Duncton Stone

by William Horwood

  He said this with good humour, though in a gently reproving tone, and several moles grinned ruefully, thinking it was they who were being admonished.

  “But then, moles have got to express themselves and I don’t think there’s been a single mole’s spoken today who hasn’t had something useful to say!”

  “Hear, hear!” cried out one.

  “Now I don’t suppose an old mole like me will be around to see the outcome of this business with the Newborns, much as I’d like to. One thing’s sure though: moles can’t force others to their will for ever. Might for a bit, might even for a long time in some places, but sooner or later decent moles will not tolerate it any more! So the first thing to say is this: the Newborns are doomed.”

  “Well said, mole!” said two or three voices as a stir of excitement and approval went among the listeners.

  “In my young days I would have agreed with those brave moles here who want to be up and at’em! Quite right too! So I’m not saying they’re wrong in what they want, only in how they go about it. It’s no good starting a fight, or anything else, if you can’t finish it properly – which means successfully. When I got a bit of experience I found it best to plan things – find out as much as possible about a problem and only then try to sort it out. The fact is we don’t know much about what’s going on in moledom beyond these reports we’ve had about Newborn Crusades, and Wildenhope. We need to know more. Now that’s the first thing.

  “The second is this. If my memory serves me right, and I know moles here like the learned Spurling of Avebury who worked in the library, and Fieldfare here who came from Duncton and has a head full of knowledge and history and all sorts of lore, will correct me... Like I say, if memory serves, one of the problems in the days of the evil Word was that the followers in different systems weren’t in touch with each other. Did not think to be, I suppose. So the disciples of the Word picked off one community after another without difficulty. Well now, we in our time better not make the same mistake. We best band together and find out what’s going on, and we better act together. That’s no easy thing, but it’s got to be done.”

  “Aye, he’s right, what he says is true!” somemole said.

  “Sshh! Hear him out,” said others.

  “I’m not saying I’ve got the right answer,” continued Raistow, “nor an easy one, but let’s say it may be a good possibility. I’m saying to myself, “‘What will other moles like us be deciding now? What action will they take?’”

  “You reckon there are other groups who want to resist like us?” asked one of the younger moles, one indeed who had initially been among the chatterers.

  “Bound to be,” said Raistow reassuringly. “I’d wager my life on it that there’s a lot of others like us. And some will be asking the same question I’ve just asked, “What will the others be deciding?” Well, I’ll tell you my answer. They’ll be thinking of the old days of the Word, and the mistakes made then, and they’ll be remembering that at that time, when things were as dark as they’ve ever been, and darker than now, there was a system stanced its ground and produced moles who led us back to light again. I’m referring to Duncton Wood.

  “We’re honoured to have a Duncton mole in our company in the comely shape of Fieldfare here...” Raistow allowed himself a wry and wrinkled grin as if to say, “the times may be past when I can go wooing a young female like her, but I’ve my own memories!’. Fieldfare’s snout glowed a pleasant shade of pink at the compliment. Then Raistow was serious once more.

  “All I can say is that if she’s typical of Duncton moles today then that’s a system we can still rely on. I’ll not be the only mole saying that up and down moledom. No, there’ll be others who’ll be thinking, “If we’re going to find inspiration and support it’s to Duncton we should turn our snouts.”

  “Now, Fieldfare has told me that there’s still a few moles in Duncton we can rely on, and the one she’s mentioned goes by the name of Pumpkin. I reckon we should send a couple of moles – reliable, brave moles – off to Duncton to make contact with Pumpkin, first to find out what’s apaw, because he’s likely to know, and secondly to say that when the call goes out there’s moles up here on the Seven Barrows will move against the Newborns!”

  This last remark caused a ragged cheer to break out amongst Raistow’s now rapt listeners.

  “I may not have been able to take an active part in things of late, seeing as my paws are giving out, but I keep my eyes and ears open and I say that if he’s willing he’s certainly able! The mole we should send to Duncton is young Noakes over there, who’s an example to us all. Well now, that’s for him to consider and others to decide, but before I stance down and shut up I’d like to say a couple more things.”

  “We’re listening!” said many a mole, whispering among themselves that all he had said so far made a lot of sense.

  “It may surprise some of you to know that I myself have been to Duncton Wood! It’s a long time ago, and a long story I’m not going to waste your time with now. I was young, and so were my mates, and come the summer, off we went to see that famous place for ourselves. Fieldfare here would have been a very young mole then I suppose and I can’t say I remember meeting her. But we were given a good welcome, we shared a few tales down in what they call Barrow Vale, and we had the honour of meeting the Elder Drubbins, whom Fieldfare here has mentioned from time to time.

  “But what I remember most, and why I mention it, and the thing I’d like you youngsters upon whom we older moles are going to be relying in the hard times ahead to pay special attention to, was the Duncton Stone. I visited it twice – once with my mates, and once alone. It rises out of the ground like nothing I’ve ever seen, and there’s a light about it a mole never forgets. It’s humbling, but it doesn’t make a mole feel small; it’s awesome, but it doesn’t make a mole feel it’s unattainable; it’s holy, but in its presence a mole doesn’t feel separate from it.

  “The time I was alone before it I did what I daresay most moles do when they go into its presence – I tried to pray, but couldn’t! I muttered a few words, I stared at it, and eventually I stumbled back towards the edge of the clearing among the trees where it stands. Just as I was leaving, feeling a bit foolish, an austere, formidable kind of mole comes along and says in the old traditional way, ‘Whatmole are you, and whither are you bound?’

  “I replied in the proper manner and before I knew what I was doing I told him my story, and how we had come up from Buckland without telling anymole. As we spoke he kind of eased me towards the Stone until at the end I was right under it, almost touching it in fact.

  “‘You looked as if you were running away from it when I stopped you just now!’ says he.

  “So I told him I was in a manner of speaking, explaining I had tried to pray but couldn’t find the words. He said to me, ‘That’s all right, it just shows you were trying. All you have to do is look up at the Stone and open your heart and it will know what’s in it, and what you need.’

  “‘Is that all?’ I faltered. He nodded and said, ‘You could do it now if you wanted. After all, you might never get another chance!’

  “So I did, and I didn’t mind him being there. If anything it made it easier. After a time of silence I said aloud, ‘I think I know what I want now, although I would never have thought it before.’ He asked me what it was, and I didn’t mind telling him, silly though it seemed then, and often has since. Silly until this very day...”

  Raistow paused once more and glanced about him, and not one of his listeners spoke, or fidgeted. They saw before them a mole who must once have been strong and large, with a solid sort of head and sound paws. Now he was frail and shrunken, and one of his paws trembled and the others were weak, but such was the quiet dignity of his tale-telling, and the serious import of all that he said, it seemed that the elderly mole who had begun to talk to them had somehow given way once more to the strong mole he had been in his prime, one worthy to face anymole among them.

  “Aye,” he
said ruminatively, “I had a fancy come to me all right, and I told that mole what it was, just as I’ll tell you now. Says I, ‘What I would like is for my youngsters to come across the vales as I have done, and return to this ancient wood, and stance before the Duncton Stone as I do now. A mole needs to see it only once, and touch it perhaps, to remember always that it’s here as it was, as it is, as it always will be. I’d like my young to know that.’

  “‘It’s as good an ambition as any,’ said the Duncton mole to me. ‘Now tell me why you’d like them to come to the Duncton Stone.’

  “‘To the Duncton Stone?’ I repeated, thinking what these words meant. ‘It’s because a mole who can say he’s off to do that, and knows he’ll not be troubled on the way, but rather will be helped and guided by those he meets, is a mole who lives in a peaceful Stone-fearing world!’

  “That’s what I said, those very words, and I surprised myself by saying them. I was only a youngster and not inclined to spiritual things, or to contemplate what I might say one day to my young. Why, I had never thought to have any! But there I was saying I would tell them to be off to the Duncton Stone!”

  “Did you ask the name of the mole you were talking to?” asked one of the youngsters.

  “Of course I did!” said Raistow. “And you know what? It was none other than Master Librarian Stour I had been talking to, the most learned mole in moledom!”

  “And did you tell them, your own youngsters, what you told him, about going to the Duncton Stone?” asked Fieldfare quietly. “And did they go?”

  Raistow slowly shook his head, and for a moment the shadows of age and regret came to his face and eyes.

  “As I say, I’ve not thought to repeat those words since that day long ago when I was young. You see, I never did have young. That fortune was never mine, though other blessings came my way. But not young. No, not young to call my own.”

  He paused again, and a sensitive mole could see that this lack of youngsters of his own was the great sadness of Raistow’s life. But then a touching and vulnerable look of shyness went across his face, a kind of diffidence, and it was plain he was struggling to find the right words for what he wished to say. It is at such moments that the true strength of a community may be revealed. When a mole’s listeners, sensitive to his needs and forgetting their own selfish whims and desires, give a mole space to express his feelings. Not a mole spoke, not a mole stirred, unless it was in some small and gentle gesture of empathy, as if to say to Raistow, “You take your time, old mole, for it’s clear enough you’ve been patient with moles aplenty in your day. We don’t mind waiting, because what’s a community for if not to give a mole the chance to speak his mind, or cry, or be silent, or make a suggestion when he wants to?”

  “Well anyway,” he continued at last, “seeing as I never did have young, but seeing as we’ve been blessed by a few youngsters being born up here in Seven Barrows, I would take it kindly if their parents wouldn’t mind if a foolish old mole who’s got little time left said to them something that matters to him, and may help them. Go to the Duncton Stone, pray before it if you’ve a mind to, touch it if the mood takes you, and think of Raistow of Buckland when you do. You’ll not regret it, because the journey there and back will see changes that will make a better mole of you; and by going to the Duncton Stone you’ll be telling yourself, and allmole, that you live in a Stone-fearing time and place, and amongst moles who respect liberty.

  “You keep that before you in the difficult times ahead, and you do it one day come what may, and the Stone will protect you in the going, and it will see you come home safeguarded, as it saw me all those years ago. You’ve a right to that only if you assert it in the true spirit of a follower, which is what our discussion here today has been about!”

  To most of the moles listening he seemed to have finished. The effort of talking had wearied him and his gaze dropped to the ground as all about him stamped their paws and called out their appreciation of his words. Finally Noakes came forward and said, “I want Raistow to know that I am ready and willing to make the trek to Duncton if this meeting wants me to, and I’ll do it all the more readily because I’ll have your approval.” He said the last with a courteous nod towards Raistow. “As for you being too old yourself, Raistow, to go to Duncton when times get better, well, I’m not sure about that. You may be a bit tottery of paw, but after what you’ve said, and the inspiration you’ve given, I’d like to offer my help to get you back to the Duncton Stone, so you can see for yourself these youngsters here following your advice!”

  “Well said, Noakes!” cried out several moles, pleased he had risen to the occasion so well.

  “Have you got a last thought for us, Raistow of Buckland?” asked Spurling at Fieldfare’s prompting. She had been to meetings like this in Duncton Wood many times and knew well that wise but diffident moles often saved the best till last.

  “I don’t want to take up more time, or outstay my welcome as a speaker,” said Raistow quietly, barely raising his eyes. “But it does seem to me that what I’ve said about Duncton is all the more to the point because of the action of Privet, formerly of Crowden but now of Duncton. It’s no light or simple thing that she’s done, choosing to retreat into Silence. In fact I’ve never in all my years even heard of it being done, except by the holy moles who lived up near here on Uffington Hill in times gone by. But they did it in private, so to speak, in special cells and that according to the Chronicles. She’s gone and done it publicly, and that’s an awesome thing. She’s the one to watch, hers is the example we should all pay attention to, follower and Newborn alike. That’s it you see, she’s done something beyond us all, which will show us a way to get out of conflict and come together again.” Privet’s the one, and what she’s done is... is everything.”

  Kenning these words of Raistow’s now a mole might feel disappointed that so famous a speech as that which he made on that morning at Seven Barrows should seem so ordinary. No histrionics! No overly dramatic pauses! No recourse to insult or invective! Just an elderly mole speaking out his heart in a time of trouble to a community of moles amongst whom he felt safe.

  This speech concluded, the debate was over and Spurling was able to propose and carry the consensus view that Noakes and two others of his choosing should set off for Duncton just as Raistow had advised – to make contact with other followers, to seek more news, and to say that there were moles atop Uffington who, if and when the time came, would not hesitate to give their help, and their lives if need be, in the service of the followers of the Stone.

  With what burden of advice Noakes left with his companions we may imagine, and with what hopes for better days and the Stone’s good guidance amongst those who thronged the grassy slopes of the Seven Barrows to bid them Stone’s speed, and wish them well!

  There too, we may reasonably guess, that for the first time was heard the clarion cry, “To the Stone, moles! To the Duncton Stone!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  It must be said that when Maple and Weeth left Privet and the others in what they thought was complete safety, high on the Wenlock Edge, and began their journey north to Cannock, the feeling that dominated the minds of both was relief, pure and simple.

  Maple had devoted all his thought and studies to the idea of leadership and war, driven by an instinctive belief that one day moledom would need his services. He had fully discharged his duties regarding Privet, though had he known, or even suspected, the disaster that would so soon befall her, he would have stayed with her. But he did not, and could not, and would not learn of it for some time yet. Meanwhile, sensing now that his destiny was not far ahead of him, he went forth to Cannock with vigour and purpose, in the best traditions of a Duncton warrior mole, to discover what the Newborns intended for the system, and the strength of local opposition to them, that he might know all the better how the Newborns were likely to organize themselves militarily elsewhere in moledom, so that he could see the best way to co-ordinate resistance to them.

&nb
sp; As for Weeth, all his cunning and devious life he had searched for opportunity, and from the moment he had set eyes upon Maple, he had known he had found it. Though much the same age, he looked a little older, and in some ways, especially Newborn ways, he was wiser. He saw in Maple a mole of strength and shining virtues who would surely one day inspire others in what might, perhaps, be as great a war fought for the Stone as ever had been.

  “I shall assist and serve!” Weeth had told himself “This mole I shall defend to death, though I trust it won’t come to that. And, er, Stone, I’d be grateful if you would take that as a prayer!”

  Now they were off to Cannock, and Weeth felt relief at having found the task he desired more than any other, having served a successful apprenticeship, and now being trusted to get on with it. Added to which, the two moles liked each other very much – the silence of Maple complemented by the loquacity of Weeth; and the sound common sense and wise judgement of Maple complementing Weeth’s excitable enthusiasms, and impulsive passions; and, to take this thought to its ultimate conclusion, the strategy of Maple ably complemented by the daily tactics, not to say antics, of cunning Weeth.

  So, little knowing the tragedy that had begun on the Edge behind them, the two moles pursued their way to Cannock. When the first spatter of rain came, and the skies lowered over, Maple stopped for a time to put out his paw as if to feel the weather, and the way the wind, until then light, sent occasional flurries through nearby trees.

  “It’s just a spot of rain,” said Weeth, ever optimistic.

  “Let’s hope it’s riot just a spot,” said Maple, slowly surveying the sky. “Rain now could be greatly to our advantage.”

  “It slows us down,” said Weeth.