“You told me about the tree before. And how Rune didn’t catch him, and Bracken ran all the way —”
“Did I? Repeating myself, Sturne. Time to go!”
“There’s a whole summer yet, Pumpkin,” said Sturne.
“No, mole, there isn’t,” said Pumpkin simply. “Now, let’s go on.”
Their route seemed lined with moles, all cheering Pumpkin on, all sensing that this was a moment they would remember and cherish all their lives.
“How many moles have come!” he said, delighted to see so many new pilgrims, so many youngsters, so many kin together once again. “The Stone will be well pleased.”
The sun shone in the Stone Clearing, moles chattered and greeted one another, and when the time came the youngsters were gathered round the Stone, Loosestrife’s three especially close to Privet. There were not as many yet as there would be in years to come, but it is not numbers, but faith and trust that count.
Fieldfare told of how she had first come when a youngster, and how she had been afraid and hid behind the bulk of Elder Drubbins, who few there now remembered. Others talked, and the youngsters heard the tale of how Hulver, at this very Stone, defied Mandrake of Siabod and spoke the Invocation of the Graces, whose words lie at the very heart of the Midsummer Ritual.
“Well, then,” said Fieldfare, “I think somemole had better say it. In the old days it was one of the Elders did it – a mole loved and respected by all the community. These days we don’t have Elders, so...”
All eyes turned to Pumpkin.
“No!” he protested. “All I am and all I have ever wished to be is a library aide. No, this is a task for Sturne, our Master Librarian Sturne.”
For all Sturne’s new-found happiness, and his heroism in the face of the Newborn Crusades, it cannot truthfully be said that his name yet inspired as much warmth as it might, and there was a certain lack of enthusiasm at Pumpkin’s suggestion.
“No, no,” Pumpkin protested, when Sturne riposted that he say the ritual after all, “I am not up to it. I do not feel as well as I would wish. No, no, it is nothing, but it would give me great happiness to hear Sturne say it, it really would.”
Even then, moles might have hesitated, had not Privet come forward and said, “Perhaps, after all, it would best for Sturne to say the ritual. We would not want to tax Pumpkin’s strength at such a moment as this... and anyway,” and here she smiled at Sturne, and at Myrtle too, “the last time Sturne spoke before this Stone, why, he was most formidable. It would be good for us to hear him in gentler vein.”
“Aye, that’s well said!” cried out many a mole. “You’re one of us, Sturne, and there was never a truer, more courageous Duncton mole than you, excepting your friend Pumpkin, of course!”
Which gave pleasure to them both, and was a heartwarming prelude to the ritual itself.
How awesome Sturne seemed as he took his place before the Stone, and how the youngsters’ eyes widened as he indicated that they come forward and form a group about him, and everymole-else a circle about them.
He spoke of how all moles reached a point when they must begin to think of leaving their home burrows, and that when they did, if they had come from a burrow of love, and had faith in the Stone, they had little to fear from the trials and tribulations they would face when they journeyed forth into life.
Then he spoke the words of the Invocation itself:
“We bathe their paws in showers of dew,
We free their fur with wind from the west,
We bring them choice soil,
Sunlight in life.
We ask they be blessed
With a sevenfold blessing.
The grace of form,
The grace of goodness,
The grace of suffering,
The grace of wisdom,
The grace of true words,
The grace of trust,
The grace of whole-souled loveliness.
We bathe their paws in showers of light,
We free their souls with talons of love,
We ask that they hear the silent Stone...”
Yet though the sun shone on all of them, it seemed at that moment that it shone on one in particular. Who could doubt, as they looked on old Pumpkin, surrounded by the friends he loved, and the moles whose faith and life he had done so much to protect, that he had been blessed with that sevenfold blessing?
In him was the grace of form, and of goodness. In him there had been suffering redeemed by wisdom. He spoke true words, and had faith and trust in the Stone always. Truly, he was a mole whose eyes shone with the grace of whole-souled loveliness.
Now he stanced before the Stone, weak and growing weaker and the Light was upon him and the Silence called.
“I tried,” he whispered, “to do all that was asked of me. You youngsters do the same, and if you suffer doubts and difficulties along the way, remember this: the Stone is always there to listen to your doubts, and your grumbles, and your moans – and to your joys as well. There’s many of those to find, if you look for them. So many of those...”
“Brimmel!”
It was Privet’s voice, and it was authoritative in the old way. How could she speak so, and now of all times?
“Brimmel, Library Aide Pumpkin has one more task to perform. Go to his tunnels, mole, and fetch the Book. No need to hurry, mole, the Stone will wait. But don’t be too long either!”
The Book! What Book! As others wondered Brimmel turned, and was gone, down the paths that Pumpkin himself had shown him, across the High Wood, and then down the Slopes to Pumpkin’s place.
Others followed him some of the way, wondering, puzzled, awed. There had been a light about the Stone, and it was the same light Brimmel found when he entered the tunnels, and went to find the Book. It was just where he had placed it himself, when he had first come to Duncton Wood. It shone upon his face as he reached down to it, and it was heavy, heavier to him than before. But no matter, he was carrying it to Pumpkin, and nothing and nomole would stop him doing that.
He took it from the chamber, up to the surface, and then began the trek back to the Stone. Whatmole who witnessed it will ever forget that trek? A youngster, not fully formed, carrying an ancient Book, battered by time, worn by care, glimmering with light. Heavy it was, but though many a mole offered to help him he carried it upslope alone. Through the High Wood, alone. And then, towards the Clearing, between two lines of moles, who knew what the Book must be, and understood what they were witnessing was the lost and the last Book, coming now to ground.
Only as he entered the clearing did Brimmel stumble and slip; the Book fall from his grasp and open at a pilgrim’s paws. That mole alone saw what was in the Book, and picking it up and righting Brimmel, that good mole, who was Hibbott of Ashbourne Chase, closed the Book and gave it back to the youngster.
“What did you see? What was scribed there?” asked a mole at Hibbott’s flank.
And all were silent, and heard the question asked.
“It was your name in the Book, mole: your name that I saw!”
“Mine?” whispered the stranger.
“Yours,” said Hibbott, looking at them all.
Then, turning to Brimmel, he said, “Take the Book to Pumpkin and he will know what to do with it.”
Brimmel advanced across the Clearing and placed the Book by Pumpkin’s front paws, where its Light, brighter now, shone upon his face.
“Take it where it should go,” commanded Privet, “for with you, Pumpkin, will it always be safeguarded.”
Pumpkin stared at the Book, and reached a paw to it. He stanced up in its Light, his eyes shining with faith and trust and love as they looked first at the Stone and then at the moles gathered about him.
“Well then,” he said.
Well then...
And he took up the Book of Silence, and went towards the Stone and prayed there one final time. The Book seemed as light to him as laughter, or as a prayer of thanksgiving.
Then he went around the Stone, beyond it into t
he High Wood, and down into that tunnel which leads to the Chamber of Roots. Privet and Sturne went with him first, and his friends all followed, and the great trees of the Clearing grew motionless and their roots stilled as Pumpkin passed down and then among them into the heart of the Chamber.
To the base of the Stone he went, where the seven Stillstones waited, and the six Books which had been put there by his Master Stour. Then he placed the Book where the circle had gaped so long, and now was made complete, and then blessed Pumpkin, library aide, went on by himself into the Light and the Silence beyond.
Epilogue
Mole, I have done my best to tell the last part of the tale of the coming of the Book of Silence to Duncton Wood as my Master would have wished me to, and as he might have, had he lived to tell it for himself.
One promise I must keep, which is to tell you his name – if not my own!
Well then, it was Brimmel of Cuddesdon, son of Whillan and Loosestrife, who first welcomed me by the Stone all those moleyears ago, and set us on this journey. And whatmole better than he who showed Privet the way to the last secret of the Book, and was part of its final return to its place beneath the Stone?
Others have told of the events after the coming of the Book, and I shall not begin to do so here, except to say that after that Midsummer, Duncton entered into a most happy and joyous time in which it found peace once more, and slow forgetting of the shadows that besmirched its past.
Of Rooster and Privet nothing needs to be said at all, though moles often ask. He delved tunnels for them to share, and moles said they never saw such harmony, nor knew such love and gentleness as where those two lived. Love was their other name.
Rooster had said that Duncton’s delving days were done, and so they were. Time moves on, and as one system fades away to memory, others come forward to prominence and there’s not a mole in Duncton then or now would regret that one little bit!
But it was in Cuddesdon that a new age in delving now began, as Whillan carried forward Rooster’s Mastership, and with Glee and Humlock, and Frogbit too, fostered and developed the delving arts. From there Whillan and Frogbit went out all over moledom to help delve the old places anew, and new places which had the atmosphere of old.
The summer passed and autumn came, and brought with it change.
Many a mole came to Duncton, to find Privet, who had scribed the Book of Silence, and to seek out Rooster, Master of the Delve. But Duncton moles gave them privacy now, and rarely told a stranger where to look.
The High Wood? Perhaps.
The Westside? Maybe.
The Eastside? Sometimes.
The Marsh End? Worth a try.
The Stone?
“Oh yes, you’ll find them there, mole, if you know how to look. It’s as good a place as any to begin... or to end.”
How often, as old Brimmel told me the tale of the Book of Silence, had I had a yearning to tell him my name. But he did not want to know it, and in that he taught me much.
I was not born in Duncton Wood, and nor, after I had finished scribing this tale, did I stay in it. Yet long ago, in Dunbar’s time, so old kin of mine have said, there was a library aide served in Duncton Wood who bore our name. And my father’s father told me once that he was one of those pilgrims who journeyed to Duncton to be witness at that Midsummer.
“Did you see the Book?” I asked him when a pup.
Maybe he did, and maybe he didn’t, but one thing he told me before he went to the Silence was this: “Hibbott himself told me that my name was scribed in the Book, which means yours is too. Your name is scribed in that great Book.”
That’s what my father said, and he seemed to mean it, and the memory of what he said is what first sent me wandering moledom to find the truth of this tale.
Since I have mentioned Hibbott, he seems a good mole with whom to end. Here are the last words of his Pilgrimage and they are a fitting conclusion to the journey we have made: “I had journeyed far, and learnt much, and I believe I found the object of my quest. But of all the things I saw on my great journey, excepting the Book itself, none filled me with greater joy than that day in the autumn after that Midsummer when I saw again the vale that leads up to my beloved home system of Ashbourne Chase. I had come home.
“Moles must have heard I was coming, for many were there to greet me. Some old familiar faces were gone, but many there I knew, and others, new to me, soon became my friends.
“So many were the questions they asked that the time came when I decided to scribe the tale of my pilgrimage, as an inspiration to some to make such a pilgrimage themselves; and for others to share at leisure in my trials, and in my joys as well...”
So did Hibbott scribe, and I can scribe no better. So now I shall journey on, and wish you well, and hope that when the time comes, you too, like Hibbott, will return home safeguarded, and know something of the Silence of the Stone.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The two Duncton trilogies, of which this is the final volume, have taken fifteen years to write. Only one of the books, the first, has a dedication: “To Leslie, with love.” Since 1978 our lives have gone different ways, yet our love remains as deep and abiding as ever it was.
Sometimes, during the writing of The Book of Silence, I have thought that there is another person to whom I would have liked to dedicate one or other, perhaps all, the books. It is relevant to say that my mother died but days after I began Duncton Tales, and that what was to have been one volume became three... Her death made it possible for me to find out who my father really was. I never knew him, nor his full name, only that his first name was Robert and that he had a family. Somewhere in Britain, like Whillan in moledom, I have kin I would like to find.
I would have liked to take my father’s hand and show him Duncton Wood. But I never could, and The Book of Silence is about the long journey we all must make to come to terms and live beyond whatever enshadows our particular life.
One more thing, and then I’ll really go...
There are three places in Britain which, more than any other, I journeyed back to in my heart again and again when I was writing these books. The first is White Horse Hill, Uffington, Wiltshire, where my mother fell in love, or said she did: you could never be quite sure with her... But early on, it claimed my imagination and later my heart. The second is Castell y Gwynt, Castle of the Winds, near the Glyders in Snowdonia. The third is Wytham Wood, near Oxford, and a glade of ancient beeches where I have found great peace. The last is perhaps the hardest to visit and find, but perhaps we all need a place like that to call our own. The first two... well, it would give me pleasure to hear from any reader who has read all six books and visited both those places.
Though the reader who would get most plaudits would, just for good measure, for the walk is strangely grand and informs large sections of the Duncton books, visit Buckden Pike, Great Whernside, and go then by the high route down to Grassington in Wharfedale and have cream tea. The best of ways to clear the head for tasks anew...
About the Author
William Horwood was born in Oxford and grew up on the south coast. After taking a geography degree at Bristol University, he went on to become a journalist. His first novel, Duncton Wood, was published in 1980 and was followed by The Stonor Eagles, Callanish, Skallagrigg, Duncton Quest and Duncton Found. Duncton Stone is the final volume in The Book of Silence. Duncton Tales, the first volume in this best-selling trilogy, was published in 1991 and was followed by Duncton Rising in 1992. William Horwood recently achieved another major success with The Willows in Winter, his highly popular sequel to Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. Journeys to the Heartland, the first volume in his new trilogy. The Wolves of Time, is published in hardback by HarperCollins in spring 1995.
Scanner’s Notes
Well, the series is finally done. I hope everyone enjoys these scans (NOT retail as I see some sites trying to tell you!). Overall, around five months to complete, working on them in my spare time. If anyone finds any gla
ring issues like missing pages or text, feel free to send an email and I’ll look into it and re-release a new version. I took great care in making sure they would be ninety-nine percent true to the originals, but as everyone knows, errors can creep in. I’m easily distracted by shiny things and sometimes lose my place.
With the release of this one I have bumped the versions of the previous books in this series to 2.0, and went back and fixed up a few things in all of them.
Dead^Man
dmebooks “@”live.ca
Table of Contents
Title page
Copyright
CONTENTS
Moledom
Prologue
PART I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
PART II
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
PART III
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
PART IV
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Duncton Stone Page 85