The Undaunted : The Miracle of the Hole-In-The-Rock Pioneers Read online

  David recoiled. The revulsion and disgust in the girl’s eyes had been as real as a slap across the face. It was like she had accidentally overturned a rock only to find something very repulsive there.

  “Pay ’em naw mind, David,” his father said softly.

  He didn’t answer. The haughtiness, the sheer arrogance, the complete and utter disdain had shaken him. What he had seen in those eyes was pure contempt for a life form lesser than her own.

  His father could sense that he was troubled. As they moved forward, he began speaking. “The royalty an’ nobility be convinced that they be God’s elect. They trulee b’lieve they be chosen fur such a life as this b’cuz they be naturally an’ infinitely superior ta the rest of us poor lugs. This—” he waved a hand to include all that lay before them—“in thare minds be thare divine reward for bein’ the chosen ones. They accept awl the land, the muney, the titles an’ ’ouses an’ jewelry and servants ta be the reward fur their natural superiority.”

  He blew out his breath in an expression of deep disgust. “The ’ole system be like a pile of rottin’ carcasses. In my mind, they be more corrupt and evil than even Rhodes an’ awl of ’is wickedness. The fact that it be blokes like us, muckin’ out the coal and silver and lead and tin that keep ’em in their fancy palaces and their golden carriages, means nothin’ ta ’em.”

  David was staring. It was a rare thing to see his father this exercised about something.

  John looked at him, sensing his astonishment. “Sumday,” he muttered, “Ah think God be smitin’ ’em doon an’ consignin’ ’em ta the fires of ’ell so that justice may be done.”

  As they finished shoveling the last of the coal into the chute behind the great house, David happened to glance up. On the second story, framed in one of the great arched windows, he saw the older sister again. She was standing behind a filmy curtain, staring down at them. He saw her visibly jerk back when she realized he had seen her. Smiling broadly, he swept off his cap and gave her a sweeping bow. It gave him great satisfaction that once again she recoiled in horror and disgust and immediately disappeared.

  Notes

  ^1. Taken from The North East England History Page, “Owners and Candymen,” http://www.northeastengland.talktalk.net/page72.htm. It is not clear where the title candy-man originated. The supposition given in the novel is speculation.

  ^2. These villages still exist in South Yorkshire. One of the delights of driving through the British countryside is to pass through small English villages with names that bring a smile to your heart. Here are just a few that exist in the U.K. today: Anthill Commons, Barton-on-the-Beans, Biggleswade, Birdwhistle; Blubberhouse; Bokiddick, Buttsbear Cross, Diddlebury, Diggle, Duddlewick, Giggleswick, Goonhilly Downs, Little Snoring, Maggieknockater, Mold, Nasty, Oswaldtwistle, Mousehole, Penpillick, Pothole, Pucklechurch, Ramsbottom, Rows of Trees, Scarcewater, Tiddlywink, Tintwhistle, Ucksford, Ughill, Upton Snodsbury, and Wormbite.

  ^3. The rape seed is in full bloom in May in the British Isles. To come over a hill and see a thousand acres or more of these brilliant yellow blossoms is truly breathtaking. Rape seed gets its name from the Latin rapum, or turnip. In North America it is more commonly called canola.

  ^4. There is no such place as Tilburn Castle or Tilburn River, nor were there actual people known as Lord and Lady Tilburn.

  ^l. To get upset, to lose one’s temper.

  Chapter 11

  Monday, May 17, 1869

  With an empty wagon, they made much better time back to Cawthorne, but it was still past ten o’clock by the time they reached the pit yard. The yard was dark, but the loading foreman had waited for them. By the time they helped him unhitch the mules, feed them, and wipe them down, it was close to eleven when they finally approached the door to their flat. “Don’t suppose Rhodes would let us sleep late for a couple of hours in the morning,” David said.

  A low grunt was his only answer to that.

  His father unlocked the door, pushed it open, and stepped back so David could enter first. The cloud cover had moved over them and the night was very dark. Inside their flat it was even darker.

  David stepped inside and stopped. He breathed deeply. He swore he could smell the presence of his mother—the smell of baking on her clothes, the soap on her hands, and the sweetness of her hair. He closed his eyes, her loss hitting him yet again like a physical blow.

  The door closed and his father pushed past him. There was a loud crash and something heavy skittered across the floor. “Ow!” Something crunched loudly as his father fumbled his way toward the table. “What’s goin’ on ’ere?” David heard him mutter.

  There was the scratch of a match on wood, then a flare of light. His father held a match up above his head and turned slowly. It wasn’t much light, but it was enough. The room was a shambles. Two chairs were on their sides. Crumpled papers littered the floor; broken pottery glittered in the light of the match. Clothing was strewn everywhere. His father moved to the cupboard as the match went out. There was fumbling for a moment, then the scratch of another match. This time he lit the two candles in the candle holder. In the greater light it was clear that the damage was total. A can of sugar had been dumped on the counter. Flour was sprayed across the floor and looked like snow. Knives, forks, spoons, the teakettle, pots, pans, tin cups, and mugs were tossed about. The straw mattress where David slept had been slashed open and straw scattered everywhere.

  That sight spun him around. He walked swiftly to his parents’ sleeping room, ignoring the crunch of things beneath his feet. He pulled the blanket back and felt a surge of red-hot anger as he saw the shredded mattress cover where his mother had breathed her last breath just two days ago now. The nightdress that David had folded so carefully before they dressed her for the coffin was heaped in one corner. Someone had walked on it. He picked it up, closing his eyes.

  A cry spun him around. His father was on his knees beside the overturned kitchen table. He was bending over a black hole in the floor, rocking back and forth, holding his head.

  “Not the box!” David shouted. In three great leaps he was beside his father and down on his knees. The hole beneath the floor that his father had so carefully crafted many years before had been chopped open with an ax. Inside, David saw that the cavity was empty.

  He howled in anguish. They had not only desecrated his mother’s bed. They had not just soiled her clothing. They had smashed her dreams. They had stolen the one thing that had kept her filled with hope and prolonged her life. The anger in him nearly blinded him.

  David saw that his father’s face was white. “But ’ow? Naw one even knew we ’ad it.”

  David groaned and put his face in his hands. “The doctor knew,” he said hoarsely.

  “What?”

  He felt like he was going to vomit. “Mum spoke to me about the box when she was in the infirmary. I think the doctor overheard her.”

  “Did she say where it was?” He looked around, then answered his own question. “Of course she didn’t. Otherwise, why tear everythin’ apart?

  “She did say how mooch we had saved.”

  “Aw, David.” John got to his feet, moving slowly, as if he had been struck a severe blow. He reached down, picked up one of the chairs, set it up straight, then dropped into it like a sack of coal, shoulders slumping. He looked around, eyes vacant.

  After several moments, his eyes came back into focus and he sat straight up. “Blow out the candles, Son. Ah need time ta think, an’ Ah dunna want anyone knowin’ we’re back.”

  Five minutes later, his father abruptly stood up. “Git a flour sack frum the bottom drawer.”

  David leaped up. “Yes, sir.”

  “Yoo’ll need ta light a candle ta see, but keep it covered so it be naw seen frum the street.” He ignored David’s quizzical look. “We’ll need clothes, includin’ jackets—sumthin’ warm. Git whate’er food ya can salvage. Get yur best boots. Mine, too. Yur pocketknife an’ the butcher knife if ya can find it. All the matches an’
candles ya can find. Any extra stockin’s.” He thought for a moment. “Ah want me six-poond hammer.”

  David had seen that over by his bed. He made his way there, dropped to a crouch, and found it immediately. “Here. Where are we going, Dahd?”

  John’s answer was calm, measured, as if he were reading from a list. “Listen carefully, Son. Ah’m goin’ ta the pit yard. As soon as ya ’ave everythin’—an’ joost get what ya can—meet me be’ind the pit yard by the stables.”

  “What about Mum’s things?” His voice was quavering.

  A sound of pain escaped John. “See if they tuk the little necklace Ah gave yur mum fur ’er bur’day last year. She kept it b’neath our bed in a snuff tin. Other than that, leave everythin’.” His grip on David’s shoulder tightened. “We ’ave very little time, Son. Be at the stable in ten minutes. No more. Wait thare ootside the fence fur me. Dunna let anyone see ya.” Before David could say anything, John spun on his heel and slipped out the door.

  One characteristic of a mining village was that, except on Saturday nights, by 10:00 p.m. the entire town became a cemetery. David saw no one as he left the flat and slipped into the street, then made his way through one of the alleyways toward the row of outhouses. Holding the bulky flour sack under his arm to muffle any rattles, and stopping every few moments to make sure no old men with bladder problems were using the outhouses, he made his way to the mine.

  The pit yard was black and silent when he reached it. He crept along the back fence until he saw the dark shape of the stables and smelled the mule dung. He set the bag down carefully, making sure it didn’t clunk, then peered through the fence into the darkness. “Dahd?”

  No answer. No sound of any kind. He was sure he had not taken more than his allotted ten minutes, so he sat down in the dead grass to wait.

  Three or four minutes later, he heard the crackle of gravel, and a dark shaped appeared on the other side of the fence. “David?”

  “Here.”

  His father moved to where he was and quickly scaled the fence. He dropped to the ground and touched David’s shoulder. “We be goin’ in joost a minute.”

  “Where?”

  He pointed to a small brick building that sat back about a hundred feet from where they were. David squinted, then inhaled sharply. “Mr. Rhodes’s house?”

  John nodded, then put his finger to his lips. “Did ya naw see Bart Wiggins standin’ guard ootside the front of the hoose when we passed it earlier t’night?”

  David shook his head. He hadn’t even looked in that direction.

  “There’s a weasel in the woodpile, David. Sumthin’s up, an’ we gotta find oot what.” He turned back to the pit yard.

  As they waited, David’s mind started to race. Of course it was Rhodes. It had to be. The doctor would have gone straight to him and told him what he had overheard. All that blathering this morning about the two of them going to Tilburn Castle as “fair punishment” was nothing but a ruse to get the Dickinsons out of the way. Once night came, he had only to send in one of his goons—probably Bart himself—to do the rest.

  But why was Wiggins standing guard outside Rhodes’s house? And then it hit him. The box! The box with their money was inside Rhodes’s house right now. A thrill of elation shot through him. Suddenly, he sniffed the air. “Dahd, I smell smoke.”

  John lifted his head. “Aye,” he said easily.

  David got to his knees, peering through the fence. A slight breeze out of the east was blowing the smoke right to them. He saw an orange glow behind the blacksmith’s shop. David knew there was a large pile of refuse there—scraps of lumber, rumpled wastepaper, discarded rags and clothing—which the blacksmith’s apprentice used to start the fires each morning.

  Even as he watched, the glow flared into flickering flames. At that moment, his father leaped to his feet and started banging on the steel fence post with his hammer, causing David to nearly jump out of his shoes. It made a terrible racket in the still night air.

  “Fire! Fire!” His father ran to the next post, closer to the gate. He banged it as well. “Fire in the pit yard!”

  “Awl reet,” he said, racing back. He grabbed David’s arm. “Grab the sack. Let’s go.”

  They heard the first distant shouts as they sprinted out and around one of the great mounds of culm, or coal waste, and approached Rhodes’s house from the rear. As they reached it and dropped behind some bushes, his father grunted in satisfaction. “Gud. The windows be open.”

  It would have been a surprise if they were not. The nights were warm now, and virtually every family in the village slept with their windows open and would until fall. They hunkered down, listening and watching the effects that John had created. People began appearing from everywhere, some in their nightclothes, some pulling on shirts even as they ran, shouting and yelling. They could hear Bart Wiggins banging on the front door and yelling for Rhodes to “cum quick.”

  The house filled with lamplight, and three minutes later Rhodes and his wife appeared in front of the house with Wiggins in the lead, running for the pit yard.

  It took them less than three minutes inside the house to find what they were looking for. Perhaps Rhodes had planned to take his booty to the bank tomorrow, but he had only gotten it a few hours before. As David realized that, again he marveled at how carefully his father had thought things through. In the bedroom wardrobe, beneath a file box of papers and some folded blankets, they found a stout wooden chest with two locks on it.

  John told David to douse the bedroom lamps. Then, by the light of the lamps in the main part of the house, he hauled the chest out. With three or four well-placed blows with the hammer, the locks were sprung and removed. And there it was, his mother’s shoe box, just as she had left it when she had last counted its contents a few days before.

  “Din’t even bother ta git rid of our box,” he said in disgust. “Shows ’ow frightened ’e be.”

  David counted swiftly. He sat back, tremendous relief sweeping over him. “It’s all here.”

  “Gud.” His father started to close the lid again.

  “Wait.” David leaned forward, looking inside the chest. There was a cry of triumph as he lifted both hands. One carried a large leather pouch bulging with coins, the other a pocket watch with a thick gold chain. “Ah ha!”

  “No, David!”

  “What?”

  “We take only what b’longs to us.”

  “Dahd, think of all the ways Rhodes has cheated us and—”

  His father snatched both bag and watch from David’s hands and placed them back in the chest, then shut the lid with an emphatic clunk. “Dunna shame me. We be naw thieves an’ robbers.”

  David stared helplessly as his father replaced the two locks, twisting them so that at first glance they still looked as they had before. He replaced the chest, then the box and blankets on top of it. “Knowin’ Rhodes,” he said, “furst thing ’e’ll do when ’e cums back be ta check the chest. If’n it looks exactly lek it did b’fur, and if’n we be lucky—” He winked at David. “If’n we be real lucky, that wicked old fool won’t even think ta look inta the strongbox ’til t’morrow.”

  “And by then,” David cried in fierce exultation, “we’ll be on our way to America.”

  “If we be lucky,” his father repeated.

  Chapter 12

  Tuesday, May 18, 1869

  They headed east, which was David’s first surprise. If they were going to America, they had to get to Liverpool, the major port in England for going to the New World. Liverpool was almost straight west from Cawthorne.

  But that became their pattern. It took David about three days to understand it, but then his admiration for his father’s wisdom and cunning soared. They would feint one way, then slip off in another. They would leave a clear trail that led nowhere. They deliberately spoke to a constable as they passed through Barnsley about one o’clock in the morning and asked for the way to the canal docks—the docks where canal boats were loaded with coal for
Liverpool. As soon as they were out of sight, they turned north, skirting around the canals by at least a mile. The next morning, they bought train tickets for London, then slipped out of the station, shredded the tickets, and headed north. And so it went.

  They constantly moved north, never west. It was less than a month away from summer solstice, so daylight came early and lingered well past eleven. It didn’t matter. His father seemed in no hurry at all. They moved only after dark, avoided villages, and always slipped off the roads when someone approached. Not until they were north of York did that change.

  York was the last large city in their path, and once past that they started moving in the daytime. But even then, his father was ever cautious. When they approached a village, they would separate and pass through it well apart from each other. If they were offered a ride by a passing farmer or merchant, they turned it down. When they needed food, only one would stop at the market. They never took commercial lodging. They slept out in rain, wind, or starry night.

  After two weeks, they reached the North York Moors, that vast and empty windswept country where only the hardiest shepherds or settlers chose to live. Only then did they turn west. And through it all, on one thing his father was absolutely insistent. They took nothing without paying for it. They never sought refuge in someone’s barn or shed or stable. Not only was it not right, his father kept reminding him, but they didn’t need anyone else hunting for them.

  One other pattern emerged that David recognized only after they had been on the move for a fortnight. At first, he wasn’t sure, but as he searched his memory, he became absolutely certain of it. Since his mother had died, his father had not once called him Davee or Davee boy.

  Wednesday, June 9, 1869

  David lay on his side, head resting in the crook of his elbow, and watched his father sleep. They had pressed on until after dark, then dropped into an exhausted sleep. David had awakened first. The early light of morning was behind his father, so his face was in shadow, and David could not discern much other than the heavy brows and the beard, now a full inch long.