Ill Will

‘I’m just drifting. No particular reason.’

‘People don’t just drift. They always have a purpose. You’re either travelling to somewhere or running away from someone. Which is it?’

‘Neither.’

‘Suit yourself. Give me a hand with this.’

I helped him lift a large coping stone.

‘Had a southerner here last week. From Sheffield. Think he found us a bit uncouth. Only lasted two days. Could hardly tell a word he said, his accent was that strong.’

‘You don’t sound like you’re from round these parts yourself,’ I said.

He had a strange accent and not a bit like a Calder one. He had a fast way of talking and a range of rising and falling tones that gave his speech a distinctive sound.

‘You travel around and you take your chances. I’ve done it myself. Got turned out of one village one time. The villagers threw stones at me and called me a foreigner. It’s getting harder and harder for the working man to make a living.’

‘Why’s that then?’

‘Because a bunch of aristocrats are stealing the land beneath our feet. They’ll turn us all into cottars and squatters. Before you know it there won’t be any working men, just beggars and vagrants, thieves and highwaymen, prostitutes and parasites. Mark my words, laa.’

‘Is that so?’

‘The days of farm work is coming to an end. They’ve got Jennies now across the land that can spin eighty times what a woman can spin on her tod. A lot of the labourers hereabouts have gone off over to Manchester, doing mill work, building canals. I’ve done canal work myself, built up the banks, worked on the puddling. Dug out the foundations. It’s back-breaking work, I’ll tell you that. It’s said that on the duke’s canal the boats can travel up to ten miles an hour. And not a highwayman to be seen. Done dock work as well, in Liverpool. That’s where I’m from, you see, laa.’

I liked the way he pronounced ‘Liverpool’, lumping it up and dragging it out.

I thought about where I had come from. All that I knew was that Mr Earnshaw found me on the streets of that same town. Perhaps I would go back there. Seek out my fortune in that place instead. I wasn’t fixed. No roots bound me to the spot. Where there was money to be made that’s where I was heading. Enough money to get you and Hindley. If I were to make the journey, I could use Sticks’s know-how.

‘I’m heading that way myself,’ I said.

‘Be careful how you go, laa. It’s not safe to walk the roads. A man’s liable to be picked up by a press gang or else kidnapped and sent to the plantations. They’re building big mills over in Manchester. But you won’t get me going there. Worse than the workhouse. Have you heard of the men of Tyre?’

‘No.’

‘Pit men. They cut the winding ropes, smashed the engines and set fire to the coal.’

‘Why?’

‘To protest against their working conditions. It’s not natural to never see the sun. A pit is hell on earth. A mill is not much better. Folk call it progress. But there’s trouble brewing, mark my words.’

‘So what brings you here then? Why did you leave Liverpool?’

‘Oh, I travelled about. Done this and that. You know how it goes.’

We worked on all morning with Sticks chelping in my ear. At lunchtime the farmer brought bread and ale. I asked for water.

‘What’s wrong with ale, lad?’

I had no intention of turning into a Hindley.

‘Nothing, sir, I just prefer God’s water.’

‘Well, there’s a stream up yonder you can drink from. Or there’s the well in the yard.’

After we’d eaten we swapped around. Me and Sticks set to work on the wall. Behind us was a birch wood and down the valley the farm and the outbuildings. We could see the thatched roofs from where we grafted. I shifted the stones into different sizes, heaping them into sets, saving the large uneven stones for the coping. I enjoyed the work even though it was slow going, like piecing together a puzzle. Each stone had to be carefully selected so that it sat just right with its mates. We started with the largest, heaviest stones, for the foundation of the wall, working up so that it got slimmer as we built. Every now and again we would strengthen it with through stones that hitched the two sides. We chose the flat side of the stones to face the wall, filling in the gap between the two sides with the odd-shaped smaller stones left behind, then the large, boulder-like ones as coping to top the wall and make it solid. The sun was up and the larks were singing way above our heads. So high in the sky I couldn’t actually see them. I saw a puttock being attacked by two crows and later the same crows attacked a glead that was twice their size. It’s just one battle after another, I thought. Even in these placid skies.

‘Had a problem with rats last week. The barn was overrun with them. Had to get the rat-catcher in with his dogs. Took him the best part of the day to flush them out and even then he didn’t get them all,’ said Sticks as he looked to place the stone in his hand.

‘Well, where there’s hens there’s rats,’ I said.

‘You’re right there.’

‘And where there’s swine there’s rats.’

‘True enough. Where there’s folks there’s rats,’ he said and laughed. ‘Seems, sometimes, folks and rats are the same thing.’

We worked on in silence for a time, selecting the right stones, placing them, then finding a better stone for the job and starting again. For every three we laid we’d have to go back a stone. After we had built about half a yard, Sticks stopped working and took out his clay pipe. He sat on one of the stones and stuffed the bowl of the pipe with tobacco. He snapped off the end of the pipe and took out a striker and a brimstone match. He held the striker to the match until the sparks caught. Then he held the lighted match to the bowl. He puffed out smoke and smiled at his success.

‘What’s your vice then?’

‘Eh?’

‘Do you play cards at all?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘We usually have a game after supper. Ace of hearts, faro, basset, hazard. What’s your preference?’

On rainy days I’d played hazard with you plenty of times, Cathy. When the storms outside raged even too ferociously for our tastes. But the other games I’d never heard of.

‘I’ll probably sit this one out,’ I said.

‘No head for gambling, eh?’

‘Need to earn some money first.’

‘There’s a tavern up the road. There’s skittles and ring-thebull every night if that’s more your tipple.’

‘I’m not much of a player.’

‘There’s a cockfight at least once a week, sometimes a fistfight. If you’ve no taste for blood there’s always dancing.’

‘I’m not much of a dancer.’

‘Suit yourself. But if you work hard you’ve got to play hard. The one goes with the other,’ he said.

He finished his pipe and put it in his pocket. We worked on all through the afternoon. By the end of the day we’d built up two yards of wall. We cleaned our tools with rags and stored them safe for the evening, then we traipsed down the hill for supper. Sarah, the farmer’s wife, served up oatmeal, bacon and potatoes. She was such a wee thing that I couldn’t help but picture her union with Dan Taylor and wince at the prospect. Like an ox on top of a stoat. The farmer rolled out a barrel of beer. He untapped it and poured the beer into large flagons. He handed them around.