Children of Fire

by Paul CW Beatty

  Josiah was astonished, what could Mr Prestbury know or care to know about such a small religious group. ‘Not very much Sir. They are an independent sect.’

  Prestbury smiled in a sneering sort of way. ‘Extraordinary, a Methody calling someone else’s meeting a sect. Do you know any of their members?’

  ‘No Sir.’

  ‘Have you ever been to one of their meetings?’

  ‘No Sir. But several members of the Tiviot Dale chapel have attended.’

  ‘And what do they say about them?’

  ‘They have been greatly taken by the preaching of their leader.’

  ‘Ah yes, the flamboyant and charismatic Elijah Bradshawe. Do they note anything specific about him?’

  ‘That he’s very inspiring. They make reference to his concern for the mill workers, especially the children. Pardon me for asking Sir, but why are you interested in the Children of Fire? They are based at Long Clough which I thought was outside our jurisdiction.’

  Prestbury looked at Josiah and scowled. ‘Do not be impertinent, Constable. I do not need to be reminded by you about the geographical limitations of my authority. I will content myself with pointing out I am your employer and I can dismiss you at any time.’

  Time to be a little more cautious thought Josiah. It would not do for him to give Prestbury an easy way of dismissing him.

  ‘Beg pardon, Sir.’

  Momentarily Prestbury looked pensive. ‘The fact is the matter is unofficial but I suppose I must share the details with you if you are to aid me effectively. I have been contacted by an old friend of mine, Steven Hailsworth. He is not in good health and he is very concerned about his son, Abram, who is the owner of the Furness Vale Powder Mill.’

  The name stirred Josiah’s memory. ‘Was that where there was a bad explosion earlier in the year, Sir?’

  ‘Yes. There were several deaths, and the Mill was put out of production for three months for rebuilding and repairs. They are just about to start production again.’

  ‘Is there a connection between the Mill and the Children of Fire?’

  ‘There has been long running tension between Bradshawe and the local cotton mill owner Mr Celeb Arlon. As the members of your chapel noticed, Bradshawe preaches against child labour in the cotton industry. He has often attacked Arlon on those grounds but he has recently ranged his rhetorical guns against the younger Hailsworth in connection with the powder mill. Mr Steven Hailsworth is worried that the Children of Fire are stirring up discontent against the powder mill that might threaten its reopening. I’m minded to send you to find out if his fears are justified.’

  Josiah was surprised. ‘Why me, Sir?’

  ‘Because as the most recent recruit to the force you are the least likely to be recognised as a Peeler and you are the one who can be most easily spared,’ and dismissed if it all goes wrong, Josiah thought.

  Prestbury continued. ‘Go there incognito, make contact with the Children of Fire, get to know them, especially Bradshawe, and then report back to me so I can advise my friend what is to be done.’

  Josiah’s heart sank, but he did his best to put on a good face. ‘Thank you, Sir. How long may I take?’

  Prestbury thought for a moment. ‘Let us say a week. Finish today’s duties and start for Long Clough tomorrow.’

  Josiah saluted and half turned to go but Prestbury had not finished. For a moment, he seemed unusually unsure of himself and spoke softly.

  ‘Do it all without revealing the involvement of this force or me. You are not even to make yourself known to the Hailsworths. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Yes Sir.’

  3

  The Road to Long Clough

  He is lying with his back to a sycamore tree. The sky is alive with twinkling stars; the constellations of Orion, the Great Bear and Cygnus are all visible. The camp is in a clearing. It is the day he finished the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella. In his mouth is the taste of stewed rabbit, olives, herbs and red wine.

  Figures are coming and going in the soft light of a fire; the Egyptian folk with whom he travels. Somewhere off to his left a guitar starts to play. The women rise to dance before the fire, arms outstretched, tossing their heads and swirling their hips in the flamenco. He takes another mouthful of wine.

  The scene shifts to midday in the piazza in front of the cathedral. Everywhere movement, life and colour. The bells are ringing to welcome the pilgrims at the end of their quest. He is happy, proud and relieved to have decided that he will serve God as the minister his father wants.

  Back to the clearing. Maria is standing in front of him, pretty, sad-eyed Maria. The next moment she is dancing, backwards and forwards, hair swirling, hips swaying, fingers sensual and expressive. Her movements become more intense and thrilling as the music and singing grows in pace. She kneels before him and, taking his hands, pulls him to his feet.

  He knows he should stop her; he has seen what this gesture means. Maybe it is the wine or the sense of relief in having made his choice. He gets to his feet. She dances round him, getting closer and closer, her hair and body brushing him, pushing against him. The music stops, she draws him to her, kisses him and pulls him away into the soft, warm night, out of earshot or sight of the camp.

  The dream disintegrated. Faces, his adopted father and mother Martha and Rev. Cooksley, his long dead natural father and mother, Mary and Michael O’Carroll, even Mr Prestbury were screaming one word at him over and over again: fornicator.

  Josiah woke with start. His heart was pounding and he is sweating. It had taken him a minute or so to calm down, to control the sense of panic.

  He couldn’t sleep again. For the rest of the night he was either wracked with guilt about Maria or fretting about his unsuitability for his assignment given him by Mr Prestbury. Only as the clock on St Mary’s chimed six and Sergeant Smith knocked on his door to make sure he was ready to go, was he able to put the dream behind him and concentrate on his journey to Long Clough.

  ‘Stick to the plan we’ve discussed,’ Smith had advised him. ‘Take your time. You should get to the Children of Fire’s place at about midday. The sun came up fair as anything this morning, so it’s going to be hot. When you get there, you should easily pass yourself off as a traveller interested in a bit of casual work. Asking for water’s always a good ruse to get your foot in a door. They’ll be in the middle of haymaking and in need of extra help so it shouldn’t be too difficult.’

  ‘Thanks, Nathaniel,’ Josiah had said.

  ‘Josiah, the thanks I want is seeing you succeed. Remember, if you need help, especially if you don’t want Prestbury to know about it, then give a note to my brother. He comes through Marple on the mail coach from Sheffield twice a week. He’ll pass on any messages you might need to send. Now get going and good luck.’

  Josiah had picked his way through narrow back streets of the town until he found the turnpike to the southeast. As he had walked, his surroundings gradually changed. The air became less smoky, the road became more country than town.

  By mid-morning he was resting in the shade of trees next to a stream at the bottom of the steep hill up to Marple. He was now only a few miles north-east of Long Clough and the walking had been steady and relatively easy, though it would be a bit more hilly from here. He wiped his neck and face with a kerchief he’d wetted in the stream. Then he picked up the light travelling pack and the thumbstick he had with him and started up the hill.

  He found Marple its usual busy self. He walked up the short main street and made for the bridge that went over the canal junction. At Marple, coal from mines to the south met limestone from the Peak District. This confluence had made Marple a major centre for making quicklime. He could see all the chaos, filth and noise of the process from the bridge.

  The quicklime kilns belched a combination of steam and black smoke into the blue sky. The soot from the kiln f
ires polluted everything it touched so that the chimneystacks, the tops of the kilns and the roofs of the sheds were blackened. In contrast, the white dust from breaking the limestone into small enough pieces to be fed into the kilns, gave a dazzling white patina below the soot-line.

  In the canal basin that served the kilns, the lime dust touched the bargemen and women as they struggled to keep their boats in the queues for offloading stone or taking on the lime. They looked like old people, their faces, hands, clothing and hair all grey with the lime dust. Children could only be distinguished from the adults by size and the quickness of their movements. Even the barge ponies looked prematurely aged.

  The last detail in this dreadful scene was the cacophony from the basin. It was a continuous blend of the noise of the machinery used to crush the limestone with disputes and arguments between the bargees. It struck Josiah that if Dante had seen the Marple lime kilns, they would have featured in the Inferno.

  He walked on along the canal. In no more than half-a-mile, he found a footpath that went down through trees to the bank of the River Goyt.

  Here, the river flowed slowly over broad, flat, shelves of rock and meandered round lazy bends. On one bend was a stone bridge that curved in a shallow arc over the river. When he arrived, the bridge was occupied by three packhorses, led by an old man. The horses were making slow progress, despite the attentions of a boy who brought up the rear and encouraged them along with an occasional prod from a switch of hazel.

  The man led the first two ponies off the bridge as Josiah watched, but the boy was having trouble with the third, which had got to the centre of the bridge but then stubbornly refused to move. It seemed that it had been mesmerised by the flowing water. While they waited the man nodded to Josiah. ‘Good day,’ he said.

  ‘Good day,’ Josiah replied.

  ‘Goin’ far?’

  ‘Long Clough,’ said Josiah.

  The man spat into the river. ‘Visitin’ the Children of Fire?’

  ‘As it happens, yes.’

  ‘You be careful, lad. Them’s a rum lot to my mind.’ He jabbed his thumb in the direction from which he’d come.

  ‘The old packhorse route goes hard by their farm. Since I came that way last, them’s built a great big cross ’bove Pulpit Rock. I don’t hold with such things; crosses on churches perhaps but not on any old ’ill.’ He spat into the river again.

  The boy had stirred the third horse into motion. It came slowly but carefully down from the bridge. The man got the horses back in line and they set off upstream.

  Josiah crossed and followed the packhorse route. The continuous passage of many horses over the years had worn the track down to the bedrock. Its surface was rough and strewn with loose stones and small boulders. The fact was that the packhorse track was falling into disrepair, practically all of its traffic having been taken long ago by the canal.

  As well as the feeling of dilapidation, the path was hot and oppressive in the midday heat. It was hemmed in by trees on one side and dry-stone walls on the other. Josiah had no view of the hills in front of him or even the river behind, nothing to lift his spirits. Discovering this fracture in his resilience back came the memories: his unfitness and a policeman, his guilt about Maria. It was if he was being unfair to himself. He had a positive reason for joining, something he had witnessed which had convinced him of the need of an organisation such as a police force before he had ever heard of one.

  At last the track released him and he suddenly emerged onto flatter, open grassland. A boundary wall drew his eyes to a small knot of trees which sheltered a farmhouse at the base of a jagged, stone cliff running roughly north-south. The face of the cliff was canted backwards so it looked as if a series of slabs of different sizes had been placed irregularly against a massive wall. About half a mile or so to the south of the farm, about twenty feet up, a large overhang with a flat top intruded through the slabs, Pulpit Rock. Above it a further sixty feet up, on the edge of the cliff, was a huge wooden cross, beside which, was what looked like, a bell mounted on a trestle.

  It was the perfect place for outdoor preaching with plenty of places to sit amongst the rocks at the feet of the preacher. The dramatic cross, betrayed a mind that appreciated a spectacular gesture, to go with natural perfection.

  As Josiah studied his objective, he disturbed a small brown bird from the shade of a wall. It hopped away from him and then took to the air. It circled round and round, rising higher and higher. Then it shortened its wing beats and started to hover and it sang, churring and jarring to the whole of the Furness Vale.

  Josiah was captivated by the skylark as it sang, hovered and ascended. He watched, eyes shaded against the sunshine, as the bird became no more than a barely visible dot. Finally, when it was far above the level of cliff and cross, it gave a flourish of song, stiffened its wings and glided back to earth in quick silence.

  As Josiah traced its dive as it bisected the view he had of the cross. The momentary thought came to him that the bird was like a pilgrim who had flown heavenwards to know God better and offer its praise more directly. Part of his reason for travelling had been to do the same. His effort had failed and he felt a pang of jealousy for the bird, comparing its perfection to his fallen state.

  4

  The Community

  Long Clough was bigger than Josiah had appreciated from the view over the fields. It was not simply one farm, more a small hamlet. The farmhouse was an imposing building. It was solid and full-square, with four mullioned windows on the first floor and two larger ones on the ground. It had a central front door with a portico on carved doorposts, all built of the fine-grained, pink sandstone of the area.

  Next to the farmhouse stood a small chapel, above the door of which was a black plaque with white letters: Bethel J T 1801. Whoever JT had been, it was a fine memorial to him and his faith.

  The downstairs windows of the farmhouse were open, and a girl was happily singing a hymn. The voice was light and the singer happy; who would not be in such a place? Swallows flicked and skidded their way round house, chapel and under the trees. The hedges had more than their fair share of finches, warblers and throstles. Josiah pushed open the garden gate and walked down the path. He knocked and the singing stopped. After a few seconds the door opened and there was the girl.

  She was not the down to earth, bucolic milkmaid, used to hard physical labour he had expected. Though she was flushed from the efforts of her work and there were wisps of untidy hair floating over her oval face, that was as far as earthiness went. This girl was tall and slim, with dark golden hair and hazel eyes. The hands she was wiping had long fingers. He guessed that like him she was in her early twenties or perhaps a little younger. She was beautiful and the increase in his pulse rate indicated that it wasn’t merely an intellectual assessment. She wore an inquisitive look, accompanied by a friendly smile.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she said.

  ‘Well I was passing and it’s a hot day. I wondered if I could beg some water.’

  ‘Of course, our pump is in the backyard. You are welcome to come and drink or wash if you need to get the dust of the road from yourself. We pride ourselves on our hospitality. All are welcome to Long Clough.’

  Inside, the house was as unexpected as the girl. The front door did not lead to a corridor between living rooms but directly into a stoutly flagged, capacious kitchen. On the right was a black metal range with a fire. Hooks to the ceiling held a variety of iron and copper pans. Opposite the door was a fine oak sideboard, heavily carved and decorated with mouldings. Daylight came in from leaded windows in the back wall.

  The girl led him up two steps into a second, high-beamed room with a long table. From this room was a corridor that led to storerooms and finally a washhouse, complete with a steaming copper and a basket of washing.

  ‘You are welcome to whatever you need,’ she said, indicating a sunlit door at the end of the cor
ridor.

  Josiah emerged into a cobbled courtyard with a pump over a trough. Taking off his pack and putting down his walking stick he pumped out water with one hand as he ladled it into his mouth with the other. It was cold and tasted slightly earthy but it was clear and pure. Having slaked his thirst, he rolled back the collar of his shirt and drenched his head under the full force of the pump.

  ‘You look as though you needed that.’

  He had not heard her coming, probably because his head was under the water. He did not know how long she had been watching him, which made him feel uncomfortable. Perhaps his attraction was far too visible to her.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. He laughed awkwardly and cursed himself for his sudden nervousness. He had negotiated his way into jobs on farms dozens of times while on his travels. He had chatted happily with young women in exactly these circumstances without embarrassment and he’d done it in French or Spanish. Now, being aware of his attraction to Rachael made him nervous and uncertain despite his desire to be seen as confident and experienced.

  She smiled and handed a towel to him. ‘When you’ve dried yourself would you mind helping me hang out the washing?’

  ‘It would be my pleasure,’ he said. He held out a wet hand to her. ‘My name is Josiah. What is yours?’

  ‘I am Rachael, Sister Rachael.’

  ‘Sister? If I may say so, that’s a strange way for a young woman to describe herself.’

  She laughed. ‘I suppose it is. I’m so familiar with it I suppose I don’t notice that it might sound odd to a stranger like yourself. I am a member of a religious community here in Long Clough. We’re called the Children of Fire. We’re intent on living from the land, praising God and serving our neighbours. We call each other Brother and Sister. You may have heard of us?’

  ‘No, can’t say I have. I’m not from these parts. Just passing through, searching for work and seeing the country.’