
Chapter 3
IN SPITE OF the assurances he had made to his mother, Goran nursed a secret hope that he might meet the Pyne girls again. The life he led coupled with the long hours he worked meant he had come into contact with very few girls – and his encounter with Morwenna, Nessa and Jennifer had been revealing in every sense of the word.
Because of this, the freestone wall that formed a boundary between open moorland and the two farms of Elworthy Coumbe and Agnes Roach received more attention from him than ever before and every loose granite stone was carefully – and slowly – replaced, in the hope that while he was working he might catch sight of one or more of the Pyne girls exploring the moor on which the family had made its home.
Engaged in this self-imposed activity a few days later, his mind far away, he was startled to suddenly see a young boy of about thirteen years of age scramble untidily over the wall from the Spurre Estate, at the spot where he and the Pyne girls had made their escape from gamekeeper Grimble.
The boy jumped to the ground heavily and fell to his knees, but, scrambling quickly to his feet, ran in Goran’s direction and was momentarily lost behind one of the clumps of gorse scattered about the field.
Leaving what he was doing, Goran ran to intercept him and the two met when the boy appeared from behind the gorse. He was in such a blind panic, an expression of sheer terror on his face, that he never even noticed Goran until he was almost upon him.
Changing direction immediately the boy tried to bypass him but Goran was too quick, grabbing first the threadbare, collarless shirt he was wearing, then one of the boy’s arms.
He fought desperately to free himself but Goran only tightened his grip.
‘Hey…! Hey…! What’s the matter…? What’s your hurry?’
‘Let me go…!’
Catching the free arm that was flailing around in the boy’s desperate bid to break free, Goran said, ‘Calm down! If you’re in trouble tell me, I might be able to help.’
The frantic efforts gradually subsided, more a result of exhaustion than from Goran’s attempts to calm him and, breathing heavily, the boy demanded, ‘Who are you … do you work for the big estate?’
‘No, I work here, on the farm … but what’s happened in there to frighten you so much?’
Still breathless, the boy looked at Goran uncertainly and he saw tears springing up in his eyes.
‘Look, I’m nothing at all to do with the estate and am not particularly friendly with anyone there, so you can tell me what’s happened.’
The boy held back for as long as he could but then, shoulders sagging, he said tearfully, ‘It’s Pa … he’s caught his leg in a trap in there and is bleeding … bleeding bad.’
‘He’s caught in a mantrap?’
Goran was horrified, mantraps were a fearful form of deterrent used for many years by landowners to trap poachers. Made of iron and powerfully sprung, their sharp teeth were intended to trap a man’s leg and hold him until he was found by a gamekeeper … or until he bled to death. Such ‘deterrents’ had been banned by law some years before but Goran had seen one hanging on the wall of the local blacksmith’s shop and it was rumoured such barbaric instruments were still being laid in the woods on the Spurre Estate, a rumour deliberately perpetuated by the gamekeepers.
‘Where’s your pa now?’
‘Still in the trap, I couldn’t free him and there’s blood everywhere!’ The tears were flowing unheeded now.
‘Show me where.’ Releasing the boy’s arms, Goran picked up an iron bar he had been carrying when he ran to intercept the boy. He had been using it to either prise loose stones from the wall or hammer them back into place. ‘Do you think you’ll be able to find him again quickly?’
The boy nodded vigorously, ‘Yes.’
‘Come on then, there’s no time to lose.’
The boy’s father was some distance inside the estate but his groans could be heard long before they reached him. Along the way Goran had learned the boy’s name was Jenken Bolitho and that his father, Albert, was a miner.
They had little time, or breath, for more talk, but Goran would later learn that the family had come from West Cornwall hoping Albert might find work with Captain Pyne. Unfortunately, although the mine captain had promised to take Bolitho on eventually, it would be to make use of his mining skills and not until the main shaft and the mine workings were in place. In the meantime, Albert Bolitho had a family to feed. With no money and his family suffering from hunger, he had turned to poaching.
When Goran and Jenken reached him, Albert Bolitho was lying on his back, exhausted by loss of blood and the vain efforts to free himself. The jagged teeth of the mantrap were firmly clamped about the lower calf of his left leg, his torn trousers heavily soaked with blood.
On the ground beside him two rabbits protruded from a satchel, one with a wire suture about its neck, incriminating evidence of Bolitho’s activities at the time he trod on the mantrap.
However, in his present situation the miner was beyond caring about the legal consequences of being caught poaching. His face contorted with agony, he looked up at Goran and pleaded, ‘Get me out of here … my leg!’
Wasting no time on a reply and trying to remember the blacksmith’s explanation of how a mantrap worked, Goran said to Jenken, ‘He’s going to need your help. I’ll prise the jaws open and hold them apart with the bar but you’ll need to free his leg then help drag him clear. Do you think you can do that?’
Wide-eyed, Jenken nodded.
‘Good, then here we go!’
There was a bar on the trap so shaped that when the trap was sprung it held the serrated jaws clamped tightly shut on the unfortunate victim’s leg. Goran needed to stand on this bar and bounce up and down upon it before it moved sufficiently to allow him to place the iron bar low down between the jaws and force them apart.
It was a painful process and although one of the jaws sprung free of Bolitho’s leg almost immediately the other remained embedded in the flesh of his calf muscle. Speaking to the boy, Goran said, ‘You’ll need to free your pa’s leg before you can pull him clear, but hurry, I can’t hold the jaws apart for very long.’
After only a moment’s hesitation, the young boy did as he was instructed, sobbing intermittently as he pulled the mutilated leg clear of the embedded metal jaws.
‘Good boy, that’s it! Now take hold of your pa beneath his armpits and pull for all you’re worth. Ignore his cries of pain, just do it – quickly!’ Striving with all his strength to keep the jaws of the trap open, Goran spoke with an urgency that spurred the boy on.
Goran needed to make an extra effort to force the jaws even farther apart when the miner’s boot became caught in them – but suddenly Albert Bolitho was free!
Pulling the iron bar free from the closed jaws of the trap with difficulty, Goran dropped to his knees to inspect the
miner’s injured leg – and saw exposed yellow bone.
‘Do you think you’ll be able to get to your feet?’
By way of a reply the miner struggled to make the attempt but failed. However, with Jenken’s aid Goran succeeded in raising him and even managed to take a couple of steps with his arm about him for support, but it was going to take a long time to reach safety … too long.
‘Jenken, I want you to run to the mine as quickly as you can and tell Captain Pyne, or some of the men who know your pa, what’s happened. Tell them we need help urgently with as many men as can be spared – and get them to bring something we can carry him on…. No, don’t bother about that, there are a couple of sheep hurdles in the top corner of the field where you found me. One of those can be used when the men get here – but you need to be quick. Run as you’ve never run before. Your pa must be off Spurre land before anyone from the estate finds him, otherwise we’ll all be in trouble. Deep trouble!’
Chapter 4
GORAN’S PROGRESS WITH the injured man was slow. Frighteningly so. He had picked up the satchel with its snares and dead rabbits so they would not be discovered, but was aware that if he met Grimble – or any of the other gamekeepers – with these in his possession Albert Bolitho could look forward to transportation and if Goran did not receive a similar sentence he would face a lengthy spell in prison as an accomplice.
It was a grim prospect but it was impossible to hurry the injured man. Albert Bolitho was so weak he twice collapsed in a faint and Goran could only stagger a few erratic paces with him before needing to stop and support the miner while he gathered strength again.
Bonds of Earth, The Page 2
