The World From Rough Stones

by Malcom Macdonald

  He sipped his sherry and waited. Not once did his eyes stray from Stevenson's.

  "You can do your sums as well as the next man, reverend," Stevenson began.

  "Ah!" Prendergast cut in. "I hoped we'd get to that. You've been earning bonus on driftway and on finished tunnel. Yet you've been paying bonus only to navvies. With two hundred tradesmen on flat rate you must have been doing nicely!"

  Stevenson leaned his head to one side in provisional agreement. "In fact, by my reckoning of the payments we have made to you from the Manchester & Leeds account, and guessing at your outgoings…I estimate that you have never dropped below two thousand pounds reserve." He paused. Stevenson discovered a piece of meat stuck between his teeth; it interested him more than this revelation. "And even if your purchasing has been"—here Prendergast looked across the room toward the fire, where Nora was sitting—"grossly inept, you must still have at least that sum put by. And probably double!" He folded his arms and smiled at the ceiling a smile of deep satisfaction.

  In fishing for the piece of meat, Stevenson's eyes happened to settle briefly on Nora—where they dwelled long enough to catch the faintest shake of her head and the merest hint of a pitying grin. Fortified, he turned again to the priest.

  "Not bad," he confessed. "In point of fact, we have four thousand two hundred and something—odd." Then, filled with admiration, he turned to Nora, openly this time, and added: "Astute gentleman! Didn't I always say it!"

  She nodded, trying to look defeated.

  "And ye've come for what? Fourteen hundred? Your third share? First dividend?"

  "Is that so unreasonable?"

  Stevenson gave a conciliatory nod and waited.

  "You've not been straight with me, Stevenson. You've pleaded poverty and desperation…you…you come to Manchester and I see you eat pies off street sellers…you live in these wretched rooms…you send your wife shopping for iron and timber like any tin-pot village tradesman. And yet, I find you've been making money at the rate of a thousand pounds a month over these last few weeks…"

  "Oh more than that!" Stevenson interrupted cheerfully.

  Both Prendergast and Nora looked at him in astonishment—Nora with some alarm, as well.

  "At least double that," he went on. "The total profit, I estimate, will be within spitting distance of thirty thousand. Ten of them"—he turned a beatific smile on the priest—"for you, reverend doctor. Not a bad return on an outlay of two and a half, eh?"

  "Hm! Words!" Prendergast said. But he was very calm suddenly; his annoyance had vanished and once again he settled to watch Stevenson's every gesture.

  "Words so far. I agree," Stevenson said. "That's what I'm saying. You must now put your purse where your tongue has led you. My four thousand-odd will see me safely through two to three weeks, as I say. I need to see four to five weeks' clear backing if I'm to weather this storm that's now brewing. That'll see the driftway completed. Then we move into a different ocean. But first, d'ye see, I must weather the storm."

  "This strike?"

  "This strike. Another glass of sherry?"

  Prendergast lifted the bottle but did not at once pour.

  "The strike," Stevenson repeated. "Yes. I intend to provoke a strike—now that I know I can count on your backing."

  He took the last bite of pie as Prendergast thumped the bottle down and exploded. A thin spout of golden sherry leaped at the ceiling from the neck of the bottle and fell upon him. Fortunately, his redoubled shout of annoyance masked Nora's sudden, incontinent fit of giggles—which she stayed in midflight by holding her mouth in the sort of grip one might be driven to try on a savage dog. Then she prevented its return by busying herself wiping the doctor down and fetching cloths damped in the ewer by the door.

  Stevenson cleaned off his plate with crusts of bread. "A brief strike now," he said, as if thinking aloud, "lasting a day, say, with the ringleaders resoundingly crushed, then given the maximum sentence—three months, I believe—yes, such a strike would do nothing but good."

  Prendergast, now plainly regretting his intemperate outburst, nodded. "Well, that sounds more reasonable," he conceded. "But can you win?"

  Stevenson looked at him a long, uncomfortable time before he answered. "It's risky," he admitted. "But then—the stakes are big. We'll never reach that profit if I can't rely on the labour. I have to show them now who's master—especially as I've just come up from among them. It's a choice between a pitched battle now or a running skirmish from this day until the opening ceremony."

  Prendergast nodded.

  "I've chosen to stand and fight…"

  "But can you win? I ask it again."

  "Are you with me, reverend? Let's cease this sparring, you and I. There's a much bigger struggle afoot and I need to know who I may count on."

  Now it was Prendergast's turn for a long silence.

  "I'll tell you," Stevenson continued, just before he judged that the other was about to speak. "If you want your fourteen hundred, you may have it. This very hour. I'd write you a bill of exchange now. But if you take it, then it's all Lombard Street to a china orange that we can both kiss goodbye to any profit on this contract. On the other hand, if you support me now, you'll get your due. Every last penny."

  Prendergast had to think again. He wheezed and groaned with indecision. He looked at the windows, the floor, the door handle, the ceiling, as if he hoped each might hold some augury. "I'll go this far," he said at last, "I've had no part in planning this battle of yours. I've not been consulted—if anything, I've been downright misled. So it's your decision. It's your way of doing things. I am bound to say it would not be mine—but, when all's said and done, it's your contract and your labour. So I'll go this far: You deliver these men up to me, have your strike, crush it, deliver the leaders to me, get the rest of them back on your terms, and I promise you—then—that you shall have my two thousand."

  "And the five hundred?" Stevenson pushed it.

  Prendergast smiled, not joyfully. "Contingency reserve," he said.

  Stevenson accepted with a nod. "Why d'you say 'deliver them to you'?" he asked.

  "Have you not heard?" The priest swelled with sudden vanity. "I am now chairman of Rochdale magistrates. Your strikers will come up before me. And it'll be no three months, I can tell you! I'll have them transported. Twelve years. I promise you that."

  "For a one-day strike?" Stevenson said. "That would reek of vengeance, not justice. No—if you want to see your profit out of that tunnel, you'll not help by giving our enemies a martyr. Three months is the very most we need. Six cuts with a birch would be better still."

  Prendergast was not pleased but he offered no argument. Nora could see that something still worried John, something that had struck him as soon as he had learned of Prendergast's chairmanship of the bench at Rochdale.

  "Well"—Prendergast stood suddenly—"it's not what I came here expecting. It's not something I like. But"—he looked hard at Stevenson—"ye leave a man no choice."

  Stevenson spread his hands wide, to stress his plain-dealing honesty. "I'll write you a bill of exchange now, doctor," he offered.

  Prendergast chuckled grimly. "As I say: no choice."

  He took his leave of Nora curtly and went below with Stevenson. "I must also tell you this," he added on the stair. "You can look for no support to the Manchester and Leeds in any of this. You're only an agent of theirs. Legally. You're an appointee, not an independent contractor. We'd have no power to back you with cash. That must be understood."

  Tom Spur, the landlord, came out of a room at the foot of the stair, embarrassed at having been forced to overhear this threat and trying to show by his surprise at seeing them that he had in fact overheard nothing.

  He would have been genuinely surprised if he had seen the relief and then the delight on Stevenson's face as he returned to Nora.

  She scanned his eyes anxiously for some sign of how she was to behave. "Tha'rt a master," she said. "Wi' men. Tha knows just what may be done wi
' 'em; an' tha knows 'ow to do it. A master."

  He jerked his head toward the square, where the dark shape of the priest could just be seen as it merged among the shades of night. "We've not won't war," he said. "It's not even settled yet as we've won't battle. But if yon bloody Churcho-England gets't better on us, I s'll never 'old me 'ead up again."

  It surprised her that he spoke these depressing words with such a hopeful smile.

  She kissed him on the nose, lightly. "You'll beat him," she said. He stood off and looked at her in surprise. "'You'll beat him'!" he quoted in even fancier accents than hers. "What's up wi' thee? Swallowed Dr. Johnson?"

  "Speak proper to me?" she asked. "Like tha does…like you do to yon Church o' England and to Mr. Thornton and them engineers. Those engineers."

  He laughed.

  "Nay," she persisted. "We must talk proper now."

  But when he looked her in the eyes, she plucked up her apron and hid her face in it giggling.

  "Tha'rt serious?" he asked.

  She nodded, still hiding her face. Then, blushing, she lowered the apron and said: "When we're at Rough Stones, we s'll 'ave three or four servants. I can't talk to 'em like what we talk now."

  He saw her point, yet thought it strange that he retained his dialect for better communication with his lads while she, for the equivalent purpose, would have to lose hers. "We s'll start tomorn," he said.

  But there was an element of sadness in the decision. Nora talking like Arabella Thornton would be…well, she wouldn't be Nora any longer.

  "I must go soon," he said. "Tell us what's what."

  He knew from the glint in her eyes that the results were going to be as good as she had promised. "If we're paid only for the finished driftway," she said, speaking carefully, then, seeing him trying to suppress a smile, she punched him hard in the stomach. "I s'll be reet out o' consairt wi' thee, tha slape bloody eel!" She reverted to her thickest dialect. "If tha doan't gi' ower, I s'll put all Yorkshire on thee! Now frame thissen!"

  He composed himself, as she commanded. Only when she was quite sure of him did she begin once more. "If we're paid only for finished driftway, and nothing beside, and if we must pay out all but bricklayers, we shall be back where we began…where I began anygate…in eleven weeks five days."

  "Eleven!" He began a spontaneous little dance of joy that shook the room. She watched him, smiling with pride as if she had created, instead of merely calculated, the situation.

  "Eay!" he said when he came to rest at last. "I thowt eight. But eleven!"

  "That's if we go on as now," she said. "I've ways to push it farther yet."

  "No need, no need lass," he said. "Eleven's all the edge I want. Nay—it's more than I could possibly want."

  "For what?" she asked. "What'll we do?"

  "We'll 'ave our strike an' be done. And then we s'll turn an' face our real enemy." He picked up Prendergast's sherry glass. "See to it that this is smashed," he said.

  After he had gone, she began to worry at what he had said. She hoped that hatred was not going to warp his judgement.

  Chapter 24

  It was almost totally dark by the time he dismounted on the turnpike above the large oval shaft. Even from a distance, as he rounded the bend at Stone House bridge, he could see this was to be no casually arranged, last-minute meeting. Metcalfe's people must have been busy the last few hours making and staking the torches, which burned in a cheerful circle around the rim of the shaft but far enough away to prevent any spills from dropping into the hole. When he drew close, he could see that they had also built a low dais at the eastern rim, above the scaffolding where he had talked to Metcalfe that morning; it was obvious Metcalfe intended to speak from there to the men who were presumably gathered in the shaft below. He began to worry as the realization dawned on him that Metcalfe had stolen the initiative. This was no meeting of twenty-eight bricklayers; something much bigger was afoot. Metcalfe knew what; and he, John Stevenson, didn't.

  Metcalfe waited for him at the edge of the road. "Evening Mr. Stevenson, sir," he said.

  "Somewhat grand to my taste," Stevenson said. "All I come for were a simple yes-no." He dismounted and gave his horse to Baxandall, Metcalfe's apprentice. "Ta, lad," He turned back to Metcalfe. "What is it? Yea or nay?"

  "Full meetin'll tell ye," he answered.

  Stevenson chuckled. "There y'are! The poison already!"

  "Poison?"

  "Aye, lad. The union. I said—it's a poison to come between employer and workman."

  "A shield more like."

  "Where's my union?" Stevenson asked. "Can tha see me an Calley or any other master on this line—can tha see us in't same union? I'd snatch the very bread from 'is mouth afore I'd even sup at't same board."

  Metcalfe shook his head pityingly, pretending to regret Stevenson's inability to comprehend. "The likes of you an Calley need no union," he explained. "Your union is everywhere. All around. It's the law. It's the established Church. It's property. It's the fabric we live in. That's your union. I know I'm risking gaol by this. But if I go, it's your union'll put me there whatever you may call it."

  To Stevenson, it seemed a very feeble line of argument. "It's thine as much as mine," he pointed out. "Every bit as much. Diligence, thrift, honesty, an' luck—they'll get thee inside. It's open to all men on them terms." He faced Metcalfe with every sign of sincerity and, gripping his arm, added: "An' I'll tell thee Tom Metcalfe—I've 'ad this contract long enough to say it'll make no great fortune, but if we do nowt daft, it'll pay well enough. Then we s'll be on to bigger an' better work. That's when I s'll need good men. I don't speak idly now—tha knows I'm a man o' my word. An' I say I've gotten thee marked for a brisk future." He stood back a little and gave the man's arm an encouraging shake. "What do'st say?"

  He turned so as to bring Metcalfe's face into full light. As he expected, it formed a perfect mask of contempt and anger. "I'd say," he responded coldly, "that ye've told me everything I wanted to know."

  "Tha'llt not join me?" Stevenson began a slow stroll toward the amphitheatre of the oval shaft.

  Walking seemed to mellow Tom Metcalfe, for he answered with none of the contempt Stevenson had just noticed. "Thou're a good man, Lord John. And a good master as masters go. But the union's my lodestar and the only salvation I see for the working class. This isn't Metcalfe versus Stevenson. There's none of that in it. This is the working class versus capital and privilege."

  Stevenson shook his head. "Eay—poor old working class! Send us a ticket for't funeral."

  They were now at the western edge of the shaft, skirting around it to the dais at the far end. As soon as they were seen from below, the foot of the shaft was transformed into a sea of bobbing faces. A great, ironic cheer went up—with, Stevenson noted in some shock, a good mixture of jeers and catcalls. He looked sharply down. His heart gave a lurch. There must be over a hundred people down there—more than he had ever addressed in his life!

  His immediate urge was to run.

  Angry at his cowardice, he wanted to vent that anger on Metcalfe. And then, like the sudden lifting of a mist, he felt the resurgence of his own unbounded confidence. He looked back at that sea of faces, still cheering and booing, and thought "How can I put all that to my advantage?" And though he could spell out no immediate plan, he knew that Tom Metcalfe was going to regret this day's work. The jeering, he had time to notice, came mainly from the bricklayers at the back of the crowd, farthest from the dais.

  "Ye've gotten them all," he said lightly.

  Metcalfe smiled in triumph. "Every last man. They've all come to listen an' learn. I hope I may have gotten them, too."

  "Ye'll press this to the end then?"

  "To the bitter end." Metcalfe mounted the dais and threw up his hands in a dramatic gesture that quickly brought silence. "Brothers!" His voice rang across the shaft.

  And thou, Stevenson thought to himself, 'ave told me just what I needed to know.

  "Brothers! Mr. Stevenson, as
ye know, has agreed to come here tonight like, and put this latest offer of his to us."

  While Metcalfe spoke a simple introduction, Stevenson searched around in the mud and grass tussocks behind the dais for the rope. He soon found it, still tied to its stake. He picked it up, came to the edge of the dais, and squatted to feed the rope over the wall of the shaft.

  "I've put't offer," he said loudly but conversationally. "What I come 'ere for was't reply." He stood and dusted his hands.

  "I wanted them to hear it from you," Metcalfe answered, not realizing what Stevenson had been doing.

  "You wanted? Then you shall get," Stevenson promised. And with the same agility he had shown that morning, he grasped the rope and, plummeting down the side of the shaft, landed lightly on the scaffold. It brought a chorus of gasps, laughter, and cheers.