The Ragged Valley

Dedication

Dedicated to my grandparents

Lily (Hinchliffe) Booth 1920–2016

George William Booth 1919–2017

True Sheffielders

Chapter 1

On a gale-driven afternoon in March, Silas Hinchcliffe breasted the summit of the hill like a swimmer coming up for air.

Except for one detail, the valley beneath his muddy boots was no different to the undulating landscape he’d been stumbling across since before dawn, a runaway’s adrenaline coursing through his veins. Here were the same old foggy shades of green and brown, tamed by a jigsaw of drystone walls. Sheep pressed their ropy hides against damp hedges and cows stood in the rain in stoic surrender.

His soaked britches clung to his legs and rain belted his face like gravel, but Silas paid no heed. His narrowed eyes found and followed the movements of a man, ant-sized, who was hurrying across the earth embankment that straddled the gorge below. Silas was a taller than average youth, hard-muscled from farm work, but he reckoned he’d make an equally puny sight, if the man looked up, if he lifted his face to examine the skyline against which Silas stood. But the man didn’t. He scurried along, oblivious, his head bent against the wind.

A vast reservoir held at bay by the embankment was the additional detail on the landscape Silas had been told to look out for, the signpost that meant his journey was almost, but not quite, at an end. The bulging mass of water looked barely contained to Silas. It would be a small job for one of those white-capped waves to reach up and devour the man walking so precariously beside them.

A fierce eddy of wind blew fresh rain into his face. He whooped – a nonsense yelp – to relieve the wave of excitement that rose from his innards to his throat, and stamped his feet, pushing his hands through his thick wet tangle of hair. He’d forgotten his cap in his haste to leave. An unwanted sneer echoed in his skull, his father’s voice, Tha not made o’ sugar, are tha? Won’t melt, will tha?

A firm nudge into the palm of his hand brought him back to the moment, restoring the bubble of anticipation in his stomach. Silas bent to pat the collie.

‘It’s stair rods, Shandy!’

He fished an apple from his satchel and chucked it in the air to enjoy the sight of the dog springing and twisting to catch it with a snap of her jaw.

‘Good lass.’

He was glad, now, to have her by his side. Shandy had risen from the rug by the cold embers of the farmhouse fireplace, followed Silas out of the house, had waited for him to lift and replace the gate and had stayed at his heel as he had crept down the lane. He’d assumed she would soon turn tail and had ignored her. But she had continued to pad by his side, and then – as dawn broke across the shadowy shapes of roadside foliage, revealing spiked leaves and dew-laden cobwebs – she ran circles around him, threatening to trip him. Silas had imitated as quietly as possible the harsh noises his father made in the field, and gestured back the way he’d come. It had been her turn to ignore him.