About The Hollow Ground – Episode 14
About The Hollow Ground by Pamela Kavanagh
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“You’ve seen this woman before?” Piers asked curiously.
“Yes, on several occasions,” Nan told him.
Encouraged by his interest, she went on.
“I noticed her at Papa’s funeral. She kept in the background then, slipping away after the burial. Now, she seems to come and go. There can be no sign of her for a while, then she appears again by the graveside.”
“And you’ve no idea who she is?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Strange,” Piers said.
They were standing by the gate to the home field, in which half a dozen newly arrived Red Poll heifers were tearing at the new grass, their russet flanks gleaming in the sunshine.
Hardy beasts that would provide ample milk for the dairy once they had calved, and excellent beef cattle into the bargain, the choice had been Piers Merriman’s. Nan had accepted it without question.
“This was yesterday,” she continued. “I went to put flowers on Papa’s resting place and there she was. She dresses in black and wears a veil over her face.
“She’d brought wayside blooms for the grave. Papa had a special fondness for them. He called them God’s bounty.”
The subject of the mourner had cropped up quite by chance.
Nan had been preoccupied, prompting a query from Piers as to whether something was wrong, a sudden qualm over his choice of cattle, maybe. She had reassured him that this was not so and launched into what was troubling her.
“God’s bounty. ’Tis a fair way of putting it,” Piers said, smiling.
“Papa was like that. If something really moved him he would give praise, as with the hedgerow flowers. It had me wondering how she knew.”
“The lady clearly had dealings with your sire.” This had every appearance of a delicate situation and the remark was phrased with care. “Did you speak with her?”
Nan did not immediately reply. The lines of verse her papa quoted surfaced in her mind.
Ah, how the echoes still resound
About the hollow ground.
The words meant that not all was as it seemed; words that looked to have taken on a deeper significance.
Could this be a matter of resounding echoes? Nan felt suddenly at a loss. She’d thought she had known her papa. Now she had cause to wonder.
“Miss Vessey?”
Nan looked up into her employee’s face. It occurred to her, with a nudge of disquiet, that Piers was becoming her confidant as well her right-hand man. Perhaps she should guard her tongue.
“Forgive me,” she said. “I was lost in thought. I did not speak with the woman. She fled the moment she heard the creak of the gate. But enough of that. Tell me, have you made progress with the cottage?”
“Aye. I’ve knocked up a new back door; the other was rat-nibbled and rotting.” Piers took the hint and lightened his tone. “’Tis getting to be the snuggest nest I’ve ever known!”
“Really?” Nan saw an opportunity to delve into the man’s past. “What of your former employment? You are clearly accustomed to taking command. Those of your integrity are rarely inadequately housed.”
“Aye, well. Happen.”
Nan saw the usual closed look on the man’s face, the shutters firmly down, and tried a little coercion.
“How evasive you are, Merriman. Is there nothing you have to say about yourself? What of family? Have you no-one to call your own?”
“Not any more. My sire perished in a quarrying disaster along with my two brothers when I was a lad of ten. Mother lost heart after that and didn’t last long herself.”
“I’m sorry. Such tragedy is hard for one so young.”
“It happens. Quarrying, mining, a life at sea, even farming – they’re all risky occupations. A man has to earn a crust.”
“You were left all alone. What did you do then?”
“Got myself taken on as crow-scarer at a local farm. Slept on a pile of straw in a corner of the barn and ate my meals with the men. I’d always had a hankering for the land. It suited better than quarrying.”
“Skills such as yours are not acquired by staying in one place,” Nan said, pressing harder, but if she was expecting more details of Piers’s earlier life she was to be disappointed.
He simply shrugged.
“Aye, well, it’s a matter of survival. That reminds me. There’s something I’ve been meaning to speak of. That stackyard yonder.”
