It was at that moment, as Tryfan gazed on their love together, and perhaps with their words during their long conversations about the Stillstone still in his mind, that the first definite memories of the Midsummer Night when he had got lost began to stir in his mind.
Soon after, he went up to the Stone and crouched by it in silence as the cold evening darkened about him and wind stirred at the leaf litter, wet from afternoon drizzle, as those memories became clearer and he saw again, in his mind, the glimmer of the Stillstone. Then he began to talk to the Stone, seeking its guidance and help, as so many moles of so many generations had done before him. He trembled to think of Uffington and the difficulties of becoming a scribemole, feeling how unworthy and ignorant he was to crouch here before it and to seek for so much. He thought of Bracken and Rebecca, and of what Comfrey had told him about the wonderful things they had done, and then of the increasing simplicity of their lives so near each other back in the system from which both, at different times, had roamed so far.
‘Why does a mole have to travel so far just to find himself back in the same place?’ he asked the Stone. ‘Where should I turn?’
Light spots of rain began to mix in with the chill, blustery wind, pattering weakly here and there. How miserable the wood seemed. How desolate he felt. How much in need of help.
* * *
From the shadows around the Stone clearing, the eyes of an old mole watched him gently and smiled. Here he was in Duncton Wood after all this time and what did he find but a mole before the Stone, worrying himself as he had done so many times and by so many different Stones!
Boswell raised a paw and said a blessing on the mole, but he did not step forward. There are times, many, many times, when it is better not to speak or interrupt another mole but to leave him to work out for himself what questions to ask. It was one of the things these great Stones were for. But the answers! Ah—so simple, all so simple in the end!
So Boswell watched Tryfan and blessed him, moving out into the clearing only when Tryfan left it to make his way down towards the slopes to find Comfrey.
Boswell crouched beside the Stone for a while. He had no expectation at all in Duncton Wood—he had, indeed, been personally reluctant to make the trek, for it was a long, long way, and he was getting old. And everywhere he went, moles sensed his holiness and flocked to him to touch him and to ask his blessing and see him on his way. It had been all he could do to stop a whole host of them following him on his way here, but somehow he had managed to make them understand that this was a solitary journey. Yet now he was here, how different it seemed and how weak he felt—and how surprised young Tryfan would have been had he known that moments after he left the Stone, a mole from Uffington had crouched where he had and asked himself just the same question he had asked: ‘Why does a mole have to travel?…’ But Boswell’s answer to himself was a smile and a sort of nod to the Stone. Then he asked, ‘Why have you sent me back here, what do you want me to find?’ And he smiled at that, too: for the Stone gave its answers in its own way and the best thing a mole can do is to trust that it will do so.
‘Now by the Stone’s grace, I’ll find Bracken and Rebecca and I hope that they’ve found themselves some sense at last!’ He laughed with pleasure to think of seeing them again, and knew—or suspected—where they would be.
* * *
‘Why did Tryfan come back?’ Bracken wondered aloud.
‘Perhaps he needs to see and feel, once again, the love that made him,’ said Rebecca.
‘What love?’ asked Bracken. And Rebecca nudged him and he mock-fought her, and they giggled like their pups had, rolling about the floor, each feeling that they were playing with the most beautiful pup in the world.
It was Bracken who heard it. Laughter like their own, from down the tunnels towards where the entrance up to the Stone was. Laughter he knew and had heard so many, many times and thought he would never hear again; laughter he loved and that had him still as roots, eyes wide, and reaching a paw out to touch Rebecca to share with her his wonder. Laughter and polite burrowing noises, the kind of noise a courteous mole makes to announce his arrival.
‘What mole is it?’ asked Rebecca.
Bracken answered, not with a word but with a laugh and a shout, a cry of joy and a bounding forward from his burrow and out into the tunnel and the speaking of a name that made Rebecca gasp and smile at the pleasure she knew it would bring them all.
‘Boswell! Boswell!’ And so it was. His eyes bright as they had always been, his limping walk just as she remembered, but his laughter more gentle, even more full of joy.
‘Oh, Boswell,’ said Rebecca. And what brought tears to Boswell’s eyes was not her nuzzling and love so much as the fact that it was him she loved, and always had, and not the fact that he was a scribemole.
