Halfway up the steep and twisting village street sat a low-roofed alehouse, that was not only a woman-free meeting place for the men of Camptounfoot, but also served as the official centre of gossip. William Strang the village blacksmith, his neighbour Tommy Rutherford, a weaver, and Black Jo the undertaker and carpenter, were sitting by the fire with mugs in their hands one cold spring night when Hughie the alehouse-keeper looked up and asked them, ‘Where’ll they build the station, do ye think?’
They had been discussing the railway rumours a few minutes before and knew what he was talking about. The blacksmith shrugged and laughed. ‘In Rosewell, I dare say. They’ll no’ build it here. What for would they build a railway through Camptounfoot?’
Hughie shook his head. ‘That’s no’ what I heard. Rosewell might be getting a station but we’re getting a junction… and a great big bridge over the river down there by Craigie’s last field.’
His customers laughed. ‘Away you go! The railway’ll go to Rosewell because it’s four times as big as Camptounfoot. And the river bank’s lower there; they’ll cross it at Rosewell, beside the road-bridge. What for would they be coming along here, where the river banks are high to cross the river?’
There was a solemn air about Hughie as he cautioned them, ‘You wait. A customer was in here today saying that some railway man from Edinburgh’s been down to speak to the Duke about laying the line across his land at Rosewell, but the Duke saw him off apparently. And you ken as well as me that he owns most of the fields around Rosewell. They’ll not get to cross the river there. They’ll be lucky if they even get a station. It’s causing a terrible rumpus.’
There was a little window in the back wall of the alehouse that looked across the river to the lights of the town of Rosewell glittering a mile away, and Tommy Rutherford, the grey-haired weaver, stared out at those lights which sparkled like diamonds in the frosty night as he asked, ‘What sort of a rumpus?’
Hughie told him. ‘Half the Rosewell folk are mad that the railway’s no’ coming, and the other half are mad that it might… The Duke and his friends are whipping up opposition to it. They don’t want anything to change, but the shopkeepers and the mill men are angry because a railway would have brought them business. Now it’s going to run down through Maddiston apparently, and they’re feared all the trade’ll go there.’
William Strang took a swig of his ale and said in a joking tone, ‘They’ve managed all right in Rosewell till now, haven’t they? They’re just greedy.’
The weaver looked sharply at him and asked, ‘Are you not for the railway, then?’
‘Oh, I’ve nothing against it, providing it doesn’t run past my door but I don’t think it will so I’m not bothered.’
‘But it’d bring work and it’d bring money. Look what’s happened to other places where they’ve built railways. Camptounfoot would benefit. There’d be more houses and more jobs for folk, visitors would ride in on the trains, somebody could open a hotel…’ Hughie’s eyes were sparkling at the idea.
William stood up to his impressive, well-muscled height of six feet two inches and said, ‘This village is fine the way it is. We’re not needing more houses or hotels. My folk have been here for as far back as anybody can remember, and it’s aye been a great place to live and die in. I don’t want anything to change.’ His tone was vehement and he was no longer joking. Laying his empty mug on the table top he said, ‘I’m off home now. I just hope all this talk comes to nothing. There’ll be a rumpus here too if they try to bring a railway through this village.’
His friends were silent as they watched him go but once the door had closed behind him they began to talk again. ‘William’s old-fashioned, but then the Strangs have aye lived here,’ stated Jo the undertaker.
‘So have the Rutherfords,’ the weaver reminded him. ‘We’ve been in our cottage for seven generations that I know of, but I can’t make up my mind if I’m for the railway or not.’ His brow was furrowed as he pondered the problem.
Jo said, ‘It might not be good for you. It would mean the mills in Maddiston get an edge on you. If they take over any more of the weaving trade you’ll be frozen out.’
Tommy Rutherford nodded sadly. ‘That’s true, but maybe our days’re finished anyway. When I was a laddie there were ten families of weavers in this village but now we’re the only ones left.’
The others nodded in agreement. They had watched as, one by one, the weaving families of Camptounfoot sold their homes and moved away to the mill-towns that were starting to spring up along the banks of local rivers. Sometimes these displaced villagers came back on visits, and then it was clear to see how they yearned for their old free way of life – but they had condemned themselves to labour like ants in an ant hill for an exacting employer who was never satisfied with the amount of work they put in. Tommy Rutherford alone remained independent, working at a loom set up in his downstairs room. His wife worked along with him and they hoped their children would soon start weaving as well. They had managed to survive because their webs were exceptionally fine, so good that a middleman was prepared to make a special journey every month to Camptounfoot to collect the lengths of woollen cloth they weaved. But for how long would that go on? Even if no railway came, the mills of Maddiston would probably take away the Rutherfords’ customers eventually. Tommy shook his head sadly and Jo said in sympathy, ‘I ken. It’s a bad time, isn’t it? Everything’s changing.’
Hughie was gathering up dirty mugs and he snorted. ‘It’s all right for you, Jo. Folk’ll aye keep on dying – you’ll never be out of a job. But I think a railway would be a good thing. It would open up the world for the folk of Camptounfoot.’
Tommy stood up, for it was his turn now to go home. ‘Do we want the world opened up for us, though? We’ve managed fine till now.’
Jo glanced at him and said, ‘Don’t worry, Tommy. It might never happen. It’s probably all talk.’
In the street outside, the oil lamp set high on the wall at the corner of St James’ Wynd was casting a pool of light on to the gleaming cobbles when the weaver stepped out of the alehouse door. He looked up and down the steep street, noting the candles gleaming in his neighbours’ windows. There was one behind the glittering panes of Mr Jessup’s sitting room overlooking the street, and Widow Blackie’s window shone too. He was glad to see her light, for when she had been ill recently, her house had been in darkness every evening. She must be feeling better if she was still up, he thought.
On the other side of the road, the window of the schoolhouse was glowing as brightly as a beacon, and the weaver knew that Mr Anderson the schoolmaster would be entertaining his friends, for he was a hospitable man who liked nothing better than to spend an evening in conversation with his neighbours. On impulse, Rutherford turned back to knock on Anderson’s door and find out if he knew anything about this railway business.
Mrs Anderson opened the door and invited him in. As he’d expected, there were four or five people already sitting around the fire. Among them he recognised his neighbour Tibbie Mather, William Strang’s widowed sister, and her bonny daughter Hannah. They moved aside to make a space for him on the wooden settle facing the blaze and he sighed as he sat down. ‘I’ve just seen your brother in the alehouse and he was talking about this railway business,’ he told Tibbie.
She turned her pink-cheeked, chubby face towards him and asked, ‘What was he saying?’
‘He’d heard they might be going to build a railway through this village and a bridge over the river as well. There’s talk of it in Rosewell apparently.’
The others stared back at him apprehensively and Mr Anderson nodded. ‘We’ve just been talking about the same thing. Hannah here heard something at her work. She’s been telling us about it.’
They all looked at Tibbie’s eighteen-year-old daughter who seemed to glow and glitter in the firelight like a goddess, for her mass of red-gold hair caught the light like a golden crown. She leaned forward and said, ‘They were gossiping about it in the kitchen today at Bella Vista. The Colonel’s all for it, they say. He’s investing money in the railway company that’s going to build it.’
Six months ago, Hannah had taken her first place as a kitchen-maid in the recently finished mansion Bella Vista, which was owned by her employer, Colonel Augustus Anstruther, late of the East India Company army, who had come home with a vast fortune and built himself a fine house overlooking the village from farther up the nearest of the Three Sisters. The village took pride in the fact that one of their girls was working for this magnate, and Hannah brought a great deal of fascinating gossip home with her when she came to visit her mother, which she did almost every day.
Now Tibbie snorted, ‘The Colonel would be all for it! He’s just an incomer, isn’t he? He doesn’t know how local folk think.’
Mr Anderson shook his head. ‘Oh Tibbie, maybe a railway’d be a good thing for us.’
She was shocked. ‘How can you say that! Maybe in Rosewell or Maddiston, but not here. We’re not needing a railway in Camptounfoot.’
Old Jock the village postman, who was in the party, nodded sagely. ‘That’s right, Tib. We’re not needing a railway. All that noise and carry on, and what about the building of it? That’ll be some turn-up.’
Everyone looked at him in alarm, for this was something they had not considered. Mrs Anderson, who was a great reader of newspapers, chipped in, ‘You’re right, Jock. If they build a railway here, they’ll have to bring in navvies and they’re awful men, real savages. The papers are aye full of terrible things they do.’
‘What sort of things?’ asked Tibbie.
Mrs Anderson rolled her eyes. ‘Fighting and drinking, sometimes even murder. Terrible things. Attacking women too. There won’t be a woman safe in the district if the navvies come.’
Tibbie looked at her lovely daughter in alarm and half-rose from her seat. ‘Oh my God!’ Hannah was in the habit of running back and forth from the village to Bella Vista even in darkness. She was going back there that very evening.
Hannah guessed what her mother was thinking, but she was not worried; she laughed as she put a hand on Tibbie’s arm and said, ‘Sit down, Mam. They’re not here yet and they’ll probably never come. It’s just one of those rumours. Even if they do build a railway down here, it probably won’t come near Camptounfoot.’
As they talked on, it soon became obvious that there were two schools of thought about the coming of a railway. Older residents like Tibbie, Mrs Anderson and Postman Jock were totally against the idea but the schoolmaster and Hannah were more receptive. Mr Anderson, whose imagination had always been sparked by tales of travel and distant lands, welcomed the opportunity that a railway would give to his pupils, and Hannah, young and high-spirited, was in favour of anything modern and new, though she took care to hide her eagerness from her worried mother. For Tibbie was of the old school. She had been born in Camptounfoot; married a man also from the village and spent her subsequent life in a cottage that had been owned by his family for hundreds of years. She had no wish to live anywhere else, for she was sure that there was not another place on earth more beautiful or peaceful than her native home. Like her brother William the blacksmith, she did not want anything to change – and even the suggestion of upheaval frightened her.
Now she rose from her seat and took her daughter’s arm. ‘Come on, Hannah. It’s time you went back to Bella Vista and I went home. It’s getting late.’ As Hannah stood up, the firelight gilded her fine skin and highlighted her delicate features. Everyone in the party was struck again by how lovely she was. She smiled at her mother without argument for she realised how the talk was upsetting Tibbie.
Tommy Rutherford stood up with them and said, ‘I’ll have to go too because my wife’ll be wondering where I am. I’ll walk up the road with you, Tibbie.’
Outside, the night sky had deepened to dark purple and the stars glittered like chips of ice. Hannah kissed her mother and ran off down the hill while Tibbie and Tom climbed the slope past Widow Blackie’s door. When she saw the light in the window, Tibbie paused and said, ‘Meg’s still up. I’ll look in at her and see she’s all right.’
Rutherford stopped too. ‘Her light was on when I passed and I thought it was strange. She’s usually asleep by this time, isn’t she?’
They knocked at the door and when there was no reply, turned the handle and went inside. The door opened directly into a low-roofed room with a fireplace at the far end and a bed recess down one side. Tibbie stepped into the flickering shadows cast by the candle and called softly, ‘Mistress Blackie, Mistress Blackie, where are you?’
A feeble voice came from the bed. ‘I’m here, Tib. Oh, I’m glad to see you. I’m sick, awful sick.’
Tibbie gestured to Rutherford. ‘Run home and get your wife, Tommy. I’ll maybe need some help.’ He did as he was bid and only minutes later his wife was in the old widow’s cottage with a basket of food on her arm. The neighbours of Camptounfoot always stepped into the breach in emergencies, and now they had everything in hand. It was midnight when Mrs Rutherford went home again and when she did, her husband was waiting to hear her news.
‘The poor old soul’s dying,’ she said sadly as she took off her shawl. ‘But Tibbie’s with her and I’ll go back in the morning.’
Tom shook his grey head. ‘That’s Camptounfoot for ye – that’s what living in a village like this means. Tibbie and William are right: I hope no railway comes here to change things and spoil what we’ve got.’
When the first grey streaks of light began to appear in the sky, old Mrs Blackie died peacefully with her hand in Tibbie Mather’s. Her neighbours washed and dressed her in the white cotton gown she had laid aside for her shroud, and then Tibbie ran up St James’ Wynd to rap on Jo’s door and call out, ‘Widow Blackie’s gone!’
Jo shoved his head out of the upstairs window and told her, ‘I’ll be down right away.’ The age-old way of doing things went on without effort. Next day the old lady, whose only son had been killed at Waterloo, was buried by her neighbours in an ivy-lined grave dug in the burying-ground beside the ruined gable wall of an ancient chapel that long ago went out of use when French monks came and built a huge abbey at Rosewell on the opposite bank of the river. Though the villagers of Camptounfoot worshipped in Rosewell, they still buried their dead in the village.
Tibbie Mather stood beside the grave with her sister-in-law Effie and her friends Mrs Anderson and Mrs Rutherford, and they wept gently for their dead neighbour. They’d known her all their lives; she had been greyhaired and bent when they were girls, and now it seemed right that they should be mourning her death in the graveyard where their own ancestors lay, and where one day they would be buried themselves.
The village remained silent and subdued for twenty-four hours as a mark of respect, but next morning things were back to normal. Children shouted in the school playground; William’s hammer could be heard clanging on iron in his smithy at the end of the Wynd; a woman called out a cheerful greeting to her neighbour as she passed up the street. Life was flowing on as usual. Neat and tidy in a crisp white apron, Tibbie Mather stood at her front door and listened with her head cocked to one side like a sparrow. Her dread of innovation, her fear of a terrifying railway thrusting its way into the middle of their little community gradually disappeared. In a way, she found the death of the old widow a sort of reassurance because it made her feel that village life flowed like a river and, like a river, Camptounfoot would never change.
It was just as well that Tibbie did not know about a meeting being held that very morning at an elegant office in Edinburgh’s Rutland Square. Five men sat around a large table poring over maps and papers spread out over its polished surface.
‘Just look at all that empty land and not a mile of railway line on it!’ exulted the most enthusiastic of them. His name was Sir Geoffrey Miller and he was the Chairman of the recently formed Edinburgh and South of Scotland Railway Company, which had been inaugurated by a special Act of Parliament only a few weeks before.
His colleagues leaned forward and followed his pointing finger with their eyes. ‘Look at all those mill-towns, growing like mushrooms and hardly a decent road to any of them. The woollen trade’s booming and they’re desperate for a way to ship their goods out. They’re mad for us to open our line. We’ll make a fortune!’ cried Miller, although he was not normally given to expressions of excitement.
‘If we can get it built,’ demurred a cautious banker called Thomas Munro.
The others round the table made similar doubting sounds but Miller was unabashed: ‘Of course we’ll get it built! The mill-owners are backing us – they’re all eager to put money into the line. We’ve got two local landowners, Anstruther and Raeburn of Falconwood, nibbling too. I’m going down there soon to see them and I’m sure we’ll have them behind us. They’re both sharp businessmen and this is a sure-fire success.’
‘What about young Allandale? I’ve heard he’s against it,’ came a voice from the back of the room. The speaker was John Smith, a canny financier who liked to have everything cut and dried before he invested as much as a pound. The new railway company needed his backing and he knew it.
‘His sort are always against the railway but that hasn’t stopped them being built in other places, has it? The dukes and the earls don’t want their power base to shift but they’ve ruled their little kingdoms for too long and if manufacturers grow powerful, the old aristocrats will be threatened,’ said Miller, staring over the heads of his colleagues at Smith.
When their eyes met, Smith countered with, ‘He could still stop your plans in their tracks. He owns too much land down there.’
Miller gestured with his pen. ‘Come and look at this. I know exactly how much he owns. This and this and this… all the ground south of Rosewell, unfortunately, but he doesn’t own this – or this. That part’s Anstruther’s, and that narrow stretch on both sides of the river belongs to Raeburn. We’ll take our bridge across the river on Raeburn’s land.’
Smith stepped up beside him and leaned over his shoulder. ‘Anstruther’s a parvenu but does Raeburn know what you’re planning? Is he brave enough to defy his Duke?’
Miller laughed. ‘For hard cash he’d defy anybody. I’ve offered him a seat on the board and two thousand a year… He’s got land but not much capital. He’ll come.’
Smith laid a finger on the map. ‘It’s all very well getting his land, but where do you go from there? The Duke owns the area behind it.’
Miller had an answer to that as well. ‘He doesn’t own the land behind this village here, though, and it marches with Raeburn’s. We can run our line along its boundary. Anstruther bought that ground five years ago from the Duke for a house and a park. He’s built the house, but he’s ready to sacrifice part of his park if what I hear is true. It’s perfect! The line will run down from Edinburgh to Maddiston where the big mills are, then it’ll go on to Rosewell where we can build our station on the north side. After that it’ll cross the river by Camptounfoot and head for the south. Eventually it’ll end up at Berwick.’
His colleagues stood nodding their heads as the line was traced for them. It was untapped country indeed. ‘It’ll revolutionise trade,’ said one of them, but Smith’s brow was still furrowed. ‘I know that part of the country,’ he said slowly. ‘I used to fish the river there. Isn’t the bank by Camptounfoot very high? Surely that’s a bad place to try to build a bridge?’
Miller shot him a glance. ‘It’s not the easiest,’ he admitted grudgingly, ‘but it’s the only place available to us because of Allandale. If we build our line at all, we’ve got to use Raeburn’s land and we need Anstruther’s too. I’m sure I can persuade them.’
‘No doubt, no doubt,’ said Smith smoothly, ‘but who’s going to build it? That could prove a costly enterprise.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so. There’s not much railwaybuilding going on just now, and contractors all over the country are eager for work. We can drive a hard bargain. I’ve put out notices for tender – they’ll be flooding in soon. Are you coming in with us or not, Smith?’
The financier leaned over the papers for a long time before he finally straightened up and stuck out his hand. ‘It has possibilities, I think. Yes, I’ll back you, providing you arrange certain things to my satisfaction.’
‘And what may these be?’ enquired Miller confidently. ‘The first is that you rope in Anstruther and Raeburn and have their agreement in writing. The second is that you find a bridge-builder capable of tackling a project like this, and I can tell you before it starts that it won’t be easy. I’m not going to back any scheme for a bridge which falls down before it’s finished. Get the best man for the job and then I’ll put in my money.’
The prospectus for Camptounfoot railway viaduct arrived on Christopher Wylie’s office desk in Newcastle the next day. Wylie pored over the papers for an hour and then sat back with his hands over his eyes. ‘Can I do this? Can I take this on?’ he asked himself. Standing up, he stretched his arms high above his white head and felt his aching bones creak with the effort. He was getting old. A few years ago, nothing would have stopped him from putting in an offer to build the Camptounfoot bridge but he was fifty-six years of age and he’d lost his enthusiasm. His only son was dead and there seemed to be no point in striving so hard any longer.
He turned and walked towards his office window and stared out across the River Tyne at the boats lined up along the busy wharves. Newcastle was booming. With every year that passed, more ships came up the river; more money flooded into the city. Wylie remembered when he’d been able to walk the streets and greet most of the people he saw. Now those streets were full of strangers, prosperous and busy, confident and bustling – people who did not recognise him and whom he did not know.
His eyes ached with the effort of reading the closely printed prospectus in dim light, and he rubbed them with his knuckles. Behind him he heard the office door open. ‘Is that you, Claud?’ he asked without turning round.
‘Yes,’ said the gravelly voice of his old assistant and secretary Claud Cockburn, who had worked with him since he first started up his contracting business some thirty-four years before. Like his employer, Cockburn was growing old and anxious to retire.
Wylie still did not turn. ‘Did you read the papers about that bridge?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ said Claud, none too enthusiastically.
‘What do you think?’
‘I think you could do it. You’re probably the only contractor in the north who could.’
‘You don’t sound too keen,’ grunted Wylie, finally turning round.
‘I don’t know if you want to put yourself through all that again,’ said Claud slowly. A little hunchbacked chap with a deeply lined face, he looked like a gnome from a fairy tale.
‘I don’t know either. I’m getting too old… it would have been different if James was still alive,’ sighed Wylie.
Claud nodded. ‘I know. But if you don’t mind me saying so, you could do with the money. You’ve not had a contract for eighteen months and you lost a lot on Hudson’s collapse. You can’t afford to retire yet, Chris. You need one last big job to recoup your losses.’
‘How bad are things?’ asked Wylie.
His old friend shook his head. ‘Bad enough. You owe the bank a packet, and if you don’t start making some money soon they’ll foreclose on you.’
Wylie groaned. ‘That’s what I’ve been afraid of. My God, I used to be the biggest railway contractor in Newcastle – everybody came to me with their work. What’s happened?’
‘There isn’t any railway work at the moment. Everybody’s scared off because of what happened to Hudson. This bridge is the first thing that’s come in for a year.’ Wylie stared at the old man’s face. ‘You mean I should try to get it?’
Claud nodded. ‘You have to get it if you’re not going to go bust,’ he said. Then he sighed. ‘But I’m too old to help you any longer. I’m sixty-seven, Chris.’
Wylie straightened his broad shoulders and turned away from the window. ‘I know. I’m going to pension you off, old man, but let’s sit down and go through the prospectus together. Light the lamps, Claud. Give me the benefit of your help one more time. I hope you’re not in a hurry to get home tonight.’
‘I’m never in a hurry to get home,’ Claud sighed. ‘There’s nobody waiting for me, not like you.’
Wylie sighed too as he thought about his once bright and cheerful wife, reduced now to a weeping, hysterical wreck because of the death of their beloved son. ‘Send the carriage home with a message for Arabella to say I’ll be back late, and then come and help me work out what it’s going to take to secure this project,’ he instructed his faithful old clerk.