Beyond the warning rope
An original fiction passage set in the nineteenth century.
The red rope had been stretched across the quarry path after the afternoon blast. Beyond it, the floor curved between two high walls of stone before disappearing into shadow. Clara's brother Hugh had already climbed halfway over the rope when she saw the brown envelope lying in the dust.
It contained his week's wages. A gust had carried it from the clerk's table just as the workers were leaving. Hugh pointed out that the envelope was only twenty paces away. The quarry was silent, and the stones nearest the path looked as firm as the steps outside their cottage.
Clara caught the back of his coat and pulled him towards her. Hugh laughed. He asked whether she expected the whole hillside to fall because of a piece of red cord. Two departing workers turned to watch. Clara released his coat, but stood between him and the rope.
A thread of grit slipped down the nearest wall. It made almost no sound when it touched the ground. Clara watched a second thread follow it, then called to the workers to fetch the foreman. Hugh's face reddened. He told her that he would have recovered the envelope by now if she had not delayed him. Clara said nothing. She wound the loose end of the rope twice around its post and held it there.
The crack came before the workers had reached the yard. A shelf of stone dropped across the path, sending dust over the rope and hiding the envelope. Hugh stumbled backwards. Clara did not move until the last pebbles had stopped bouncing.
When the foreman returned, he cleared a way around the fallen stone. The envelope lay unopened beneath a pale covering of dust. Hugh reached towards it, but Clara waited for the foreman to lift the rope. Only then did she step forward and place the wages in her brother's hand.
“The writer successfully makes Clara’s refusal to cross the rope seem more courageous than Hugh’s attempt to do so.”
Evaluate how successfully the writer presents this idea. Support your judgement with detailed references to the passage.
456 exam-style questions on Edexcel GCSE English Language 1.3 Content: prose fiction study requirements, covering 1.3.1 Read challenging prose fiction for the unseen 19th-century extract. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.