Duncton Tales (44 page)

That love was not so easy, that the chances of finding love in such a way and such a place were slim, that Rooster was not by all accounts a mole a female would especially love in
that
way,” did not concern Privet. She was young and inexperienced, she was abroad on a dangerous venture, she was with two moles she trusted, and she was seeking to find a third whom she believed it was her destiny to meet. Thus far doubts did not, could not, play a part in the dreams that drove her on.

It was in the middle of the next day, after crossing rougher and more wormless ground, that Sward judged it right to veer north-east to drop down and cross the stream that flows down that part of the Vale.

“We’ve passed by the lake now, and the harder part of the journey’s to come,” he said, pointing a talon north across the Vale below them towards a bleak black rise of ground that stretched interminably out of sight and higher than where they stanced.

“That’s Pikenaze Moor,” he explained, “which I have traversed only once before. Beyond it lies the greatest challenge on our journey to Chieveley Dale, the rising fastness of the Withens Moor where many of the grimmest battles among the grikes and others were fought in decades gone by. Stone knows what dark deeds were committed there — it was a place I swore I would never cross again and certainly not alone. But with a strong young mole with us like you, Hamble, and with your common sense, Privet, I suppose an old mole like me should not be nervous.” He shrugged and smiled wryly.

They had crossed the stream and trekked halfway up Pikenaze Moor before dusk came and Hamble suggested they should delve a temporary burrow. All were tired, and a little concerned by the prospect of travelling on to Withens Moor on the morrow.

So far there had been no sign of recent mole, though here and there they had come upon traces of temporary burrows such as the one they themselves delved now. These were not parts that moles dallied in, the less so that the wind was never-ending on the higher parts, and the heather among which they hid hissed about their heads, and creaked, and made a mole feel there were others lurking about when there were none.

They all woke with the dawn, feeling they had not slept at all, and after the briefest of groomings and a quick bite at the sour-tasting worms they found, they were on their way up to the top of Pikenaze to view the next part of their journey.

It was a grey and drizzly day, and they found themselves looking up a long steep clough with dark looming sides, which led up in the far distance, and more than a day away, to a steep rise on to the highest part of the Moors in that area.

“Twizle Head Moss,” said Sward grimly. “Beyond it according to the moles we’ve spoken to is Ramsden Clough which we must find a way into if we are to descend to the vale that leads to Chieveley Dale. Now the part I came down when I was here lies to the right where that mist hangs. That’s Withens Edge and not a place for mole. Wormless and vulnerable to rook and buzzard.
That
way, and on to the east, takes a mole to the notorious Charnel Clough where Red Catcher’s clan resides. We’ll stay well away from that …”

Privet heard what he said, but her eyes were drawn to the lower part of Withens Moor which lay beneath them in the mist and rain. The white-brown run of a stream was visible, and the fearsome and inexorable climb up towards the distant Twizle Head Moss. It was the widest expanse of ground she had ever seen in her life, and its slow rise to darkness and shifting mists filled her with a sense of desolation. Surely nomole could ever have fought others and lost their lives over possession of such a place? Surely none could live there? Yet no sooner had they trekked downslope to the bank of the grubby brook that drained this vast rising moor than they saw evidence of mole in the form of ruined mounds of stony earth and collapsed tunnels of a mean and meagre kind.

“The moles hereabouts stick to the brook’s edge as being the most wormful, or least wormless,” said Sward, “and for the same reason we’ll take that route up. Hamble, your eyes are better than mine so you take the lead, but we must be watchful behind, Privet, for the peat hags give plenty of hiding-places here for malevolent moles. But we’re far enough from the Ratcher clan’s place not to run into any grikes that would wish to harm us. The moles who are here will be more curious than anything else, but of course once they see us word of our coming will get about and we may be pursued. So once we start there’s no hope of stopping for long until we find somewhere safe, or moles we can trust to give us sanctuary. It’s many a year since I was here, so much may have changed. But I picked up some useful texts on Withens when I was here in a community some way up this vale whose location I may with luck recognize when we get there.”

With a brief sad smile for times past, Sward gave way to the younger Hamble, and with Privet taking up her place between them once more they set off upslope among the mass of hags and pools, wet moss and ferns, through which the Withens Brook rushed down its miserable way.

Times had changed and so had the place. Nowhere did Sward remember, and feeling increasingly despondent on his behalf, Privet steadily plodded on, marvelling for the first time in her life at the adventures her father must once have had, and the courage too to have travelled in such places alone.

“I’m sure it was here …’ said old Sward at every new turn in the stream on whose higher banks they travelled, “or was it … yes, it was just ahead.”

But it was not, though several times more they found signs of itinerant mole and each felt that life was not far away. Until the rain that had spotted down upon them through the day thickened into drizzle, the winds grew gusty, the temperature began to drop, and Hamble decreed that the time had come to find shelter for the night.

It was while they were exploring the hags surrounding a little terrace of drier ground above the brook that Privet saw movement and Hamble went ahead alone to investigate, his two friends huddling together among the peat to shelter from the now driving rain as best they could. Then suddenly Hamble reappeared, his face set grimly.

“Follow me,” he said, without further explanation.

They did so, wondering, turning away from the stream to a half-hidden and tortuous path that they would never have easily found except by chance, or prior knowledge. It was running with water, and the rain dripped from the heather that overhung the hags through which it went. They turned a corner and the path widened into a shallow black pool on one side of which, blanched by water and picked clean by rooks, a dead sheep lay, its grey wool spread grotesquely over the hag on which it had stumbled its last, all sodden with rain and filthy with peat.

Hamble hurried them past this and they climbed a short grassy way on to a higher terrace carved in former times by the stream which now rushed noisily below. The terrace had all the bumps and pits of an ancient system, and a fresher scent of life than any they had so far found.

“It was here!” cried out Sward suddenly. “The community I knew was
here
!”

Even as he said it, Hamble pointed ahead of them to one edge of the terrace where the ground rose steeply into heathery moor once again, and there among the shadows they saw the bedraggled forms of a few wretched moles.

Privet gasped in astonishment and sudden fear, for it was plain from their size and dark fur, as well as their short snouts and lumpy paws, that the moles were grikes. But these were no rapacious monsters, nor fearsome warriors, just moles brought by starvation and disease to the very edge of their lives.

Instinctively Privet held back with Hamble, for both had spent a lifetime that spoke of grikes as dangerous killers, but just as instinctively old Sward went forward, with a gesture of greeting, and a quaint nod of respect.

A single mole, older than the others and with grizzled grey fur, broke clear of the pathetic group and came towards Sward with a grimace that Privet took to be a smile.

“You’re welcome, mole, as any living mole would be. But we’ve little to offer.”

The grike spoke mole, but in a thick accent which Privet found hard to follow. To her surprise her father replied in Whernish, raising a paw and then going forward and smiting the other mole’s outstretched paw. They spoke quietly for a moment or two but with increasing intensity until suddenly the grike reared up with what Privet took this time to be a laugh, though it sounded deep and threatening to her, before he said, “Bugger me but it’s Sward! Well!”

He turned back to the group, went to an old female there, and said in a loud voice that suggested she was somewhat hard of hearing, “Myrtle, it’s Sward the Scholar. Aye, Sward! And he’s not come to harm us, not him. Why, you remember he came before?”

Remember? The two old moles forgot everything in remembering their dim and distant former meeting — the rain, the Moors, their companions, the gathering night. Never would Privet have believed her father could grow young again, but young he suddenly became. As she watched him talk to the old grike, and heard his laughter, and saw the interest and sympathy he showed for the sorry story they soon told him, she felt again that sense she had had earlier that for the first time she was understanding what Sward had once been.

Then, when she was brought forward at last and introduced to this ‘old friend’ as ‘my daughter Privet’ she felt proud of that introduction. Proud too of the affectionate way Sward introduced Hamble, and humbled by the deep respect Sward showed these poor, half-starved grikes, stranded by life and circumstance in this forgotten and desolate part of moledom.

The old grike’s name was Turrell, and if first impressions last longest, and the Stone’s Light shines on all moles, then to Privet and Hamble these were worthy representatives indeed of the grikes.

What little food they had they offered to share with a mole and his kin (for they included Hamble in Sward’s family) for memory’s sake, and such dank and cramped quarters as they had they made over to their visitors, with gruff apologies and humble pleas that times were hard, worms scarce, and their strength low.

“But it’ll get better, Sward, it will,” said Turrell hopefully, looking round with concern at the four young moles with him. They were not his kin, but the surviving young from two families the rest of whom had died of plague in the bitter molemonths just past.

“That, and the Ratcher clan’s predations on us — they took the only young female who had her full health back to Charnel Clough — have brought us close to ruin and extinction in these parts,” Turrell went on. “You go higher up the Withens and you’ll see moles worse off than us.”

Once they were rested, and before night came, Hamble and Privet set off back downstream to a wormful spot they had noticed and soon brought back some food for the others. Three trips they made, while Sward helped Turrell delve a drier chamber, and the youngsters, too shy to speak, visibly perked up.

The rain got heavier and all the moles settled down for a night of talking and exchange, in which Turrell and Myrtle told of the troubled years they had had. When the grikes heard that the trio had come direct from Crowden they were interested indeed, and grew positively voluble when they discovered that it was for Rooster they had come.

“You know of him then?” asked Privet.

“Know of him lass?” said Turrell in his rough, accented voice. “You’ll not find a mole on the Moors who doesn’t these days. Know him and admire him, for so far at least he’s got the better of Red Ratcher, and he’s the first mole in generations who’s brought hope to this forsaken place. There have been others no doubt, but they’ve gone or have died and we’ve been put back to what we’ve always been. But Rooster, by these old talons of mine, he’s a mole like nomole I’ve ever heard of before.”

“Do you know where we’ll find him?” asked Hamble.

“I’ve an idea where he lives, but you’ll not find him easily, that’s for sure. If
you
could, a stranger to these parts, then Ratcher’s mob could too. Mind, you’ve rascally old Sward here and he’s a legend too in his own way.”

“Tell us what you know of this Rooster then,” suggested Sward, shoving the fattest worm he could see towards Turrell, adding as he did so, “though I should warn you that my daughter Privet is a scribe and scholar like me and will scribe down all you say one of these days!”

Turrell laughed and looked round at his mate, and the youngsters.

“It does my heart good to see moles gathered like this again and yarning. Aye, it does me good!” He munched the worm for a while, settled close to the scraggy form of Myrtle, and finally said, “So, it’s Rooster you want to know about. Well, I’ll, tell you what I’ve heard — it’s a tale will do anymole good on a night like this! But I’d best begin with Red Ratcher, for he’s the start of it and will be the ending of it one way or t’other.”