Duncton Found by William Horwood Read Free Book Online Page A

himself.
    Holm was small, and when he was not muddy he was dusty. He had ways and methods of his own – darty ways, quick jerky ways, ways by which a snout followed by a head popped round a corner and stared. One moment he was there, listening to Lorren saying that it was an especially nice day atop and did a mole’s heart good to see it and bless me if it wasn’t just the kind of day Starling and young Bailey would have liked if they were here, which they were not... and the next moment Holm was gone to the surface, only his tail and back paws showing as he snouted out the good sun. Then with a wriggle he was all gone, but still near, up above, and Lorren gazed at the burrow’s roof as Holm moved about.
    She was as proud of Holm as he of her, and even if she had never in all their days together quite managed to get their burrow in neat and tidy shape, why there was happiness there.
    A shambly, untidy, dusty kind of happiness which made for dishevelled but obedient youngsters, each of whom loved their parents and carried good memories of them when they left to make their own way. All were moles who had learnt about the Stone and even if they became persuaded of the Word by Rollright’s unusually easy-going eldrene, whose disapproval of followers was accompanied only by stern warnings, they felt sufficient love and loyalty to their parents not to inform on them, but rather to put their faith in the Stone down to eccentricity; and in Rollright, the eldrene made such indulgence easy, for her guardmoles chose a comfortable life and let sleeping weasels lie.
    So Lorren had had her broods of pups, and she and Holm had been left unmolested by the grikes, and were content now to have lived through their first adult spring without young, and find the muddy peace which they had long looked forward to....
    Holm suddenly reappeared, eyes bright and staring. His mouth was open a little and he looked uncomfortable, even desperate. He was preparing himself to speak. Lorren waited.
    “Got to go,” he said. “Stones. To them. Rampion to guide.”
    “Rampion?” said Lorren. “But we haven’t seen her for weeks. Too busy with her young.”
    Rampion was their daughter by an early litter, and she loved them both dearly and came often to see them when she had time. She lived to the south of the Rollright Stones, and was one of the followers who at times of ritual covertly visited the Whispering Stoats, the cluster of Stones that lie south of the main circle which itself was banned and too dangerous for mole to visit. The Stoats had become the followers’ meeting place.
    “To Stoats she’ll go today, but then to Stones. Must not, must she?”
    “Well, no, though why you should think... I mean, how you could know?”
    “Not without me to guide her,” said Holm, cutting her short.
    Then suddenly he was gone and Lorren was left staring, aghast. A bit of sunshine wasn’t an excuse to go gallivanting off to the Stones where a mole could get hurt by guardmoles, if not worse.
    But barely had she opened her mouth to call after him than his head popped back down the tunnel and he blinked at her.
    “Holm won’t be seen. Holm was taught by Mayweed. Holm’s safe as burrows. Don’t fret. Holm loves you.”
    Then he was gone and poor Lorren was crying, for it was not his way to say his love out loud, though she knew it to be true, and he only would have done so if there was something to fear. Then she grumbled a little to herself, for he must have known his words would make her cry.
    “Must tidy up,” she said purposefully to herself, sniffing and wiping her face with her dusty paws. “But he’s a good mole, the best, and one day the Stone will grant his greatest wish.”
    It was a touching tribute to those two’s care for each other that when Lorren prayed it was of Holm she thought, and she usually ended up asking that one day he might be allowed to meet Mayweed once more, in whose company the part of him that was a route-finder