He crouched by the Stone for a long time saying nothing. He had nothing to say. He looked around at the trees, then at his own strong paws, and then out across the lower wood in the direction of Marsh End. Then he got angry and started shouting at the Stone, almost attacking it in his anger: ‘What the ’ell are you anyway?’ he shouted. ‘I come all the way ’ere to ask for your help and I ain’t never asked for your ’elp before and all you do is nothing at all. Just stand there silent. Silent as the stone you are. You know what? You’re nothing, that’s what you are, nothing!’
Wild anger flowed through Mekkins, feelings of a power and rage he had never felt before. They were the more powerful for the sense he felt of the Stone’s betrayal of the feeling of grace and hope that had inspired him to come so far in the first place. He turned away from the Stone and half hit, half collapsed on the ground, his movements as restless as the roots that ran this way and that around the Stone and formed the dark shadows at its base.
He half sobbed, half shouted in his rage until, slowly, the hatred for what was happening to Rebecca and his anger at the Stone began to fade into weariness and helplessness, so that even his strong shoulders and sturdy body could not stop wilting and sagging into a posture of defeat. He turned back to the Stone, his snout low and his anger quite gone.
‘’Elp her,’ he whispered finally to the Stone. ‘’Elp her for my sake,’ he said simply.
Mekkins finally left the Stone as dawn was breaking the next morning. His spirits were too low for him to want to face the chatter of Westside or Barrow Vale, so he turned east, taking a route by the central slopes and contouring his way round, and slowly down towards tunnels that would eventually lead to the Marsh End.
His route took him by Hulver’s old system and it was as he passed near it that he felt the faintest of vibrations and smelt the faintest of cheerful scents. He stopped and snouted about, glad to know there was life here again and then, finding an entrance, he went down into it, careful to make plenty of noise so as not to take any mole by surprise.
Any mole? Moles more like! The place was alive with the sound of pups, bleating and mewing and stirring, and the sound of a mother shushing them still.
Pups on the slopes! It was the first time he had ever heard of such a thing and if there was one thing in the world to raise his spirits a little at that moment, it was their sound.
There was a scurrying and muttering somewhere in the tunnels ahead where the litter was. Then a mole came running aggressively down the tunnel at him, stopping ready with her talons raised.
‘It’s all right,’ he said gently, ‘I’m not here for harm, just to pass the time of day like. I’m Mekkins the elder, from the Marsh End.’
‘What are you doing here?’ asked Rue.
‘I’ve been to the Stone.’
‘Oh!’ She sounded surprised and came closer and snouted at him.
‘Sounds like you got yourself a litter,’ said Mekkins cheerfully. ‘Can I look?’
She nodded. She knew of Mekkins. He was all right, played fair, they said.
‘Got a worm or two to spare?’ asked Mekkins, pressing his luck.
‘You’ve got a nerve,’ said Rue. ‘But as it happens I have.’
She turned round and ran on before him, back to her litter, and he followed very slowly, knowing how sensitive mothers can be.
Her burrow was a joy to look into. There she was, curled up with four pups suckling at her teats, bleating occasionally when they lost their grip, wrestling with each other for the best place, and milk spattering their pink snouts and pale young whiskers. Their eyes were blind and their paws as floppy as wet grass. Rue twittered and whiffled at them, guiding their mouths to her nipples and cooing love sounds at their feeble antics. One of the pups did a mewing cartwheel backwards and Rue laughed fondly, saying, ‘Come on, my sweet,’ pulling him back. It was only as she lifted him up to her nipples that Mekkins saw that there was a fifth pup there, smaller than the rest, lost among the melee of the paws and questing snouts. He was feeble and lacked the vigour of the others, seeming unable even to suck.
‘The runt,’ said Rue matter-of-factly. ‘I’ve tried to make him feed but he only manages when the rest take a break and that isn’t often. He’s growing weaker by the hour. There’s always a weak one in a litter of five. Of course, he’s a male—they’re always the ones.’
But Mekkins wasn’t listening. He was thinking, his mind was racing, and an idea was forming swifter than lightning. An idea so ridiculous that he might make it work.
He took a tentative step into the burrow, at which Rue immediately tensed. ‘There’s a female I know,’ he said at last, ‘who lost her litter. She’s ill from want of suck. That’s why I went to the Stone—to ask it to help her.’ He looked meaningfully at the little feeble pup being climbed all over by the other four. Its mews were too weak for him to hear them above their noise, but he could see its mouth desperately forming the sounds.
