The time was September, the same in which Bracken and Rebecca first met, and the weather was changeable. A storm had come in from the east, the direction of Duncton Wood. It obscured the top of Uffington Hill in rain and mist, leaving Boswell below it, isolated and alone with the Blowing Stone, to make up his mind. At the height of the storm, the wind was strong and it wound and raced around the hollow convolutions of the Stone until at last it sounded the deep vibrating note that cast all doubts aside and filled his heart with the terrible certainty that he must make the perilous journey.
He had already asked that he might do so, going with his master, Skeat, to the Holy Mole himself and begging to be allowed dispensation to risk the long trek to Duncton. But, though with kindness and compassion, he was refused, just as Skeat had warned he would be.
‘You’re far too valuable here, Boswell, for nomole knows the secrets of the libraries as well as you do, or the old language, which even the scribes forget. And anyway,’ and here Skeat looked sadly on Boswell, ‘you know you can never make such a journey and survive. Others might, perhaps, but not you, Boswell.’
Boswell would not have stood a chance. He had been cursed at birth with a crippled paw, whose talons were weak and useless and with which he only barely had enough strength to limp about, always struggling to catch up with the other pups. It was perhaps a miracle that he survived long enough for Skeat to come across him—or perhaps a reflection of the fact that he had the intelligence to steer clear of trouble.
Skeat himself had first found Boswell in a system near Uffington and brought him for his own protection to the Holy Burrows. He said that he saw in his quickness and intelligence, and in his awe of the Stone, something that should not be lost when he grew too old to stay in his home burrow and was forced to fight for a place of his own.
He was put to work in the libraries at Uffington where, before he ever became a scribe, he learned to take care of the ancient books with a love and feeling that other scribes said was a joy to behold.
Some said he was natural-born to the libraries, where his fur, flecked with grey as it was, blended with the white of the chalk walls and made him seem, in some lights, as ancient as the books themselves. They soon grew fond of the sight of his frail form, struggling sometimes with the bigger books but refusing all help, and would smile to see him.
He became a scribe very young and quickly distinguished himself for his work on some of the most sacred texts of all. The Book of Earth, as it now exists in its edited form, is substantially Boswell’s work; the Book of Light, so long an obscure text that few moles understood, was translated and explained by Boswell alone. And all this while he was still young and had seen through only one Longest Night.
But one spring, the same spring in which Bracken was born, Boswell seemed to change. Only Skeat, of all the masters, correctly linked the change with a text that Boswell one day found in the course of his delvings in the dark places of the libraries. It was a piece of bark manuscript and appeared to have been hidden deliberately. It had upon it the most holy seal of all—the seal of white birch bark: the seal of a White Mole.
He took this find to Skeat, his master, who took it to the Holy Mole himself, who opened it in the presence only of Skeat. It was written in the old language and began: ‘Sevene Stillstoones, sevene Bookes makede, Alle but oone been come to grounde…’ which in translation reads:
Seven Stillstones, seven Books made,
All, but one, have come to ground.
First, the Stone of Earth for living,
Second, Stone for Suffering mole;
Third of Fighting, born of bloodshed,
Fourth of Darkness, born in death;
Fifth for Healing, born through touching,
Sixth of pure Light, born of love.
Now we wait on
For the last Stone
Without which the circle gapes;
And the Seventh
Lost and last Book,
By whose words we may be blessed.
Find the lost Book, send the last Stone,
Bring them back to Uffington.
Send a mole in courage living
And a mole compassionate,
With a third and last to bind them
By the warmest light of love.
Song of silence,
Dance of mystery,
From their love one more will come…
He the Stone holds,
He the Book brings,
His the Silence of the Stone.
