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

‘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.

For Hilda, Rene, Ann, Jay

and all the other Hurlfield Writers

‘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

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 Marcus 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.

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.