He called after them—‘Have you seen Boswell?’—but his voice sounded loud and almost blasphemous with the disturbance it made, and although one mole paused and looked back at him, neither said anything and both went on.
He wondered whether to follow them but decided to go on to the chamber where, surely, he would find somemole.
When he got there, he found that a scribemole had been posted, rather like a henchmole, between the two major tunnels—the one leading to the libraries and the other to the Holy Burrows.
‘Ah, hello!’ said Bracken. ‘It’s Boswell I’m looking for. Have you seen him?’
The scribemole appeared to be half asleep, his snout low as the others’ had been and his eyes closed. Once again Bracken’s words hung embarrassingly loud in the air until, when they died away, Bracken noticed that the scribemole was muttering or chanting to himself. Slowly he came out of what seemed a trance and looked with some surprise at Bracken.
‘Are you Bracken of Duncton?’ he asked, adding, before Bracken had a chance to reply, ‘Why are you here?’
‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
‘Has nomole told you to go out on to the surface or to stay in the guest burrow?’
‘Nomole has told me anything,’ said Bracken a little ill-temperedly.
‘It is best that you do one or the other. Just for today and tonight. Just until tomorrow. You’ll find plenty of food in the high tunnels since all scribemoles must fast today. Though you know it would be appropriate if you did the same.’
Bracken was annoyed by the mole’s offhand manner and air of slight condescension and might well have been tempted to push past him to the libraries, or explore into the Holy Burrows, had not the possibility that he might embarrass Boswell in some way occurred to him.
‘Look, mate,’ he said, adopting the tough familiarity of a Marshender, ‘stop burrowing about the bush and tell me where Boswell is.’
The mole shook his head and said, ‘That is not possible. If the Holy Mole has not told you what today is, then I certainly may not do so. Trust in the Stone and go back to your burrow and meditate in peace.’
‘Stuff this,’ thought Bracken to himself, now thoroughly annoyed and resisting the impulse to attack the scribemole. He turned back the way he had come, nodding his head as if in agreement with the scribemole and thinking that rather than have a confrontation he would simply find some other way past the chamber. The thought turned into action as soon as he got back to the tunnel down which the two scribemoles who had ignored him had gone. He paused there, crouched down, and for the first time since he had come to Uffington felt his way into the tunnels about him. It was exciting, like being back in the ancient tunnels of Duncton, where everything was unknown and all lay before him for him alone to find out. Bracken liked nothing more than a challenge in which he had to use his wits and talent for exploration.
As far as he could tell, everything happened to the west of the chamber where he had been stopped. There lay the libraries and the burrows, and beyond, according to what Boswell had told him, lay the tunnel leading to those mysterious ‘Silent’ Burrows. He hesitated for only a moment before heading off into the side tunnel, the way the other two moles had gone, believing that if he could find out their destination, he could solve the mystery of where Boswell was, and what was so special about the day.
For the next two hours Bracken enjoyed the thrill of exploration and orientation once again, creeping along the ancient, dusty tunnels that seemed much less used than the others he had been in in Uffington and coming to an exaggerated sharp stop at the slightest real or imagined noise. He heard moles several times, and chanting more than once, but he avoided direct contact, and the one or two moles who went by near him never saw him, for he hid in the many corners and shadows created by the old flints that protruded from the walls or the complex intersections of tunnel crossing points. Soon the original object of his search—to find Boswell—was lost in the sheer enjoyment of outwitting the scribemoles about him.
But his game and his anonymity were brought to a sudden halt when, turning a corner, he found, as he suspected that he eventually would, that he had by this roundabout route made his way into the main library. Quire was there, ferreting around among the books as usual, and on seeing him Bracken was suddenly weary of his game and the isolation it caused him. He greeted Quire with a reverence he genuinely felt and explained that he was in search of Boswell.
‘Why should I know where he is, might I ask?’ said Quire, peering at Bracken. ‘Wait a minute—I know you. You’re the Duncton mole, aren’t you? The one who’s seen the seventh Stillstone. Where is Boswell?’
Patiently, Bracken explained what had happened and how puzzled he was by the secrecy among the moles in the tunnels that day.
