Duncton Found (57 page)

“You did not ask us here to learn of the Stone, did you?” said Beechen impatiently. Poplar was silent.

“It is our talons you value, not our hearts,” said Beechen. “A mole finds it harder to help another who dares not speak the truth directly.”

Poplar’s snout was low.

“Well, mole?”

Poplar nodded his head and then, looking up, he blurted out, “I don’t know how you know but you’re right. We heard there was a Stone-fool passing near. They said you were a strong-looking mole in the company of two others, though I didn’t realise they were old. But even so I thought if you came the one who threatens us might be afraid and go away.”

Mayweed looked at Sleekit and said, “Ancient Crone, fellow ‘old’ mole, we will not be of much use up here. Food? Certainly, withered Mayweed thinks. Sleep? Why not? he would say. Let us listen and feel old and eat and sleep when we will.” With that he fixed poor Poplar with one of his most ghastly grins, showing what yellow teeth remained in his mouth, and fell silent again.

“I didn’t mean, I mean... well.”

“Tell us about this mole. Why does he make you so afraid?”

“He’s diseased!” said one of the females.

“He threatens us!” said her sister.

“He says he’ll kill us if we try to go away,” said Poplar’s mate.

“Or tell the grikes we’re followers of the Stone.”

The mole’s name, it seemed, was Buckram. He was a guardmole with murrain and well known in those parts as having been cast out of Fyfield. He was said to have killed fellow guardmoles who threatened him, and had terrorised a succession of the small outposts of moles he had settled near. One day at the end of August he had appeared at one of the little meetings of followers up on the heath and shouted at them, and then taloned and wounded one of the males who had remonstrated with him.

“He said terrible things,” Poplar explained, “and disrupted our meeting. Then when it was over he followed me rather than any of the others, not saying anything. We thought he would leave us but he didn’t. He took over a burrow on the slopes above us and now he often threatens us as we’ve told you. He takes our worms and drinks in the stream where we like to, although there are plenty of other places. Nomole among those around here will help us drive him off because he’s got murrain and it’s getting worse. Recently he has been more violent and taloned and buffeted me out of his way by the stream. He’s a
trained
guardmole. He’s very strong and....”

“What do you want me to do?”

A look of hope came to Poplar’s face.

“Drive him away. You look strong enough to me, and since you must be outcasts you could stay on near here. You could all find room here. The grikes won’t trouble you.”

“But my heart would trouble me,” said Beechen, gazing on them all and a look of terrible despair came over his face. “You say his name is Buckram? Take me to him. Now.”

“We can point to where he lives,” said Poplar eagerly.

“Is there a Stone on the heath where you worship?”

“Why no, the nearest is at Fyfield. But nomole can go there and come out alive.”

“Would you like a Stone to rise above your burrows?”

“Why... yes. We’re followers, aren’t we? But there’s no Stone here and never has been.”

“There is a Stone here, Poplar, but you cannot see it. It rises where Buckram waits.” Beechen leaned forward and touched the timid Poplar on the paw and gazed on him so that Poplar could not take his eyes away. “Your Stone is where he is, and as he waits so it waits as well. See him truly, mole, and you shall see thy Stone.”

Poplar stared in awe at Beechen, and then as Beechen drew his paw away, the mole raised the paw he had touched and looked at it as if he expected to see more than a paw.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said, and then turning to his family he said again, “I have never known what to do.”

“So you ask another whom you barely know to do something for you, not even knowing what it should be? No, mole,
you
go to him. Go now, and ask him here and you might learn what it is you must do. He shall not harm you any more than you can bear.”

“I am afraid.”

“Then take these moles with you, for they are what you most love, which he will know. Go together, ask him to come with you, and we shall wait for you.”

“But... but...” began Poplar, but somehow, almost in a dream, he signalled the others out of the burrow and then followed them. At its exit he turned back and said, “Whatmole are you?”

“You know my name.”

“Yes, yes I do,” said Poplar. “What shall I say to Buckram? What happens if...?”

“The Stone you shall see rise before you will tell you what to say. Now think no more but with thy heart. Go to him.”

And so they did, and Beechen and the others followed them to the surface and watched as they timidly went up the slope together, staying close for fear of what Buckram might do to them.

They saw the group stop and Poplar go forward. They guessed that he called out Buckram’s name, for they heard a roar of rage and saw a great mole emerge and tower over Poplar.

Then all seemed quiet, all still, all caught in silence. Then Poplar turned from Buckram, and the great guardmole, his face livid with raw murrain, his paws bleeding with ulcers, his flanks open and fetid, followed behind him as meekly as if he were a pup.

They saw that in Poplar’s gait and eyes were wonder and strange pride as he guided the diseased guardmole back to where Beechen had taken stance.

When they reached him it was Buckram who started to speak first, his voice rough and broken, yet his hurt body restless and stanced as if ready to fight.

“He said... the mole said... he told me....”

“What did he tell you?” asked Beechen, going to the stricken mole and putting his paws where the sores were worst. “What did he say?”

But Buckram could not speak, for his hurt snout was low and his great ruined body seemed unable to support itself more.

“I said you were the Stone Mole,” said Poplar, staring at Beechen in awe.

Then he turned slowly back to Buckram and, reaching out his paw, touched him on the flank. Already the sores were healing, healthy skin growing in their place. “I said you had come especially for him. I said, I said....”

There, on that dry slope, where no Stone was, there rose a mighty Stone made of the rock of faith and shining with the light of faith. For there moles turned their fear to love, and with their love they touched one who they thought could give them nothing in return.

“Can you see your Stone now, Poplar?” asked Beechen.

Then Poplar looked at the moles about him, and saw them in a light brighter than he had ever known before, and he smiled and said that the Stone was there and he could see it, and knew he would always see it now.

From this time on news of Beechen’s coming began to spread, though confined at first to those few moles who had found safe places to hide and made their lives in the obscurity of the more inaccessible parts of the vale. How the news spread none can be quite sure, for Beechen always asked moles not to speak of what he did for them, saying that it was a matter between them and the Stone alone.

But moles will share the excitements that come into their lives, and even if they try to keep them secret others will see the light in their eyes and soon find out. Indeed, is not community a sharing of such light?

They stayed a few days more with Poplar and his family to see Buckram through the dark lone time that followed his healing, and even in that short space moles came over the slopes and up the brook side to meet the mole they were beginning to hear whispers of. Beechen turned none away, but when the bolder among them asked if he really
was
the Stone Mole he would say, “I am of the Stone and if you see the Stone in me you see only the truth in your own heart.”

Beechen spent time with Buckram, who before murrain had infected him had been a senior guardmole in Fyfield, and one much given to punishing others, and those of the Stone. But the eldrene, Wort, believing his spreading disease to be a judgement of the Word, ordered him to be outcast into the vale that his murrain might infect followers of the Stone.

That was the beginning of long moleyears of isolation for him, in which he learnt that nomole wanted him, and the only way he could make any respond to him was by making them afraid. Their fear was his only comfort, for through it he knew he was still ordinary mole.

“Why did you follow Poplar?” asked Beechen.

“I wanted to frighten him. He had what I didn’t have, his health and family and a place. I thought... I don’t know what I thought. He was there.”

“The Stone is there, always there, and you can hit it without hurting anymole but yourself.”

“But I couldn’t strike you,” said Buckram in alarm, thinking that Beechen meant himself.

“But some moles could,” said Beechen, “and one day I fear they will.”

Suddenly Buckram reared up, and in spite of his weakness and the newly healed sores they could see what a fierce and terrible mole he was. “Take me with you and let me protect you,” he said. “I shall let nomole harm you!”

But Beechen made no answer, though the light of utter faith was in Buckram’s eyes.

When Beechen judged it was time for them to leave, Buckram asked again that he might go with them.

“What can you do for me?” asked Beechen.

“When my strength returns it will frighten those that threaten you,” he said.

But once more Beechen made no reply.

Then, when they had said their farewells and started downslope from Poplar’s place, Buckram pulled himself from his burrow and came after them. Poplar and his family followed and listened as, for a third time, he begged to be allowed to travel with Beechen.

“What will you tell moles that threaten me?” asked Beechen, gazing on him.

“He’ll tell them where to go!” said Poplar.

“One shake of his talons and they’ll dare not harm you, Stone Mole!” said Poplar’s mate.

But as Beechen smiled and shook his head, Buckram lowered his great brutish snout and muttered, “No, no I’ll not do that. Not ever again. No, I’ll tell them not to be afraid, for I was afraid once and now I’m not. I’ll tell them that.”

Then Beechen looked at him with pleasure and joy and said, “Then I shall have great need of you, and you shall be with me, and be near me, for the day shall come when I shall be afraid and need your help.”

Then Buckram looked at the Stone Mole with love, and knew the Stone had given him a task that he would follow all his life.

“For now, Buckram, you shall stay here and grow strong. You shall help these others with your strength and faith to worship the Stone which will guide you in what to do. And mole shall remember the name of this place, and say that here at Sandford Heath was faith in the Stone reborn.”

“When shall I come to you?” asked Buckram eagerly.

“When the last tree is bare and the frosts begin, your work here will be done. Seek me out then where you first denied the Stone. I shall need such a one as you at my flank. Seek me there.”

The wondering moles watched as Beechen went on downslope, accompanied only by Mayweed and Sleekit.

“What did he mean, ‘where you first denied the Stone’?” asked Poplar.

“Fyfield,” said Buckram simply.

“But you were outcast from there. They’d kill you if you went back.”

“The Stone will guide me in safety,” said Buckram, “just as it guided me here.”

During the autumn and early winter of that time Beechen, Mayweed and Sleekit wandered within the limits of the northern part of the Vale of Uffington, and wherever they went moles gathered to listen to Beechen and to seek healing. Sometimes the numbers were small, no more than families of moles such as Poplar’s of Sandford Heath; at other times news of his coming went ahead and all the moles of a system were waiting to greet him.

It was a time of great happiness for him, when he had time to talk to the moles he met and learn much from them of their lives and experiences, listening as he had learned to do from the moles of Duncton Wood.

Now, too, for the first time, he met moles younger than himself, and recent mothers, and heard the different hopes they had, and felt their fears, sharing the ordinary things that make a mole’s life.