World From Rough Stones

by Malcolm Macdonald

  "The point of this story," Thornton said, "is that…you must remember I did not know her then. I did not know her background or history. All I saw was a destitute girl in a torn dress, exhausted. A field girl, I thought, for a field girl she looked. But Stevenson here…" He glanced across at the contractor and met his level, sardonic, almost mocking gaze. "Stevenson, within twenty-four hours, finds that this same girl has some kind of genius for figures, numbers. Not just adding up and simple operations like that but…what did you write to me when I was in Blackpool? You put it very succinctly, I remember. You said she could see oddities and discrepancies in figures the way you or I could see, without any calculation, that a boiler was too big for an engine. Isn't that it?"

  "You put it better than I did."

  "It's very good," Stephenson said, looking at John with renewed admiration. "I see exactly what you mean. To have such an ability…that is a real gift. And you really saw it at once! That is an equal gift."

  John laughed with embarrassment. "Thornton exaggerates. In the beginning, all I saw was that she was good at sums and products and dividends. To be honest, I was slow to see her real powers." He halted briefly and surveyed the open part of the workings. "Aye. I shudder to think I once considered meself fit to run this contract on me own! I'd never have gotten out of the sidings." He turned to Thornton. "Ye sent her on to me in the very nick of time."

  Robert Stephenson nodded thoughtfully. "The chances our life may depend on! It does not do to dwell on them too deeply!" He looked at John and said, more briskly, "And now she's the scourge of Manchester, I hear!"

  John shook his head. "It's just the unfamiliarity of dealing with a lady makes them say it. There's many men her equals." He looked again at the cutting, where Walker, one of his gangers had just blown a blast on a horn. "'Ware shot," he warned.

  "A shilling says it's a blank," Thornton said.

  John just managed to get in "You're on!" before the bank of the cutting lifted and dissolved in smoke. Thornton said "Damn!" just as the roar of the explosion reached them.

  "Never bet against Walker's shot firing," John advised.

  Thornton counted out a shilling. "They stand so close," he said. "The wonder is no one's hurt!"

  John pulled a grimly resigned face. "I've done telling them. You could talk a blue month. It'll take a death to bring sense into their behaviour. Mutilation means nowt. A stone pierced Bacca's cheek last week—he swallowed it, he was that surprised. Now, he sups gin through the hole for a laugh! That was him standin closest just now!"

  Stephenson, who had turned round a moment earlier, drew John's attention to a young lad running down the track behind them. "Probably wants you."

  They stopped to wait for him to catch them up.

  "There'll be trouble farther up the line tomorrow," Thornton said, merely making casual conversation.

  John pricked up his ears at once. "What trouble?"

  "Calley," Thornton said. "Doing the Todmorden–Hebden Bridge section. He's having a payout. First for seven weeks."

  John whistled. "Irish navvies, too," he said. "The gentle, abstemious people!"

  Stephenson chuckled grimly. "That'll start something!"

  "I don't hold with it," John said. "I'm starting to pay out weekly here. From next Saturday."

  The two others looked to see if he were joking. "Isn't that asking for trouble?" Stephenson suggested.

  "I don't know." John smiled. "But I think not."

  "He's up to something," Thornton said.

  "'Appen."

  The running lad caught up with them at that moment. "Lord John! Sir! Trouble at number-seven shaft, sir." He struggled for breath.

  "They are coming by battalions!" Thornton quipped.

  His levity startled Robert Stephenson. "The new engine?" he asked anxiously.

  "Nay—this lad's come from off the face. What trouble?"

  "We're into fractures. Like buggery. It's nobbut powder in places."

  "Damnation!" John swore. "And thou'rt on Manchester face?"

  The lad's eyes rolled as he worked out which face he was on. "Aye," he confirmed at last.

  "Double damnation!" Thornton said.

  "Why?" Robert Stephenson asked.

  "We struck fractures on the Leeds face of number six on Saturday," John said. "They're two chains apart still—so there's a probably month working in fractured grit. Thank God we've got your new engine! We'd not make Boxing Day without it. Not with this."

  "Got enough carpenters?" Thornton asked.

  "Ye spend so much time shorin' up," John said.

  "Mr. Stephenson knows something of tunnelling…" Thornton gently pointed out. John, who had intended to refer to cost, not to offer an explanation (for he had worked at Kilsby Tunnel under Robert Stephenson), was fleetingly annoyed at this correction.

  "Thank God I've little to do with it these days," Stephenson said. "What's their worry over bonus?"

  "We're afraid o' losin' it," the lad interjected.

  John was still deep in thought. "Ye'll not lose bonus," he said. And though he spoke off-handedly, as if dismissing the least of his problems, Robert Stephenson noticed at once that the lad was instantly reassured. It was only a little incident, but to an observant man, it revealed much of John Stevenson's power with his own people.

  "Go back to number seven," John told the lad. "Tell them they'll not lose bonus. And tell Chalky I s'll send two chippies directly."

  The lad began to lope back up the moorland track. The three men started the final descent to Deanroyd. "Welcome to Summit, Mr. Stephenson!" John said. "It is, as ye see, a very ordinary day!"

  When they reached the turnpike, John led them to the mouth of the big oval shaft—again, the same route by which he had taken Arabella three months earlier. The wall was only slightly advanced from the state it had been in then, mainly because the bricklayers had meanwhile been at work lining the southern end, which now ran at full diameter for over a furlong. Now they were back, bringing the oval wall up to ground level. The more muck that came out southward, the better, for that way gravity did the work of steam.

  "There's my man," John said, indicating a bricklayer on some scaffolding opposite. "Thomas Metcalfe."

  "That one?" Robert Stephenson asked in such surprise that John turned to him and laughed.

  "What d'ye expect?" he said. "Cloven feet, horns, tail, and a stink o' brimstone!" He looked back at Metcalfe. "No," he said, "he's a good man. The best brickie I have and a man with a brain to fit him for great places if he took the notion."

  "You admire him!" Stephenson said.

  "I've a lot o' time for Tom Metcalfe. Aye."

  He spoke too quietly for his voice to carry across the shaft, but Metcalfe's apprentice, a lad named Baxandall, spotted them and reached up through the scaffolding to tug his master's trousers. Metcalfe looked down and followed Baxandall's eyes up to where the contractor, flanked by the two engineers, stood silhouetted against the sky. For a long moment they stared thus in open assessment of each other. Then John said to the engineers, without taking his eyes from Metcalfe, "I'll catch up with you at number twelve or eleven. Don't let any man go down number seven by the new engine yet. I mean to be first man down."

  Stephenson looked at him, puzzled.

  "It's my way," John said. "I never ask any man to take risks I've not faced."

  The engineer's doubt turned to admiration. "By God," he said. "You're the man, all right! I'll go down with ye."

  As the two men left, Thornton gave his arm a reassuring squeeze.

  Stevenson walked around to the eastern edge, directly above the bricklayer. From there a knotted rope, tied to a stake, led down to the scaffolding. With an agility that brought gasps of surprise from the bricklayers—and a cheer from a passing horseman, whose empty dram rang like thunder in that great oval sounding-box—Stevenson let himself down the rock face to the scaffolding.

  Metcalfe must have thought Stevenson was falling, for he strode swiftly across the pla
tform to catch him. "You all right, Mr. Stevenson, sir?" he asked in his strange, half-Hampshire, half-Lancashire tongue.

  "Thankee," Stevenson said, delicately leaving open the question of whether he had needed help or not. He looked about him and raised an appreciative eyebrow. "Ye're doing well."

  Metcalfe, his calm returning, stretched to his full height and gazed at Stevenson through narrowed eyelids. "How well?" he asked. A little smile pulled down the corners of his mouth. He was tall, square, well built—a good physical match to Stevenson. But he was ten years younger, ten years less crafty—a poorer match there by a decade. For a moment, Stevenson pictured this fair youngster in gaol. He shuddered at—indeed, shrank from—necessity of it. But he chased the thought from his mind and faced the man he was going to have to risk putting to the treadmill.

  "Well enough," he said casually. "That's what we're to talk over. Isn't it?"

  Metcalfe merely smiled. Stevenson had come to him. He felt he could claim round one.

  "Tell the truth," Stevenson went on. "I'm flummoxed to see all't brickies 'ere. All at work."

  "Oh?" Metcalfe said, feeling his strength. "'Ow's that?"

  Stevenson dug him in the ribs. "Someone whispered to me ye was all off to a better contract wi' Calley up't line."

  Metcalfe smiled at that, for Calley was a notorious master.

  "Ye'd soon come to grief," he said, "believin' all what's whispered hereabouts."

  "That's what I said," Stevenson answered. "I told them that. I said—if they'd 'ad better terms offered, any man of 'em, 'e'd come straightway to me afore 'e did owt."

  Metcalfe, unnerved by this almost sycophantic agreement, did not know how to answer.

  Stevenson went on: "Even if 'e were only seekin' better terms—bugger no offer from elsewhere—even a man seekin' terms'd come list to me afore doin' owt. Aren't I right, Metcalfe?"

  Metcalfe licked his lips. The sycophantic note had melted to reveal an edge of menace. He searched Stevenson's face for some plain meaning.

  Stevenson pressed him further still: "There's other whispers, too, Metcalfe. I 'ear many vile an ugly whispers up on them moors. They say as brickies is formed in combination and will act in concert to restrain workin' on this contract."

  Now that it was openly said, Metcalfe's confidence began to return. This was ground he had prepared to fight over. "I shall say nothin' as to that." He looked at his pile of unlaid bricks and the position of the sun in the sky.

  "I see," Stevenson said.

  The bricklayer's lip curled almost imperceptibly. "Make what ye like on it."

  Now Stevenson leaned toward him and spoke urgently. "I 'ope, Metcalfe…I

  devoutly 'ope, that if any brickie 'ere, or any other man, navvy or tradesman, wanted better terms, an' could show just cause, good cause, I 'ope as 'e'd come direct to me."

  Metcalfe took the bait. "What would ye say were good cause, Mr. Stevenson?"

  Stevenson drew back and spoke in more measured tones, no longer seeming to care if the other believed or not. "Just at this very moment, Metcalfe, I know a sight more about bad causes than good uns. An I'd say it's a bad cause as stops any man from dealin' direct wi 'is master. I'd say it's a bad cause as seeks to…"

  He had done it! How easy! He had drawn Metcalfe out into anger. Anger was going to be this man's Achilles heel. "There's many masters think so," Metcalfe sputtered. "And there's many an' many a man 'ere it fills wi' sadness, Lord John, to find thee among that other camp. When not three month back thou were one among us."

  Stevenson shook his head sadly, patronizingly. "I'm one among thee still, see tha. But…lad! There's ways o' gettin forrard an' there's ways o' gettin bogged in't mire. An' if…"

  Metcalfe's anger was again at a boiling point.

  "Listen!" Stevenson persisted, dominating him. "If Tom Metcalfe wants a bigger wage, let Tom Metcalfe talk wi' Lord John. Man to man."

  "Servant to master!" The venom in that reply shocked Stevenson profoundly. He had reached into wells of bitterness and anger whose existence he had never suspected—and he had known Tom Metcalfe well for the best part of a year.

  "Flesh and blood all," he soothed. "And free men. Its't same for Arthur Burroughs. If 'e wants more, 'e can ask. An' Wilfred Hope." He wanted Metcalfe to know he knew the names. "But when the three of ye set up shop as a committee an' ask on behalf o' Peter Etheridge, an' young Baxandall, and Bennett, an' Webster, an' XYZ-and-parcel, I tell thee—I smell fire an' brimstone!"

  The bitterness still lay heavy upon Metcalfe. "Ye talk as if me or Wilf or Arthur comin' an' askin' you was like equal met with equal!" Spittle showered from his lips.

  Stevenson's mood changed again. Now he was sad, remote, magisterial. "I've thowt same as thee. Many a time. I've thowt 'let's act in concert.' An' I've been against right villains—not fair men the likes o' me. But men as've buggered off to America, owin' thousands to me an' mine. Subcontractors as underbid an' went bankrupt, leavin' navvies, and tradesmen, to starve."

  "Aye. Aye—I've met it too, an' all," Metcalfe said.

  "So it's easy work sayin 'let's all join together. Act as one. Make a union.'" He shook his head at the folly of it. "But thou should look at't destination afore thou buys a ticket."

  "Destination?" The idea puzzled Metcalfe. "What's wrong wi' it then?"

  "What's wrong wi' it! I'll tell thee what's bloody wrong. At far end o' thy road is a fat clerk wi' white 'ands as thou'st never met, callin' issen 'Union Negotiator,' wi' an address the likes o' thee'd never visit; an 'e treads an old-pals-together act wi' a great fat toad as I never met, callin' issen 'Master's Negotiator' in a 'ouse as I never visited. An' every time they 'iccup, we dance. An' I'll tell thee, too"—he made it a bald statement rather than a threat—"I'll 'ave none on it. Not 'ere. Not while I live an' breathe."

  He saw the shutters falling across Metcalfe's mind as he spoke and he knew how, if need arose, he could always cut off further communication between them.

  "It doesn't sound that bad to me." Metcalfe said confidently. "At least it sounds like thy 'fat toad' an' our 'fat white clerk' is equal."

  "Aye!" Stevenson's disgust was total. "Equal! Equal in villainy, equal in love of comfort, equal in hatred of all enterprise, an equal alike in their hatred of thee an' me."

  Metcalfe, though he understood the meaning of the words, lacked the experience of the world that could turn them into whole, meaningful statements. He waved his hand dismissively.

  "We're all entitled to an opinion." He made it sound a generous concession.

  Stevenson, listening glumly, watching dourly, felt suddenly old.

  "I'll not get drawn on…all that," Metcalfe continued. "All those…it's too vague, all that. Too far in the future. It's here an' now for me. For us. For the likes of us. Here and now."

  He paused, as if he expected an interruption from Stevenson. But the contractor merely nodded, unconvinced, and said, "I've said my say. It's thy turn."

  Metcalfe stood straighter, a little awkwardly. "I'm speakin'…we are speakin', on behalf o'…"

  "Hold 'ard! Just a minute! 'Ang on!" Stevenson cut in. "What was that word? We?"

  Metcalfe smiled, like a magician before the climax of a trick. He leaned over the scaffolding. "Burroughs! Hope!" he called.

  Stevenson acted at once. "I'm 'avin no meetin' up 'ere," he said as he swung himself out onto the ladder and quickly clambered down to the track. Metcalfe had no choice but to surrender his initiative and follow.

  Burroughs and Hope came nervously over. "Committee, is it?" Stevenson asked.

  "Officially appointed," Metcalfe said primly.

  Stevenson looked at each in turn. "My God!" he said vehemently "Ye'll build your own gallows! And splice the hangman's rope for 'im!"

  Metcalfe, seeing the others flinch, quickly went on the offensive. "What are you threatening, Mr. Stevenson?"

  Stevenson turned slowly and spoke in a low key. "Statement of fact, man." He shook his head again, more in sorrow than in an
ger. "Statement of fact. This game's got rules, see tha. An' I'll play by 'em. Burroughs. Hope." He looked at each.

  "Sir?" they said.

  But he merely shook his head again. Metcalfe leaped in once more: "On behalf of the bricklayers at this working, we are asking for an increase in the rate."

  "Ye've let us down," Burroughs said, emboldened by Metcalfe's firmness.

  "I'm still listenin'," Stevenson said, turning inquiringly to Hope.

  "Ye put navvies on bonus two month back," Hope said.

  "Aye. That's true," Stevenson said flatly.

  "Well then!" Hope spread the palms of his hands to show that their point was made.