A Dinner Of Herbs (5 page)

“Aye. Aye, I recognized him, young Greenbank, that was.”

“Aye, young Greenbank. Well it’s a certainty he’s got to be that was, as you say, else God help us

both. Do you understand what I mean?” He had spoken much more quietly, and the

smaller man

peered at him through the dappled moonlight, but he gave no answer, he just drooped his chin onto his

chest and listened as his companion said, “There’s one thing we can thank God for: heavy rain often

causes bits of landslides in this particular hole in the ground. Now, over with him.”

“Wh... what?”

“Well’—the voice was loud in its hissing ‘what shall we do? Leave him here to recover, and the lad an’

all Get his legs!”

It took them all their time to lift the body from where it lay across the narrow path and to the edge of the

quarry. Then with a heave they let go of it and waited, their own bodies bent forward as they peered

downwards towards the water.

The sound that came to them now was of a soft thump, then the dislodging of rocks. But the rumbling

lasted only a matter of seconds.

They had both turned from the edge of the quarry when the sound of the boy’s choked

cry and that of

voices coming from the distance brought them crouching low. Quickly but quietly and

still crouched, the

big man moved towards the clearing, and seeing the boy about to scramble away grabbed

him; then

holding him as if cradling a baby, he kept his hand tightly over his mouth.

The voices came nearer but their words were in distinguishable, and became more so as

they then

moved further away.

The boy’s eyes were wide and he was looking up into the face of the man who was

holding him. It was

a different face from the one he had seen before, the thin face. This was a big face with heavy black

brows and a beard, and eyes which looked enormous. He had no hat on his head and his

hair hung

down over his ears. It too was black.

“Quick!” the man hissed back to his companion, and straightening himself up while still keeping his hand

over the boy’s mouth, he brought his other hand sideways on to the child’s head just

below his ear. The

body went limp in his hands, and he carried it to the edge of the quarry and dropped it over. He did not

wait to hear its fall but, taking two steps to the right of him, he pulled at a sapling that was growing out of

the side of the quarry, heaving it backwards and forwards. At last he wrenched it from the ground, then

jumped back to the safety of the path.

It wasn’t until he felt the ground under him shudder that once more he sprang back, and only just in time,

for within seconds the loosened earth and rocks were bounding their way down to the

bottom of the

quarry. The passers-by, two miners on their way to High Stublick colliery, were on the track leading to

Kate’s cottage when they heard the distant rumbling, and they stopped for a moment and one said, “You

listen to that. That’s the quarry talkin’ again. Good job it didn’t speak when we were on its neck, eh?”

“Aye,” said the other.

“Could have been nasty. Safer in the pit.” And they both laughed.

Kate was angry. She had made a part of broth and mixed up some dumplings ready to

drop into it the

minute they entered the door, because although the days were warm, the nights could be biting. But the

twilight passed into darkness and when they didn’t put in an appearance, she imagined

that Bill Lee had

been brewing up his own beer again, and this had set their tongues wagging loosely, and there they were

jabbering away recalling old times, older in Peter’s case, but nevertheless recognizable to both of them.

But when ten o’clock came, which was far past her bedtime because she went to bed with the fading

light and rose with the dawning of it, she became vexed.

She had made up a bed for him on the floor near the fire:

an old tick stuffed with straw could have the feeling of down when a man was tired, and a boy too, as

they both must be after their day’s tramping. But when it neared midnight and they still hadn’t put in an

appearance, her annoyance turned to anger; for although she reasoned that Peter had

drunk so much that

he had thought it better to bed down there than tackle the quarry road back, and the boy with him,

nevertheless, he had put her out.

She lay on her bed awake for some time until her reason said she couldn’t imagine the

beer that Bill

could brew would have the power to knock Peter out, for, him being a sailor, he was used to his rum and

such.

She dozed at intervals, but before the dawn broke she was sitting on the edge other bed, her thin lips

munching backwards and forwards portraying her anxiety, and asking herself why that

odd feeling of

foreboding that she experienced in times of crisis should be on her. Could anything have happened to

them both? But what could have happened around here? True, the men at times were

rowdy, although

not so bad nowadays since they were living in respectable cottages and each with his stint of land.

“Twas only on the pay-days, when they would go as far as Hexham one way or Allendale

the other, that

they got out of hand. And anyway, a man such as Peter could certainly take care of

himself.

She rose from the bed and blew up the dying embers of the fire and heated some goat’s

milk into which

she dropped some pieces of bread and goat’s cheese. But before she was halfway through it she found

she had no appetite for it, and so, getting into her clothes and taking her shawl from the back of the door,

she put it over her head, strapped it under her flagging breasts and tied it in a knot in the middle other

back. Then picking up a wicker basket she went out. What she would do, she told herself, was to take

a stroll towards Bill Lee’s, but should she meet Peter and the boy coming back, she

would show no

anxiety, perhaps a little temper at their lack of consideration, but she would say she was out as usual

gathering her herbs.

Of course there weren’t many herbs to be got alongside the quarry track; nothing

worthwhile grew in the

brushwood that had sprung up over the years. Still, she was pleased that part was covered for it took the

scars from the land. But over towards the spinney beyond which Bill Lee’s cottage lay, there was a

patch of meadow that on occasions seemed to give forth those herbs she needed, that is if once again

they hadn’t let the young horses play in it. Anyway, should she meet up with her visitors, she could

offhandedly tell them she was making for there.

The morning light was bright and the sun was coming up over the hills when she reached a part of the

quarry pathway that brought her to a standstill; for here she saw had been a fall and not the usual one.

This then was what she had heard early on last evening, but she had taken little notice because there was

always some noise from either the smelting mills or the mine. It was a joke that one day Stublick miners

would come up out of the bottom of the quarry.

To get round it she had to make her way into the brushwood. As she did so she came to a part she

decided had been flattened down by a number of feet. There were stones strewn about

and fresh earth

had been trampled here and there. It couldn’t have been gypsies, she told herself, else there would have

been a fire. Yet they wouldn’t have been so silly as to make a fire here amidst all this kindling. She had

to push her way through hawthorn and bramble to reach the path on the other side and

she stood there

looking down into the quarry. It had been a mighty big fall, bigger than usual. Well,

that’s what the rains

did.

She was about to turn away when her eyes narrowed, and she moved a cautious step

nearer the edge

and looked down. There, to the left but not right at the bottom, what she thought her eyes saw brought

her hand to her throat and she whispered, “No! God Almighty! No!” Then with the agility of someone

half her age, she was running back the way she had come and to the head of the quarry, and there,

slithering down the path that had been made by the countless tracks of the horses and

waggons, she

came to the edge of the water. Skirting it, she stumbled over the strewn boulders and

earth towards the

latest fall, and when she stopped, it was to gaze upwards to where she saw once again, but more clearly

now, what she had viewed from the top pathway, a small hand dangling from out of a

black sleeve. But

now she could make out the body which had been caught in the branches of a sturdy

bush.

“Tis the lad. Yes, ‘tis the lad.” She heard her own voice like a high cry, and as if in an unanswered

prayer for help, her eyes now lifted to the top of the quarry to where two blackened faces were peering

down at her.

Throwing the basket aside, she lifted up her arms and waved them frantically, at the same time crying,

“Help!

“Tis a boy caught. Help!”

For answer it seemed that both of the men leapt over the top of the quarry edge.

Bounding from stone

to stone and causing minor falls here and there, they were within seconds standing at her side. And they

too looked upwards, and one of them repeated her words, saying, “God Almighty He

must have been

passing at the time. We heard the rumble on our way in last night.”

“Can... can you reach him?”

“Aye, yes, we’ll reach him, Kate, we’ll reach him.”

She watched them clamber up to the bush and gently extricate the small body from the

branches. Then

one man held the limp form across his arms while the other man got behind him and

gripped his belt,

steadying him on his descent towards the bottom.

When they laid the boy at Kate’s feet she knelt by his side and immediately her hand

went into his jacket

and stayed there. When she looked up to the men whose silent gaze was asking her the

question, she

answered, “Tis tickin’ slightly.”

“Do you know him? Is he from round about?”

“No, no,” She shook her head.

“He came to visit me with his father... yesterday.”

“With his father?”

She nodded her head and looked to the side where the boulders were spread far into the water.

The two men exchanged glances before one of them, turning to her, said, “And you think he’s ... ?”

“No other place for him,” she answered; ‘he wouldn’t have left his boy, not like that he wouldn’t. He

brought him to me to look after.

They were on their way to Bill Lee’s to have a chat. Will. will you carry him back for me? “

“Aye. Aye, Kate. But we’ll have to have help; we can’t move that lot ourselves.”

The other man spoke now, saying, “The shift’ll be spread out, they’ll all be home by

now.”

“There’s the top ‘un and the pullers.”

“Aye. But let’s get the boy back first.” And turning to Kate, he said, “We’ll get him. If he’s there, we’ll

get him.” Then looking at his mate again, he said, “You get back and rake them up, Joe, I’ll take the wee

‘un along.”

The sun was directly overhead when they carried Peter into the cottage. Bill Lee was one of the four

men holding the canvas and his face was almost as ashen as that of the corpse, for

although Peter’s head

was split open at the back, his face was as clean as if it had just been scrubbed with sea water.

After the men had left, voicing their sympathy with low mutters, there remained only Bill Lee and his wife

Jane; and Bill, looking down on the man who although only four years older than

himself, had been both

his mate and mentor as a boy, he muttered, “I’m shaken. I’m real shaken. To think that this could have

happened on his way to see us.

And you . you say he wanted us to take the boy, Kate? “ He glanced to where the boy,

who also

looked dead, was lying on a hap on the wooden saddle.

“Aye. Aye, he did; but that was only after I felt I was too old to see to him. But now somehow... well,

we’ll see. If the boy survives, we’ll see.”

“Aye, Kate, aye. But you know we’d be ready. Wouldn’t we, Jane?”

“Oh, yes, Kate, we would be ready to take him anytime.”

Again Kate said, “We’ll see, we’ll see.” Then she added, “I expect Mr. Mulcaster will be along

directly, for the quarry, too, comes under him. They should have railed it off years ago.

I’ve said that

again and again, ‘cos afore the enclosure the cows and the sheep went down there

regular. But this is the

first time it’s taken human life. And likely, it won’t be the last, the way it’s droppin’.”

“They’ll bring the justice in it, too, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“Yes, probably. Anyway, I want to get him cleaned up afore they come.”

“Will I help you, Kate?”

“No lass, I can see to this me self I would rather. Somehow—’ She paused and looked at the

earth-stained figure; then her voice low, she said, “ tis as if he were me son. “

The young couple remained silent for a time; then Bill said, “We’ll away then. But we’ll be back in a

short while.”

“Yes, yes.” She nodded, but didn’t look towards them, and they went out, closing the

door quietly after

them.

She had stripped and washed Peter and covered him with a white sheet, and now she took all his

clothes, with the exception of his belt, including his outer coat, and put them in the stone wash house