The Hollow Land by Jane Gardam Page A

far behind them now and dropped off the fell into a deep cleft. James and Old Hewitson were out of sight. They began to climb the far side of the cleft, pulling themselves up by bushes and rocks. A sheep racketed away from them from behind some gorse bushes and once a family of grouse shot up from under their feet making a noise like wooden rattles. Bell and Harry stood still for a minute, then fell on their stomachs and crawled to the edge of the crag top and looked down. James and Old Hewitson were much nearer now, directly below, but still too far off for Bell and Harry to catch their voices.
    â€œSee where your brother’s left his book? He was sat not twenty feet below the hole, if he did but know it. He might have been safer there than in the beck scything. Looks as if he’s landed now for another hour. And so are we. Look.”
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    Old Hewitson was bringing a picnic out of another compartment of his trousers and passing things to James.
    â€œAre you right?”
    â€œI’m all right,” said James doubtfully, trying to stand.
    â€œThat’s the lad. When Henry Cleesby got lamed on these fells he never sat up again. He got rolled on by his tractor liming the Quarry Field. And as for Jimmie Meccer, he’s reduced to yon shed all day. Doesn’t even let the doctor see his legs. Nothing of course to the old mining accidents. There’s been mines up here since the Middle and Dark Ages you know. Accidents and various mysteries happened not a hundred yards from this spot even in my lifetime. Now—what’s this you say about thistles being funny?”
    â€œJust . . . ” said James, “just it’s funny they’re so big and juicy-looking when the ground’s as dry as rock.”
    â€œThe drier on top,” said the old man, “the wetter below. The drier a place looks on these fells the deeper the water running secret beneath. This is hollow land.”
    â€œHollow?”
    â€œListen.”
    They sat together in the burning, still morning, but James could hear nothing.
    â€œI can hear nothing.”
    â€œAh well.”
    â€œWhat is there to hear?”
    â€œThe rivers running. Way, way below the ground. But you’re not practised. You’ll not hear them yet. That’s why you should never go potholing round here. Not unless you’re with experts and know the tunnels like bees know the honeycombs. It’s not only natural tunnels and channels under the fells, see. It’s old mines. No one in their senses goes near them—nor anything else humans copies from nature, aeroplanes being no exception. There’s no such thing as accidents—just clumsiness and daftness and butting in where nature knows best.”
    â€œThis cut on my leg’s an accident, isn’t it?”
    â€œNo—clumsiness and daftness. Thy clumsiness and my daftness in letting you try a sickle without showing you how. No—there’s no one with one iota of sense that’d go down the old mines now. Roofs all caved in. Gases. Falling rock. Fumes. There’s miles you could wander seeking a way out if you got lost and never be heard of more. The mine you’ve been sitting below has been sealed off solid these sixty years.”
    â€œSitting below?”
    â€œAye. You were on the bouse—the tip at the mine mouth. Can’t you see the slope’s a different shape? Yon hump? Even different plants grow on it. Different lichens on the stones.”
    They both looked up at the bouse and Bell and Harry bobbed down their heads from the top of the crag above it.
    The day had grown immensely still, immensely hot. There was a curious silence, the sky so blue that it seemed here and there to hold darkness in it, to be almost black.
    â€œIt’s said to be haunted up here you know,” said Old Hewitson. “Not many would come up here behind Light Trees at night. Me, I find there’s more ghosts about in the day. On hot