The Rope Carrier

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  List of Illustrations

  Part One: From the Cave

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Part Two: Into the City

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Select Bibliography

  Copyright

  About the Book

  ‘This little lass is strong. She will carry the ropes and walk forever.’

  It is as well that these words, spoken by Minnie’s great grandmother at her birth, prove to be prophetic, for the ropemaker’s youngest daughter needs all the strength and courage she can muster in the subterranean cavern which is the family home. And not only there but even more so in Sheffield where she goes to support her ailing sister and finds an even harsher existence where squalor and injustice are rife.

  The Rope Carrier

  Theresa Tomlinson

  For Hilda, Rene, Ann, Jay

  and all the other Hurlfield Writers

  List of Illustrations

  Frontispiece THE RAVINE AT PEAKS HOLE, CASTLETON

  Engraving by George Cooke

  from a drawing by Miss H. Rhodes.

  Published in Ebenezer Rhodes’ Peak Sceneiy, 1822.

  here THE PEAK CAVERN, DERBYSHIRE

  Engraving from a drawing by Edward Dayes, c. 1803.

  here ENTRANCE TO THE PEAK CAVERN

  by Harwood (engraver or publisher?), 1840s.

  here THE PEAK CAVERN

  Engraving by Noble

  from a drawing by Edward Dayes, c. 1803.

  here VIEW FROM WITHIN PEAKS HOLE, NEAR CASTLETON, DERBYSHIRE

  Engraving by George Cooke

  from a drawing by Francis Chantrey, c. 1820.

  Published in Ebenezer Rhodes’ Peak Scenery,

  Part III, 1822.

  here PEVERIL’S CASTLE

  Engraving by J. Greig

  here HATHERSAGE

  Engraving from a drawing by T.C. Hofland.

  Published in Ebenezer Rhodes’ Peak Scenery, Part IV, 1823.

  here PROSPECT OF SHEFFIELD

  by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck.

  Published 1745.

  here TOWN OF SHEFFIELD

  Map drawn by Thomas Oughtibridge, c. 1740, copied by Rev. S.B. Ward.

  Engraving by H. White, c. 1800.

  Part One

  From the Cave

  ‘In the hollow cavern is a whole subterranean village.’

  Moritz’s Travels 1782

  ‘Now to the cave, we come, wherein is found,

  A new strange thing, a village underground:

  Houses and barns for men and beasts behoof,

  With walls distinct, under one solid roof.’

  From Wonders of the Peak, 1692, Cotton

  Chapter One

  1786

  WATER DRIPPED DOWN from the great dark arch of the cavern roof.

  “Hold it up, girl. Hold it higher. Remember Great Grandma.”

  Minnie Dakin sighed and pushed up the rushlight, holding it steady so that her father could see his work. Her shoulders ached with the effort of keeping the light steady, and her eyes watered as smoke blew into her face each time the wind gusted through the mouth of the cave.

  Great Grandma Dakin . . . Minnie was weary of remembering her and what she had said. Grandma’s words had plagued her life ever since she could remember.

  Minnie had been born on the very day that Great Grandma had died. Minnie’s mother Annie had laboured to bring her sixth child into the world in the tiny one-roomed cottage that leant against the side of the cavern wall. Great Grandma had given up the pile of matted straw, covered by a woven rug, that they called with reverence “the bed”. She’d insisted on helping with the birth, though she could scarce see her hand in front of her face. She claimed that she had attended more birthings than any other woman in Derbyshire. She could tell just what stage the woman had reached by the sounds that she made and Grandma’s clever sense of touch told her strong fingers what to do.

  So the baby had been born safely, another girl to add to the three surviving daughters. Annie had looked down at her baby with disappointment, thinking of the family’s need for strong healthy workers to make the ropes which they depended on for their living.

  “A lad would have been better.”

  Great Grandma had sat down beside her on the bed. She’d taken the baby in her arms, and felt carefully at its kicking legs and punching arms. She wrapped the child in a soft woven blanket made from warm oily sheep’s wool.

  “Nay,” she said. “This little lass is strong. She will carry the ropes, and walk for ever. Call her Minerva and she shall be a spinner.”

  Then Great Grandma had bowed her head over the baby, and died.

  That was how Minnie Dakin had been born, and how her mother had gained an almost magical faith in her daughter’s strength and cleverness. That was why the nine-year-old Minnie came to be standing beside her father, holding the rushlight while he made whiplashes for four-in-hand coaches. It was close to midnight on a wild winter’s night, for he kept the secrets of his craft by working in the darkness.

  Minnie twisted her head to look at the gentle oil-lamp glow that came from the hut her father had built for the three remaining girls to sleep in. Sarah, the eldest, had married one of the lead miners and gone to live in his parents’ cottage in the village, where she struggled to bring up her six little ones, dreading the fast-coming day when her five-year-old son should be sent to work at the mine, washing and sorting the ore. Sarah thought that she had gone up in the world, now that she was living in a proper stone-built cottage, out in the daylight, but Minnie couldn’t see why.

  Here in the cave, space was plentiful, and there was no rent to pay. The building of an extra room was a matter of a few days’ labour. She loved the warm bed which she shared with her sisters, and now she longed to climb in between their fat sweating bodies and settle down to sleep, with her nose tucked into the hair at the nape of Netty’s neck and Sally’s arms around her.

  Lazy cows they are, thought Minnie. A faint rippling sound from the deep dark tunnel at the back of the cave lifted the hairs on the back of her neck.

  “Whisht child! Hold still, will you? What is it?”

  Minnie stared silent and large-eyed at her father.

  “Oh, Minnie. It’s not the devil’s laughter again?”

  A touch of ice ran from the back of her head down to her heels, as though a drop of water from the constantly dripping roof had trickled down her neck. Minnie shuddered, and moved to one side. She often felt that freezing touch when she was up late at night helping her father. She braced herself and tried to turn her attention to the work that he was doing. She must try to remember the sequence of twists and skilful knots that his hard leather-skinned fingers made. She should not feel cold and there was no reason to be afraid, so she told herself. She had been born into this darkness and had known nothing else but the cool, damp atmosphere that stayed the same through summer and winter, through night and day. But at times like this, Minnie found that the stories told by Ma
rcus the weaver came creeping into her mind. Stories from long-ago about the terrifying robber chief who’d held a great feast, there in the deepest caverns, and had invited the devil to come.

  Minnie shuddered and forced herself to think about the other story that Marcus told. It was just as old, so Marcus said, and perhaps it was even true.

  Minnie could picture him now, the young shepherd boy who’d seen one of his sheep straying into the mouth of the cave and followed him in. Further and further he’d gone, deep into the heart of the earth, following the patter of small hoofed feet. Then he’d come to the lowest of openings, he’d found sheep droppings . . . so, being very thin and small himself, he’d wriggled through after his sheep. Beyond the tunnel he had found a magical cavern, lit from within, where waterfalls splashed crystal-clear water over the rocks and lovely flowers bloomed. Then the shepherd stepped out into a land of wide fields full of rippling golden corn and cheerful reapers cutting it, bringing in a plentiful harvest.

  The shepherd boy had returned with his sheep and told everyone of the wonderful place that he’d found, but when he’d tried to show them where it was, he couldn’t find the tiny secret entrance.

  “Of course,” said Marcus, “they all thought that he had made it up, to make himself important,” and perhaps that was true, but Minnie loved the story, and she believed in the shepherd boy for he had the power to banish the devil’s laughter. And, after all, Marcus had said that the shepherd boy continued to search for the passageway long after everyone else had lost interest and laughed him to scorn. Even when he was old and white-haired, still he searched on alone.

  At last John Dakin finished his task and piled the cut ends of hemp into his bag. He gave Minnie the nod to climb up the side of the ropewalk ahead of him, lighting his steps back to the cobbled stone huts that were their homes.

  Chapter Two

  MINNIE ROLLED OVER and groaned, fishing around by her feet for the blanket that her sisters had thrown off as they struggled out of the bed.

  “Shift thee’sen, lazy bones.” Sally’s strong snappy fingers came creeping under the cover and pinched Minnie hard on the backside.

  “Leave me be, thee great fat sow.” Minnie pulled herself up, red-faced, nostrils flaring, steely-grey eyes wide open, glittering in the candlelight.

  “Skinny rat, skinny rat.” Sally bent down and grabbed Minnie by the ankles, pulling her to the edge of the bed, tickling her in the ribs. Minnie kicked back at her face.

  “Leave be, the pair of you, and get yourselves sorted out, or we’ll all be feeling the flat of Mother’s hand.” Netty punched at them both, but it didn’t hurt. Netty’s punches never hurt.

  Both Minnie’s sisters were strong, well-built girls, plump in all the right places. It was all the fashion to be fat like that and Minnie hated them for it. Netty was sixteen, and she was kind. Sally was fourteen, and she wasn’t. Minnie was nine years old, skinny, and small for her age, but she was strong too, in her own determined, wiry way.

  Netty grabbed Sally by the arm and pulled her through the door hole, holding aside the woven curtain that served as a door.

  “Shape thee’sen, Sally. Mother’ll be mad if we aren’t on the ropewalk ready for the light.”

  Minnie crept back into the bed, pulling the blanket over her head, trying to sleep again, but suddenly Annie’s voice was calling out, “Minnie, Minnie. Are you up, my darling?”

  Then came the rattle of the wooden bowls being set out on the window-sill. Minnie dragged herself to the edge of the mattress and began pulling her woollen bedgown on over her petticoat and fastening her apron over the top to keep it fixed. She grumbled and growled to herself at the stupidity of calling it a bedgown when it was what you put on to go out in, and at the dreadful unfairness of having to be up in the morning when you’d been working at night while others were sleeping.

  “Minnie, Minnie. Are you up, child?”

  Minnie sighed, and reached for her cloak. She wrapped it tight round her shoulders and fastened it at the front.

  “Minnie, Minnie. Fetch the water will you, child, and some more sticks for the fire. Come on, my lass, there’ll be no porridge for anyone until you’ve done.”

  Minnie emerged yawning from behind the curtain and went to lift the earthenware pitcher.

  “Some folks were up late last night. Some folks were working while others slept. Some folk might be weary.”

  Her mother smiled as she shoved the spinning wheel out in front of the cottage and turned to fetch her stool.

  “Ah, well, some might I daresay, but not my Minnie, not my darling girl.”

  “Huh!” Minnie hunched her shoulders and carried the pitcher down the path between the cottages, past the ropewalks to the river. She lowered the pitcher into the water that ran fast and clear and ice-cold through the cave. As she turned back and climbed up through the ropewalks and then past the cottages, there was noise and busyness on both sides. Fires were stoked and the clatter of pans rang out. Soot and smoke puthered out of chimneys, up towards the roof of the cavern, as long fingers of grey light came creeping inside from the round eye of the entrance.

  Her sisters were already starting their work on the top Dakin terrace. Netty had fastened a twist of hemp to one of the hooks on the spinning wheel, and she was beginning the long backwards walk, pulling out the hemp from the bundle that she’d fastened around her waist. She had to stop and shout at Sally to get her to pay attention and turn the wheel steady, instead of flashing her eyes and calling out to the Whittingham lads who were beginning their work two terraces below.

  Minnie thumped the pitcher down beside Annie’s cooking pot.

  “Whoops, sorry,” she muttered as the water slopped over the top.

  “I’ll give you sorry,” Annie grinned, threatening to clout her ears. “Now off you go and fetch me fresh sticks to set in the stack to dry. A great armful I want to see. Arms so full they’re breaking. Off with you.”

  Minnie blinked and yawned when the bright morning light hit her face as she emerged from the cave and onto the pathway, with the fast river running along beside it. She put up her hand, shading her eyes as she turned to look along the steep sides of the ravine and up at the ruined castle perched high on the top, as she did every morning.

  “Yah,” she yelled, startling and scattering the rooks who nested on the trees that grew out sideways from the steep rockside. Then, giggling at their fright, she set off to cross the small bridge into Castleton village and climb up the wooded hillside where the best small firewood sticks could be found.

  When Minnie returned, so laden with sticks that they would keep dropping, she found a young man in good clothes standing at the end of the pathway, looking up at the great archway that led into the cave.

  Minnie had seen others standing there before, with the same expression on their faces. The man stared up at the great opening with dread and suspicion. Tall wooden posts stood in front of the cave. Small crossbars and supports were nailed over the tops, giving the posts the look of spindly gibbets. Gibbets for cats, they’d have to be.

  “Stretching posts they are,” Minnie told him. “See the ropes slung over them weighted with those stones? Gives our ropes a good stretch that does. Our ropes will last for ever, so my father says.”

  “Ah.” The young man nodded his understanding and stood back to let Minnie pass.

  Rich visitors often came to wonder at the marvels of the cave. Sometimes they spoke in loud disgusted voices, calling the cottages, “hovels” and passing rude remarks about the rope makers’ living conditions. Annie was always quick to reply that they’d fresh air, clean water, plenty of space and the constant plodding exercise of the ropewalks. She’d tell how the Whittinghams and the Dakins and the Marrisons all had folk who’d lived to be very old, and never stopped work till the day they died.

  “In this cave,” Annie would say, “if you live to be five, you’ll live for ever.”

  The young man touched Minnie’s arm as she passed him. “Er, c
an you help me, missy? I’m looking for a guide.”

  “Oh, aye. My sisters can do that.”

  “Your sisters?”

  “Yes, sir. Grand guides my sisters are. You come inside and speak to my father.”

  The man hesitated for a moment, then followed her. He touched her arm again.

  “Here, let me carry tha sticks.”

  Minnie smiled and looked at him again. “You’ll get your fine clothes all messed up.”

  “Not my clothes,” he said, “my master’s clothes, though I wear them. Only mine until next hiring fair.”

  He hesitated again, then stopped. The fear had come back into his eyes. “’Tis not for me this guide I’m after, ’tis for my master. I would not wish to enter such a God-forsaken hole as this.”

  Minnie laughed, somehow feeling cheeky and confident with this ignorant young man. “Come on. Come a little further. There now, look.”

  The man moved forward, then stopped again. His mouth dropped open as he saw the cottages and the ropewalks, and little Maud Whittingham come charging along with the pig that they shared with the Dakin family. Minnie’s sisters were well into their work now, moving faster to warm themselves.

  “See,” said Minnie. “There’s nowt to be afraid of.”

  “Why, ’tis like a little underground town.”

  “Aye, that it is. That’s Dame Whittingham’s, she brews fine ale and runs the inn. And that’s Marcus the weaver, just setting up his loom. We have all we need in here, and a lot more besides. Tell me your name, sir, and I’ll fetch my father to you.” She winked and smiled the way she’d seen Netty and Sally do, for she liked the look of him.

  “Josh, Joshua Eyre.”

  “Ah well, Mr Joshua Eyre, will you please follow me, and stop that peeking at my sisters.”

  She thumbed her nose at him and led the way to their cottage, shouting to her father to come and see the gentleman, giggling at his embarrassment, forgetting completely that she’d heard the devil’s laughter in the night.