Duncton Stone

by William Horwood

  But Pumpkin’s prayers were rarely over so quickly and often as not, having seemed to have finished his supplications before the Stone, and having turned away to go back to his daily tasks, he would remember some other issue or other which he wished to draw to the Stone’s attention. So on this occasion...

  “And Stone, forgive me for troubling you further, but there’s Whillan, isn’t there? For, as you know...”

  Pumpkin’s concern then, as on many other prayerful occasions through November and December, was Whillan’s absolute unwillingness to talk about what had happened to him after Wildenhope. Of even what occurred at Wildenhope he would say nothing, though from things that Chervil and Rooster had said, Pumpkin had a shrewd idea how Whillan had got away to safety.

  Even more so after he had put his theory to Hamble who, as it happened, had passed through Wildenhope on his circuitous journey from Caradoc to Duncton Wood and had been reluctant witness to some drownings and worked out how Whillan might have effected his escape.

  Pumpkin’s interest in Whillan was more than idle curiosity, for it troubled him that Whillan, like Rooster, barely spoke to Privet, though Stone knew how much they must mean to each other. For her part, Privet seemed wholly indifferent to Whillan, as she did to Rooster, so absorbed was she by the process of scribing the Book.

  While for his part Whillan was silent and obtuse to the point of obscurity, and a very changed mole indeed. As Hamble himself had rightly said, whatever Whillan was before he left Duncton it was a formidable mole that returned.

  “If he has returned,” Hamble continued darkly, “for he’s a look in his eyes that suggests to me his heart’s somewhere else for now. You mark my words, Pumpkin, he’ll be off before he comes back, if you see what I mean.”

  Their conversation took place in December, and its context was one dear to Hamble’s heart and something of a puzzlement to Pumpkin – how it might be that weak moles can sometimes triumph over strong.

  “For I’m weak,” said Pumpkin with genuine modesty, “but we triumphed over the Newborns, didn’t we, Hamble?”

  “We certainly did, and you’re right, you’re not the strongest mole I’ve ever seen.”

  By way of illustration of weakness versus strength the conversation turned first to Myrtle’s startling intervention at the cross-under on Sturne’s behalf, though they did not then know her name.

  Anger, conviction, surprise and a loud shout will take a mole a long way, Hamble pointed out, if not always all the way. So, for example, Myrtle’s initial success in stopping the moles who were about to kill Sturne was relatively easy to understand, without in any way taking away from her achievement.

  But the truth is that had not Whillan come when he did, taking his place along-flank her, and turning his calm gaze upon the many moles so eager to strike the first death blow, more than likely not only would Sturne have died, but Myrtle as well.

  So therefore, Hamble reasonably asked, how was it that so many moles, all so eager to strike a blow, should have been stilled by Whillan, and then have retreated when faced by no more than his stance and his calm voice, and finally slipped away.

  “I might almost say fled away, as if they had seen something they recognized as far stronger than themselves. In fact, I do say that, Pumpkin!”

  It was certainly a reasonable question and only went to show that Whillan was a changed mole. So startling a change indeed that many would say that that young mole, frightened, uncertain, deserted by all including his adoptive mother (as it seemed to him as he was roughly taken to the river by Chervil, Feldspar and the others), had died, and was no more.

  This much Whillan often said himself. But though it is true that he “often said himself” this is not to say he often spoke. He did not. Never loquacious, the new Whillan was rather less so on his return. He said little and observed much, and resisted all attempts, even by moles who knew and loved him, like Fieldfare and Pumpkin, to make him tell his story.

  Others, most notably Rooster, did not even ask him, sensing that when he wished to talk he would do so. As for Privet, the two met briefly soon after his return and her commencement of her great task, and found that they had little to say to each other.

  All that Whillan said was this, to Fieldfare: “Privet and I are both still travelling, and as we are on different journeys we have nothing to say to each other. At least we both know it, and that’s a comfort!”

  Fieldfare could not make him out at all, and even less could she understand why he seemed prepared to spend time with moles like Squelch, or “that Frogbit” – a mole whose brevity and unwillingness to answer virtually any question she asked she found most frustrating.

  All this was made worse for her by Privet’s preoccupation with her scribing, which meant that she was rarely seen, and when she was she seemed in a world far removed from anymole-else’s. That much of what Whillan had said at least Fieldfare understood!

  “But Hamble, my dear,” she said later, for he was a mole she could talk to normally, “it is as if the whole of Duncton Wood was occupied by moles who don’t want to say a single thing worth hearing.”

  Hamble grinned. He and Fieldfare got on well, and they had a common bond in Chater, at whose death Hamble had been present, and in whose life Fieldfare had found so much love and comfort.

  “Your trouble, Fieldfare, if I may say so, is that you like a good gossip and you feel that if moles won’t join in they’ve got something against you. But —”

  “Not a gossip, a chat! That’s what I like. And dear me, didn’t Chater used to tell me off for chatting away to a mole and, afterwards, making two and two add up to five about something they had said?”

  “Or six, more like,” growled Hamble. “Give ’em time.”

  “Who?”

  “Moles,” said Hamble. “Most of us here have been through hard times and not all of us have your resilience. But things will improve, you see if they don’t. Duncton will be itself again one day I daresay, though I don’t suppose I’ll be here to see it.”

  “Not here, Hamble! And why not? You’re not leaving too, I hope, like so many others?”

  “Maybe I will and maybe I won’t. There’s nothing much for me here now, except some of my oldest friends of course! But seriously, I miss the Moors, strange though that will seem to a Duncton mole. But I do. I’d like to have seen the purple heather again, and heard the curlews call, and seen the water in the cloughs racing wild. It’s where I was born and raised, Fieldfare, and I miss it.”

  “Ahhh...” purred Fieldfare, “that is what I miss!”

  “What —?”

  “I don’t mean the Moors, my dear, I mean moles talking as you were then. Moles talking. There’s nothing like a winter’s night, and a chamberful of well-fed and well-watered moles, some friends and some strangers, sharing a tale and a joke and a song. That’s how Duncton was when I was young, and it was at Longest Night, in a friend’s tunnels not so far from here, in just such company that I met my beloved Chater.”

  Hamble nodded sympathetically and said, “Well, Longest Night will soon be on us, and you can rest assured that I’ll tell you a tale or two then, and gather a few moles together willing to do the same.”

  “Why, Hamble, that’s very... thoughtful of you,” said Fieldfare, genuinely touched, her snout shading towards pink as she shifted her ample but still comely frame about a bit in a pleasurable and anticipatory sort of way. And, as one thought leads to another, not always in a way that moles understand, she asked, “Tell me, have you never had a mate? I mean – a long-term mate?”

  “No, I haven’t,” said Hamble a little shortly, “no time. I can’t say I regret it, for I’ve had an active life. But then I’ve never felt the need. Now I must be off, Fieldfare, I must get going. These nights are... cold.”

  She had regretted the question the moment she asked it, and regretted it even more when he set off into the bitter night, not looking back as he usually did and giving her a wave.

  “Oh dear,” she
said to herself, “oh dear!”

  A few days later he visited her again in reference not to her too-personal question about his not having had a mate, but about Longest Night.

  “Been thinking,” he said, “and even better, been doing. And better still...”

  Fieldfare felt the delicious thrill of the promise of a coming treat.

  “... better still, I’ve arranged something.”

  “What, Hamble, what?”

  “Ah, well, I wouldn’t want to disappoint you, Fieldfare. You mean a lot to me, you see.”

  She did not miss the sudden quiet in his voice, and the gentleness. Indeed, after their last meeting she had begun to think that Hamble might become rather more than a friend. The thought of him leaving for the Moors, and that look in his eyes when he said “I’ve never felt the need” – which told her that he had felt the need – had set her thinking thoughts she had denied herself for a very long time indeed, namely, that she was not so old that she could not find another mate. More particularly, that she was not too old to take Hamble as a mate.

  Spurling, Stone bless him, had been something very different, and had that brave mole survived Buckland she would have stanced by her word and taken him into her burrow. But she had always known that it would not have been right. But Hamble was a different proposition altogether. He certainly was...

  So she let him tell her that she meant a lot him, though when he suddenly spoilt it all by saying that she was almost like a sister to him, why, she felt cross and was very short indeed.

  “I know I’ve offended you in some way,” declared poor Hamble, “and I’m sure I didn’t mean to.”

  “No you haven’t! What gave you that idea?”

  But Hamble was not a mole patient with such play and he did not give her the satisfaction of trying to find out what was wrong.

  “I never did like it when moles don’t speak their minds!” he declared. “So either say what’s up or be quiet.”

  “Hamble!” she said feebly.

  “Well?”

  He frowned at her and did not smile when she did.

  “I...” But she was at a loss for words. How could she say she thought of herself – or had begun to – as rather more than a sister?

  He shrugged indifferently and said, “Doesn’t make any difference to what I’ve arranged.”

  “What have you arranged?”

  “I was going to tell you but now I won’t, because it might not happen.”

  “What might not happen?”

  Hamble grinned and said, “Look, mole, what did we talk about last time, apart from mates?”

  There was a twinkle in his eye, or a certain resolution, and she almost quivered at the sight of it. She couldn’t make him out at all.

  “We talked...”

  “We talked about Longest Night, that’s what we talked about, and about how you liked a chamberful of moles telling tales and what have you. Well, I agree, and so I suggest that come Longest Night you make sure the place is spick and span, and you have a plentiful supply of worms, because I’m going to bring back here, seeing as your place is more comfortable and larger than mine, seeing as you’re an ample mole —”

  “Hamble, I’m not that ample!”

  “Ample enough for me!” he said shamelessly and chuckling. “Anyway, you be ready to welcome a good few moles.”

  “What moles?” she implored him.

  “All right then, I’ll tell you one, and I’ll be honest with you: it’s as much a surprise to me as it will be to you. But it was his suggestion, not mine.”

  Poor Fieldfare felt sudden disappointment. This was not Hamble’s idea at all. This was somemole-else’s. This...

  “Here we go again, Fieldfare, I can see it in your face, I’ve said something I shouldn’t.”

  “I hoped it was your idea because you cared!” she blurted out, almost tearfully.

  “I do care,” he said, suddenly taking her in his paws. “I do care,” he whispered, “and that’s why when Whillan said that come Longest Night he might be willing to talk about all that’s happened to him, seeing as a certain mole or two might be coming to Duncton Wood, I said that I knew a mole would provide a burrow and be only too happy to hear such revelations, and her name was Fieldfare.”

  “Did you?” said Fieldfare softly, not letting him let go, and him not wanting to.

  “I did,” said Hamble, his back paws beginning to ache from the awkward position they were in, “could we stretch out?”

  “Just like that, Hamble?”

  “Just like this,” he said firmly.

  “Moles might find out,” she said sleepily, much later.

  “Might,” said Hamble, “and probably will.”

  “Hamble?” she whispered, but he was asleep, and all she could do was to touch his broad shoulders, and caress his scarred face, and to shed a tear of gratitude that there was one thing she knew and that was that Chater would not have minded, not one bit. He would never have wanted her to be alone, but nor would he have wanted her to be with a mole who was not worth something. This mole was worth a lot!

  “Chater...” she whispered, her tears for him wetting Hamble’s fur, and soon she slept too, and needed to grieve no more for the mole she had loved so much.

  “Fieldfare,” whispered Hamble sometime in the night, his voice rough, his touch gentle.

  “Hamble?” she replied, with growing love.

  “Mmmm?”

  “Something’s occurred to me.”

  “Often does,” grunted Hamble.

  “You said Whillan suggested coming here at Longest Night. Whillan!”

  “Mmmm, I did.”

  “But you said he’d have other moles with him. What moles? Tell me.”

  “If I tell you, do you promise not to say another word and let me sleep?”

  “I promise,” she said promptly.

  “Right. He said that he wanted to bring three moles to witness Duncton’s Longest Night. When I asked him what moles, he said, and I quote, and here I’m going to remind you of your promise and assure you I know no more than what he said, ‘One of them is the mole I love, and the others are moles who would like to meet Rooster.”’

  “The mole he loves! Two moles to meet Rooster! Hamble, and all you want to do is sleep!”

  Hamble growled and put his paws about her and said, “You promised.”

  “But you didn’t tell me it would be so intriguing,” she wailed.

  Hamble chuckled and held her, and Fieldfare had the good grace, and the love, to laugh and say not one word more until... well, at least until daybreak.

  Hamble was as good as his word. On Longest Night, after a celebration by the Stone, somewhat subdued on account of the continuing malaise that seemed to affect allmole at that time, as if it would need the whole of winter and a little bit of spring to recover from the moleyears of trouble and strife just past, a motley but cheerful collection of moles assembled in Fieldfare’s communal chamber.

  She had cleaned it all out, expanded it a little, spread the sweet-smelling dried sprigs of fennel about, and got as fine a store of food together as any of them had seen in moleyears.

  Rooster was there, of course, and Whillan. Privet, somewhat quiet, came too. Maple would not come, but Weeth looked in and said he could stay for a while, and then even Chervil came, back from his most recent journey. Pumpkin came along with an unwilling Sturne, who said he was never much good on such occasions but had yielded to Pumpkin’s suggestion that it would do him good. Elynor was there, somewhat aged, and Cluniac, back from some mysterious journey he had been on with Frogbit, neither of whom would say a word about it, though the glances they cast at Whillan made it plain enough that it had something to do with him.

  The only disappointment was that whatever moles it was that Whillan had hoped would come were not there, which in Fieldfare’s view made it likely that he would not say much, or tell them what they all wanted to know, which was...

  “How did you survive Wildenhope,
mole? You know we all want to know!”

  It was Hamble who asked the question, and from the deep silence that settled over them, there could be no doubt that he was right, they did all want to know, even if some of them were unwilling to ask.

  Whillan glanced at them one by one, his face grave, but his eyes clear and sure. Then he nodded and said, “I did want to tell you before, but there’s a time and place for things, and as Cluniac and Frogbit here know, there were a few things to sort out which were better done by them. Well, that’s been settled and I’m as ready to talk tonight as I’m likely to be, and especially in this company. All the moles I’ve ever loved but two are here tonight. You, Pumpkin, who taught me to scribe. You, Privet, who raised and loved me. You, Rooster, my father, and the mole it’s taken me longest to get to know and love. You, Fieldfare, who told me tales in this very chamber when I was young, and taught me what it was to be a Duncton mole.”

  “My dear...” whispered Fieldfare, eyes filled with tears.

  How different Whillan looked, how still, and how strong. Not just in body but in spirit, and more than one of them saw then, perhaps for the first time, how like Rooster’s his eyes were.

  “In the old days they used to begin tales like this: ‘From my heart to your heart I tell this tale...’ Well, that’s how I want to tell it, and will try to tell it... and I’ll begin with that terrible moment at Wildenhope when...”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  The talon blow that Chervil delivered to Whillan’s right flank after his sentencing and before taking him down to the river was bad enough, causing him to gasp and collapse: but it was the indifference in Privet’s eyes that killed his spirit. Rooster was more important than he was, then, and all those moleyears of love, all that care, seemed as nothing, and as he collapsed his world collapsed as well.