The Rope Carrier Read Online Free Page B

Find your own, miss.”
    â€œI’ll dance with you next.” Josh winked as he said it.
    Minnie turned away and shoved past the couples, back to the tables, grumbling as she went.
    â€œI saw him first,” she told herself. “I saw him first outside our cave. He would never have gone in if it weren’t for me.” Then she spied Ned Whittingham, raising a mug of ale to his lips. She grabbed the mug from him and took a good swig herself, then plonked it down on the nearest table.
    â€œTha’s too little to be swigging at that, Minnie Dakin.”
    â€œI’m big enough to do owt I want at the Garland,” she said.
    Ned stared open-mouthed at her.
    â€œShut tha gob, Ned, and dance with me.”
    Ned was too surprised to object and his mouth stretched into a wide smile as Minnie pulled him in amongst the mass of swirling dancers.

Chapter Six
    IT WAS FOUR weeks after Garland Day that Josh Eyre again made the journey to Castleton. It was Sunday morning when he walked into the shade of the cavern and the good smell of mutton stew was drifting from the cottages. The ropewalks were empty and the winding wheels still while the workers sat on their doorsteps chatting, smoking pipes and drinking Dame Whittingham’s ale.
    Netty went running to hug Josh, her cheeks all pink with pleasure and shyness. She begged Annie to let him stay and to serve up the stew early, for it turned out that he’d set off at four o’clock that morning to walk from Sheffield and would have to be going back again in the afternoon, so that he could get back before dark, ready to serve the doctor his supper.
    Minnie stared at him in disbelief. How could he walk that far and back in a day, just to spend an hour or two with their Netty? He’d used up his leave of one day a month on traipsing over the hills on those rough tracks. Of course he was a strong young man, though, you could see that. He had a comely face with a warm smile. She remembered thinking that right from the start, that day last autumn when she’d found him staring up at the cave entrance in horror.
    â€œFancy you coming all this way, Josh,” she said, jigging around him and Netty. “Fancy you coming to such a nasty hole as this. I can’t think what can have made you want to come to such a horrid hole as this.”
    â€œLeave him be, skinny Minnie,” Netty said. Josh reachedout to tickle Minnie, chasing her round Netty while Sally fetched out the bowls and banged them down sullenly onto the table-top.
    It was while they were eating their meal that Josh first began talking about he and Netty getting married. Mr Dakin looked surprised, but Josh quickly put before them all his plans. He’d hired himself to the doctor last Michaelmas, thinking that he’d get a chance to travel, live well and wear decent clothes, but the doctor had been hard to please, and Josh had travelled no further than Manchester. He planned to go back to his own home in Sheffield when he was released from the doctor’s service next Michaelmas, and return to work with his father as a file cutter. There was room in their family cottage for him and Netty, and his father was begging him to come back, for with all the new trade and workshops that were being set up in Sheffield, the demand for files was greater than ever and Josh’s father could sell his files as fast as he could produce them.
    John Dakin nodded his head and listened to this determined young man so full of plans and energy.
    â€œAye, aye. If you can do it all as you say and make it all work out, then I cannot see why you and our Netty should not be wed.”
    Annie was not so sure. Sheffield seemed far away to her. It was all right for a strong healthy young man to walk here in a day with naught to carry but himself, but for a woman who’d likely be hampered by little ones, the journey would not be easy.
    â€œYou’ll not see us much, Netty,” she said.