“That’s well thought, and well said!” declared Stow. “You may rest assured, Maple of Duncton, that if ever a call goes out for support for just resistance to the Newborns, our moles here in Bourton will not be found wanting in courage or loyalty. As for others in the Wolds, especially those peaceable tradition-loving moles in the systems in the High Wolds west of us amongst whom you’ll soon be travelling, I reckon that you can always count on their support as well.
“There’s something dark and dingy about the Newborns, however reasonable and fall of the Stone’s praise their words may be. Well, we’ve not fallen for it here in Bourton and we never will – send the word. Maple, and we’ll be alongflank you before you can say “Perish the Newborns!” Mind you, I expect you’ve heard that the Newborns aren’t having it all their own way?”
“No?” said Maple. “Some of your moles have crossed their path and had the better of it?”
“Oh, not here, not here. We’ve merely avoided trouble so far. No, I’m talking of that mole up north they call Rooster.”
The three Duncton moles were suddenly silent and attentive at this unexpected mention of Rooster’s name, which Stow noticed and misinterpreted.
“You know something of him then? Where he is and what he’s at?”
“No more than what we had heard before we left Duncton in October – that he had been taken by the Newborns and was held somewhere in captivity,” replied Maple evenly. “It was something we hoped perhaps to hear more of at the Convocation in Caradoc.”
“Oh, no,” said Stow, “we’ve heard something since then.”
“Aye,” said one of his colleagues eagerly, “we’ve heard that the stories of Rooster being taken prisoner were put about by the Newborns, to put others off any idea of following or supporting him. He’s said to be where he always was.”
“The Moors?” asked Privet quietly.
“The Moors?” repeated Stow, shaking his head. “That’s not a system I know about, if it is a system. As far as we’ve heard it. Rooster’s stronghold is Beechenhill, which is why the Newborns don’t take kindly to him. That system was a centre for resistance against moles of the Word.”
“Where did you hear he was not held by them?” asked Whillan.
“From a mole you’ll likely meet in the next few days as you climb up into the High Wolds. In fact, he’s only been gone from us a couple of days, and as he’s got a snout for news and interesting moles and the tales they tell, I’ll warrant he’ll make his way to you before long. His name is Weeth. He’s a talkative bugger, but that’s his way.”
“Whatmole is he?”
“A good question. He’s from Evesham, but since that became Newborn through and through he’s been wandering about looking for somewhere else to use his restless paws. He’s well known up in the Wolds, mainly because he is restless, and always going here and there poking his snout in where he shouldn’t and getting into trouble.”
“He’s not a Newborn spy then?” asked Maple.
“The thought had crossed my mind,” said Stow, “and he might very well be in a sense. Certainly he seems not to get caught by them. But we gave him a heavy going-over when he first appeared and came to the conclusion he’s all right. He’s too individual to be Newborn, if you see what I mean. And you will see what I mean! As for what he had to say about Rooster, he got that recently from the Newborns over in Evenlode Valley – said they were abuzz with it and that, in fact, the latest rumour is that Rooster’s on his way to Caer Caradoc as part of a delegation of moles representing Beechenhill. Very confusing.”
At which starting news Privet must have been much shaken, but she contrived not to show it then, nor later did she want to talk about it. Rooster seemed so long ago in her past that rumours such as this, and the possibility of meeting him again, much beloved as he once had been by her, were too much for her to contemplate.
“Why did this Weeth go up into the High Wolds?” continued Maple.
Stow shrugged. “Looking for what he calls “opportunity”. That’s his creed and watchword. Believes there’s a mole will give him opportunity. Naturally he wouldn’t say which mole, but then Weeth likes making a mystery of things. He’ll tell us next time we see him.”
“When will that be?” asked Maple, thinking it might be worth lingering a few days more in the hope of meeting Weeth.
“You never know with a mole like that. Here today, gone tomorrow and back Stone knows when. Only one thing’s certain: it’s when you least expect it.”
“Well...” said another Bourton mole with a grin.
“Well?” said Maple.
“I’ve noticed that Weeth usually appears just when moles are settling down to eat. It’s a knack he’s got. I don’t suppose he’s gathered a worm for himself in months.”
“I like the sound of Weeth,” said Privet. “Moledom needs individuals.”
“Answer me this if you can,” said Stow.
They looked at him expectantly.
“It’s about this mole Rooster, and something Weeth said but couldn’t explain. It’s the sort of thing a Duncton mole might know, seeing as you’re a learned, scribing lot.”
They waited.
“What exactly is a Master of the Delve?”
As the three travellers moved on up into the High Wolds other moles of Stow’s tough kind seemed always to seek Maple out, and pledge him their support if ever they were needed – almost as if he intended them to, and was preparing the ground against the day when resistance might indeed need to be organized, and quickly too.
On they went then into regions where isolation had preserved the secret forgotten world of old values; quaintly delved systems, that lie in the upper reaches of the Windrush; through Naunton, past Guiting and on to the High Wold itself, where the Windrush is little more than a boisterous brook, and the moles of Ford and Cutsdean and Taddington speak their Mole with the slow burr of an age gone by. News of their coming travelled ahead of them, and at each of these systems, and many others besides, moles came to greet them, and to invite them to stay a day or two, and share in their food and conversation, and take part in their rituals before the Stone.
Whilst Maple quietly gathered intelligence and support for future resistance to the Newborns, Whillan turned in on himself, as if the moles he was meeting and the values they lived by were things he wished to ponder and assimilate without comment. At this time, to the many who met them, he seemed the weakest and quietest of them all, and on occasion broke free of the little group and spent a day or two by himself, staring over the wide flat tops of the Wolds into the blue distances of moledom beyond, which, perhaps, he was at this time preparing to travel to, as Keeper Husk had suggested he should.
Meanwhile, something deep was happening to Privet as well. Made vulnerable by the revelations of her tale, and keeping quiet through the first part of their journey from Duncton Wood, here in the High Wolds she began to find a new quality of peace and wisdom. It was something those who met her very soon sensed, and when they gathered in the communal chambers of the moles in these systems, it was her words, her tales, her thoughts that others listened to with most attention and respect. Here, they said to themselves, is a true Duncton scribemole; here is one who has turned her snout towards the Stone and will not be misled away from it. Here is a mole who carries something of the Stone’s Silence in her paws.
However much Privet shook her head at such suggestions, and smiled in her self-deprecating way, reminding them she was not originally of Duncton at all and explaining that she had many doubts in the Stone – just as the great Master Librarian Stour himself had – with each day that passed she seemed to shed those burdens of her past that had so long weighed her down and had made her seem but a grey scholar with something to hide, to become instead a mole others instinctively knew held secrets of the Stone’s ways and wisdom.
Now it was that she dared speak again those ritual liturgies she had learned so unhappily at her mother Shire’s flanks, saying what a pity it is when
dogmatic moles, or those that do not feel love, so often seek to teach great truths without understanding them...
“Moles who feel no love, and have only dogma as a friend, had better say nothing, and listen to the silence of their hearts. There they will hear the great Silence of the Stone, if they listen hard enough, and it will show them the portal that leads out into the light from the darkness and confines of the narrow tunnels they are in...”
Privet professed, when she said such things, to be speaking of the moles of the Word, but few who heard her had any doubt that the Newborn moles were also in her mind. She left her listeners in no doubt that she preferred their way of life to any the Newborns might offer.
“Here, amongst you, day by day, we moles from Duncton have been privileged to see how moles of the Stone should live – and for a short time to witness and be part of communities of a kind which Duncton itself has somehow ceased to be. Aye, it’s true enough! For the best reasons, namely tolerance and letting others live their lives in peace whatever their belief, we have allowed the Newborns to thrive in Duneton, and now they threaten it. Well, if they threaten our system, they must threaten many others, and perhaps all moledom itself.
“In communities like yours here, and perhaps in many other “lost” communities of moledom – in the Anglian heights perhaps, which the Stone Mole himself visited, in the southern borderlands of Wales, in those unvisited areas north and west of Beechenhill, even in communities nearer at home like those of the Midlands, and eastward in the shadow of the Wen, where the two-foots live – I believe there must be others like you: silent, unknown, yet the preservers of the values that true communities” sustain.
“Therefore, never say you are moles of no consequence. With the coming of the Newborns, the day may arrive when moledom will see you as most consequential of all, for on you will rest our last hopes that truth and tolerance will prevail... Then you may have to rise up and defend what you have, and show others its true worth.”
Whillan and Maple had left Duncton respecting her, and loving her too perhaps, but now their respect and love changed to a kind of reverence, as if they understood that Privet was becoming a mole who had survived harsh times with her inner spirit intact; a mole who, for a mysterious reason none of them yet knew, had been sent out once more by the Stone itself to face the dangers of moledom, and whom, as best they could, they must protect.
This conversation, during the last of their pauses in the High Wolds, had taken place in the Taddington system, which lies but a short distance from the source of the Windrush. The land beyond continues as gentle, rolling, dry valley and it was up this, the following day, that the Taddington moles accompanied Privet, Whillan and Maple on the last stage of their journey through the Wolds. Northwards was Shenberrow Hill, the highest point of that region, where moles thereabout, on great occasions, congregated from the adjacent systems to praise the Stone and wish each other well.
December had now come, and the weather that had blessed the travellers so long with clear skies, and pale sunny days, seemed holding still, but only just. The leafless trees along the way trembled sometimes, somewhat out of proportion to the light cold breezes, as if they sensed that winter storms were on the way.
There had been no expectation that other moles would meet them from Snowshill, the system that lay in the northeast lee of Shenberrow, and faced across the great flat Vale of Evesham, beyond which Caer Caradoc rose. But as they reached the last slopes of the hill they were surprised to see several moles on top, all of Snowshill, all old, and their greeting was not ready, nor many words forthcoming until one of them recognized one of the Taddington moles.
“Don’t tell me you lot have become Newborn! You look glum enough to have done so!”
The Taddington mole shook his head, puzzled, and introduced the three Duncton moles.
“Librarian Privet? Strong Maple? Studious Whillan?” repeated the Snowshill mole as others from his system gathered round the three, peering at them with a mixture of curiosity and dismay.
“There you are!” said another Snowshill mole, “I said these travellers must be the ones the Newborns are on the lookout for. You’re for it, you lot are. I’d get away while you can!”
“What’s apaw?” asked Maple quickly. “What Newborns, and what do they want?”
At which invitation, the Snowshill moles were only too eager to talk. It seemed that for many a moleyear the Newborns had not extended their sphere of influence above Broadway, a big system on the communal route east and west, and the same one Chater had predicted the Newborns would use as a base to watch for the Duncton moles” coming. Not content with sending scouts up to Snowshill, perhaps having heard already of the Duncton moles” proximity, they had sent a large missionary force as well.
“Aye, and a persuasive lot they are too!” said one of the Snowshill moles. “You should see how some of our females have already fallen for their smooth talk of the Stone and the right ways to worship, and now our young follow suit, They’ve only been with us a few days but we’re all that remains of those holding out against them. We just came up here for a bit of old-fashioned praying – not that the Newborns approve of course, since they say praying is best done in a group. Anyway, there’s moles down in Broadway awaiting you lot.”
“Do you know their names?” asked Maple.
“Oh yes, they’re quite open about information. There’s one of your own moles, name of Deputy Master Librarian Snyde. He’s there, kicking his paws and getting impatient. But the brother they go in fear of is the one they call Senior Brother Chervil, and he’s not best pleased with you for some reason or other. Oh yes, you’ve got a merry reception awaiting you.”
This exchange might have continued, and any one of the several courses of action that Maple was considering have been followed, had not another couple of Snowshill moles appeared, two females this time, and in something of a hurry.
“They’re coming up this way, lads,” they announced.
“Who are?” asked a Snowshill mole.
“The whole bloody system, led by the Newborns, to have a pray-in. Didn’t like you going off by yourselves so they thought they’d join in and swamp you.” Even as she spoke they heard the sound of moles singing from some way downslope to the north, the male voices somewhat overpowered by the high trills of females and youngsters.
“Stone me,” said one of the Taddington moles, “I’m clearing out of here fast.”
“And me!” said most of his friends immediately, with apologetic looks towards the Duncton moles.
“I think this is where you’re on your own! Unless you want to come with us?”
Privet shook her head. “I’m afraid our way is to Caradoc, and I think it may now be in the company of Newborn moles.”
“Well, if you don’t mind we’ll be off now,” said the Taddington leader, casting a fearful look towards where the singing swelled ever louder. “But you lot,” he looked towards the Snowshill moles, “are you coming with us?”
They looked hesitant, but then Maple went among them and said, “You go with them. If you’ve had the wits to come this far, you’d best be with moles you can trust. Send news of this down to Stow of Bourton who knows my feelings about the Newborns, and I’ve a feeling that others like you will begin to gather now in the Wolds, and perhaps down about the Bourton system.”
“And you, mole, what of you?” they said to Maple. “Stay with us; we need a mole like you, others will follow you. You’ve got a vision of things wider than we have, you and Privet, and Whillan. Stay with us...”
There was a stir of approval, and a sense of a movement forming as the moles surged nearer each other and waited for Maple’s reply. But after a quick look at his two friends he shook his head.
“My task isn’t here yet,” he said. “Whillan and I are to go to Caradoc with Privet to protect her, and that will give us a chance to see what kind of mole this Thripp of Blagrove Slide really is. Maybe our fears are exaggerated; but if not, my paws will be
strengthened by knowing something more of my enemy than mere rumour and report. Therefore be patient, stance firm here up in the Wolds, follow the lead of the Bourton moles you know you can trust, and when we can get word to you we will do so.”
The singing downslope was louder still, and it could not be many moments before the first of the approaching moles came into sight.
“Now, be off! And be safeguarded in the Stone!” ordered Maple.
“And you mole, and you all!” they replied. “We’ve learnt a lot from you. Librarian Privet, and we want to learn more. Come back to us soon and tell us you regret having left us at all! Now... where will you go, or are you going to wait for the Newborns to capture you here?”
It was the normally silent Whillan who decided for them. “Let’s avoid them a little longer, for we’ll learn something of their intentions in the way they pursue us. We can drop down the wooded western side of the hill and make our way at our leisure towards Evesham. I fancy a day or two more of liberty!”
“Well spoken, mole!” said Maple.
With that, and final waves of farewell, the moles of the Wolds turned quickly south-east and were soon lost across the gentle folds of the ground. While the three Duncton moles, without more ado, turned towards the cover and shadows of the stand of beech trees not far to their west and set off, as the first of the Newborn-led moles came into view. But as they reached the darkness of the trees they were astonished to see a mole, stanced firmly and calmly in their path, with an overly weary expression on his face, as if he had been awaiting them for a long time, and they were late.
“And whatmole are you?” said Maple, eyeing him suspiciously.
“An opportunist whose special skills you are about to find you need,” he replied.
“You’re Weeth!” exclaimed Whillan, with certainly.
“My notoriety precedes me,” said Weeth smugly. “And no doubt they said I talk rather too much?”