Soon he had got six or seven worms together, enough for them both. He deposited four by the old mole and, as a mark of respect, bit their heads off so they could not escape, and sat down again. The old mole thanked him and crouched in silence, looking at the worms as if he was pondering something. Then he said:
‘Be with us, Stone, at the start of our feast.
Be with us, Stone, at the close of our meal.
Let no mole adown our bodies
That may hurt our sorrowing souls,
Oh no mole adown our bodies
That may hurt our sorrowing souls.’
The simple grace was over almost before it had begun and it so awed Bracken, so filled him with wonder, that he was shaken with silence. He had never heard a prayer before. He had never heard the Stone spoken to as if he were a friend at a mole’s side.
The evening fell about them and they ate their worms in silence, in great peace with each other. When the mole had finished the four worms, which he ate with slow relish, he stopped and cleaned his face and licked his paws.
‘That’s better. I am grateful,’ he said. ‘My name’s Hulver, by the way, and if I’m not much mistaken, your father is Burrhead from the Westside.’
‘Yes, that’s right. How did you know?’ asked Bracken.
‘He’s an elder, like me,’ explained Hulver, ‘and he’s mentioned you once or twice.’ Hulver leaned forward like a fellow conspirator and whispered, ‘He’s not pleased with your progress. You’re not nasty enough!’ Hulver laughed and Bracken decided he rather liked him, but still didn’t know what to say. He was in the presence of an elder he had heard of as the wisest in the system, so what could he say? Hulver fell into silence again, snout quivering in the blue evening light and slowly lowering on to outstretched paws as he contemplated nightfall.
Bracken’s mind was in a whirl—the prayer had left him feeling very strange and, as far as he was concerned, it hung magically in the air about them, making everything beyond it seem dim and unclear. He felt lost in his thoughts, literally lost, for he couldn’t find where among them he actually was. The old mole crouched before him as if he were one of the trees, or a plant growing or the soil, part of the whole thing that seemed around him contained in the prayer. He was finally dragged—that’s what it felt like—out of these thoughts by Hulver, who asked him in a gentle voice, ‘Why have you come over to the slopes, can you tell me that?’ Bracken started to tell him, explaining how he was interested in the system, liked exploring and… and soon he was telling Hulver everything.
Talking on and on into the night, telling Hulver things he hardly knew about himself, complaining bitterly about his life, criticising Burrhead, saying finally that he hated him, expressing his contempt for Root, telling about Aspen’s stories, admitting his fear about leaving the home burrow to find his own territory. Now and again Hulver would nod encouragingly, but he never said more than two or three words or passed a judgement, making Bracken freer to say what he felt.
He was stopped finally by an ominous owl hoot somewhere high above and the sudden realisation, as he looked up and saw the shining crescent of a moon dimmed by clouds, that it was late, and getting later. He was tired, and felt he had never talked so much in his life. Hulver yawned, looked about him, and said, ‘Time for the burrow, my lad, time for sleep.
‘Now you are welcome to use this tunnel, though perhaps I should say continue to use it. But I’m going down to my burrow, which is a little way off, because it’s so much quieter.’ And with that he ran off into the night, Bracken following his course by sound until he went down an entrance and his sound was lost.
For a while Bracken crouched in the night alone, wondering about Hulver and enjoying the unusual calm and peace he felt. A snatch of the grace Hulver had spoken came back to him and he let its words run through his tired mind like the sound of the breeze in the long grass by the edge of the wood:
‘Let no mole adown our bodies
That may hurt our sorrowing souls.’
He changed the ‘our’ to ‘my’ the second time round, not knowing that Hulver, in his graciousness, had himself modified the words to take account of Bracken’s presence, for it was a prayer he often said for himself over his solitary meals. Bracken couldn’t remember all the words and promised himself that he would ask Hulver to repeat them so he could learn it; then he climbed down into the tunnel, carefully reblocked it again, and fell into a deep sleep.
But Hulver, resting his old snout on his greying paws, did not fall asleep immediately, thinking about the strange young mole now sleeping in one of his tunnels. For all the youngster’s confusion and bitterness, and his youthful carping at the Westside ways, there was something about him that pleased Hulver. He had a nice quick way with words; his damning criticism of some of the Westside moles, including Burrhead, was on target, while his obvious courage in exploring the system so far was impressive in one so young.
Hulver was excited, too, that he seemed to have a curiosity about the old system and something of the spirit for exploration that too few moles had. He paused in his thoughts, scratching his forehead with his left paw, trying to catch the words to express the effect Bracken had on him. ‘Never was much good with words,’ he muttered to himself, shifting into something nearer a sleeping position. ‘But I like the youngster, there’s something about him, even if he doesn’t look as if he could fight a flea.’
He thought about the impulse that had taken him to the part of his tunnels where he had found Bracken. The same warm impulse he had felt in recent weeks lifting him out of the long moleyears of pain and desolation that had followed the preceding Midsummer Night when he had been sure Rune had been listening in the shadows. Only with the new spring had the load lightened and something of his old love of life returned. And now, this Bracken had turned up on his territory, bold as a brash young pup.
‘Well,’ he told himself, drifting into a happy sleep, ‘I’ll teach him something about the Ancient System and its ways. What I know of them. I might even mention something of the rituals to him, some of these youngsters ought to know about them.’
So began the first friendship that Bracken ever knew and the last that Hulver ever enjoyed. A strange association of the oldest mole in the system, who had long lost his political power, and one of the weakest, who had no power at all.
In the June days that followed Hulver told him a great deal, and Bracken listened well, taking an active part in his imagination in all the adventures and journeys, fights and rituals that Hulver talked about.
He soon asked Hulver to take him up to the Ancient System, but Hulver always refused, one excuse following the other: ‘I’m too tired today for such a climb… it’s wormscarce up there at the moment, better wait a while… there’s nothing much to see that I can’t describe… too many owls now because moles have been gone too long.’ But all this didn’t put off Bracken, who only became more determined to go.
But there were other things to talk about as well. It was from Hulver that he first learned of Uffington, where the Holy Burrows were, and where mysterious White Moles were said to roam.