This illusion was quickly shattered, though not in a way that gave him much cheer. Ahead he heard a sound. He stopped, snouted about and ran forward, and two scribemoles, thin and bent, crossed the tunnel ahead of him, emerging from a small tunnel on one side and disappearing into one on the other, no more than a few molefeet from where he watched. They ignored him utterly, going past with snouts bowed and in a hushed and reverential way as if they had an appointment with Skeat himself.
He called after them—‘Have you seen Boswell?’—but his voice sounded loud and almost blasphemous with the disturbance it made, and although one mole paused and looked back at him, neither said anything and both went on.
He wondered whether to follow them but decided to go on to the chamber where, surely, he would find somemole.
When he got there, he found that a scribemole had been posted, rather like a henchmole, between the two major tunnels—the one leading to the libraries and the other to the Holy Burrows.
‘Ah, hello!’ said Bracken. ‘It’s Boswell I’m looking for. Have you seen him?’
The scribemole appeared to be half asleep, his snout low as the others’ had been and his eyes closed. Once again Bracken’s words hung embarrassingly loud in the air until, when they died away, Bracken noticed that the scribemole was muttering or chanting to himself. Slowly he came out of what seemed a trance and looked with some surprise at Bracken.
‘Are you Bracken of Duncton?’ he asked, adding, before Bracken had a chance to reply, ‘Why are you here?’
‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
‘Has nomole told you to go out on to the surface or to stay in the guest burrow?’
‘Nomole has told me anything,’ said Bracken a little ill-temperedly.
‘It is best that you do one or the other. Just for today and tonight. Just until tomorrow. You’ll find plenty of food in the high tunnels since all scribemoles must fast today. Though you know it would be appropriate if you did the same.’
Bracken was annoyed by the mole’s offhand manner and air of slight condescension and might well have been tempted to push past him to the libraries, or explore into the Holy Burrows, had not the possibility that he might embarrass Boswell in some way occurred to him.
‘Look, mate,’ he said, adopting the tough familiarity of a Marshender, ‘stop burrowing about the bush and tell me where Boswell is.’
The mole shook his head and said, ‘That is not possible. If the Holy Mole has not told you what today is, then I certainly may not do so. Trust in the Stone and go back to your burrow and meditate in peace.’
‘Stuff this,’ thought Bracken to himself, now thoroughly annoyed and resisting the impulse to attack the scribemole. He turned back the way he had come, nodding his head as if in agreement with the scribemole and thinking that rather than have a confrontation he would simply find some other way past the chamber. The thought turned into action as soon as he got back to the tunnel down which the two scribemoles who had ignored him had gone. He paused there, crouched down, and for the first time since he had come to Uffington felt his way into the tunnels about him. It was exciting, like being back in the ancient tunnels of Duncton, where everything was unknown and all lay before him for him alone to find out. Bracken liked nothing more than a challenge in which he had to use his wits and talent for exploration.
As far as he could tell, everything happened to the west of the chamber where he had been stopped. There lay the libraries and the burrows, and beyond, according to what Boswell had told him, lay the tunnel leading to those mysterious ‘Silent’ Burrows. He hesitated for only a moment before heading off into the side tunnel, the way the other two moles had gone, believing that if he could find out their destination, he could solve the mystery of where Boswell was, and what was so special about the day.
For the next two hours Bracken enjoyed the thrill of exploration and orientation once again, creeping along the ancient, dusty tunnels that seemed much less used than the others he had been in in Uffington and coming to an exaggerated sharp stop at the slightest real or imagined noise. He heard moles several times, and chanting more than once, but he avoided direct contact, and the one or two moles who went by near him never saw him, for he hid in the many corners and shadows created by the old flints that protruded from the walls or the complex intersections of tunnel crossing points. Soon the original object of his search—to find Boswell—was lost in the sheer enjoyment of outwitting the scribemoles about him.
But his game and his anonymity were brought to a sudden halt when, turning a corner, he found, as he suspected that he eventually would, that he had by this roundabout route made his way into the main library. Quire was there, ferreting around among the books as usual, and on seeing him Bracken was suddenly weary of his game and the isolation it caused him. He greeted Quire with a reverence he genuinely felt and explained that he was in search of Boswell.
‘Why should I know where he is, might I ask?’ said Quire, peering at Bracken. ‘Wait a minute—I know you. You’re the Duncton mole, aren’t you? The one who’s seen the seventh Stillstone. Where is Boswell?’
Patiently, Bracken explained what had happened and how puzzled he was by the secrecy among the moles in the tunnels that day.
Quire smiled and shrugged. ‘Yes, they do make rather a meal of it. There’s no mystery. Today is the day when the secret Song is sung. You know, Merton’s task and all that. Now that may be a mystery, but the fact of its being sung is known to all moles. That’s what all the fuss about chosen moles was about, you see. They like to enter their names in the book before the Song is sung, all twenty-four of them. You’ll probably find, Bracken of Duncton, that Boswell has been chosen. Hence the secret. We’ll soon know, since the Holy Mole will return the book tomorrow with the new names neatly scribed. Of course, you’re not meant to read them but, well, the book’s kept on the shelves and it’s an open secret. As a matter of fact, there is an exceptional number of new chosen moles this time because so many of the last lot died of the plague. That’s why you’ll find there’s not that many about. After the devastation of the plague it’s a miracle that there’s enough moles to sing the song.’
‘Where do they sing the song?’ asked Bracken.
‘Never been there myself, of course, not being chosen, but it’s somewhere up near the Silent Burrows. In a special chamber. Said to be the oldest in Uffington, though, strictly speaking, it’s not in Uffington but up where the Silent Burrows are. About two miles yonder . . .’ He waved a paw towards the west.
‘Could I get there?’ asked Bracken.
‘Whatever for?’ said Quire. ‘I never can understand why you youngsters are always rushing off to see and hear things somewhere else when there’s plenty to see and hear where you happen to be crouching at the moment. You’ll be asking me next what I thought about all those moleyears I was in the Silent Burrows. You wouldn’t be the first.’
Bracken couldn’t help laughing. It was true. Quire wasn’t as daft as he seemed. Then Quire laughed, too, though his laughter rapidly degenerated into a wheezing and coughing through which he finally said, ‘I thought about nothing, don’t you see? Mind you, that’s easier said than done for most.’ There were times when Bracken thought himself completely stupid, when his brain seemed to register things so slowly that he found it embarrassing to contemplate the process as it happened. It happened now, as everything about him, all the secrecy and rushings about, fell into place. They were going to sing the same secret song that Hulver had once told him about when he told the story of Merton, and Merton’s task. Linden had been the scribe who wrote about Merton, the selfsame scribe, presumably, who made the first entries into the Book of Chosen Moles. Why didn’t somemole say, and then he wouldn’t have got worried about Boswell. In fact, come to think of it, he felt proud of Boswell. Him, a chosen mole! A feeling of awe came over him… there was something special about a day when they sang a song that had been passed on in secret through generations and which was sung once in twelve moleyears, and which would only be sung to all moles, and then by them, when the Blowing Stone sounded seven times.