Duncton Found (132 page)

There was neither sight nor sound of her for three days during which, it seems, she decided to go and live with them. “Hello!” says she, “I thought I’d join the fun!”

Dirty, wasn’t she? Noisy, wasn’t she? Intrusive, certainly! They didn’t seem to have the nerve to throw her out and it was not long before they got the message loud and clear: think of others or you’ll find others don’t think of you, like me.

There she stayed and wouldn’t give in though they threatened, shouted and pleaded with her to leave
their
burrow. On the evening of the third day some of her friends, including Whortle and Wren, turned up and had a bit of a singsong which went on, and on. And on.

That was the end of three of those four Cumnor moles, because they upped and left saying that Duncton moles were an unfriendly lot, but the fourth, crafty Cheatle, said, “It looks like you’re having a better time here than we’ve been having. I’m staying.” And he did, right there where he was, and he even had the nerve to ask Mistle to join him, seeing as he was alone now and so was she as far as he could tell, and maybe they could get it together for the winter months?

“No thank you,” said Mistle-who-lived-by-the-Stone, “but you’re welcome to stay. I like a mole who changes his mind for the community’s sake.”

“Community be buggered,” said Cheatle. “It’s you I want, Mistle my mole!” But he didn’t get her then, and didn’t get her later, and nomole at all did either. But that was Mistle, wasn’t it? Knew what to do at the right time to make moles delve for the sake of all.

In December, too, the saga of Lorren (who by then was well established in the Marsh End with a few others of her generation, all of whom she had got on the watch out for Holm’s return, which she said was bound to be any day now) took a new turn.

Wren it was who first heard the news, and Wren it was who hurried down to the Marsh End to break it to Lorren, who emerged from her burrow as dusty and grubby as ever she had been when she heard Wren’s hurried pawsteps.

“There’s a mole here!” gasped Wren, barely able to catch her breath.

“A mole?” said Lorren. “Here?”

“Asking for you up on the slopes.”

“It’s him, he’s home!” says Lorren, running round in circles and trying to tidy up herself and her tunnels both at once and making them all the worse.

“Holm’s back!” goes the cry through the Marsh End as all Lorren’s friends run about and look at each other in astonishment, and pretty themselves up a bit because they imagine from all Lorren has said that Holm is a large, handsome mole like none have ever seen before.

“He’s really back, is he? Well I never! Where is he?”

“No, no, no,” says Wren. “I’ve been trying to say it’s not Holm, it’s....”

“Starling?” says Lorren in astonishment, looking at a mole who’s come with Wren. This wrinkled mole, fur thinner, paws and talons worn, is she really Starling?

Oh yes, she is...

“Starling!” Large as life, the same eyes, her fur clean, neat and tidy like it always has been.

Then....

“Lorren?” This nearly old mole, this little grey mole, this dusty mole, is she Lorren?

“Oh Lorren!” Plumper now, happier, untidy still, looking like a stranger.

But whatmole cares what who looked like? Not them! They weren’t any younger, but they were alive, and suddenly the years rolled back and all that talking they had missed, all that chat and sharing and the things an older sister talks to a young sister about, all of it was coming out, and paws were touching faces, and questions were tumbling into answers, and a celebration started that seemed to go on for days.

Then Heath appeared with Rampion, and
they
had soon got to know each other, and there was Romney grinning to be part of a family that had suddenly grown, and all of them went off to meet Mistle who lived by the Stone and whom Starling would find a most interesting mole! And Cuddesdon, must just mention him, there’s so much to tell... and how Lorren told it, and how Starling was glad to listen, for her own long journey through the Wen, how Heath and she helped each other along, could wait until another day, for they were here now and that was past.

Then when they met Mistle, and all said a prayer of gratitude, there were more tears for Starling, because she discovered at last that Bailey
did
survive the flooding under the river, and survived the grike invasion, and survived much else.

So where was he?

Then Mistle had to tell Starling what little she knew of Bailey, namely that he had gone off with Mayweed to Seven Barrows, which is a holy place, and she thought it was for his own good.

“One day he might come back, like Holm will,” said Lorren.

“One day Bailey
must
come back,” said Starling, and it was more an order or directive than a hope, the kind that older sisters often make....

So Duncton Wood became an exciting living place as December passed and Longest Night loomed once more. The community of moles delved itself in against the coming winter months, and the upper slopes were busy with moles for days before Longest Night itself, all come to hear what Mistle and Cuddesdon and Mallet of Grafham had to say about the meaning of that time of renewal for all moles of the Stone.

Mistle set the tone for those few days of preparation as somewhat sombre days, for she did not forget, nor did Romney, that here in Duncton Wood, a cycle of seasons before, the Master Lucerne had come with the grikes, and where the beech leaves now blew in the wet winter winds in the clearing before the Stone, many moles had died in the name of the Stone.

“None renounced the Stone, not one,” said Romney, who was witness to the truth of the terrible tale he told. “Yet in their courage that night moledom surely saw the true beginning of moral resistance to the Word, and now here we are, free of its talons; free to worship and rejoice.”

They were serious days and yet, intermingled with them, was that growing cheer and excitement all moles feel come on them at that time, knowing that Longest Night will give way to longer days once more and the season’s turn.

It is traditionally a time when moles come home, but if all the moles who lived in a system once have died, what moles are there to come back? Not many, it seemed, to Duncton Wood, whose slopes were empty of returning mole in those last days before Longest Night. All gone, all dispersed, so many dead: the hope, surely, lay in the new ones here, and the spring to come, when more pups would be born and the tunnels sound once more with new life.

Yet why, the day before Longest Night, did moles drift, by themselves, over to the edge of the High Wood, and stare for a time down the slopes towards the deserted cross-under and sadly shake their heads and go away again? What loved ones did they remember and dream might come up the pasture slopes whole, alive, and make a mole feel he could reach back and touch his past again? Many then, many.

Starling quietly went, and Heath knew it, for he waited for her in the wood, and let her stare out over the slopes and think of the brother she had lost when young, and who in a way she had lost again, for he had come back to Duncton Wood before she had, and gone off once more far away.

Lorren, too, had her quiet, sad time, for secretly she had hoped that as well as Bailey Holm might have been to Rollright by now, and had the sense to travel on to Duncton Wood where he
must know
she must be. Unless... but no, Lorren refused to think the unthinkable. She was like Mistle as far as that was concerned. Their moles would one day come back to them, they would!

Yet by the time dusk was coming on Longest Night itself, and moles were mustering through the wood and coming up the slopes among the darkening trees towards the Stone, these cares were gone again. Moles were excited and content, and could laugh and chatter of the good things they had, and of all their hopes, and look forward to the night of celebration soon to come.

Yet before we set our flanks to theirs and join them by the Stone, let us pause and think of other moles in other systems on that Night of nights, for surely there are many whom we love and who must celebrate alone. Moles who could do with company and companionship.

We cannot know them all, but there is one especially we can turn our snouts towards and trust that the Stone will find its way of bringing him its light.

A wintry place it is, with blustery winds and sleety rain, and up there the Stones seem to shine wet and cold: Caer Caradoc. Yet its Stones are not deserted, nor will they be when the darkness replaces the present grey dusk and the holiest night begins.

Here, all day, old Caradoc has been, but here even he, a mole of such great faith, has felt wan and low, and wondered how a mole holds on to hope when hope never seems to be fulfilled.

Not that he had need to be alone. Gowre of Siabod had long since asked him to spend Longest Night there; and Troedfach, too, at Tyn-y-Bedw, while Gareg had almost ordered Caradoc to journey down the Marches to the south.

But no, he chose to stay alone where he was born, and make the trek upslope to spend the day in contemplation of the long dark years just past. Bitter they had been, and more violent in aftermath than he had wished, and then the long distress of Alder, who had ailed in November and asked that he might be helped to the Stones of Caer Caradoc to stare across to the east to which he never did return.

“I never had a home to call my own, old friend,” he said to Caradoc towards the end. “Never a place where Alder was at peace.”

Then Caradoc had gone close to him and said, “Look about you, mole, see the place I love. This shall be your home, here where on a clear day you can see Siabod which you saved, and to the east the homeland that you left. This shall be your home for ever more, here in the very shadows of the Stones whose faith you taught us to defend, and when the Stone Mole comes I shall speak your name to him.”

Alder smiled and said. “He will come, mole, for you he’ll climb this great old hill and be a light among the Stones. He will....”

There it was that Alder died, and there among the rocks at dusk he may sometimes still be seen, snout straight, paws strong, a mole of strength and courage. Some moles who go that way say they find him in the west, looking Siabod’s way, others fancy they see him to the east, his snout towards the places which he loved, but which he never did call home.