The Rope Carrier (8 page)

Netty lay back in the big bed in the corner, a smile on her lips.

Marianne lay still and closed her eyes.

THE DAYS SETTLED
into a smooth rhythm of hard work. Once she knew what was expected of her, Minnie could do her jobs fast and efficiently, and she even earned some grudging praise from Dame Eyre. Netty recovered her health once she'd got the chance to rest and was soon up and about, organizing the children, and baking and cleaning.

Marianne, carrying her own small pitcher, was sent with Minnie to help fetch the water, for Josh's mother insisted that they all learn to help.

Although Minnie got sick and weary of carrying back the heavy loads, there was some enjoyment to be had in the short bouts of freedom from Dame Eyre's watchful eyes.

“Go by Elsie Duckett's. Please, Minnie, please.”

Marianne pulled at Minnie's skirts, dragging her up the back street behind the well in the hopes of seeing Elsie Duckett's fat porker, the craftiest pig in Sheffield.

Like most folk, Elsie let her pig wander loose through the streets, gobbling up whatever edible waste he could find, stealing from kitchen doorways while the dames were busy, and generally growing fine and fat on others' food. Old Clarkey the pinder, whose job it was to round up stray pigs, particularly hated Elsie Duckett's pig and spent his days trying to catch him. But Elsie was as crafty as her pig. Whenever passing neighbours would call out, “Clarkey's after tha pig ag'in, Elsie. Tha'll be paying fourpence to get him out of the pinfold,” she would pick
up her tin bucket and bang it hard with a spoon so that Porker would hear the signal and head fast for home, knocking over anything or anyone that got in his way.

Marianne would scream with laughing at the sight of the pig racing through the streets and Clarkey, breathless and red-faced with rage, chasing after it, skidding through the rubbish and manure.

But this day was different. For once Elsie had her pig fastened by a rope to her doorway, then at the sound of a bell ringing up at the top of the street, she fetched a long-handled broom from her kitchen.

Marianne froze. She ran to Minnie, grabbing her arm. “Water coming. Water's coming quick.”

Minnie stared at her stupidly. “Water? What does tha mean? A water-seller?”

“No. Water coming down the streets.” Marianne tried to pull up Minnie's skirts, but was slapped and pushed away.

Minnie then saw that Elsie was hitching up her skirts and fastening them up at the back. The street was suddenly full of women with buckets and mops and brooms, pulling on old boots and fastening up their skirts.

“What's up, Elsie?” Minnie called.

Elsie looked at her, amazed.

“Does tha not know? Street-cleaning day.”

“Run back!” Marianne still tugged at her, but too late.

“It's here! It's here!” the shout went up. With a great whooshing sound, a green wave of foul-smelling water flooded the top of the street and pounded down towards them. Marianne leapt into Minnie's arms, her legs clinging safe and dry round her auntie's waist. Minnie could do nothing but groan and shudder at the smelly soaking that she got. All around them was wild activity – shrieking, screaming, dogs barking and the squealing of pigs. The piles of muck and manure that filled the channel in the middle of the streets were
washed clear down the hill by the powerful tide of water. The women washed and scrubbed, throwing buckets of water at their houses, their windows and their children. Elsie took her broom and scrubbed her pig.

Minnie returned to the Eyres', damp, uncomfortable and stinking. Netty clapped her hands to her belly and laughed.

“Oh lor', I never said. Street-cleaning day.”

“No, you never,” said Minnie. “Street-cleaning day! Whoever heard of such a thing? Where does it come from, all that water?”

“Barkers Pool, they call it,” the Dame told her. “Used to be lovely and clean, once. A big stone-built pool of drinking water gathered from the top wells. It's got messed up now, all these new folk flooding into Sheffield to find work . . . they abuse it. 'Tis only fit for street-cleaning now.”

“Didn't tha hear the bell?” said Netty.

Despite Minnie's furious face, Netty couldn't stop the giggles. Dame Eyre poured clean water into a bowl and ordered Minnie to strip and change, but even her mouth seemed to suffer from a slight twitching at the corners.

Josh began his working week on Monday, though many of the workers called it St Monday and took it as a day of rest. Minnie went along with Jack to fetch the blanks from the big filesmiths' shops in the town centre. The work slowly built in a crescendo until Friday and Saturday when everyone worked at a frantic pace, for the finished jobs had to be taken back and payment collected by Saturday night.

Minnie gaped at the sights that first Saturday night when she'd gone into the town with Josh and Jack, helping to carry the finished files all oiled and neatly wrapped. Payments were made in the public houses, but Josh made them go home dry-throated, even though Jack grumbled that they could do with a sup of ale. The town was riotous with folk singing and dancing,
yelling at the fighting cocks and dogs . . . and a great deal of arguing was going on over the cost of goods and money owed. The darkening streets were full of mesters and dames, their way lit by young 'prentices carrying links and rushlights. Those 'prentice lads who were let loose on the town ran wild at the rare chance of freedom, playing daft tricks and fighting. This was the big night out, this was what they'd worked towards all week.

A noisy crowd gathered by a round-faced, broad-shouldered man who sat wrong-ways round on a donkey, his head facing its tail. He was singing, wagging his head and clapping his hands. Josh stopped to listen, an indulgent smile on his face.

“'Tis Joe Mather,” he told Minnie. “Him as used to be a nicker pecker – till he got squeezed out, that is. Now he's found a way of earning that he's more suited to, I think.”

Minnie pushed through the crowd, in closer to hear the singing. Joe had a deep, strong voice and kept a powerful rhythm, beating time on the donkey's rump, his broad shoulders swaying as he sang. Then those around him joined loudly in the chorus. Minnie listened carefully to catch the words.

Though the words were full of misery, they were sung with gusto and the performance ended in cheers and clapping.

“Well said, Joe!”

“Sing it again.”

“You tell 'em, Joe!”

“Sing us the file cutter's song!” Josh shouted.

Joe Mather nodded and lifted his hand for silence, then his deep voice swung into a song of sadness, telling of the difficulties of the file cutter's work.

Josh joined him for the last lines:

Then Joe held up a pile of broadsheets printed with the words that he'd been singing. Josh turned away.

“I wish that I could buy one,” he said, “for Joe's the only one who speaks for us.”

They turned down Pudding Lane, past a miserable twostoreyed building that terrified Minnie. It was the debtors' jail. Dreadful sounds and disgusting smells drifted from the
doorways, and from both the upper and lower windows arms were stretched, holding out tins to those who passed by. Despairing voices wailed and begged for pennies. Minnie shrank close to Josh as she glimpsed the snarling, toothless mouth of an old woman pressed flat against the window bars with her begging tin. Another tin swung on a rotting length of string from an upstairs window. Josh opened his pouch and brought out two small coins, placing one in each tin.

“Huh. That could have been a mug of ale for us,” Jack muttered.

“Aye,” said Josh, “but see this purse? Most of it is owed to others. 'Twill not take much more, Jack, and I shall find myself in this rotten stinkhole.”

Minnie grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away.

“Come on home, Josh, I can't abide this place. It could never happen to you.”

“Don't tempt fate, young Minnie. It can happen to the best of us. Look at poor Joe Mather. He's seen the wrong side of those windows, and through no fault of his own but the one that I'm guilty of: too many mouths to feed.”

Netty grew bigger and Josh's fears became real. They were deep in debt. Still Josh insisted that they must have goat's milk for Netty and his father. They bought it from Nathan Woodhouse, who came into Sheffield from Crookes Moor on the outskirts, where he kept his goats.

Nathan had become a good friend, but the friendship grew strained when they owed him money, and he stopped calling at their door. They owed for rent and coal, and they'd run up an alehouse score though Josh had long since stopped sending out for ale to quench his thirst.

The hot weather came and with it, water shortages. Fetching water was harder than ever, and Minnie and Marianne learnt to creep fast and quiet to the front of the queue, ducking the
slapping hands and dodging the trampling feet. They were lucky to return without a fight. Josh worked all hours, candling late into the night, but he could not seem to turn out enough finished files to catch up with their debts. The bailiffs came and slowly, stick by stick, all the decent furniture they had was taken.

Josh returned from delivering finished work one night to find Netty weeping. The bailiffs had taken the wooden cradle that he'd carved when Marianne was born. He rushed out after the men and begged them to give it back, but it ended in a brawl. Later, Josh came back to the house carried by his friends and drunk as never before.

IT WAS THAT
night's drinking that brought the alehouse score up to forty shillings, and when the landlord heard whisperings of Josh owing money to others, he called in the debt. The constable came for Josh and took him before the magistrate.

Josh went off quiet and shamed. Minnie could hardly bear to see it. She wanted to run after them, to shout and argue that it wasn't fair, shout that Josh was an honest man and didn't deserve this. It would do no good though, she knew that, so she clamped her mouth shut and tried to copy the bitter silence of Netty and the Dame.

Jack watched it all wide-eyed. He whispered to Minnie that the magistrate would be old Niddledy Nod. He pulled a face and drew his finger across his throat.

“What?” Minnie cried out, horrified at the sign.

“Sets 'em all in the stocks, he does.”

Dame Eyre's hand slapped hard across Jack's face. “Don't talk so stupid, lad.”

Minnie and Jack both gasped, shocked. The Dame had threatened it many a time, but had never actually hit him before.

“The magistrate is Vicar Wilkinson,” she said. “'Tis disrespectful to call him Niddledy Nod. The poor man can't help the twitch that he's got. He's not of my way of religion, but there's many that say he's fair. Someone has to try to keep order in Sheffield, and a hard task he's got. I'll have faith in the vicar, even though it's my own son I'm worried for. Now get to
tha work, lad, and thee be off to fetch t'water, lass.”

They spent the day at their usual work, just as if Josh were there, though they missed the quick regular tapping from the workshed. Minnie grumbled that the awkward, uneven sounds which Jack produced got on her nerves.

Late in the afternoon, the Dame sent Jack up to the court to gather news of Josh. The three women waited together, restless and snapping at the children. Darkness fell and still there was no sign of Josh nor Jack. Netty was threatening to put on her shawl and walk up to the court herself when they heard stumbling footsteps and the creak of the workshed door.

Jack was hunched over the dying embers of the fire, holding out his hands for warmth, hands that could not seem to stop shaking.

“What is it, then? What's happened?” Netty demanded.

Jack shrank away from her. “I don't like to tell thee, missus.”

“Oh, they've not set 'im in the stocks?”

Jack shook his head.

The Dame pressed her lips tight together. “He's sent to the debtors' jail.”

“Aye.” Jack bellowed it. “He's sent for three months, unless any will pay off his debt.” He hid his face in his arms.

“But in three months' time this child will 'ave been born, and how will we manage? We'll starve.” Helpless tears ran down Netty's face.

Minnie stared at her, stunned. She'd never for a moment thought that they'd do that to Josh. Even the Dame seemed lost for words, her face crumpled, and for one terrible moment Minnie feared that she might cry. She should have known better, though, for the Dame would never do that. Instead, she shook her head, shaking the weakness away.

“Off to tha bed, Netty. 'Twill not help our Josh if tha'rt sick again.”