Authors: Yelena Kopylova
of it because if ever there was a lazy beggar in this world, it’s him lettin’ his ground go rank.
Still, I shouldn’t grumble about that, for he’s given me the best supply of dead nettles from round about
for many a year. It’s a good job he’s a good mill worker or else he would have been put out a time ago.
“
Mary Ellen, taking up the basket, grinned now as she said, “Oh, I’ll collect the dead nettle for you if
nothin’ else, ‘cos I love those sweets you make with the flowers, and me da loves the
potion.”
“He’s not the only one. But I can tell you something for nothing, Mary Ellen, anybody
who wants that
this winter is gona pay for it. I’m givin’ no more away, except to your ma and da of
course. The neck of
some people walking miles to ask me for a pick-me-up, and the most they leave’ll be a
penny, when the
sugar syrup costs twice as much.
Oh, away with you an let’s stop yammerin’ or else you’ll never get back home in time for supper. And
then what’ll happen? Your da will be along here goin’ for me, demanding to know why
I’ve kept you. “
“He’d never go for you, Kate. No, he wouldn’t. And he knows I’m all right when I’m
here.
Anyway’—she sighed “ tis me last day. “
“Last day indeed! Go on. get yourself away. You talk like an ancient;
your head’s too old for your body. Always has been, miss. Go on with you. “ She shooed her out of
the room as she did the chickens, wafting her apron at her, and Mary Ellen, joining in the charade, made
cackling sounds as she ran down the garden and through the gate and into the field.
But her step had slowed to a walk before she reached the place where the ride divided, one twisting
track rising towards the quarry, the other also going steeply uphill but skirting the wood that had
thickened in all ways during the past five years; not only had the saplings grown but the brushwood had
taken over densely in parts.
Knowing that she would take the bottom road back by Stubbs’s cottage in order to gather the dead
nettle, she decided to look at the bog first to see if there were any late cowslips still there.
She dismissed
the thought that her father had forbidden her to go near the bog ever again since that time she fell in and
was stuck up to her knees. It was a good job, he had said as he lathered her ears, that she had stayed
near the edge, for a foot further in she would likely have been sucked under. This had happened when
she was seven years old. But at times he would still warn her, “If you are going up the ride, madam,
keep clear of the bog.” But that was whenever they’d had a wet summer. This summer
had been
scorching hot; the streams had dried up; even the dam down at Langley was well below
its bank.
She now pushed her way through some low shrub, stepped over a fallen branch, then
came onto a rough
pathway that had at one time bordered the ride, and there to the left other was the dried up bog, the
whole of which was not more than twelve feet across. What vegetation grew about it was now shrivelled
up; the mud was cracked in parts and to some depth, showing crevices inches across, and the whole
expanse of mud had dropped to almost a foot below the rim, and in one glance she saw
that there was
no possibility of any cowslips being found there.
But what did draw her attention was something that looked like a handle sticking out of a crevice in the
mud just below where she was standing.
Being of a curious nature, she responded by immediately kneeling down on the hard
crusty earth and,
bending over, she touched the half circle. It felt hard like wood. In the ordinary way she would have
taken it for a fallen branch, except that part of it was showing black where the dried mud had dropped
from it and around this black part was a ring of brass or steel or some metal.
Gripping the handle now, she went to pull it up because she guessed there was something attached to it.
What her mind didn’t say, only told her there was something below the mud.
Forgetting for the moment she was still in her Sunday clothes, she lay flat on the bank now and,
extending her two hands and taking a firm grip on the handle, she endeavoured to move it backwards
and forwards, with the pleasing result that the dried mud at each side gave way and there came to her
ears a small sucking sound. Her efforts now became really vigorous, and when more of
the dried mud
fell away and exposed the thing that the handle was attached to, she stopped and gazed down in
amazement at the top of a bag. Immediately, she recognized the type of bag because it
was the same
shape as the one old Doctor Cranwell carried when he went to the mine or the mill when there was an
accident.
Frantically now, her grip tight on the handle, she again resumed a rocking motion. Of a sudden there
was a sound like a cork leaving a bottle and her elbows gave way and her face almost hit the edge of the
bank, and there at the end of her extended arms she saw she was holding what she
imagined to be an
exact replica of the doctor’s bag, except perhaps it might be a little bigger.
Having pulled it onto the bank, she noticed that the bottom of the bag was covered with wet mud, and
she thought, it must be still soggy underneath and you could still get stuck; me da was right. But what
was in this;
bag?
She got to her feet, but when she went to lift it she found;
it was almost too heavy for her, being still caked with mud’j she imagined, and so,
picking up some dried
grass from’ nearby and a piece of wood, she proceeded to scrape the bag as clean as she could. ^ Her
efforts showed that it was a leather bag which had become as hard as iron with being in the mud. She
also saw that it had a lock going through the flap on one side of it. There was no key in the lock, so she
couldn’t find out what was inside. But there was something inside it and it was movable because when
she pushed the bag onto its side she heard that something move, and when, with an effort, she turned it
completely upside down, whatever was inside fell to the top which was now the bottom
of the bag.
Still kneeling, she stared down at it as if waiting for some directions. At one point she thought, I’ll go
and tell Kate. But Kate couldn’t come up here. And then, she couldn’t go and tell her da because no
matter what was in the—bag he would skin her alive for having disobeyed him,
especially for her daring
to come near the bog, even if it was dried up. But of course he was right, it was never dried up at the
bottom, as the bag had proved. And another thing, she was still in her Sunday clothes.
As she continued to stare at it her eyes narrowed as she imagined she saw a letter on the side of the
bag. To prove whether it was imagination or not she spat two or three times on the spot, then rubbed it
with some more dried grass, and her efforts proved that it wasn’t her imagination because she was
looking at the letter “B’.
Further spitting and further rubbing disclosed another three letters to make up the word,
“Bank’. And
now as if a veil had been lifted from her eyes and a door opened in her mind, she saw her father standing
in the kitchen after he had returned from a visit to Hexham market and he was saying to her mother, “
That Hal will do someone a damage one of these days, for if I hadn’t pulled him free, it would be him that
would have got the damage the day, for he was tackling three of ‘em.
Apparently they had jibed at him about his father stealing the payroll and likely now
living in luxury in a
foreign country on the money. 1 brought him back on the cart with me and dropped him
off near the
road. And you. know something, he’s a strange lad, for he was about to walk away when
he turned
and, looking at me, he said in a voice like an old man instead of a lad, “My dad never did that, he
wouldn’t.”
She looked down at the bag, and now there was no doubt in her mind as to what was in
the bag. But
what would she do with it? Money always caused trouble. Her da was always saying that, money
always caused trouble. If Roddy was here he would know what to do with it. But then, if Roddy was
here, Hal would be with him, and if Hal got his hands on this bag she knew exactly what would happen:
he wouldn’t take it to the authorities like her da or Roddy might, for he would think it was his ‘cos his da
had suffered for it no matter where he was across the world, ‘cos he had gone across the world. She
had heard the tale so often about his horse having been found far away in Newcastle,
which could only
mean he had gone on a ship. Yet, why hadn’t he taken the bag with him?
Her mind gave her no answer, except to ask what was she going to do with it. Throw it
back into the
mud? No, no. That idea was immediately rejected. Anyway it wouldn’t sink now; and
what was more
she hadn’t much time. Whatever she was going to do with it she must do it straightaway because she had
to gather the herbs and then get home afore her da got back.
There was that hole on the other side of the quarry that she had discovered when she was blaeberrying
last year. By, she had got a gliffthat day. The blaeberry bushes were thick there and she had scrambled
up a mound to get to the big berries, and her scrambling must have loosened something
because she had
suddenly to hang on and then the earth had given way beneath her. She didn’t fall far, but her feet
seemed to be entangled with large stones like in the quarry.
Presently, she realized she had fallen into a kind of tunnel and it wasn’t a natural place, for it had been
stone built. ) Perhaps, she thought, it was one of the tunnels the men had;
been making to take the gas from the smelt mill and hadn’t gone on with it. Anyway, it was dry inside
and she sat in the| opening until she got her breath back and then she climbed up onto the bank and was
surprised that she had really onljl slid a short distance because when her feet had given way she had
imagined she had fallen from heaven.
So that was it. She could stick the bag in there for the time being until she could think what to do with
it. But could she carry it?
Slinging the basket onto her shoulder, first she stood up, then bent and gripped the bag with both hands
and found that yes, holding it like that, she could carry it. It was hard like a piece of wood. But she
hadn’t taken more than two or three steps when she asked herself what would happen if
she met
someone Well, she needn’t meet anybody for she knew her way through the thicket and
from where she
was now it would only take her a few minutes to be at the end of the quarry. Long before she reached
the sloping bank where the blaeberries grew, she was panting. The way seemed longer
than she had
imagined. When she at last stopped she dropped the bag onto the ground, then took the
basket from her
shoulder and pushed it into the bushes. She took up the bag again and foraged forwards for the tunnel.
The bushes had grown amazingly and it was only her feet that told her she had reached
the entrance,
because now there was a bush hanging over it and as she bent down a twig caught her
bonnet and pulled
the straps tight around her chin and she whimpered aloud, “Oh, dear me.
Oh, dear me. “
Pushing the bush aside, she crawled into the aperture, the bag behind her. She had to
blink a number of
times to accustom herself to the dim light coming through the bush. Kneeling down, she crawled some
little distance until she could see no further, and there she left the bag, but not before she had patted it
and then asked herself why she had done so.
Outside and having retrieved her basket, she vigorously dusted her dress down, saying
the while, “Eeh!
it’s a good job it’s a fawny colour so the marks don’t show.” This done, she made her
way back to the
wood and towards the field where she would find long wort all the time wondering to
whom she could
talk about the money. Kate seemed the safest person. But yet again a door opened in her mind and she
recalled an incident that had happened a long, long time ago when she was small. She had seen a man in
the wood picking herbs and she had talked to him because she liked talking to people,
and when she told
Kate about the man, Kate had looked at her and said, “Which man goes round here
picking herbs? Did
you know him?” And she had answered, “No, but he was a little man with a funny hand.”
And at this
point Kate had become quite excited and she had put her shawl on and gone out, and had told her to go
home. Later, Kate told her to look out for the man and to tell her when she saw him. But she hadn’t
seen him again.
Now why should she think of that? She didn’t know, but somehow it ‘prevented her from
choosing
Kate as the recipient other secret. The only one she could really tell was Roddy, and she must get him
by himself sometime tonight, and then she would know what to do with the bag.
Meanwhile Roddy and Hal were sitting on a bank above the smelt mill.
Being Sunday, there was little activity around the works.
Hal, sitting slightly behind and to the left of Roddy, had^ watched him in silence for sometime before he