Soon after, he went up to the Stone and crouched by it in silence as the cold evening darkened about him and wind stirred at the leaf litter, wet from afternoon drizzle, as those memories became clearer and he saw again, in his mind, the glimmer of the Stillstone. Then he began to talk to the Stone, seeking its guidance and help, as so many moles of so many generations had done before him. He trembled to think of Uffington and the difficulties of becoming a scribemole, feeling how unworthy and ignorant he was to crouch here before it and to seek for so much. He thought of Bracken and Rebecca, and of what Comfrey had told him about the wonderful things they had done, and then of the increasing simplicity of their lives so near each other back in the system from which both, at different times, had roamed so far.
‘Why does a mole have to travel so far just to find himself back in the same place?’ he asked the Stone. ‘Where should I turn?’
Light spots of rain began to mix in with the chill, blustery wind, pattering weakly here and there. How miserable the wood seemed. How desolate he felt. How much in need of help.
* * *
From the shadows around the Stone clearing, the eyes of an old mole watched him gently and smiled. Here he was in Duncton Wood after all this time and what did he find but a mole before the Stone, worrying himself as he had done so many times and by so many different Stones!
Boswell raised a paw and said a blessing on the mole, but he did not step forward. There are times, many, many times, when it is better not to speak or interrupt another mole but to leave him to work out for himself what questions to ask. It was one of the things these great Stones were for. But the answers! Ah—so simple, all so simple in the end!
So Boswell watched Tryfan and blessed him, moving out into the clearing only when Tryfan left it to make his way down towards the slopes to find Comfrey.
Boswell crouched beside the Stone for a while. He had no expectation at all in Duncton Wood—he had, indeed, been personally reluctant to make the trek, for it was a long, long way, and he was getting old. And everywhere he went, moles sensed his holiness and flocked to him to touch him and to ask his blessing and see him on his way. It had been all he could do to stop a whole host of them following him on his way here, but somehow he had managed to make them understand that this was a solitary journey. Yet now he was here, how different it seemed and how weak he felt—and how surprised young Tryfan would have been had he known that moments after he left the Stone, a mole from Uffington had crouched where he had and asked himself just the same question he had asked: ‘Why does a mole have to travel?…’ But Boswell’s answer to himself was a smile and a sort of nod to the Stone. Then he asked, ‘Why have you sent me back here, what do you want me to find?’ And he smiled at that, too: for the Stone gave its answers in its own way and the best thing a mole can do is to trust that it will do so.
‘Now by the Stone’s grace, I’ll find Bracken and Rebecca and I hope that they’ve found themselves some sense at last!’ He laughed with pleasure to think of seeing them again, and knew—or suspected—where they would be.
* * *
‘Why did Tryfan come back?’ Bracken wondered aloud.
‘Perhaps he needs to see and feel, once again, the love that made him,’ said Rebecca.
‘What love?’ asked Bracken. And Rebecca nudged him and he mock-fought her, and they giggled like their pups had, rolling about the floor, each feeling that they were playing with the most beautiful pup in the world.
It was Bracken who heard it. Laughter like their own, from down the tunnels towards where the entrance up to the Stone was. Laughter he knew and had heard so many, many times and thought he would never hear again; laughter he loved and that had him still as roots, eyes wide, and reaching a paw out to touch Rebecca to share with her his wonder. Laughter and polite burrowing noises, the kind of noise a courteous mole makes to announce his arrival.
‘What mole is it?’ asked Rebecca.
Bracken answered, not with a word but with a laugh and a shout, a cry of joy and a bounding forward from his burrow and out into the tunnel and the speaking of a name that made Rebecca gasp and smile at the pleasure she knew it would bring them all.
‘Boswell! Boswell!’ And so it was. His eyes bright as they had always been, his limping walk just as she remembered, but his laughter more gentle, even more full of joy.
‘Oh, Boswell,’ said Rebecca. And what brought tears to Boswell’s eyes was not her nuzzling and love so much as the fact that it was him she loved, and always had, and not the fact that he was a scribemole.
‘Rebecca!’ he said, ‘Rebecca!’ She was as beautiful as love. And then, turning to his old companion, he started, ‘Bracken, Bracken…’ And it was a long, long time before they stopped talking and touching.
What a time then came to Duncton Wood! What excitement! For when the news was out that a scribemole had come, and none other than Boswell himself, how they all came flocking to the tunnels of Bracken and Rebecca to see and to touch him!
What excitement there was in the preparations before Longest Night that December! How especially thorough were so many of the moles in cleaning out and tidying their burrows! How full of hope that Boswell would go their way in the ancient tunnels and crouch near their burrows and talk softly to them as he answered their questions!
Never was there so much song and chatter, laughter and games, both on the surface and below it, as there was that Longest Night. Never did moles revel so much in the old tales, telling and retelling again the stories of Ballagan and Vervain, the first moles, and Linden, the first scribemole, and the stories of the Holy Books.
And, of course, it soon got out that there was a possibility, just a possibility, mind, that the seventh Book, the lost book, was, of all places, here, in Duncton!
‘No!’
‘Aye, that’s what they do say… you don’t think somemole as important as Boswell himself, who’s one of the most important moles in the land now, would come all this way just to say hello to his old friends and touch the Stone. No! If you ask me, what they say about this Book is right, and it is here.’
Once this was established, it was a short step for the Duncton moles to start debating where the Holy Book was—and that wasn’t hard to guess. ‘Under the Stone, that’s where. Beyond the Chamber of Dark Sound where nomole goes if he’s sensible, because there are charms and spells to protect it, and strange sounds that frighten the fur off a mole! Oh, yes! You’d be daft to try it!’
But being crazy never stops some moles from trying, and more than one sneaked his way past the Chamber of Dark Sound and into the Chamber of Echoes in search of the Book. Most got no further than a snout’s length before turning back from fear. But one did go further and got lost, and he was saved only because he had a friend with him who had the sense to summon Bracken for help—for everymole knew he knew the system like no other mole. He had to go in and rescue the explorer, who got a good many cuffs and curses on his way out—and a pat or two of encouragement as well, for Bracken knew better than most what courage he must have needed, even if he had got lost.
Tryfan himself did not meet Boswell until several moledays after Longest Night, when Bracken introduced them with joy—his most loved of friends and his son by Rebecca. What more could he have asked?
Boswell gazed gently at Tryfan, recognising him as the mole he had seen on the night of his arrival by the Stone, and knowing much about him—and guessing more—from what Rebecca had told him. He saw that Tryfan had about him qualities of both Rebecca and Bracken, and bore within himself a great deal of their love. And perhaps he knew that this was the mole he had come to find.