With her fourth dawn away from Barrow Vale, the dew was thick on the pastures and Rebecca woke in the temporary burrow she had made near them, feeling at one with the change that now moved so excitedly about her, rather than just a delighted observer of it. From its first moment, the day seemed to carry her along so that she surrendered to its will and did whatever it seemed to want. She was as hungry as ever on waking, but this put no urgency at all into her stretching and grooming, which became a timeless exercise in self-content. Time did not matter. Eventually, her coat glossy and her eyes happy, she burrowed about for food before taking to the surface to see the day. And the day seemed so free with itself that it almost asked that she should break free from the grass of the wood’s edge and go out on to the fresh pastures, the cool dew catching her paws and belly.
Because this part of the wood faced the west, the sun had not yet reached it, casting instead the shadow of the trees way out across the pasture. Beyond, the sun hit the grass and dried the dew, the area of tree shadow receding as the sun rose higher in the sky and swung south. The edge of the shadow and the area still bedewed shrank steadily from west and south as the morning advanced, and in it, near her burrow but now clear out on the pasture, Rebecca stayed, listening, watching and scenting the day. Behind her, the barbed wire marked the edge of the wood, and here and there along it, tufts of cow’s hair vibrated a little, the only evidence of a morning breeze. Even if Mandrake himself had asked Rebecca to move she might well not have done so, for she could smell a scent of such excitement that she knew without thinking about it that it was the one she had been seeking for weeks past. For as the shadow of the trees shrank towards her, two big male Pasture moles followed it up the pastures, down among their tunnels, then up and rolling across the surface, playing hide-and-seek and catch-as-catch-can with each other. It was a morning in which a mole should dance and smile and forget that summer was yesterday and tomorrow may bring an autumn storm. A morning to live in.
The two moles were slimmer and more lithe than Duncton moles, but just as powerful as the strongest Westsider, their coats just a shade lighter. They seemed to know each other so well that they did not really talk as they played, preferring to laugh and roll and touch and mock-fight with each other as they made their way towards the dark wall of the west side of the wood, its shadow receding before them.
The light morning breeze coming up the pastures carried their scent to where Rebecca crouched. The scent was male and new: strong and exciting. It was distant enough for her to want to run out towards it, to increase the chance that the males—though she did not know there were two of them—might scent her out. And run she did, or rather she danced across the dew-covered grass towards where the shadow stopped and the sun started, the male scent fresh like new-cropped grass, different from Duncton scents. As she danced, she did not even think of the risk she was taking, or how dangerous it would have seemed to most Duncton moles. She was Rebecca, there was the massive exhilaration of autumn soaring in the air around her, she wanted a mate, and a male was so near, somewhere near.
And one of them was. He had run on ahead, in and out of tunnels, towards where the pastures were still in shadow and where the dew had not yet dried out. On and on he ran, laughing and snouting back over his shoulder to see if the other was following near. On and on…
‘Cairn! Cairn!’ the one who was lagging behind called ahead, his voice deep and authoritative. ‘Don’t go too near the wood without me, you never know if there are Duncton moles about near the edge. Cairn!’ The name was called with love and good humour and without real fear that any harm was about. This was a morning in which to live to the full, rather than to sneak about.
Cairn ran on, laughing, snouting over his shoulder to see how far ahead he was and drawn on by such a sweet wildflower smell ahead. When, Oh! And a tumble. And a snarl. And Rebecca. Rebecca and Cairn. Tense and staring at each other, Rebecca’s talons hard in the ground and Cairn looking to see and snouting to scent if there were other males about.
‘Cairn… Cair…’ and the other arrived, and all three crouched suddenly tense in the still wet grass as the sun rose on into the sky and the shadow of the trees swept on towards the wood, passing over all three so that they were all in the sun, and Rebecca’s coat was glossy with excitement and bedabbled with dew. And all their breaths were tense with excitement.
