The Hollow Land by Jane Gardam

offered James a drink.
    â€œIt’s all right. I’m going in to get some lunch soon.” He looked at the thistles—fat and lush, silver-grey and copper-lavender in the sun. “Funny,” he said, “so many thistles.”
    â€œFunny’s what it’s not.”
    â€œThey ought to have discovered a selective weedkiller.”
    â€œThey have, it’s called a donkey.”
    â€œWhy doesn’t Mr. Teesdale get a donkey?”
    â€œHe’s got one. It’s called Old Hewitson. What’s thou laughing at?” he added. “Come on now. Stir thy sinews. Take a swipe and leave that exam. What is it anyway?”
    â€œGeology. The study of rocks.”
    â€œRocks eh?” He gave another two-way glare at the Celtic Camp. “Come on. Take a swipe.”
    James put down the book, slid off the bank and took a great swing with the scythe.
    â€œLOOK OUT!” cried Old Hewitson leaping the beck. “Are you right?”
    â€œNothing much,” said James rolling about in agony and holding his shin.
    â€œTake my headband. Bind it tight. It’s not over damp. You’ll be right in a half hour. It’s not work for a tawny-ket. Nor yet was Tommy Littlefair’s but that was because it was too far the other way, for the leg was a gonner. Survived splendid mind. The only wooden-legged man I ever knew to ride a bicycle. What’s that you said about thistles being funny?”
    James lay and rolled on the beck bank looking pale, and far above Harry said, “Your grandad’s cut James’s leg off. Shall we go down?”
    â€œWe’ll move in closer,” said Bell, “while they’re off guard. Come on. Sideways and down into the ravine and over the broken fence. Then up and round behind them. If he can still walk they’ll maybe go now.”
    â€œYou’d think your grandad would want his lunch. He’s been out since about dawn.”
    â€œHe eats on the hoof. Why he has to thistle there today I don’t know. And why your brother has to choose that very bouse to sit on and do his exams I don’t know.”
    â€œIs the opening right near then?”
    â€œRight near.”
    â€œAnd they’ve never seen it? Not even your grandfather, living here all his life?”
    â€œIt wasn’t there all his life. It’s a shift in the earth. He’s not been able to get up the bouse since the day he got his leg flattened. Not even my dad knows about the opening and there’s not much he doesn’t know. He knows about the pit-head mind. Well even you’ve seen that. The pit-head’s obvious, once you’ve walked in the cave in the fell-side. You can’t miss that opening with them great iron bars over it. But not even my dad knows about the overhead hole up beyond. You can’t get a tractor up there and I’ve seen to it no sheep gets stuck in it. I put a slab over.”
    â€œHave you ever been down?”
    â€œAye. Once. With a rope. We shan’t need a rope today, being two of us. I never been along inside though. It’s no place to be in alone. Mind we’re not going far inside today neither. We just walk around a bit and climb out again.”
    â€œBut you said there’s a railway in there. A real one.”
    â€œAye.”
    â€œWith lines.”
    â€œRails. And little trucks.”
    â€œLittle trucks? Go on. Tell on.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWhat you tell’t before.”
    â€œTold before. All I said was there was silver there. It’s a silver mine. You can see the silver glints in the walls. Down further there’ll be long layers of it. They never finished working it out. There’s poison down there. In the channels of the rails. All running.”
    â€œCould we get it out? The silver?”
    â€œDon’t be daft. You had to have worked twenty years before you were trusted to knock out the real stuff.”
    They had left the Celtic Camp