About The Hollow Ground – Episode 20
About The Hollow Ground by Pamela Kavanagh
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- 1. About The Hollow Ground – Episode 20
Piers left the feed merchant’s office after delivering an order for fodder and came out into the gloomy drizzle of another inclement day.
He headed for the corner of the yard where he had left the horse and cart, his mind on the weather and its bearing upon the hay crop.
A wet May was all to the good for growing the grass, but June needed sunshine, and so far they had not seen enough of it.
The horse lifted his head and nickered at Piers’s approach.
“I reckon you’re as narked with the rain as me,” Piers said, giving the horse’s neck a couple of resounding claps.
He was about to board the cart when loud voices from the road beyond gave him pause. There were two speakers, one male, the other female.
“You again! Go away and leave me alone.”
The woman sounded distressed and Piers frowned.
“I inna going till I get some answers,” the other said roughly.
“I have no answers for you, and neither has my man.”
“I think he has, missus. Now you listen here.”
“Let go of me at once! I’ll have the law on you, I will!”
“You try it, lady, and you’ll rue the day.”
The tone had become threatening. Nobody liked to see a woman in trouble and Piers doubled back across the yard.
In the street, a small, housewifely matron in a rain-soaked cloak and bonnet was wrestling to free her arm from the man’s grasp.
Tattenhall was quiet, villagers indoors out of the rain, and the only conveyance was a two-wheeled trap at the roadside, a fat grey pony between the shafts.
On the passenger seat was a basket of groceries and a second lay upturned on the ground, its contents scattered and muddied.
“Let go! You’re hurting me!” the woman shrieked, her bonnet askew and her cheeks drained of colour.
Piers sprang to the rescue.
“Leave off! Let the lady be!”
At his voice, the man released his victim and swung round in surprise. Piers recognised him immediately. He had seen him in the Oak the previous week.
Afterwards, Shepherd Skelland had supplied the man’s identity: Vinewood ostler Seb Wilkes.
Piers seized him by the collar and yanked him away from his victim, who was sobbing in fright. Piers was the taller of the two and muscular, but the ostler was strong as he writhed, half-choking, in Piers’s grip.
“Lay off, mister! Get your filthy paws off me!”
Piers tightened his hold.
“Now you listen to me. If I see you bothering this lady again, or any other person, you’ll be sorry!”
Piers held him captive a moment longer, then let him go.
“Now be off with you!”
Giving his assailant a scalding look, Wilkes slouched away into the murk.
The woman was brushing herself down, as if to rid her garments of every trace of the perpetrator.
“Are you all right, ma’am?” Piers enquired.
“I am, sir. All thanks to you,” she said shakily.
“’Twas nothing.”
He collected everything up and placed the basket in the trap, giving the woman time to compose herself.
“All done, Mrs . . .?”
“Dewes. Aggie Dewes.”
“Tom Dewes’s wife? I was only talking to your man in the Oak the other night. The name’s Merriman.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mester Merriman. Very pleased indeed.”
Colour was returning to the woman’s dimpled cheeks. She drew a quivery breath.
“That Seb Wilkes is up to no good. Pester, pester, pester, and now this!”