Nothing could have told him more clearly than this flint that it was here that the Ancient System ended, or started, depending on which side you came from. Nothing could have driven home to him more forcibly than the sound of yet another mole running from him, to whom he meant no harm, that he was for ever dispossessed of the Duncton system in which he had grown up. It was no longer his system. He was not of it. He was of the Ancient System now, and alone in it. Its tunnels, its wormless depths, its mysterious secrets, its aching isolation and loneliness, were his, and his territory.
His mood changed from exultation to a grim despair.
He looked at the great flint and knew it would be useless to try to dig a way round it. Still, at least he could confirm that the seal was where he thought it was in Hulver’s old tunnels, and perhaps stay in them for a few moledays, or until whatever mole it was that had run off came back. When he did, Bracken would retire gracefully. For the time being, however, he simply could not face going back to the confines of the Ancient System—which, though it was now his place, was too lonely for him to bear quite yet.
With Rue’s sudden appearance in Barrow Vale one morning, frightened, dishevelled and with a genuine tale of horror to tell, the rumour of a giant mole in the Ancient System turned into solid fact. She happened to arrive at a time when both Mandrake and Rune were away in the system, so that before news reached them, she had told her story to everymole who wanted to listen to it—which was every mole.
But the story did not only bring Mandrake and Rune hotpawing it back to Barrow Vale; it also brought Rebecca, who, since her meeting with Rose, had grown much more independent. Perhaps having her own tunnels had something to do with it as well, for she seemed to throw off any sense of the constraints that Mandrake’s bullying and rules of conduct had put on her and started living with a joy and spirit that Duncton females rarely showed. If there was laughter in the system, hers were the tunnels it seemed to come from; if there were tears, hers was the place where a mole might find comfort; if there were moles having a good feast, hers was the place where they had it.
In no sense was Rebecca wilfully disobedient to Mandrake, about whom, and to the amazement of all moles who knew her, she never had a hard or harsh thing to say. ‘I love him,’ she would declare, as if such a love could forgive the many cruelties and unkindnesses all the system knew he had imposed on her. Which, indeed, it could. The fact was that Rebecca did not seem the least affected by Mandrake’s attitude to her. But however great her love for him, her love for life and for living was greater. It was as if she was driven by a force for joy and love quite out of her control, and anymole who came into contact with her fell under its spell and got carried along by it. She seemed not only to affect other moles, but other creatures and plants as well, as moles like Mekkins, who took to visiting her, soon noticed. The trees, the plants, the creatures of the wood—all seemed brighter and happier around Rebecca’s burrows. Hers was the place where the nightingale sang; hers was the place where the sun seemed to shine; nowhere else did wood violets look quite so lovely in the sun.
And Rebecca herself was the picture of health and happiness. Her coat was full and glossy, catching even the most delicate of summer dawn lights in its sheen, and beautifully warm and dark when the sun shone full upon it. She had grown since the spring and was big for a female, equal in size to some of the smaller males, and though not so graceful as her mother, Sarah, she was a thousand times more feminine.
She would touch and rough-play, and cry ‘Look!’ pointing to some rambling eglantine or scurrying beetle whose beauty and life caught her eye, which she always seemed to want to share with another mole. But for many, her enthusiasms were sometimes almost embarrassing in their exuberance, for it doesn’t do for an adult to dance and play too much, does it?
So that sometimes, when Rebecca was quite alone and lying still in the evening or watching the light change in the early morning, there was a subtle sadness about her of which she herself was barely aware, and if she had been, she could not have known its cause. Sometimes in her dreams she wished that she might meet a mole who would play and dance with her and make her laugh and sing with the same abandon to life that she gave to others.
