Then he followed the light around the side of the tree’s deep hollow, the sound of the wind above so distant that it might have been another world.
The next thing he remembered, and what he remembered most of all and yet most confusedly, was plunging into the ground even deeper, over and among great roots that towered and rolled above him, the light getting stronger and warmer and all around him the massive, tilted underside of the Stone of Duncton.
Right under the buried part of the Stone he went, towards the source of the light itself, which was a stone, a Stillstone, the seventh Stillstone, whose glimmering lit up his fur and cast his shadow on the roots of stone and chalk walls about him as if he were a huge, strong mole, and adult, with not a single trace of fear in the way he boldly stood, looking into the eternal light of the Stone itself.
He remembered that as he stood there he heard the deep voice of his father, carried down to where he was by the hollows and convolutions of the ancient beech whose roots encircled the Stone, as he said the final words of the Midsummer ritual. But of course he could not yet understand the words:
‘We bathe their paws in showers of dew,
We free their fur with wind from the west.’
Then, as the seven blessings began to be spoken, the wonder of the Stillstone became too much for Tryfan, and as any youngster would, he stepped forward and touched it with his left paw. Instead of its light going out, as it had when Bracken had touched it, it seemed to glimmer even more—so brightly, indeed, that had any other mole been watching, he, or she, might have sworn that Tryfan was suddenly completely white with light.
‘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.’
And that, or rather the sounds of the words, was all that Tryfan ever remembered. Except that much later that night, when he was very tired, he heard voices calling ‘Tryfan! Tryfan!’ and scampering, urgent paws running here and there; and it took him a long time to find them, until he turned a corner in tunnels he knew again and an adult voice said, ‘There you are! We’ve been looking for you everywhere!’ Then his mother, Rebecca, was there and for a moment he thought she’d be so angry, but all she did was take him into her paws and he could feel her love and it was safe, so safe, like a light he had seen and was beginning to forget he’d seen because he was so tired now and Rebecca’s fur was all around him and he was safe again, snuggling into the safety of her love.
But those adult paws searching for Tryfan after the Midsummer ritual was over were not the only paws that scampered and urgently raced that Midsummer Night.
There were some that did the same in Uffington as well. From the Silent Burrows they ran, down the long tunnels, through the deep night, on and on they ran to find Medlar, the Holy Mole, in the Holy Burrows.
‘What is it?’ he gently asked the two novice scribemoles who finally gained an entrance to him. ‘What is it that makes you run in the Holy Burrows on this happiest of nights?’
‘It’s Boswell,’ they gasped out. ‘He’s leaving the Silent Burrows. He wants to come out.’
‘Yes?’ smiled Medlar.
‘But that’s not all. He began to scratch at the wall inside the burrow, where the seal is, and then, when we heard that, well… there was suddenly a light—’ began one.
‘All around the outside of his burrow,’ continued the other, ‘shining and bright.’
‘Sort of white and glimmering,’ finished the first.
Medlar could see the awe in their faces. Indeed, he could see something of the reflection of the light they had seen.
He raised a paw and spoke softly to them: ‘This is a blessed night, a holy night, and what you have witnessed may be remembered for generations to come. I have felt the peace in the Holy Burrows, felt the silence.’ He stopped and stared at them, and they saw that awe was on his old face as well. ‘Come,’ said Medlar, ‘come. We will return to the Silent Burrows and see what we may do.’
So back went Medlar and several of the masters, with the novices as well, gathering in a circle around the burrow in which Boswell was sealed. The light the novices had spoken of was gone, but the weak scratching continued sporadically, and as several of the moles went forward to start breaking the seal from the outside, Medlar raised his paw to stop them.
‘Let Boswell do it for himself,’ he said quietly, ‘for he would wish it to be so.’
They crouched in silence, whispering and chanting prayers of thanksgiving as Boswell continued slowly to burrow his way through the seal, his sounds falling silent for long periods as, no doubt, he rested from the effort of it. He had, after all, been sealed in the Silent Burrows for no less than ten moleyears, nearly eleven. He must have been very weak.
