Violet had now been completely absorbed into the Pasture system and lost all contact with Rebecca and, of course, Bracken.
But as for Rebecca coming to see Bracken, it just never happened, and it wasn’t the kind of thing a mole would want to raise with Rebecca. A healer does not have problems as far as anymole else is concerned. And even if she had, Rebecca gave no sign of it at all except to Comfrey, who saw far more than even she ever suspected.
What was worse for Boswell was that he saw clearly how Bracken’s coldness about Rebecca affected the way he thought about the Stone. Bracken no longer revered the Stone but became inclined to make ironic or cynical remarks about it—‘It’s all an illusion, which may please some moles, but they’ll soon grow out of it,’ or, on an occasion when Boswell dared to suggest that it would be a good idea to go to the Stone to pray for rain, ‘If it sends rain, Boswell, it’ll send a flood; that’s the way your Stone amuses itself when it answers prayers.’
As for visiting the Stone, or the Ancient System, which Boswell still desperately wanted to do in Bracken’s company, there was no quicker way to make Bracken coldly angry than to suggest it. There was only one absolute rule with Bracken, and that was that nomole was to visit the tunnels of the Ancient System, in any circumstances. They could go to the Stone if they wanted, though it was probably a waste of their time.
Boswell was at first very frustrated by all this, not only because he loved Bracken as he had loved nomole, but also because he wanted to pursue the quest he had come to Duncton Wood to fulfil—to find the seventh Stillstone and the seventh Book, which he was convinced were there. He would talk to other moles he met about the system, seeking out the oldest ones with longest memories, trying to find clues in the stories they told that might guide him forward. He would even tell them about Uffington if they asked, or he thought it might encourage them to revive memories of their own system. He might have been tempted to visit there himself but for the sense he had that it was Bracken, and Bracken alone, who would guide him there.
But as time went by a curious thing happened: Boswell began to lose the urgent desire he had first felt to find the seventh Book. He began to sense that there are some things, great things, which a mole should not reach out his talons for. He must learn to sit still and trust that they will come to him. This discovery served only to increase his awe of Bracken—for was it not Bracken’s very recalcitrance that made him see it? He began to wonder whether, in some strange way, the Stone was working through Bracken far more powerfully than anymole could ever have dreamed of, which made him seek ways of quietly making life as caring and loving for Bracken as he could. Nothing gave him more pleasure than the fact that, despite Bracken’s ill temper and contradictions, he never once told Boswell to leave him, but always seemed pleased in his awkward way for him to be there.
So it was quite without seeking it that Boswell discovered his first dramatic clue to the existence of the seventh Book. It happened when he decided for himself to go to Rebecca in the pastures and see if he could not work some kind of reconciliation between her and Bracken. An idea which, had he known Rebecca better, he would never have been innocent enough to try.
He made his way into the pastures with Mekkins’ help, the Marshender leaving him safely at the entrance to Rebecca’s tunnels. Mekkins was no fool and could guess why Boswell had come and though, being more worldly wise, he feared the attempt would fail, he felt it best to stay clear of the whole thing and let the strange scribemole try.
He himself loved Rebecca too much to want her to stay so far apart from Bracken, and anyway, he had grown to respect Boswell, who seemed to know a lot of things, even if he was a bit daft when it came to understanding females, especially ones like Rebecca.
Rebecca greeted Boswell with real warmth. They had not met since Midsummer Night, but her travels about the systems had brought her into contact with many moles who were wide-eyed with fascination about the strange mole from Uffington ‘who do ask the queerest questions that ever I have heard, and do tell the strangest quaintest tales if ’e’s a mind to it’.
Boswell’s response to Rebecca was not at all what he had expected it would be. He had come full of good intent, calmly and gently to talk to her about Bracken. But the moment he saw her again and found himself in the clear warmth of her smile, any words that he had rehearsed quite left him. He gazed on her with genuine delight, his bright intelligent eyes travelling quickly around her burrow, now nearly as full of herbs and flowers as Rose’s had once been. He sensed the great reverence she felt for the life which she had pledged herself to help, and he saw far more about her than Mekkins could ever have given him credit for: he saw a brave mole whose warmth and love were real, but whose spirit bore the marks of loss as Bracken’s did, but who did not pretend to herself that it was not so.
He saw immediately how vulnerable she was. But what he did not see, and perhaps would never understand, was how, in his company, her spirit was able to begin to soar again into a freedom it had once taken for granted. Indeed, the feeling of lightheartedness that arose in her as soon as he crouched down, looked about him curiously and then fixed his gaze directly on her, took her by surprise. She wanted to laugh for the pleasure of it. More than that, she wanted to dance! She wanted to sing and play. What she did do was to smile and feel more delightfully foolish than she had for many a long molemonth.
‘Why have you come to Duncton Wood?’ she asked eagerly, quite unaware that she was the first mole to ask him this simple question or that it raised a subject that made his mission of reconciliation suddenly irrelevant.
‘Well…’ he began, not sure where to begin.
‘You must have come here for some reason, Boswell! It’s a long way to come just to say hello and go away again.’
‘I think the Stone called me here, or told me to come,’ he said simply. He knew instinctively that she would understand what he meant by this, and he was right, for Rebecca nodded and said: ‘Yes, of course. But why?’
‘It has to do with what the scribemoles of Uffington call the seventh Book. You see, Rebecca, there are seven holy Books and…’ and he began to tell her, reciting the mysterious text he had found describing the other six Books, and explaining at some length why it was so important that the seventh Book should be found.
‘The Book will be found when it needs to be found, I expect—and anyway, perhaps what will happen is that the Book will find you.’ He knew what she meant, and of course she was right. Hadn’t he told himself that nomole can try to reach out for such a thing?
As Boswell talked, Rebecca had grown happier and happier, for she saw clearly what it was about Boswell that made her feel so free. Every other mole she saw sought her help in one way or another, whereas Boswell, despite appearances, did not need any healing that she could give. She was free with him because he did not need her. He asked nothing of her and because of it was strong enough to face the full spirit of her love for life, as if it were no more unusual than a tree or sunshine. She sighed to herself in bliss to feel it and closed her eyes with a smile as he talked.