A Place Called Freedom - Ken Follett [17]
“If they catch you they’ll bring you back with an iron collar around your neck, like Jimmy Lee.”
Mack winced. To wear a collar like a dog was a humiliation the miners all feared. “I’m cleverer than Jimmy,” he said. “He ran out of money and tried to get work at a pit in Clackmannan, and the mine owner reported his name.”
“That’s the trouble. You’ve got to eat, and how will you earn your bread? Coal is all you know.”
Mack had a little cash put aside but it would not last long. However, he had thought about this. “I’ll go to Edinburgh,” he said. He might get a ride on one of the heavy horse-drawn wagons that took the coal from the pithead—but he would be safer to walk. “Then I’ll get on a ship—I hear they always want strong young men to work on the coalers. In three days I’ll be out of Scotland. And they can’t bring you back from outside the country—the laws don’t run elsewhere.”
“A ship,” Esther said wonderingly. Neither of them had ever seen one, although they had looked at pictures in books. “Where will you go?”
“London, I expect.” Most coal ships out of Edinburgh were destined for London. But some went to Amsterdam, Mack had been told. “Or Holland. Or Massachusetts, even.”
“They’re just names,” Esther said. “We’ve never met anyone who’s been to Massachusetts.”
“I suppose people eat bread and live in houses and go to sleep at night, the same as everywhere else.”
“I suppose so,” she said dubiously.
“Anyway, I don’t care,” he said. “I’ll go anywhere that’s not Scotland—anywhere a man can be free. Think of it: to live where you like, not where you’re told. To choose your work, free to leave your place and take another job that’s better paid, or safer, or cleaner. To be your own man, and nobody’s slave—won’t that be grand?”
There were hot tears on her cheeks. “When will you go?”
“I’ll stay another day or two, and hope the Jamissons relax their vigilance a bit. But Tuesday’s my twenty-second birthday. If I’m at the pit on Wednesday I’ll have worked my year-and-a-day, and I’ll be a slave again.”
“You’re a slave anyway, in reality, whatever that letter said.”
“But I like the thought that I’ve got the law on my side. I don’t know why it should be important, but it is. It makes the Jamissons the criminals, whether they acknowledge it or not. So I’ll be away Tuesday night.”
In a small voice she said: “What about me?”
“You’d better work for Jimmy Lee, he’s a good hewer and he’s desperate for another bearer. And Annie—”
Esther interrupted him. “I want to go with you.”
He was surprised. “You’ve never said anything about it!”
Her voice became louder. “Why do you think I’ve never married? Because if I get wed and have a child I’ll never get out of here.”
It was true she was the oldest single woman in Heugh. But Mack had assumed there was just no one good enough for her here. It had not occurred to him that all these years she had secretly wanted to escape. “I never knew!”
“I was afraid. I still am. But if you’re going, I’ll go with you.”
He saw the desperation in her eyes, and it hurt him to refuse her, but he had to. “Women can’t be sailors. We haven’t the money for your passage, and they wouldn’t let you work it. I’d have to leave you in Edinburgh.”
“I won’t stay here if you go!”
Mack loved his sister. They had always sided with one another in any conflict, from childhood scraps, through rows with their parents, to disputes with the pit management. Even when she had doubts about his wisdom she was as fierce as a lioness in his defense. He longed to take her with him, but it would be much harder for two to escape than one. “Stay a little while, Esther,” he said. “When I get where I’m going, I’ll write to you. As soon as I get work, I’ll save money and send for you.”
“Will you?”
“Aye, to be sure!”
“Spit and swear.”
“Spit and swear?” It was something they had done as children, to seal a promise.
“I want you to!”
He could see she meant it. He spat on his palm, reached across the plank table, and took her hard hand in his own. “I swear I’ll send for you.”
“Thank you,” she