World From Rough Stones

by Malcolm Macdonald

  "Reet!" he called, standing taller and taking a firmer grasp of himself. "Ye're wastin' good working time! Get agate then lads! Frame thissens!"

  That was more in the expected spirit. No one moved in obedience but, with broadly smiling faces, cheerful in the torchlight glow, they groaned and jeered and catcalled.

  He pretended to be insulted, withstanding their onslaught; the shock on his face soon turned to stoic severity. "An hour's workin' wasted now is an hour's drinkin' wasted at't far end."

  Their hubbub renewed itself but with a new edge of anticipation.

  "Every man that starts on now is to be let off while five this afternoon." He had to raise his voice then, to shout above their cheers. "An' them as isn't too tired an' can drag thessens 'ome an' can come back in drinkin' rags is bidden to a hotpot supper in Summit Tunnel East come seven o'clock."

  Their cheering rose to a deafening crescendo; but all his instincts told him that this was not the mood in which they should disperse. So he added: "And if any man attends drunk, 'e shall be suffered to turn about an' go back 'ome." Though none believed him, it let them boo and hiss and jeer again, and so disperse laughing to their anvils, benches, and frame saws.

  As he watched them go he realized that he had never, even when he was one among them, felt closer to them in spirit. For the first time, he saw that a master could actually be closer to his men than they might be to one another. He also began to appreciate something that, until then, he had known only instinctively:

  If some natural talent or quality set you above your fellows, you had to give them the chance once in a while to jeer or mock. Do that, and there was no enterprise you might not undertake with them.

  Soon the valley rang with the hammering, sawing, and shaping of stone, iron, and wood. Now that the site was deserted, the flaming torches seemed extravagant.

  "S'll I dowse them lights?" Fernley asked.

  "Aye. Leave just this nearest one to light up't terms o't contract. Pin it there."

  In a curious way it seemed quieter when the light was diminished. The silence was broken by a plaintive yapping, some way away.

  "Is that a dog in a trap?" Stevenson asked.

  Fernley took out a flask. "Vixen," he said. "They spread 'er cubs yesterday. Up in Henshaw wood. She's bin doin that on an' off all neet."

  "Do they hunt them much? Mrs. Stevenson's an eager one for huntin'."

  "Not much. Hares mostly." He took a swig, then, remembering himself, apologized and offered it to Stevenson.

  "No thanks."

  "Go on. Keep thee warm. It's rum!"

  "I can smell that from ere."

  Fernley corked the flask and returned it to his inner pocket. "There'll be a long, cold wait now," he said.

  "Think so."

  "Stands to reason. Them as was comin' early 'ave come. It looks like we'll not get't brickies."

  "Bennett's there."

  "Aye—well—Bennett's Bennett, in't 'e. There's no law nor no regularity for that man. Ye've got all but eight o't remainin' craftsmen—an four o' them is sick, to my knowledge."

  "'Appen."

  Fernley pulled out the flask again and took another swig. This time, too, he offered it to Stevenson, who once more refused it.

  "I've seen navvies o' twenty-nine broken down," Stevenson said. "Like old men o' sixty. Broken wi' boozin'."

  "Aye!" Fernley swigged deeply and breathed out a pungent and fiery satisfaction. "Aye—it'll ruin ye reet enough." And he rammed the cork home to emphasize his agreement.

  "I were on a stretch o't Great Northern last year," Stevenson continued. "This side Wakefield…" He clicked his fingers and sought as if to pluck the name from the air around him. "Ossett!" he said at last. "Near Ossett! There were one navvy there were drunk for a month. Least—I never saw the bugger sober."

  Fernley laughed grimly and jerked his thumb up the valley toward Todmorden. "Oh aye! There's one 'ere an' all. Up't valley. Irishman. One o' Calley's mob. 'Swimmer Dandy' they call 'im. They say as e's bin dead drunk all't week." He sniffed and looked up over Walsden Moor, where the dimmest band of green suffused the sky. "Day's breakin'," he said.

  "I don't understand the Irish," Fernley went on after a silence. "I reckon of all the different kinds of Englishmen, the Irish is the worst. I'd sooner 'ave a Scot nor an Irish. A Scotchman's not a bad sort o' Englishman."

  "Still—when they're not off boozin', the Irish make't 'ardest workin' navvy of all, I'll say that." Stevenson laughed. "They'll all be off boozin' today. Calley's payin' out."

  "First time in seven weeks. Aye, they say they'll carry Swimmer Dandy round Todmorden as a mascot. 'E can't stand straight no more."

  "Swimmer Dandy!" Stevenson relished the name.

  They heard the rattle of tools in his canvas bag before they saw the next man walk down off the turnpike to the site office.

  "That's William Shortis, carpenter," Stevenson said as soon as the first glimmer of a reflection showed him up.

  Fernley looked down his list and placed a mark against the name.

  "Morning, Lord John."

  "Cold enough for thee?"

  "I'd of come sooner but our Mary's got a croup—coughing an barkin' all neet."

  "I 'ope she may mend soon. Read that." He pointed to the sheet where the offer was set forth for each trade and grade.

  While Shortis read, Stevenson took Fernley's list into the light and, scanning it quickly, pointed to five names that ought to have a mark beside them. "Tom Upjohn was there, an' 'is brother Wilf; George Burnett…Noah Ashroyd… Jethro Carr—they was all there."

  Fernley snorted in admiration. "Mr. Whitaker always says there's no need for paper where Lord John goes. I reckon if every man on this workin' was to file past a gap in a 'edge half a mile off, tha'd call out their names as they went by."

  "Nay!" Stevenson said, perfectly seriously. "Not more'n 'alf on 'em." And he did not really understand why Fernley—and Shortis, who had finished reading— both laughed.

  "Well. And tha'st seen't offer, Shortis?"

  "Aye. I 'ave."

  "On a good drift tha'llt make twenty-one shillin' an' sixpence."

  "Aye."

  "An it's understood there's no shiftin' twixt thee an' any union other than friendly societies, public-'ouse benefit societies, an' that sort o' caper?"

  "Aye. I can't abide 'em anyroad. There's me 'and on it."

  Stevenson shook it. "Set on now an' ye may knock off while five wi't others. They'll tell thee why."

  "That's all't carpenters now," Fernley said when Shortis had gone. "Still nobbut one brickie."

  A sudden memory struck Stevenson. "Yesterday. When I come to see about two more chippies for shorin' fractures in six an seven…"

  "Aye."

  "Wasn't that two brickies wantin' work was stood 'ere?"

  "Aye. They said if they never found owt they'd likely come back today."

  "If they do, set 'em on. New bonus terms after one week, seventeen shillin' while then. But tell 'em…" He paused.

  "Aye?" Fernley prompted.

  "If our brickies form a picket line, tell 'em not to cross it. These new ones, an' any others. Tell 'em not to cross it."

  "Not to cross it?"

  "Aye."

  Fernley was so astonished he broke into weak laughter. "I can't believe me ears."

  "Tha'rt not paid to believe thy ears. They're not to cross it. If they do, they're dismissed."

  "What just stand 'ere?"

  "Just stand 'ere."

  "Drawin' wages?"

  "Aye." He laughed at Fernley's deep skepticism. "Never fratch lad! I'm not gone daft. Tha'llt see—things'll move fast now."

  But the sun was almost up before there was fresh movement of any kind. A figure—and even though it was no more than a moving speck against the pale, snowclad moor, Stevenson knew it was Metcalfe—came over the crest of Moorhey Flat and began the precipitous descent of the northern slopes. The time was a quarter to seven, fifteen minutes before the
regular knocking-on time. Metcalfe, surefooted despite the snow, made good speed down the trail and soon arrived on the turnpike. He looked at Stevenson, fifty yards off, but neither man made any gesture of recognition or movement toward the other.

  Stevenson watched calmly, as he had watched the man every inch of the descent. Metcalfe stood in the turnpike and looked—a little anxiously—north and south. Before long he was joined from the north by Hope, leading a party of eight brickies. They all stood and stared, now with fixed and open anxiety, southward. While this was happening Jack Whitaker came around the bend at Stone House Bridge and over the broken ground between there and the huts. The sight of him reminded Stevenson that this was the first day since he had gained the contract on which he had not started by visiting each, or most, of the workings.

  He quickly brought his assistant up to date and then took him aside to a place where they could not be overheard.

  "I want ye to go from here, Jack," he said, "as if ye're doing an ordinary everyday inspection. But when ye get over yon brow, out of sight, like, I want ye to get down to Littleborough and go to Rochdale—by horse or train, it's of no consequence to me—and fetch the constabulary back here. They'll need at least a dozen—more if they can manage."

  "A dozen!" Whitaker was surprised.

  "If things go as I believe. But listen—this is the most important. They're to come after noon. Between noon and one o'clock."

  "Ye play a hand damn close to your chest, Stevenson, I'll say that."

  "Not before noon, now," Stevenson patted his arm. "Good man. Off you go."

  During this time, Burroughs made his belated appearance with a larger band of fourteen men.

  "Eay, I'm buggered!" Fernley said. "Every fookin' brickie."

  "'Ceptin Bennett." Stevenson shook his head. "Loyalty's an odd piece o' goods. No doubt on't."

  They watched the brickies gather for a brief conference in the middle of the turnpike. Then they broke into two parties, each of about a dozen men. Burroughs and Hope led one to picket the pathways leading down to the site offices. The other, led by Metcalfe, went a hundred yards or so north, picketing the entries to Summit East, the short reach of tunnel that lay north of the oval shaft.

  Fernley was aghast at this behaviour. "They're standin' on your contract, Lord John!"

  Stevenson clapped him on the shoulder. "Where I want 'em, lad," he said. And as he went up the path to the nearest picket he turned round and shouted back: "I want thy timber and stone orders for next week. See they're done before knockin' off today."

  The pickets, alerted by his voice, shuffled nervously and looked at one another for support. Hope and Burroughs, alone, did not look around.

  Stevenson walked among them and out on to the turnpike without so much as a sideways glance. Once on the turnpike he looked both ways, as if expecting someone—but without anxiety—and then, glancing knowingly at his watch, set off for Metcalfe's pickets. Every step of the way he held his eyes fastened on Metcalfe's, who fixed him with the same unblinking stare.

  As he came within a few yards—apparently walking straight up to Metcalfe— he saw the man rearrange his features and breathe in, preparing to speak. But at the last minute he changed course and walked immediately to the man's left, passing within inches of him.

  "Morning!" he said, without a break in rhythm and without even a sideways glance.

  Metcalfe said nothing.

  Stevenson walked quickly into the northern workings.

  Summit below ground had its excitement that day, too, for it was the day on which the driftway in from the north broke through to meet the drift from number twelve; and since that drift had, in turn, met with the one from number eleven a week earlier, there was now almost half a mile of continuous passage opened to the north. Within the week, he estimated, they would have broken right through to number seven and more than half the tunnel would be open drift.

  The moment of breakthrough is one of indescribable excitement in the making of a driftway. For months your boring bar or pick rings and jars at the stubborn, unyielding wall of living rock. By the end of each day, when you swing your sledgehammer against the head of the bar for the ten thousandth time and its tip leaps a sixteenth of an inch farther into the rock, you feel that the task of driving forward even one foot more through that passive, adamantine face is beyond human power—or human frailty as it then seems. Day by day, with your endurance renewed, you stand by the light of a guttering candle, wreathed in clouds of the dust your efforts raise, breathing air that grows steadily more fetid, and you gain, inch by weary inch, on that least yielding of all substances.

  But then comes that moment, long predicted, daily measured, known to the precise hour—often to the minute—yet not one whit the less surprising: the moment when the very rock changes character. It rings hollow. The distant tapping from the opposing drift magnifies to an echo of your own insistent hammering. Your bar lurches from you—as if the rock had suddenly degenerated into clay. And the face in front of you dissolves and shatters as your opposite number hammers through into the air space you have spent so long creating. And then you can hear each other's cheers and can reach your hands through to shake theirs. And then it seems only the work of moments to break down the yielding fragments that still divide you. And so you turn the two driftways into one.

  Stevenson, who had not missed this moment on any of the other drifts, saw it right through now on number twelve. The cheers and excitement were over and they were beginning the final breakdown before he turned to the exit and met Walter Thornton on his way in.

  "Stevenson!" he said. "I thought you might like to know. Some time ago three gentlemen joined up with your bricklayers. Or your erstwhile bricklayers."

  "Oh no. They're still mine," Stevenson said. "They'll all be back at work tomorrow. All except the ringleaders."

  The three gentlemen Thornton mentioned had descended from the coach and stood uncertainly in the centre of the roadway looking about them like the beleaguered rump of a vanished army. By chance they stood between the two pickets.

  "Stand firm brothers!" shouted Metcalfe, to their left. "No disorder. Here's the magistrates."

  "Never!" Hope's scornful shout swung all three to their right. "That's no magistrates. One o' them's that Methodist from Smallbridge."

  The minister thus identified smiled and raised his hand. "Good morning, brothers!" he called. Still none of them moved, being undecided between the two groups of pickets.

  "Good morning." Metcalfe's guarded welcome decided them for his party.

  "Mr. Metcalfe?" the minister asked.

  "'Oo wants 'im?"

  "I'm Thomas Findlater, the methodist minister of…"

  Metcalfe's suspicions vanished beneath a sudden, broad smile. "Tom Findlater the Chartist?"

  "The same."

  They stepped toward one another and shook hands warmly. "We've met," Metcalfe said. "On the moors behind Mr. Fielden's place. When Feargus O'Connor spoke."

  "I remember it. But not you I fear."

  Metcalfe shrugged. "Who remembers anyone else that day but Mr. O'Connor!"

  "Indeed," Findlater answered, giving Metcalfe's hand, which he still grasped firmly, one final shake. Then he turned to his companions. "These two gentlemen are also of our cause. Mr. Spencer Fox, attorney, and Mr. Stuart McLeish, gentleman."

  Metcalfe beckoned his two committeemen. "I'm Tom Metcalfe," he said while they walked up to join them. "This is Wilfred Hope and Thomas Burroughs." He completed the introductions.

  Findlater lowered his voice. "It occurred to us, when we heard of your action, that you might need witnesses of standing."

  It had obviously not occurred to Metcalfe for he brightened visibly at the offer. "Well thought!" he said.

  Fox was then careful to discourage any foolish optimism. "It may do little good at the magistrates courts, but should there be any subsequent inquiry or any need for agitation in the press…" He left the implications delicately unspoken.


  It certainly sobered Metcalfe. He glanced nervously at the other two to see how they took it; but they were so impassive they might not even have followed. He turned back to the three visitors with his warmest smile. "Well, gentlemen! Ye are all royally welcome!"

  But several hours later, when Thornton walked past them with no more than a sardonic smile and, like Stevenson, vanished into the drift, they were all a good deal less cheerful. They were simply being ignored. The whole working, except for the bricklaying, went on exactly as before. People walked past them as if they were not there. They felt cold. They felt superfluous. The three gentlemen were now almost continually blowing on their fingernails and stamping their feet.