He made his way into the pastures with Mekkins’ help, the Marshender leaving him safely at the entrance to Rebecca’s tunnels. Mekkins was no fool and could guess why Boswell had come and though, being more worldly wise, he feared the attempt would fail, he felt it best to stay clear of the whole thing and let the strange scribemole try.
He himself loved Rebecca too much to want her to stay so far apart from Bracken, and anyway, he had grown to respect Boswell, who seemed to know a lot of things, even if he was a bit daft when it came to understanding females, especially ones like Rebecca.
Rebecca greeted Boswell with real warmth. They had not met since Midsummer Night, but her travels about the systems had brought her into contact with many moles who were wide-eyed with fascination about the strange mole from Uffington ‘who do ask the queerest questions that ever I have heard, and do tell the strangest quaintest tales if ’e’s a mind to it’.
Boswell’s response to Rebecca was not at all what he had expected it would be. He had come full of good intent, calmly and gently to talk to her about Bracken. But the moment he saw her again and found himself in the clear warmth of her smile, any words that he had rehearsed quite left him. He gazed on her with genuine delight, his bright intelligent eyes travelling quickly around her burrow, now nearly as full of herbs and flowers as Rose’s had once been. He sensed the great reverence she felt for the life which she had pledged herself to help, and he saw far more about her than Mekkins could ever have given him credit for: he saw a brave mole whose warmth and love were real, but whose spirit bore the marks of loss as Bracken’s did, but who did not pretend to herself that it was not so.
He saw immediately how vulnerable she was. But what he did not see, and perhaps would never understand, was how, in his company, her spirit was able to begin to soar again into a freedom it had once taken for granted. Indeed, the feeling of lightheartedness that arose in her as soon as he crouched down, looked about him curiously and then fixed his gaze directly on her, took her by surprise. She wanted to laugh for the pleasure of it. More than that, she wanted to dance! She wanted to sing and play. What she did do was to smile and feel more delightfully foolish than she had for many a long molemonth.
‘Why have you come to Duncton Wood?’ she asked eagerly, quite unaware that she was the first mole to ask him this simple question or that it raised a subject that made his mission of reconciliation suddenly irrelevant.
‘Well…’ he began, not sure where to begin.
‘You must have come here for some reason, Boswell! It’s a long way to come just to say hello and go away again.’
‘I think the Stone called me here, or told me to come,’ he said simply. He knew instinctively that she would understand what he meant by this, and he was right, for Rebecca nodded and said: ‘Yes, of course. But why?’
‘It has to do with what the scribemoles of Uffington call the seventh Book. You see, Rebecca, there are seven holy Books and…’ and he began to tell her, reciting the mysterious text he had found describing the other six Books, and explaining at some length why it was so important that the seventh Book should be found.
‘The Book will be found when it needs to be found, I expect—and anyway, perhaps what will happen is that the Book will find you.’ He knew what she meant, and of course she was right. Hadn’t he told himself that nomole can try to reach out for such a thing?
As Boswell talked, Rebecca had grown happier and happier, for she saw clearly what it was about Boswell that made her feel so free. Every other mole she saw sought her help in one way or another, whereas Boswell, despite appearances, did not need any healing that she could give. She was free with him because he did not need her. He asked nothing of her and because of it was strong enough to face the full spirit of her love for life, as if it were no more unusual than a tree or sunshine. She sighed to herself in bliss to feel it and closed her eyes with a smile as he talked.
It was only when he began to tell her of the seven Stillstones that went with the Books, and she realised that they were not huge stones like the one on top of Duncton Hill but smaller, that her sense of bliss was transmuted into the shiveringly awesome feeling that she and Boswell were touching something that made time and circumstance fall away into a different place.
Boswell sensed this feeling in her, for he stopped talking at once and asked: ‘Can you tell me something about any of this?’ For the first time since he had come to Duncton he felt that the Stone was giving him its help.
Then, very simply, Rebecca told him about what she and Bracken had seen and felt on Longest Night. She described it matter-of-factly and quite without mystery, though the fears, doubts and joys that had been a part of that night were a part of her description.
