A Stitch in Time Part 9

Part 9 – Not as Easy as They Thought

They had been walking for quite a while and, realising that they had fallen behind, the boys increased speed and got closer just in time to hear Mr Gilbert say intently;

“Tell me, Mr, what’s your name now? Are you saved? Have you confessed to the lord? Have you turned to God?” 

Clearly embarrassed, Grandad muttered something they didn’t catch but Mr Gilbert clearly did. 

“Well, my dear sir, you must come to Bradgate later this afternoon, where I shall be preaching and we must hope you will see the light as so many have before.” 

Before Grandad could answer, Mr Gilbert let go of his arm and pointed at a big, noisy industrial building across the road. 

“This is the Effingham foundry, “he said “And there I believe you will find my protege.  I wish you well, Mr er, yes, I wish you well. Until we meet again later today, sir, God bless you.” and he raised his hat, turned away and walked briskly off without a backward look. 

Grandad turned and looked at the boys, who were giggling at his discomfort. 

“That’s enough of that.” He said grumpily and turned back to look at the Foundry. It wasn’t just one building, but several, all set around a large open space. In the middle was a big brick building with a cone shaped roof and several chimneys. 

The floor all around them was muddy; the air was thick with smoke and through a nearby door they could see men pouring what looked like molten metal from a ladle into a mould. From another building came the sound of hammers beating on metal. The whole place was dirty, noisy and somehow felt dangerous and neither of the two boys felt at all comfortable. They didn’t know what they had expected in 1820, but it wasn’t this. 

There were several men in dirty work clothes scurrying to and fro and Grandad walked up to one of them. It was noisy so Len and Norman couldn’t hear what was said, but Grandad nodded, looking at where the man pointed before going on about his business. He waved them over and the three of them walked together round one side of the building, where there was a door marked “Office” 

The problem was, they hadn’t really thought about what they would do when they found Mr Nesbitt. The boys realised they should have made a more detailed plan. Mr Nesbitt was unlikely to have the STITCH with him and getting that was equally as important as rescuing Mr Nesbitt himself. After some discussion, they decided that all they could do was find him and then deal with how they were going to get him and the machine back home. 

Grandad knocked on the door but no-one answered. He knocked again, louder, and then pushed the door open. The room was quite large and had several big desks and cabinets. There were wooden shelves full of books and papers, there were rulers and diagrams on the nearest desk. And there, standing by one of the desks, talking intently and examining a sheet of complicated looking figures with a slightly older, well-dressed man, was Mr Nesbitt. He turned as they walked in, did a double take and then gasped. 

“Oh no. Not you. Get out. Get out! I won’t have you ruining things!”  

Clearly Mr Nesbitt wasn’t very happy to see them. 

“I’m sorry to disturb you gentlemen, “said Grandad politely “I wonder if we could have a word with Mr Nesbitt for a minute or two. Won’t take long,” he smiled hopefully. 

There was a pause and then the older man said; 

“Well Nesbitt, I can see you have things to do and I have dinner engagement this evening with Viscount Halifax. Must go home and get changed. Why don’t you deal with these, er, people “he was looking doubtfully at the two boys, whose clothing must have looked extremely odd to him “and we can talk again in the morning. Your ideas on steel making are going to cause quite a stir, I can see and we need to think long and hard about things. Please read the drawings and add whatever you feel appropriate.” 

He smiled again, picked up a tall hat from the desk and made for the door.  He nodded politely at Grandad.  Len and Neil moved out of his way and watched as he left. They turned back to see Mr Nesbitt sink onto a chair behind the nearest desk. He had his head in his hands and looked completely fed up. 

“Mr Nesbitt, sir, it’s me, Norman. You know, the gardener’s lad. Don’t you remember me? We’ve come to rescue you. “ 

“Rescue? Rescue? “his voice was getting louder, “I don’t want to be rescued. It’s wonderful here. I can do what I like without Mother making a fuss.  I’ve already found myself a job and I know more about iron and steel than any of these fools do. I can run rings around them. I’ll be a rich man in no time at all.  I don’t want to go back. I can’t. I won’t.” and he banged his fist on the desk. 

Len was staring at him. 

“You want to stay here? But it’s dirty and smelly and horrible and you have that lovely old house and everything.” 

“I don’t care,” he answered sulkily. “I can make a life for myself here. I’ll take my chances. You can’t make me go back and I won’t. Now go away and leave me alone.” 

Across the yard a loud hooter went off. It was time to finish work for the day. 

Mr Nesbitt was tidying his desk, avoiding looking at Grandad or the boys. 

“Look lad, we can’t leave it at that.” 

Mr Nesbitt glowered up at him, then got up, took a hat from the hat stand and prepared to leave. He hesitated, looking at Grandad. Their arrival had obviously taken him completely by surprise.

“We need to decide what’s to be done, I can see that, but we can’t leave my machine here, even if you do want to stay. But if I take it, you’ll be stuck here for the rest of your life. Are you sure that’s what you want?”  

They all walked out of the office and Mr Nesbitt closed and locked the door behind them.  He and Grandad walked along with Norman and Len behind them, scuffing their feet on the dirty cobbles and wondering what was going to happen.  This was not a nice place in comparison to the lovely house and parkland back in Bramley and yet Mr Nesbitt seemed to like it. 

Grandad was talking seriously to Mr Nesbitt, who was no longer arguing but seemed to be listening careful to what Grandad had to say. They turned a corner into a narrow street of small neat houses and Mr Nesbitt took out a key. He stepped up to a blue painted door, unlocked it and then stood to one side to let Grandad, Norman and Len go in. He followed them and hung his hat and coat on a hook on the wall. 

“I really don’t know what to do.” His voice was quieter now and he seemed less angry. “I truly don’t want to go home. I’ve never been happy there, under my mother’s thumb all the time and nothing useful to do except be a country gentleman. It’s boring. Here there are challenges. There is a budding industry using the beginnings of a science which to me is familiar. In terms of progress and development, I know what is going to happen and I can use that knowledge to make a career for myself. I am not comfortable being a gentleman of leisure, whatever my mother may think.” 

Grandad was nodding. He clearly understood what Mr Nesbitt was saying better than the boys did. 

There was a door on either side of the hall. To the right the door was open and they could see into what appeared to be a small dining room, with spindly legged chairs and a table. The door on the left was closed. At the end of the hall were another two open doors, one leading into what might have been a primitive kitchen and the other looked like an office or study. At the end of the hall was a narrow staircase, presumably leading up to the bedrooms. 

 He walked down the narrow hall into the small study and there, on a sideboard by the wall, was the STITCH. 

A Stitch in Time Part 8

Part 8 – Getting the All Clear

As usual, they had all closed their eyes and, as usual, nothing happened so they opened them to find themselves back in Grandad’s garden. Each adult did a sneaky headcount to make sure everyone had arrived safe and sound and then pretended that they knew all along it would be OK. 

Richard, Lizzie, Neil and his Gran said a polite thank you for a lovely day and set off home. It was clear they had a lot to talk about. Len, his parents and his grandparents spent quite some time in the kitchen, clearing away leftovers (and cheekily eating a few when they thought no-one was looking.) They didn’t talk much about the day and they were all tired out, so it was showers and bed all round. 

Len’s dreams were full of adventure but when he woke up all he could remember was lots of sunshine and laughter. Downstairs there was cereal, toast and juice for breakfast and, once they were all sitting down together, the big discussion began. In the end it was agreed that Len could do at least one more trip with Grandad and Neil would go if his parents agreed. 

The next thing was to decide when. Of course, Len wanted to go as soon as possible and Grandma was insisting on a lot of checks and precautions but, eventually, it was agreed that they would go in a couple of days’ time, to give them (meaning Grandad) time to check, double check and triple check everything. Len’s dad went off to phone Neil’s dad and they had a long conversation before he came back and gave the thumbs up.

Strangely enough, although Len had expected the next two days to drag, they just flew by. One thing that needed much more thought then he had considered was what to wear. If there was a chance of meeting someone back in time, it might be a good idea to wear clothes that didn’t stand out too much, causing awkward questions.

After digging through his case and the drawers in his room, they found an old school shirt, a pair of longish shorts and some long grey socks that he could wear rolled down or pulled up. Shoes were a bit tricky because his favourite trainers were bright green but they eventually agreed that his school shoes would be Ok because he would need new ones in time to go back to school anyway. 

Grandma, of course, was worried about how much food they would need and Mum kept adding things to the First Aid Kit until it was too heavy to carry and she had to tip it all out and start again. 

Neil and his dad were round at the house a lot too, which turned out to be quite useful, as Richard was very handy helping Grandad in the shed. The great day dawned bright and sunny and they all got together on the back garden. To Len’s surprise, Grandma was coming too – he didn’t know when that had been agreed but it meant that they could use two STITCH machines if they needed to.

It was clear that both mums were starting to have doubts and both dads were wishing they could go too, so Grandad got things organised very quickly before they could change their minds, with Neil holding on with Grandma to one machine and Len on the other with Grandad. 

No countdown this time; Grandad just nodded and they pressed the red buttons. Nothing happened again, so Len opened his eyes. Grandad and Grandma were already sticking bright red tent pegs into the ground where they had arrived so they knew exactly where to stand when they were ready to go home.

The weather was grey and it looked like rain, so they walked over to the potting shed, hoping to hide the STITCH machines inside. The door was open and there, as if he had been waiting for them, was Norman. He grinned, pushed the door wider and they went in. 

In among all the greetings and explanations and the amazing resemblance between Neil and Norman, he helped them hide the machines behind some sacking under the bench where he usually worked. It took quite some time to tell Norman what they were doing and about the STITCH machines and their plan to rescue Mr Nesbitt and get the machine back too.

It didn’t take long for him to bring them up to date. Mr Nesbitt had been gone nearly two months and although his mother was still very upset, the general opinion was that he had had enough of being mollycoddled and simply run off. 

Norman didn’t seem all that surprised that they had travelled in time. He explained to them that, some time ago, his brother Eric had been given some very old magazines from the house to burn, but had kept some of them to read himself and had read them to the family in the evening. They included a serialisation of a story by a Mr Wells all about a time machine and Norman had never doubted for a moment that it was real. 

Suddenly, realising how long they had been talking, Norman said he had to go, as his mother would have his dinner ready. They walked back with him across the park, avoiding going within sight of the big house, to a small cottage where Norman and his family lived.

His mother was there with two younger children and Norman introduced the travellers to her. She took their sudden appearance very calmly and seemed more perturbed that there wouldn’t be enough food to go round than anything else.  She brightened up when Grandma started pulling boxes of food from her back pack and Norman was asking eagerly if they had brought pork pie again, which, of course, they had. 

The three boys took their meal outside to the little garden, while Grandad and Grandma sat inside with Norman’s mum, helping to feed the little ones too. Neil seemed fascinated by Norman’s mum, who he worked out would be his great, great, great, great Grandma. He stood near to her as they were clearing up and she kept ruffling his hair affectionately and saying “Eeeeh lad” with a fond smile. 

Eventually they had all eaten enough and it was time for Norman to go back to work while they went in search of Mr Nesbitt and the original STITCH machine. Grandma had not been wasting her time over the past weeks and had done more research in the newspapers. There had been a brief article in the Sheffield Independent in June 1820, about a young man being found wandering lost and bewildered just outside the town of Rotherham. He had been taken in by a Mr Gilbert of Wellgate Church in the town and that was where Grandad wanted to start. 

Norman offered to show them the way into town, which was a good hour’s walk away but his mother reminded him that he had to work the afternoon or he would be in trouble. He was really disappointed to miss out on the adventure but had no choice until Neil stepped forward;

“I’ll take his place. I don’t think I fancy going further back in time and if you tell me what to do…” 

“In that case,” said Grandma, “I’ll stay here too with Neil. To keep an eye on him.” but she was looking at the little ones with a smile as she said it. She had a soft spot for toddlers and Len guessed she would enjoy playing with them for a while. 

“Mrs Hague and I can have a natter and then we’ll stroll over to see that Neil’s alright a bit later on.” 

“Does that mean I can travel back in time with you?” gasped Norman “Can I Mam?” 

It was quickly agreed and they said thank you and goodbye to Mrs Hague, Grandma  and the little ones, then strode as fast as they could back to the potting shed, where Norman quickly showed Neil the seedlings that needed potting up, the labels to write on and the list of other jobs to be done. Len thought it looked like a lot of work but Neil wasn’t at all worried.

Grandad gave Neil a mini, with instructions that, if anyone at all came near, he was to go straight home to “Now”.  Then they pulled out one of the STITCH machines from under the bench and, with Norman leading the way, the three of them set off at a brisk pace towards the town. 

The sky was darkening and the weather was getting worse as the outskirts of the town, which had a thick pall of smoke hanging over it, came into view.  Standing at the side of the road, which was only a lane really, Grandad reset the STITCH they had been carrying between them, to go back another hundred years. He was very serious this time and he checked at least three times that the two boys had both got their minis in their pockets. They held onto the handles, closed their eyes and he pressed the red button. 

As always, nothing happened and they opened their eyes to find they appeared to be further from the town than they had thought.  At first Len was confused, as they hadn’t moved, but then he realised, they were still in the same place, a hundred years earlier, when the town had been much smaller.  

At this point Grandad decided to hide the STITCH machine, as it was difficult to carry. He wasn’t very happy to leave it but didn’t know what else to do. He pulled a large sheet of canvas out of his rucksack, unfolded it and spread it on the ground. They placed the STITCH carefully on it, wrapped it up and lowered it into the ditch at the side of the road. The boys quickly scrabbled earth and twigs over it until it was hard to see it. There was a large tree at the other side of the road, which was now just a dirt track, and this would serve as their landmark. So then, after taking a good look round to be sure they would recognise the place again, they set off into town.

By sheer good luck, the road they came into town on was Wellgate, as mentioned in the newspaper, and they soon found the building they were looking for; the Methodist Church.  The boys stood behind Grandad as he knocked on the door and waited. A round faced man in shirtsleeves and breeches opened it, pulling on his coat as he did so. 

“Good afternoon Sir,” said Grandad, very formally. He had been wearing a flat cap, which he now took off and held in his hands.  “Is it Mr Gilbert by any chance?  I hope you will be able to help us. We are looking for a young man who we believe to be a neighbour of ours who went missing a few weeks ago. “

The man smiled and shook Grandad’s hand energetically. 

“Why yes, yes indeed if you mean Arthur Nesbitt, who was lodging with us but has now moved on to better things.” 

“Aye, that’s him. Young Arthur, we didn’t know where he’d got to and his mother’s fair mythered about him.” Len thought Grandad sounded very odd but the gentleman clearly didn’t.  But at least this was a lot easier than they had expected – so far. 

“A very clever chap, young Arthur, very talented. Making quite a name for himself in the iron foundry.” 

“Iron foundry?” Grandad was obviously puzzled. 

“Why yes, he has found himself employment at the Effingham Ironworks of Messrs Samuel and Henry Walker and is doing very well for himself, even in the few weeks he has been here. “He stepped out of the door, closed it behind him and said with another wide smile; “I can take you to him if you like, or at least set you on the way, as I am going in that direction myself.”

Before Grandad could say yes or no, Mr Gilbert linked his arm and set off, with the two boys trailing behind them.  Mr Gilbert was chatting away at Grandad, who didn’t seem to be able to get a word in and the boys dawdled a little, looking around them at the town that looked both strange and familiar at the same time.  For one thing, it smelled smoky and not all that clean. There was a lot of rubbish in the gutters at the side of the road and no proper pavements. There were no cars or street lights, plenty of horses and people, mostly rather grubby and downtrodden looking, going about their lives. Len wondered how they would react if they found out that there were time travellers walking along the street beside them.