Pigeon Post. Arthur Ransome
year folk have been working these fells, and now they’ve all give up, all but me, more fools they, when it stands to reason there’s more in t’ fells nor ever come out. There was Queen Elizabeth had her Dutchies here, and a mort o’ folk after that, scratting and scratting. And they’re all dead and gone and the fells is here yet, and the scrattings on ’em nowt but a scar here and there, and the best of all still to find. An I’m not the only one to think so, mind ye …” said Slater Bob. “A gentleman was here only yesterday asking this and that …”
There was a sudden stir among his listeners.
“Not a man with a squashy hat?” said Nancy. “I say, you didn’t tell him anything about the gold, did you?”
“Nay, I didn’t look at his hat. Ordinary hat it was, same as what gentlemen generally cover their heads wi’.”
“But you didn’t tell him about the gold …”
“He didn’t ask about it,” said Slater Bob. “But the way he talked, I could see he knew a rare bit about mining.”
“He must have heard us planning,” said Peggy.
“Don’t you tell him anything,” said Nancy. “Not anything.”
Slater Bob looked at her.
“He said he’d be looking in again,” he said.
“He’s just outside now,” said Nancy. “We saw him. Just fend him off somehow. Don’t tell him anything at all.”
“Well, of course, Miss Nancy, if it’s like that … I never thought …”
“He’s just spying round,” said Nancy. “We caught him twice.”
“Well, I said nowt about gold to him, that’s one thing,” said Slater Bob. “And if he’s that sort he’ll get nowt out o’ me, not if he asks his questions till crack o’ doom.”
“And now about that gold,” said Nancy.
There was a moment’s silence. The old miner looked queerly at his audience. Somewhere, far away in the level, there was the noise of a small stone dropping.
John looked at Nancy.
“Half a minute,” she said listening. “No. It’s all right. Go ahead, Bob, but don’t talk too loud.”
“But there’s nowt to tell, Miss Nancy,” said the old man, “nowt but what most folk knows.”
“We don’t,” said Nancy.
“I can’t tell more than what I know,” said Old Bob.
“Tell us all you can,” said Nancy.
“Well,” said Old Bob, screwing up his eyes and looking at the dazzling, hissing flame of the acetylene lamp. “It was a young Government chap who found that gold. Just before the war begun. He’d been up here a week or two, looking round t’ fells wi’ his hammer and his compass and his maps and all. And when he come down in the evenings, he’d drop in every night to have a crack wi’ Old Bob. There’s none else living, he used to say, who knows more of the old mines. Not likely. My father was a miner before me, and his father before him, in the days when there was copper for all England going out o’ these fells. Best part o’ two weeks he’d been up above marking the old workings on his map, and then one day he comes in to me late at night. Near dark it was, and he’d had nowt to eat and nowt to drink, and he’d been up above scratting and scratting till he couldn’t see his fingers. All of a dance, he was. ‘Bob, my man,’ says he, ‘I’ve summat to show thee. Tak’ a look at yon.’ And he brought his hand out of his pocket wi’ a screw o’ paper in it that he’d been holding for safety like. He opened that screw o’ paper in the light o’ my lamp. ‘Tak’ a look at yon,’ he says, ‘and tell me if ye’ve seen owt like it.’
“Well, I took a good look at it. And mind ye, yer mother’s father took me wi’ him when he went to Africa after that same stuff. I’m not easy fooled wi’ metals and such. ‘Seen owt like it?’ I says. ‘I have that, with the old queen’s head on one side o’t and Saint George a-sticking t’ dragon on t’ other,’ I says. He hadn’t much, mind you, nobbut a pinch o’ dust. Dust and a bit as big as a pin’s head maybe. But it was t’ colour of it.”
“‘I thowt ye’d know it,’ says he. ‘We’ll be getting an assay o’ this and be making our fortunes yet. Gold in t’ fells … That’s a bit o’ news to startle folk …’
“‘They’ve been startled more’n a bit already today,’ says I. He’d come straight off t’ fells to my cottage, and he’d seen nobody since morning. I give him t’ newspaper, wi’t’ news reet across t’ front page, o’ war begun and officers’ leave stopped and the rest. ‘It’ll blow over yet,’ he says, ‘but that’ll tak me oop to London,’ he says, ‘and I’ll be getting an assay of yon gold at t’ same time.’ He was off next day by t’ morning train. Reservist he was. He never come back, and that’s all there is to it. But if you ask me, is there gold in t’ fells, why, I says, ‘Aye, there is. Seeing’s believing. And I’ve seen the stuff wi’ my own eyes.”’
“Yes,” said Nancy, “but where was it he found it?”
“Ah, now,” said Slater Bob, “if I’d knowed that, maybe I’d have gone looking for ’t myself. And he tried to tell me, too. He’d his map he’d been making for Government, wi’ numbers on it for the old levels, and adits and sinkings … numbers, mind ye, stead o’ names like we call ’em, Grey Cap and Slate Crop, and Brown’s Dog, and Jimson’s and Giftie and the rest. He showed me his map, but I couldn’t make owt o’ his numbers and arrows and all. He was to take me up to see the place when he come back. But he never did come back …”
“Yes, but which side of the valley was it?” said Nancy. “If we only knew where to start looking it’d be quite enough.”
“Nay,” said the old man. “It’s not in this valley at all. It’s away behind us, up yonder, t’ other side o’ t’ Scar. He told me he found that stuff in a bit of a shallow bottom where folk had started a level and dropped it, up on High Topps …”
Nancy almost groaned. “High Topps?” she said. “But that’s right over the other side of Ling Scar.”
“Aye,” said Slater Bob. “On High Topps he found it. ‘By an old copper working,’ he said, ‘wi’ heather growing along a fault in t’ rock. Easy to find,’ he said, and he had it numbered on his map. But there’s many a score of those old workings on High Topps, and every fault in t’ rock makes a hold for heather. And then you might be standing on the very spot wi’out seeing what he saw.”
“Is it a long way?” asked John.
“Miles from Beckfoot,” said Nancy. “Over the other side of this hill. We can’t go prospecting up there and get back every night. Mother thought the gold was somewhere near.”
“Nay, it’s on High Topps,” said the old man. “The gold I’m telling of … not but what you might happen on it somewhere else … No one knows yet nor ever will all that’s hid in these fells.”
“If only it was a bit nearer home,” said Nancy. “Oh, well, I suppose we ought to be going back.”
Everybody could hear the disappointment in her voice.
“If you find it,” said the old man, “I don’t know but what I might give slates a rest. Give me metal every time.”
“We shan’t be able to look for it just now,” said Nancy. “But thank you very much for telling us about it.”
“Thank you very much,” said the others.
They lit their candles, said “Goodbye,” and started along the tunnel, Peggy this time going first.
Dorothea was still thinking of the old man’s story. “He must have taken his map to the