Duncton Found (18 page)

Dodder did no such thing but, rather, pulled himself up into his most impressive posture and stared imperiously at his enemy. Madder was forced to do the same, whilst making a vain attempt to tidy himself up, pulling and tugging at his fur to do so. But the truth was that, though rather younger than Dodder, he did not have that worthy mole’s bold bearing, or if he did it was masked by the sorry mess his fur was in. For though it was thick enough, even glossy, yet it never seemed to have discovered the knack of lying flat and in the same direction. It stuck out here, it stuck out there, it stuck out in the wrong direction everywhere.

His eyes, unfortunately, were no better than his fur. Not only were they placed a little awry on either side of his head but they were astigmatised, so that one pointed too far out and the other too far in and a mole found it hard to decide if Madder was looking at him, and even harder to find the right place to look back.

The posturing of the two seemed to be coming dangerously close to blows when Crosswort moved swiftly between them and said, “Well really, Madder! What a welcome to give me on my visit to your burrow!”

“By the Stone, ’tis Crosswort. Damn me but...” A look of some alarm came over his face as he looked first at her, and then at the crowd of others and realised the implications of such a visit. Worms to find, smiles of welcome to smile, general disruption....

“Yes, Madder! We’ve come a-visiting,
all
of us, and I shall be very displeased indeed if, so near Midsummer, you cannot find it in your heart to be
pleasant
to Dodder and the rest of us.”

“But...” said Madder, a look of considerable misgiving on his face. He began mumbling excuses: “So much to do... tunnels somewhat untidy... worm supply poor for the time of year....”

“Madam,” said Dodder, “in the absence of courtesy and politeness from this dishonourable mole, and his obvious but may I say typical unwillingness to welcome us —”

“Be quiet, Dodder!” said Crosswort. “Well, Madder?”

“Yes, well. Very well. Very happy to be well and able to welcome you
all,”
he said, adding more urgently and quietly and hoping, perhaps, the others might not hear, “Though I had intended my earlier invitation to be just for yourself, Crosswort, so we could... you know... get to know one another.”

“He’s at it already!” cried out Dodder. “Whispering, plotting, shirking his social responsibilities. Yes, this is the mole of which I spoke...” Then, turning to Beechen in particular, he continued. “Note him well. This is a mole who is as ill-disciplined mentally as his appearance might lead you to believe. If I say, and I do, that he is a mole of the Stone, I mean no rudeness to Stone-followers in general. But, well” – and here Dodder smiled rather thinly, and with a certain smugness too – “I flatter myself that my appearance is a better testimony for the Word than this shambles you see here is for the Stone. Stay smart, young mole, stay smart.”

“Fine! Very fine his words, but what a miserable evil character they hide,” responded Madder immediately, not moving a single molemite. “I mean no disrespect to the rest of you, but I am surprised to see you in his company... and I am sorry if I seem rude, but while I’m willing to be visited by everymole else I am not having an ex-senior guardmole, who has the blood of followers on his talons, inside my tunnels.”

Tryfan suddenly reared up, dark, glowering and powerful, as if the very ground itself had broken open and an ancient root burst forth.

“Speaking for myself,” he said with such calm authority that all the moles were hushed and Madder slowly dropped his paws to his side, “I am tired and in need of food. I am sorry that Madder feels as he does. I am sorry that Dodder seems inclined to provoke him. But most of all I am sorry to see talons raised, for violence is failure.”

“Aye,” said Hay suddenly, “we’re all tired of you two arguing, and it’s about time it stopped.”

“But they like it,” piped up the timid Flint, “they love it. They’re not happy unless they’re quarrelling. They
need
it.”

There was silence at this and then Hay and Teasel laughed.

“Well said, my love!” said Teasel, as Dodder and Madder glared at each other.

“What’s more,” said Flint in a confidential voice, as if he imagined that neither of the protagonists could hear, “if you were to attack one of them the other would defend him.”

“Here’s the mole you should be choosing, Crosswort: Flint. He’s got common sense.”

“I have asked her, as a matter of fact,” said Flint, “but so far she has refused me.”

“Paradoxical Sirs and Madams, and diplomatic Flint, humbleness is like Tryfan – hungry. Can we eat?”

“Madder?” said Crosswort sternly.

With that, and a resigned look at Flint, Madder led them off and down into his own tunnels.

He may have been all aggression and accusation above ground, but below it he was a very different mole, as if his own tunnels oppressed him.

Which, if they did, was not surprising, for they were a mess. Indeed, so messy were they, so disorganised, so utterly unkempt that the group as a whole was struck rather silent, for a mole likes to make a pleasantry or two when he visits another’s burrows and in Madder’s it was hard to find anything very positive to say at all.

“Er, very snug,” said Hay uneasily, snouting up a wide tunnel which seemed blocked with dead weeds.

“Not big but
interesting,”
said Teasel, who was beginning to regret that she had ever mentioned how moles used to go a-visiting.

“Humph!” said Crosswort shortly, looking about with disapproval all over her face, and pushing a pile of soil out of her way.

Madder was clearly aware of the bad impression his tunnels were making, for he hurried here and there making a futile attempt to tidy ahead of the incoming moles – pushing a pile of herbs into a corner in one burrow, and back-pawing some dead worms out of sight as he ushered them all a different way. All the while he muttered excuses about being unready for moles and having no time to keep order in the way he normally liked to.

Eventually they assembled in a cluttered burrow and looked about uneasily at each other and, almost to a mole, refused Madder’s offer of food as, giving up further pretence at tidiness he attempted to be hospitable. He had gathered up a particularly neglected and suppurating worm from somewhere, its tail part all covered with dust, and was now offering it about.

“Ah! No thanks, I eat too much anyway,” said Smithills, patting his ample stomach.

“Me?” said Skint, a look of alarm on his normally stern face. “No, no, I don’t eat at this time of day.”

Smithills, always mischievous and full of fun, turned to poor Hay and said, “He’s always hungry, he’ll have some food.”

“No!” said Hay. “I mean, well....”

“Mole, I’ll have it if I may,” said Tryfan suddenly, “and Beechen will eat it with me.” To his credit, Beechen succeeded in appearing as if he looked forward to the grim prospect while Madder, clearly relieved and pleased that such a one as Tryfan himself should accept his food, attempted to wipe the dust off the worm and spruce it up a bit as he laid it before Tryfan.

It was a strange and touching moment, and while some moles there, like Dodder and Crosswort, might well have considered Tryfan foolish for taking such dubious food, most others appreciated his kindness and felt indirectly admonished by it.

But what had greater impact was the way he now gravely regarded the sorry worm, looked up at Madder, whose eyes gyrated nervously this way and that, and asked, “Would you have a grace spoken in your burrow?”

“If moles of the Word and others don’t mind, I’d like it if you did,” he said. “Yes I would!”

“Well then...” said Tryfan, silently reaching out a paw to Beechen who was looking about with too much curiosity at that serious moment, and stilling him, “there’s a traditional Duncton grace which you might like to hear. Beechen has learnt it and can say it for us.”

The moles stilled, several snouts lowered. Dodder seemed about to speak but said nothing. Crosswort wrinkled her brow as if a grace was rather a threat, while Heather closed her eyes tightly and pointed her snout in the direction of the Stone. Mayweed grinned, and Skint and Smithills settled into the easy stance of moles who knew Tryfan of old, and liked it when he encouraged the traditional ways.

Beechen waited for silence and then, in a clear strong voice, as Tryfan had taught him, spoke the grace:

The benison of ancient Stone

Be to us now

The peace of sharing be here found

And with us now

This food our life

This life ours to give

This giving our salvation

The peace of sharing be here found

And with us now

As he spoke he reached forward and touched the worm, and it seemed that the worm so unwanted, and Madder’s attempt to share it which had been so rejected, was transformed into something of which all moles there must have a part, whether of the Stone or not.

When the grace was over, Beechen ceremonially broke the worm and took a part of it to each of the moles.

“’Tis ours to share,” he said each time he proffered the food, and the followers among them replied, “Shared with thee’, while Dodder and one or two others simply took the food and whispered “Aye!” to signify their acceptance of the sharing.

Then when the last piece had gone to the last mole Tryfan said softly, “The benison of Ancient Stone be to us now,” and the moles ate their pieces in companionable silence.

They rested then, and talked among themselves, and, with Dodder on one side of Beechen and Madder on the other, he heard both their stories and learnt how it might be that in strange and troubled times such as had beset moledom, a mole of the Word and a mole of the Stone had ended up living in adjacent tunnels in a system of outcasts.

“Would you really defend Dodder as Flint said?” Beechen asked Madder quietly.

“Flint shouldn’t have said that but I might, yes I might. He may be what he is, and done the things he’s done, but he is a Duncton mole now so he’s one of us, isn’t he?”

When Beechen asked the same question of Dodder, he replied, “Young mole, I would, but keep it to yourself. In a military situation he would not know where to begin, whereas a trained mole like me would.”

Later Tryfan turned to Madder and said, “I’ve been told your surface entrances are worth seeing, mole. Would you honour us by showing them to us all?”

At this Madder looked surprised and pleased.

“’Tis true enough, Madder, isn’t it? I’ve just been telling Tryfan you’ve a way with plants and trees.” Hay spoke encouragingly.

It did not need much persuasion before Madder led them through his untidy tunnels, pushing this and that out of the way and into still more untidiness as he went, and took them into tunnels different from the original ones and delved by himself, which threaded their untidy way up among the living roots of ash and out into a place on the surface such as few of them had ever seen the like before, though many must have passed nearby on their travels through the wood.

It was most strangely overgrown: strange because there was order to it, strange because in that dry part of the wood it seemed pleasantly moist, strange because wherever a mole looked there seemed something more to see, something more to draw his eye. Strange because there, among that growth and the wondrous light it cast and the soft shadows it made, Madder was a changed mole, and one in his element. Up here in the secret places he had made for himself all the oppression of his tunnels left them, as it left him. He darted here and there, touching and tending to the plants and growth all about, and talking as he went. Even his disordered fur seemed more ordered there, unless it was a trick of light that made him look... well, as neat and tidy as neat and tidy can be. Such he seemed, such the place he had made was. The plants that formed the backdrop to this place of peace were yellow nettles, tall, proud and bright. Making them seem even brighter was the thick ivy that grew up the trunk of the ash behind and from which, too, trained it seemed by Madder himself, came a few strands of dark leaves along the ground.

“The yellow nettle’s at its best now, but it will fade soon as all flowers must. But as it does, and the sun begins to harden north again in the years of July and August, why my eyes delight in the ferns that I have let grow here....”

He pointed out a clump of fern they might not have noticed, for its leaves were still small and unopened, and it half hid itself beyond a root.

“Ferns like darkness and a little wet, and when the sun catches at their leaves and turns them shining green the darkness of their place sets them off.”