World From Rough Stones

by Malcolm Macdonald

  "Now!" Stevenson said.

  The fair navvy lifted the handles of the barrow and blew a piercing whistle. The horse at the top of the bank did not need the touch of its driver's switch to set it off at a frantic near-gallop. The slack in the rope took up and the barrow lurched with a jerk that must have torn at the navvy's shoulders even as it slowed the horse to a labouring trot. Pulled from before and guided from behind, the barrow flew up the plank as if it had been shot from a spring. When it reached the top, the navvy adroitly turned it to one side of the roller and, when it was past and on the level, threw it over on its back so that it disgorged its payload in one well-conserved pile.

  "Four hundredweight or more in that," Stevenson said. Then, just as the navvy righted the barrow and prepared to return to the foot of the cutting, he called out "Yorky! Yorky Slen!"

  The navvy halted, turned, and then ran quickly to them.

  "Aye?" he asked.

  Now that he was close she could see that he was almost too drunk to stand. His bloodshot eyes crept slowly west and shot back east with a mechanical regularity; they could fix on nothing they saw—if, indeed, they could see anything. His laboured breath filled the air with juniper, aniseed, and gin. She shuddered to imagine the mixture—and the quantities—that must have slid down the furry gullet he now bared at them.

  "'Ow long 'ave ye navvied, Yorky?" Stevenson asked.

  "Eight year. Nine come January. Began on't Manchester-Liverpool."

  Stevenson turned to her with pride. "He's been on as many railroads as any man in the kingdom. An aristocrat of the line is our Yorky."

  "How many times a day do you do that—what you just did?" she asked.

  "Make't running," Stevenson interposed.

  "Eee—twenty, thirty, forty. Depends, see, on't 'ight o't cuttin and't rate't muck loads."

  She barely understood him. "Have you never slipped?" she asked.

  Yorky looked fuddled.

  "'As 'e never!" Stevenson exclaimed. "A week or more back. Yorky 'ere lay trapped on yon far bank wi' four ton o' rock on 'im. 'E were back at work next day." He smiled and nodded at Yorky. "Look at 'im. Forgotten already 'e 'as!"

  "Oh-ah!" Yorky said, though, to judge from the thin degree of confidence in his voice, only the dimmest memory filtered through.

  "How extraordinary," Arabella said. "Do you like this work?"

  "S'all reet. For a labourin' man it's't king o' trades. I mun go now."

  "Aye Yorky lad," Stevenson agreed. "Off ye go."

  He looked at her and said "Ma'am" before he lurched away and, picking up his barrow, ran unerringly backward down the running.

  "They're on bonus, ye understand," Stevenson explained the haste. "Keen not to lose on the day's measure."

  "He was intoxicated!" she said, hoping to convey not only her shock but her disapproval that Stevenson would present a man in that condition to her.

  The lad who had been with the horses came back into the light, stooped to pick up something, and ran again into the tunnel.

  "See where that young fellow bent down? That's the very summit o' the line. Stand a penny on edge there and it would split in two trying to decide whether to roll back down to Manchester or on to Normanton."

  Arabella, not liking this change of subject, made a little throat-clearing noise. Stevenson turned and looked steadily at her. After only a few seconds of this inspection her instinct was to look away; but a stubbornness within impulsively set her to stare him out. He broke slowly into a smile.

  "Intoxicated, eh?" he said at length. "Does it worry you?"

  "Very much. Very particularly." She bridled.

  He became serious again. "Good," he said. "I hope that's a fact."

  "I am not in the habit of lying."

  "What if I tell you that every mile of railroad costs a thousand pounds in beer and spirits alone."

  "I'd question your…" she began, and faltered.

  "My veracity," he said, to spare her the embarrassment of finishing. "I wouldn't blame ye. It's an astonishing figure. Yet I've known lines where it would be an underestimate. Here's a case." He pointed at the tunnel. "There's seven hundred pound a week goes in wages on this contract. At least a third goes out again to the jerry shops and public houses."

  Arabella's incredulous stare encouraged him. "There's thirty pubs and eighteen jerry shops—to my knowledge—in Todmorden alone."

  "Gracious! And we have taken a house there! I must tell Mr. Thornton at once."

  He shook his head. "Ye'll not find a less drunken town, I promise. These places here"—he pointed at the succession of hamlets strung out up the valley— "they're far worse. Far and away. There's no quality to set an example." He looked at her sharply as he spoke these last words.

  "How truly dreadful!" she said.

  "If I was to take you along these workings and give you a guinea for every completely sober man we met, ye'd come out a pauper."

  "Why don't you simply forbid it?"

  He laughed at her naivety. "After the…accident, I forbade gin and other spirits anywhere there's shot firing. That near caused a riot. But if I forbade beer and cider, they'd walk off to some other contract."

  "Then you must pay them less. It is quite patent they receive too much if they can spend a third of it in liquor."

  He merely shook his head at that. "No answer," he said.

  She looked across the cutting, near to where an aqueduct carried a stream above the line. "Why, there are two over there in a dead stupor," she said.

  He followed her gaze and frowned. Then his brow cleared. "Oh no. That's something else entirely," he told her. "Ye were asking where we get our navvies—and I said we make 'em." He nodded at the two ragged, supine figures. "There's two in the making. Come and see."

  "You are certain they are not intoxicated?" she asked; but she was already following. They walked over the thin, earth vault of Deanroyd tunnel to the eastern bank of the cutting.

  When they were closer, and she could see the pitiable condition of the two men, her heart softened.

  "On yer feet lads," Stevenson shouted, firmly rather than harshly.

  "Oh—poor fellows! Please don't get up!"

  They paid no attention to her, but got up as Stevenson had ordered. "There," he said. "Not as much fat on em as'd grease a gimlet!"

  "They seem at death's door," she said, staring at them in horrified fascination. Their clothing was ragged enough to border on the indecent.

  "They'll not die," Stevenson said confidently. "Will ye lads?"

  "No, sir," they said together.

  "No, sir," he echoed and then turned to the taller, a young labourer with few teeth, mostly rotten. "Well, Darbishire—still set on navvyin'?"

  "Yessir!" he said anxiously.

  "And you, Walsh?" Stevenson turned to the other.

  "Aye, sir." He blinked continuously; one eye was almost crusted over with malignant skin.

  "And when ye draw down yer first wage, what'll be't first thing ye buy wi' it?"

  "Steel shovels, sir," Walsh said, looking ruefully at his own poor wooden shovel, still lying in the grass.

  "An steel-shod boots," Darbishire added.

  Stevenson nodded approval and turned to Arabella. "Look at this, ma'am." He bent and picked up Walsh's shovel, handling it with contemptuous care. "They come off their farms with these toys, and their soft boots. Lift up yer feet, Darbishire. Show the lady." Darbishire obliged; his feet were shod in soft, torn, almost shapeless patches of leather. "See? And they hope to match the steel of men like Yorky Slen there. Drunk or sober it'd take eight o' these starvelings to meet him." He looked sadly at them; they smiled hopefully back. "Back to work!" he ordered.

  They obeyed without demur.

  "Oh but they can't," Arabella protested. "They're shivering with fatigue."

  "Ye may consider me hard, ma'am. But tis the navvy's catechism. They'll work till they drop. And tomorn. And the next day. And the next. And so on—every day for a week. And if after that
they still want to navvy, they'll be taken into the brotherhood. It's spirit makes a navvy. Long before he builds the muscle to support it."

  "How dreadful!" she said, her eyes still fixed on the bent, exhausted shapes of the two labourers.

  Stevenson raked his gaze over the hills around. "Blame the farmers who paid them starvation wages—and the parish unions that drove them on and out."

  She bit her lip. "Oh dear," she said. "One does not think. One just does not think. I heard my own father lately praise our parish beadle for sending so many mendicants on and saving the poor rate."

  "For saving coin," he said and, pointing at the two scarecrows, now going on all fours down the bank, added: "Well—here's the other side of that same coin. Tarnished, as ye see, to some depth."

  She nodded in sad agreement.

  "Yet," he said, brightening, "here is where they earn back their self-respect. So, if ye've any pity, save it for those who never reach us. Come next Easter and ye'll not recognize those two starvelings. And they'll crack the heads of any dozen parish beadles. And none but another navvy'll restrain 'em!"

  "You're proud of them!" she said in surprise; and immediately she wondered why he should not be. She hastened to explain: "For us, the navvy is a creature of…"

  He interrupted. "I am one of 'em, ma'am. I've endured that same terrible baptism. Believe me, I know how muscles feel when tortured beyond their natural stretch, the stupidity that builds out of habitual starvation, the despair that's fed on rotten victuals…" He vanished into a private reverie; she dared not break the silence between them. When he returned he looked momentarily lost. "Aye—I'm one of 'em," he repeated. "And to me they're the salt o' the earth. And if there's wealth to come from their weal, I'll see they have their share."

  His materialism shocked her; moving though his sentiments were. "Wealth without the light and love of God," she said, "is as dust and ashes. Besides—what if they just drink more heavily?"

  He took no offence. "I'm glad we've come back to that," he said. "The drink is a problem…"

  But further words were cut short by her sudden cry of pain. In the rough grass of the bank she had turned her ankle. She all but fainted, the hurt was so intense.

  "Your ankle?" he asked, grasping her elbow.

  She nodded and bit her lip; his firm grip calmed her. A light sweat started on her brow.

  "Can you hop, if I hold your elbow?"

  She tried. "Yes."

  "Then try and make it to the top of the bank. There's cold running water there. Get your foot in that."

  She did as he suggested and found it quite easy. The lift he gave her to boost each hop was like flying. The stream ran only a few yards away from the top of the cutting and she was soon sitting on its bank. Gingerly, she eased off her shoe and then realized she would get her stocking wet. "My stocking!" she said.

  "Get cold," he ordered. "Every moment's delay makes it worse."

  The throbbing pain was, indeed, getting worse. Reluctantly, she obeyed.

  "I'll send for Mr. Thornton," he said, but made no actual move to do so.

  The cold water brought an immense relief. Soon she could jog her foot up and down without provoking extra pain.

  "Does that hurt?" he asked.

  She shook her head and held out a hand for him to help her up.

  "I'd better have a look at it," he said when her foot was clear of the water.

  She looked around to see if this was just another piece of his tasteless humour and realized with horror that all this time they had been—and were still—out of view of the workings and, in fact, of any nearby house. Her mounting panic was not helped by the realization that he was perfectly serious in his intention. "No!" she said. "Oh please!"

  He let his arm fall, so that she sat involuntarily. "Be still!" he said. "I've tended more sprains and fractures than you've had vapours."

  "Fractures!" she cried out in even greater alarm. "Oh—please send for Mr. Thornton. Oh, Mr. Stevenson! Please no! Oh, who can see us?"

  But he already had her foot in his strong, competent hands. "Does that"—he flexed it—"hurt more than that?" He pointed her toes inward.

  "Ouch!"

  "We're out of sight so calm your fears. Can you move your toes?"

  Dumbly, beginning to feel just a little ashamed of the fuss she was making, she obeyed.

  "Hurt?" He watched her face.

  She shook her head. He was very like a doctor in his manner. Very distant.

  "Good. Now make as if to clench your foot." Still he kept his eyes on her face, though he held her foot firmly in his hand. "Excellent," he said. "And what if I stretch it…so?" He pulled gently on her heel until he saw her wince. "Sorry." He let the foot return to its natural position. "Well, ma'am, nothing broken. Just a strain on that side. The ligament, you see"—still his eyes fixed hers—"runs from there all the way…up…"

  "Mr. Stevenson!" She broke the spell when his caress reached beyond her calf. "I'll thank you to confine your anatomy lesson to…in fact, to conclude it entirely."

  Later he regretted having taken such a liberty. But she was such a green little saint that only another green little saint could have resisted the chance to tease her.

  All injured innocence he froze—conveniently leaving his hand where it was. Beneath her anger, which was only superficial, she felt a calm contempt: The superhuman Mr. Stevenson was very human after all—as human as the elderly men she and her mother used to take scraps to in the parish. They used to stroke her situpon whenever they got the chance. He was as human and as harmless as they. "You poor old gentleman!" she said.

  She was instantly rewarded to see him blush; no other words of hers could have reduced and humbled him so swiftly. He snatched his hand away and stood awkwardly, looking down at her, and measuring her with a new respect in his eyes. Or so she thought—but he spoiled it by breaking just as suddenly into a shameless grin.

  "I see nothing to smirk at!" she said.

  He walked away a pace or two to retrieve her shoe. When he bent to put it on her she snatched it from him and pulled it on by herself.

  He went to the top of the bank. "Yorky Slen! Bacca! Look brisk lads!" he called.

  She stood unaided, tested the ankle, and winced. Her being shrank at the thought of asking his help.

  "A bloom off a pruned bush is seldom missed," he said, as if to the air.

  Fortunately for both of them, she did not grasp his meaning—then or later.

  "Aye?" Yorky's voice came up from below, out of sight to her. Stevenson jerked his head in her direction. "Mrs. Thornton's hurt her ankle. Fetch the litter and bring…"

  "The what?" Yorky interrupted.

  "Dead man's phaeton," Stevenson translated. "An' bring me cloak from't linesman's hut."

  She heard them run off.

  "An' send one o them others fer't gaffer. Gaffer Thornton."

  "Aye!" Yorky Slen's voice drifted back from a fair distance off. For a while they stood in silence, Stevenson looking up the line, Arabella trying to make it appear that she stood still by choice and could easily walk away if it became expedient. Then she realized that this would be a good moment to disabuse this man of any ideas he may have developed. "Mr. Stevenson," she said, "I do not know the class of person you are accustomed to mingle with. But I wish you to understand that I neither welcome nor enjoy such advances. As you are so close a…an associate of my husband's, we cannot avoid occasionally meeting in such a small place as this, but I…" She began to falter; how she wished he would not stare so! "I would be obliged…" His eyes! Really it was most disconcerting— just when she wanted him to feel uncomfortable. "I must ask you not to stare so…please!"

  But he was not laughing. There was no mirth in his eyes, no sardonic twist at the corners of his mouth. "I owe you an apology." He spoke clearly and with every appearance of deep conviction. "A very sincere, very humble apology."

  This was almost worse than his insolence. "Well," she said, firm again. "Let's say no more."


  "I took you for a…" he looked away. "Well—no matter." Then he turned suddenly back to her and said with great urgency: "There's a power in you that's…waiting. Held in check as yet. God help whatever you choose to unleash it on."

  His intensity was very disturbing. "Whatever meagre power I have," she said, "I intend to 'unleash' it, as you put it, on my husband, my home, and any family the Lord may see fit to bless us with."