Duncton Found

by William Horwood

  “Shit!” he said again, and then turned away and stanced down quietly in the shadows, waiting for her to move. An earwig crawled over her paw, the thin red sheen of a worm’s end thinned and disappeared into the ground she had disturbed to her right. The ground smelt damp and musty, and she thought, Think of something to stop yourself moving, Mistle, think of something! But she could think of nothing but the numbing fear she felt. Nothing else.

  Only after a long wait did the henchmole, still swearing, finally leave and she felt she could breathe again. But it was not until long after, and the movement of followers through the wood seemed to have ceased, that she dared shift her stiff limbs.

  Then dusk came. She felt cold. She peered out into the wood, she saw nomole, she heard nomole. The wintry wood seemed dark and malevolent and she felt terribly alone and wanted to escape it as soon as she could.

  But not downslope south where the grikes might still be, nor upslope north where Cumnor was. East, then, or west. She did not know. Cuddesdon... at least he must have got away from the henchmole as well. Should she stay where she was in the hope that he might come back? Which way might he have gone? It must be east or west, she had no idea.

  “Guide me, Stone,” she prayed, “guide me now where I can best fulfil my task.” She thought of the Stone Mole, she thought of Buckram leading him away from danger across the wood – west. That way, too, the wood was lighter with the last of the sun, and she knew from experience that if a mole is in danger in a wood it is best she moves towards the light – for coming out of darkness as she does, she can see before she is seen. Yes, it’s what Cuddesdon would have done. With a sigh she turned west and hoped she might reach the edge of the dark wood before night or tiredness overtook her.

  That night was bitterly cold and again dawn showed a frost across the woods and fields, and only the flap of rooks in the high trees. As the wood grew lighter a solitary mole watched three moles approach him. He was a rotund mole, a cheerful mole, a mole who for some time past had been wrinkling his brow and blowing warm, steamy breath on his paws to warm them and muttering, “’Tis cold!” But he was a mole who knew how to look after himself, for he was stanced most comfortably in the warmth of a hastily made surface nest of moss and leaves.

  He watched the three and said to himself, “About time too!” Then he squeezed out of the nest he had made, shook his body free of loose material, and emerged from the shadows in which he had hidden and waited to be seen.

  The biggest of the three, who was male and very big indeed and had the look of guardmole about him, did not make him feel confident, but he put a brave face on it and called out, “Good morning and greetings! Would you be Buckram?”

  Buckram loomed nearer, looking to right and left in case of traps, and said, “I am.”

  “Your friends must therefore be Sleekit and Beechen of Duncton Wood.”

  These two ranged up alongside Buckram and stared in some bemusement at the mole.

  “Amazing,” said the mole. “Absolutely amazing. I have met some extraordinary moles in my time but... well, words fail me.”

  He beamed at them.

  “Who are you?” asked Buckram.

  “A friend of a friend. My name’s Tubney, his name’s Mayweed... and he is another amazing mole.”

  At this they all relaxed. Beechen grinned, Sleekit fought back sudden tears and Buckram, still very much in charge, asked, “Where is he?”

  “Not far, or too far. There are guardmoles about and that’s why I’ve come into this wretched wood, along with several others. He spaced us out and told us to keep an eye open. Very amusing, your friend Mayweed, “Keep an eye open and relax, yes, yes, yes!” Relax? I normally do. Bablock moles such as me are not renowned for stressful living. Since Mayweed turned up, took a look about, said our system was exactly what he had been looking for all his life and did we mind if one or two moles dropped in for a shortish stay all very hush-hush and please don’t fret, this mole has been worried sick, which doesn’t suit me at all. He said that whichever one of us should have the indubitable honour (as he put it) of finding you we were to lead you to him, and he would accompany you to Bablock himself.”

  “Well if Mayweed said it you had better do it!” said Beechen with a laugh. “And anyway, I think he’ll be anxious to be with his mate again.”

  Tubney looked at Sleekit and respectful surprise crossed his plump face. Then sudden embarrassment as if such an impressive and elegant old female should not be kept waiting a moment longer than need be.

  “Oh! I see! I hadn’t realised, Madam, that you’re Mayweed’s, er, partner! Well then, of course, please, yes, yes... he’ll want to see you as soon as possible, so please follow me.”

  Tubney turned and waddled off as Sleekit and Beechen, glancing at each other with amusement and shared love for Mayweed, turned and followed him, with Buckram guarding the rear.

  The route was circuitous, and they picked up three more moles who had also been deputed to watching duty before they passed under a small cross-under and stopped.

  “Where is he?” asked Sleekit.

  “Supple Sleekit, beloved, look up and see your heartthrob, me!”

  They looked up and saw Mayweed leering down at them from the top of the cross-under where, he explained as he scrambled and rolled his way down the embankment, he had been watching lest they did the really sensible thing and came via the minor roaring owl way they had j ust gone beneath.

  “Dreams come true!” he said when he “was on all four paws before them, had dusted himself off, and had greeted Sleekit with an affectionate embrace.

  “I have found a place where we may rest! Do I see gloomy languor in your stance, bold Beechen? It shall go in Bablock. Do I see frowns on your brow, ’stonishing Sleekit? In Bablock they shall flee. How far? Less than a day to reach a place a mole might seek all his (or her) life!”

  “Come on, Mayweed,” said Beechen with some impatience.

  “Yes, yes. I see you are as tired as you look, bothered Sir. I shall not witter more!” He turned to one of the Bablock moles and said, “My new-found friend, go and tell the other watchers that the moles we were looking for are come. We shall go on ahead. Away one and all! Stout Tubney, lead!”

  The ground was mainly sloping fallow fields and heath, the earth frosty cold, the route westward and down into the great valley of the River Thames which stretched out below them.

  It was plain from the outset that Beechen was in no mood to talk, or even to travel willingly with them. He kept pausing and staring across the great misty vale below and then up and down it.

  His mood was in sharp contrast to that of the others who, with the prospect of a place of rest before them, seemed to have found new energy and cheer. Mayweed and Sleekit chattered about this and that as if they were young moles again. Buckram seemed to find much to talk about with Tubney, and so it was only slowly that they all began to realise that Beechen was not himself at all.

  He stopped. Sleekit went back to him, and saw to her surprise that he looked tearful, he looked vulnerable, his face looked both young and fatigued at once. All the party stopped then as Sleekit spoke to him. Of what he told her we can only guess – of a sense that he was outcast from them perhaps, of a strange restlessness, of a desire to be alone, and... of the mole he had seen so briefly in Hen Wood, one he should have gone back to, one whose gaze he could not get from his mind. One he was going to find – yes, that was it: now!

  He stanced up purposefully to set off back upslope then and there.

  “Beechen...” began Sleekit, at her most understanding and diplomatic. But whatever she said had no effect. He had seen a female, henchmoles were coming, she was in danger, he was going to find her. And he was going alone.

  “She wasn’t ‘just’ a mole, was she?” said Sleekit.

  “I don’t know what she was,” said Beechen unhappily. “She seemed like moledom itself to me. I wish... this is ridiculous. I’m sorry....”

  The Stone Mole behaving lik
e... like the young mole he still truly was! “He is mole first,” Tryfan had said, and now they saw it. It was as if, after a long trial in which he had had to be Stone Mole to everymole, he wished now to be “but mole”.

  Naturally all of them, and especially Buckram, were against any notion of Beechen going off by himself.

  “I saw a mole,” said Beechen again, wishing he had more strength, wishing he could inspire himself as he could others, wishing they would all go away.

  “Female?” Mayweed half whispered to Sleekit, who nodded.

  “Then good luck to boldness. His friend me, Mayweed, fell in love with sweet Sleekit here at the blink of an eye, at the flash of a talon! Go and find her! Bring her to us! We shall warn her against it but give her our blessing! As for danger, of course there’s danger, dire danger. But for the folly of youth the world might not change at all. Let danger be welcomed! Remember that humbleness himself trained Beechen here in route-finding from a pup, and he’ll be safe. A mole needs to be alone sometimes. Adventure! Danger! Risk! ’Tis the making of life’s blood.

  And if true love is the end result what a tale we shall have to tell! We shall decline into our staid ancientness in Bablock and from the safety of our pleasant place thank the Stone that we no longer feel the confusing rushes and faints that drive a mole, otherwise sensible, perhaps even divine, to rush about the place looking for that most elusive and changeable thing that graces moledom’s sunny ways – a female to love; or, worse, being pursued by that most ferocious monster a male can encounter, a female in love. But humbleness jests and leers knowingly and says to one and says to all, let the poor lad be, he’ll be unlivable with until he has been, and then when he comes to his senses he’ll be unlivable with again. But there we go, puzzling life. To Bablock then, and he can follow, downhill all the way! Ha, ha!”

  Once Mayweed’s flight of romantic fantasy was over, he gave Beechen some instructions about the easiest way down to Bablock.

  “Now, I’ll watch you go,” said Beechen, who felt much better for talking to his friends. He stanced on the bare ground as the others, with general muttering and reluctance, despite Mayweed’s words, went on down the slope.

  “But I don’t like to leave him,” poor Buckram could not help saying. “He saved my life.”

  “Warm-hearted but misguided mole,” said Mayweed, “he may well have done, but if you kept him here now he would make your life insufferable.”

  They looked back to wave farewell, but where Beechen had been was nomole now. He had gone.

  The second night after the departure of the followers through Hen Wood was even clearer than the first, and the air grew colder and colder as all warmth seemed to flee southern moles and lose itself among the winking stars.

  As dawn came the leaves crackled with frost, and every blade of grass at the edge of Hen Wood was bowed under the weight of white crystals.

  Mistle stared out at the pale chill scene, her back paws still warm from the earth in which she had rested through the night, but her pink snout tingling with the cold. Despite everything Mistle did not feel as lonely and depressed as she might have, and indeed a wave of entirely new feelings came over her.

  What she felt most of all was an unfamiliar mix of relief and guilt. Relief to be alone, and free; guilt that she did not miss Cuddesdon more, or seem to worry for him.

  But ever since she had so briefly caught the Stone Mole’s gaze, and once she had got over her panic at losing Cuddesdon, the sense of freedom had steadily increased. After the henchmole had left and she dared move off once more she had decided to press on west, for that had been the way the Stone Mole was going and perhaps Cuddesdon had gone that way too, though the more she thought about it his inclination would have been to go east towards where he had been told Cuddesdon was.

  Well, that was as maybe. The Stone would decide... and with that consoling thought and tired out, she had made a safe burrow, concealed it, and slept the first night through. The next day she had woken to movement, sensed mole about, heard scurrying, seen two large moles in the distance who looked like guardmoles, and lain low for half the day.

  At midday it grew suddenly colder, and the branches of the trees seemed stuck quite still against the pale blue winter sky. Silence had fallen all about and she felt, or sensed – indeed she felt she knew – that the guardmoles had gone and it was safe to move on.

  The enforced idleness seemed to have cleared her mind and made her calm, and she moved out across the surface to the west slowly, enjoying the darkening violets of the late afternoon shadows, and the sharp crackle of leaves underpaw.

  Rooks roosted high, stirring and flapping their wings but not taking off, and she came to the edge of the wood. She heard solitary roaring owl ahead and decided to stop once more and sleep the night through at the very edge of the wood, and take her chances out on the heathy ground beyond the following morning.

  She prayed to the Stone, for Cuddesdon, for herself, and then for the mole she had seen, Stone Mole or no. Increasingly, as she grew used to the image of him in her mind, she thought of him as mere mole, male, with eyes that had transfixed her. The thought of meeting him, let alone talking to him, made her feel nervous and she said her prayers to calm herself, but the prayers slid into reveries, pleasant dreams, silly languid thoughts, summer-seeming thoughts, as winter night settled down around her. She watched the stars, listened to the wood behind her, and then sunk down into the warmer soil, and snuggled into her temporary burrow and slept.

  So it was there that when she awoke the following morning, she felt fresh, alive and good. She watched the light strengthen across the heath ahead of her as the sun rose behind and filtered through the bare trees of the wood, she saw a ragged lapwing alight on the heath ahead and then take off again, she heard the rooks call and argue, she groomed, she ate, she took her time.

  Then, when the air felt good and the time felt right she set off, leaving the wood behind her as if she was shedding old fur, and an old life.

  “It’s November, and cold, and yet I feel as if it’s spring!” she told herself in surprise. She thought of Violet, and smiled. How Violet would have liked all this, all of it.

  Where to go?

  Ahead, my dear!

  So west she went, until, quite suddenly, the rise eased, the ground fell away, and she saw below her the winding misty vale of what she knew was the River Thames. She could not see its water, for it was lost in lines of leafless trees, misty and mysterious. But north-west of where she was it stretched away and in places the trees along its banks gave way to pasture and meadow and she saw its dark line.

  Somewhere on along it, she knew that Duncton Wood must be, the place that Violet had told her to go.

  She turned north, and took a pleasant route along the contour line as the heath became fallow fields and hedges crossed over her way. She sensed that to veer upslope north-easterly and go too high might bring her round to Cumnor, but though the sensible thing was to go lower, down towards the river, yet she felt right the way she was.

  But she did not feel sensible. She felt free, for moledom seemed to stretch out invitingly to her left flank and to her right the ground rose and blocked out the realities of Cumnor and of grikes. Strength came to her paws and she travelled faster, encouraged by the light rather than the warmth of the thin sun that rose behind her, and whose rays were too weak even to warm the ground enough to clear the frost.

  A day for today, a time for now, on such a good day she had always wanted to have her first sight of Duncton Wood and now she was beginning to think she might.

  Then, suddenly, she knew – she knew – she would, so on she went, seeming to be at one with the ground she touched, and the air she breathed, and moledom all about her.

  Twice when dark shadows touched the sky she paused and hid: rooks perhaps, heron maybe; but they were soon gone and she pressed on.

  Sometime later she paused again to rest and feed, the air cold but her body warm and pleasant with the effort of travell
ing. The Thames below was more visible, for the sun reached down among its trees now, and the ground ahead had dropped a little and showed the northern view. On she went, over fields, under hedges, sliding across the frozen water of a ditch, keeping high to avoid the streams that must flow from the slope towards the Thames lower down.

  On, on, even faster now, for she wanted to reach wherever it was the Stone was safely guiding her with the sun still high and clear, and the day so bright.

  The ground eased ahead, the slope fell off to her right, and there, past a hedge, over a small dip of pasture field, there, oh there was the hill on which was Duncton Wood. There!

  The light of the sun was on it, and it seemed to rise so-near that a mole might reach across the great vale that opened out below and touch it. Duncton!

  “Duncton Wood.” She whispered the words and her heart felt full of joy. “Oh Violet, I got here, I got to Duncton Wood! Violet, it’s so beautiful!” she said.

  She gazed at its great slopes, and up over pastures to where the wood was thick. Then on to its highest part where the leafless beeches were shining grey, with an occasional holly tree among them to give a touch of green. So peaceful.

  The hill was steepest to its left or western side, where pastures dropped down towards the river. Beyond there, moledom stretched away.

  Certainty, security, a strong sense of something fitting came upon her, and a sense of purpose too.

  “I feel as if I have come home,” she said. “Home from home. Violet, where you dreamed of I shall go. One day Cuddesdon will find me up there in Duncton Wood. One day....”

  Mole near. Mole. She knew it but was not afraid, for the sun and the cold clarity of the day seemed to have driven fear off the face of the earth. She looked to right and to left and then behind her, puzzling because she could not see mole, yet she felt a presence.

  She turned from the place she had taken stance, looked back again, and contoured on a little, her route swinging north-east. She was alert but relaxed, the sun at its warmest of the day, her fur glossy, her paws and talons sure. Mole was about. She paused to look at Duncton Wood once more, turned to continue and then suddenly saw him there, stanced ahead as she had been, staring at the distant hill.