‘I’ll look after him,’ Boswell whispered to her, limping slowly out of the clearing after Bracken as they started on their journey.
‘I know you will,’ said Rebecca, thinking that she could wish for no other mole than Boswell, however great or strong, to protect her Bracken from the dangers and trials that faced him.
Then they were gone into the night, towards Uffington, their paws scuffling through dry leaves, leaving Rebecca to crouch by the Stone as the first drops of rain began to fall through the swaying beech leaves above and down into the dry and blackened soil of the system below the slopes, which had once been theirs. And then rain at last fell, September rain, the sound of which drowned out the final rustles of Bracken and Boswell as they left Duncton Wood for the dangerous world beyond.
Part Four
Siabod
Chapter Thirty-Six
The following March Bracken and Boswell finally came to within a day’s journey of the Blowing Stone, which stood at the foot of Uffington Hill, and more than six long moleyears had passed. They had faced every kind of physical danger moles can face—river, ice, owls and weasels, and marsh—and worse, had seen that system after system had been devastated by the plague. In many only a few solitary moles survived, turned half mad by the mystery of why they had not die or showing such a fear of strangers that Bracken and Boswell might have been the plague incarnate.
More than once their path crossed that of other wanderers, some looking for moles whom they could not believe were dead, while others were thin and unkempt and ate little, telling of the curse that had fallen on the world and the punishment that still awaited each one of them.
These encounters, and the strain of the journey itself, had changed Bracken. His face fur was now lined and he had matured; at the same time he had filled out and become more powerful-looking so that he had something of the solid strength of his father Burrhead, though none of the heaviness. He was not aware of it himself (though Boswell was) but he was now a formidable mole to face, for his four paws were firmly on the ground and his gaze was often clear and direct, as from a settled heart. But recently there had come a weariness of spirit over him, especially with the beginning of spring, which only Rebecca would have lifted from him. Days went by when he would talk little, and Boswell understood from the way he looked around and ahead at each turn in their journey that he was searching for the love he and Rebecca made together.
Boswell had changed, too, though not physically. He was still thin and jerky in movement, his eyes darting this way and that with the great curiosity about life that he had; his coat, shot through with grey as it was, was now fuller and more glossy than when Bracken had first met him in the drainage channel.
But the biggest change was in his spirit, which became ever more simple and laughing, so that a mole who didn’t know him might almost have taken him for a fool. He saw laughter in the simplest things, and often when they were in difficulties it was his good humour that took the frown from Bracken’s face. And often, too, Bracken’s own laughter would never have started had not Boswell been there to show that a heart may be light even when circumstances are grim.
At last, on a grey March morning after days in which the pull of Uffington had become stronger and stronger, they came within sight of the Blowing Stone. Or rather within sound, for the day was windy and the first signal they had that they had reached Uffington was the low moan of the wind in the crevices and holes of the Stone, all of which carried in vibrating waves down into the vale up which they were travelling.
‘Listen! That’s the Blowing Stone,’ said Boswell.
‘So we’re almost there!’ said Bracken, unable to believe that their long journey was nearly over.
Their pace quickened and soon the wind carried to them a scent Bracken had almost forgotten—beech trees. They were nearly on chalk again. Soon they came to a clump of beech and as they passed into it, the familiar roots, powerful in the ground, and the dry smell of chalk and beech leaf litter and brought back to Bracken a memory of Duncton Wood, of the Ancient System and, most of all, of Rebecca. She was suddenly full in his heart again as, passing beyond the last of the beech trees, they came to the great Blowing Stone itself and crouched down thankfully in its presence.
It stood at the edge of a field, overshadowing a hedge that grew near it, and had been weathered by wind and rain and sometimes ice into a thousand scoops and hollows, with holes in its upper parts which the moles could not see but which were the source of its moaning and hooting in the wind. It was split vertically along its natural cleavage as well, so that from some points it looked more like three stones than one.
Looming over it was the steep escarpment of Uffington Hill itself, which rose in sheer shadows of nearly vertical, tussocky grass, many hundreds of molefeet high. A mole’s gaze had to tilt higher and higher, and still higher, before he could see the shadows end at the distant top of the hill and the white-grey March sky beyond.
‘Over to the west, beyond the top of the hillface, that’s where the Holy Burrows lie,’ said Boswell. ‘It takes half a day for most moles to climb it—a bit longer for me.’
The day was drawing in, grey and cold, and they decided to stay where they were until full light before climbing the hill, eager though both of them were to get to the top. But they were tired and thankful for food and a temporary burrow near the Blowing Stone, falling asleep to the soft vibrations and moans of the Stone.
Because the escarpment faced north, dawn was a long time coming, and even when it came it seemed gloomy and wan. The wind had died and the March grass through which they started their climb was lank and dreary. But it soon became shorter and more wiry and their hearts began to fill with excitement as, step by step, they climbed up towards the goal they had aimed at for so long. At first, Bracken took the lead, but in his eagerness to get to the top, he so outpaced the limping Boswell that finally he stopped and let Boswell set the pace, and it seemed right that Boswell should lead the way.
The hillface grew steeper and steeper and their pace slower, and Bracken began to have the feeling that behind him there was nothing but clear air and a tumbling fall to somewhere far below. At the same time they felt the wind behind them, a wind that blew on even the calmest of days up the scarp face, flattening the grass upwards and on towards the top.
Higher and higher they climbed until each step was accompanied by a pant and they could think of nothing but finding a talonhold in the next patch of rough grass ahead and summoning the strength to push themselves and pull themselves yet higher. The grass was tough, more like a set of long pine needles than the soft pasture and meadow grass of the valleys they had grown used to, and was a buff-yellow or brown rather than green, scorched in summer by sun and in winter by wind.
They stopped several times for a rest before Boswell said—or rather breathed: ‘Halfway. A good way to go yet.’
Bracken looked above him and the scarp face still looked as massive as when they had first started. They felt exposed, for the grass was now quite short and the sky loomed hugely all around them, while the soil, which showed through the grass in places, was dry and stony with flakes of chalk and flint—not easy to burrow into quickly if a kestrel happened along.
They pressed on, the wind coming stronger and colder behind them all the time, blowing across their fur and driving it forward like the grass beneath them. On they went, the wind so battering them from behind that in the final stretch it almost blew them up the hill and they had to lean back a little into it to keep their balance.