From lgarg@crl.nmsu.edu Tue Feb 22 11:27:59 1994

        Title        : Duncton Wood -The Duncton Chronicles 1(till Page 365)
        Author       : William Horwood
        Published By : Arrow Books Limited
                       20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,London SW1V 2SA
        Edition      : 1986
        
GOT
________________________________________________________________________________




p.69-70:
 
[NP]
'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.
[NP]
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 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.



p.70-71:

'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.
[NP]
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.'


p.76:

[NP]
Hulver, too, was affected by their meeting. She seemed so, so . . . so
alive! Eager, and sighing, standing and crouching, sad, loving. (* 'Elder
meetings never start on time, anyway', HE THOUGHT TO HIMSELF,*) settling down
comfortably by her as a sign that he would talk for a little at least. 'I'll
tell you about Rebecca, your namesake, if you like, Rebecca the Healer of the
Ancient System.'

p.76:

Rebecca nodded happily; she had heard all about Rebecca but she didn't mind
hearing it again, not from Hulver.  [NP] But Hulver himself didn't know what he
was going to say, since (* IT ALL CAME INTO HIS MIND AND OUT AS WORDS *)
without him seeming to have too much to do with it. He felt very peaceful.
'Most of the stories you've heard are nonsense, I'm sure; harmless nonsense, of
course. It's just that we all like a good tale and if there seems to be a gap
in the telling of it, we fill it up with something we like to think might have
been-- and who knows, it might have been!' (* HULVER FELT AS IF HIS WORDS WERE
EXPLORING A TUNNEL DOWN WHICH HE HIMSELF HAD NEVER BEEN.*)




p.194-195:

'Get her food,' snapped Rune impatiently to the henchmole, who did so with ill
grace. 
[NP]
'Last bloody time I find worms for a female, I can tell her
that,' he muttered angrily as he hurled three worms down before her in the
tunnel where she lay. (* RUNE NOTED THIS REMARK DOWN IN HIS MEMORY.*) He didn't
trust moles who lost their tempers over something as trivial as that, or even
lost their tempers at all.


p.200:

Mandrake turned his back on the owl and left down the tunnel towards Rue's
burrow. His gait was suddenly heavy and ponderous and he felt tired. Tired and
old. It was true that in his confrontation with the owl image he had, finally,
lost all sense of physical fear, though Mandrake lived in too great a haze of
anger and confusion to know the fact. But when a mole loses such fear, (* THE
FREEDOM HE FINDS MAY SERVE ONLY TO MAKE HIM PREY TO THE DARKER, MORE PERILOUS
FEARS THAT LURK BEYOND ALL MOLES' BODIES AND INHABIT THEIR MINDS.*) [EP]




p.201:

[NP] Finally he came forward to her with enough noise for her to know that he
was there. She looked at him but did not run away as he expected. Instead, her
snout lowered in a gesture of total defeat and she asked him quietly, 'Have you
come to kill me?'
[NP]
(* SUCH A THOUGHT WAS SO FAR FROM HIS MIND --- INDEED, IT WAS SO FAR FROM HIS
EXPERIENCE *) --- that it quite took his breath away. He saw that she was
small and bedraggled and seemed very frightened, while he (and he looked at the
now much glossier fur above his paws and felt the much more powerful muscles
that had developed since he had started to regain his strength) was fit and
well and must seem confident. Why, he was an adult, and a male, and strong!
        


p.210:

[NP]
With her fourth dawn away from Barrow Vale, the dew was thick on the pastures
and Rebecca woke in the temporary burrow she had made near them, feeling at one
with the change that now moved so excitedly about her, rather than just a
delighted observer of it. (* FROM ITS FIRST MOMENT, THE DAY SEEMED TO CARRY HER
ALONG SO THAT SHE SURRENDERED TO ITS WILL AND DID WHATEVER IT SEEMED TO
WANT.*..) She was as hungry as ever on waking, but this put no urgency at all
into her stretching and grooming, which became a timeless exercise in
self-content. Time did not matter. Eventually, her coat glossy and her eyes
happy, she burrowed about for food before taking to the surface to see the day.
(..* AND THE DAY SEEMED SO FREE WITH ITSELF THAT IT ALMOST ASKED THAT *) she
should break free from the grass of the wood's edge and go out on to the fresh
pastures, the cool dew catching her paws and belly.



p.225-226:

The words that Hulver had taught him now came back and each one seemed to carry
a meaning for him which he had not seen when he first recited them:

                  'The grace of form
                  Tbe grace of goodness           
                  The grace of suffering
                  The grace of wisdom
                  The grace of true words         
                  The grace of trust              
                  The grace of whole-souled loveliness.'

(* THEN HIS MIND FELL SILENT FOR A TIME *) and (* HE SAW FOR A MOMENT PAST THE
IMPENETRABLE, IMPASSIVE FACE OF THE Stone INTO THE WORLD OF TRUST AND LOVE
BEYOND IT.*)

p.226:

[NP]
Weary, her wet paws sore, (* HER MIND DAZED AND UPSET *) Rebecca crouched down
in the Stone clearing looking up at the Stone, unafraid of the strange mole who
crouched off to her right in the pouring rain. She stared at the Stone for a
long time, wondering at its size and majesty, losing herself in its strength.



p.241:

[NP]
'September is a time of change. Leaves may be a delicate
green in June, but by September they decay. Some moles mate in September . . .
some moles like it, want it . . . then.  Or now, I should say.'
[NP] 
'Mating ... Rebecca ... now ...' The elements were
beginning to combine into swirling red and black poison in Mandrake's mind.
[NP]
'On the wood's edge, near the pastures', went on Rune,
adding hastily, but deliberately not hastily enough, an explanation of what he
meant: 'That's where I've been.  Fighting Pasture moles who had taken a Duncton
female into their darkness and done to her what she allowed them to do.
Trechery and danger.'
[NP]
'You mean Rebecca?' asked Mandrake, enraged but
fascinated at the same time. With each word that Rune now spoke (* A PICTURE OF
HIS REBECCA, HIS DAUGHTER REBECCA, HIS UNTOUCHED CHILD, HARDENED ON THE EDGE OF
HIS MIND WHERE NOMOLE AT FIRST LIKES TO LOOK, BUT TO WHICH A JEALOUS MOLE MAY
EASILY BE DRAWN.*) A picture of fur and darkness, of moving haunches and talon
scratches on backs, of moist snouts long and pointing and open mouths, and
white teeth and sensual smiles in the dark of a forbidden burrow. And his
Rebecca among them. His daughter!



p.245-246:

[NP] 
When one or other of the two great males hit the side of the entrance, the
whole burrow shook and earth flew, as Rebecca watched them, at first helpless
and confused.  As she did so, (* A POWERFUL AND UNWANTED EXCITEMENT RAN THROUGH
HER, A FORBIDDEN AND OBSCENE EXCITEMENT THAT SHE TRIED TO BLOT FROM HER MIND:*)
the excitement of seeing the two huge males both of whom she loved, fighting
for her.




p.264:
              
He scratched her with his paw, nuzzled hard into her, pressed himself closer
and closer to her, as she twittered and champed and swung her back round to him
and then back-quartered into him and he into her.
[NP]
(* 'He's like a pup', SHE THOUGHT DELIGHTEDLY,*) because she had never mated
before with a mole who was barely an adult. But when he finally understood what
it was about, and was on her and taking her, she was surprised at his strength
and laughed with pleasure at his delight in her and at the shuddering way he
relaxed into her.
 



p.275:

[NP] 
The tunnel was small and crudely burrowed into the subsoil, with a packed
floor, rough walls and a simple rounding for the roof. After a short way, it
split into two and, taking the right-hand fork, Bracken found that it almost
immediately split into two again. Worse, the tunnel began to curve confusingly
and then cut across other tunnels, and split yet more times.  To add to this (*
spatial confusion,*) the deeper he got, the louder the stressed murmuring he
had first heard so ominously in the Chamber of Dark Sound became, while (* THE
ECHOES OF HIS PAWSTEPS kept coming back to him, running in from all directions,
TRIPPING OVER THEMSELVES IN THEIR EAGERNESS TO CONFUSE HIM,*) disappearing off
behind him. Until he stopped, lost, and with (* no idea *) of whether he was going
forward or backward, away from the centre of the system or towards it.
[NP] 
It took him two long hours to find his way back again, and then only with
the greatest skill and patience as he marked each turn and (* THOUGHT CAREFULLY
BACK TO THE TWISTS AND TURNS HE COULD REMEMBER.*)
[NP]
It was while he was in the worrying process of doing this, crouching and
thinking what to do next and making no noise himself, that he began to suspect
what the vague murmurings he had first heard were, or might be.



p.288:

[NP] 
Yet, as he crouched there, upset and frustrated, (* FROM THE LIGHT-FILLED
RECESSES OF HIS SOUL, WHERE THE CHERISHED THINGS OF THE HEART LIE STILL AND
WAITING, THERE CAME A MEMORY OF THE Stone.*) Not as he had last seen it, with
the blood of Hulver and Bindle staining its shadow, but as he had first seen it
so long ago when he was little more than a pup and had been led up Duncton Hill
on the long trek, when there was no shame in celebrating Midsummer.
[NP]
It had stood massive, awe-inspiring and, somehow, safe, and he had looked up at
it, as the elders did their chanting and (* ALL HAD FADED AWAY FROM HIS MIND
BUT ITS SIZE AND MAJESTY, AND HIS SENSE THAT HE WAS PART OF IT.*) In the many
moleyears since, he had only ever thought of the Stone as a distant thing, for
(* THE SENSE OF GRACE THAT FLOWED INTO HIM THEN WAS OVERSHADOWED BY THE
FIGHTING AND LIVING, AND THE MATING,*..) that was the reality of Duncton in his
time.
[NP]
But now (..* THE GRACE RETURNED, DISTANT AND UNCERTAIN, BUT THERE ALL THE
SAME.*) He turned back down into the tunnels and went straight to Curlew.
              



p.296:

[NP] Mekkins was touched by the change that had come over Curlew herself since
Rebecca, and then Comfrey, had come.  They seemed to have put new life into her
and the mole he remembered as being so frightened and withdrawn was now
bustling with activity and full of purpose. (* 'Things certainly work out in a
strange way', HE THOUGHT TO HIMSELF *) as he departed, and that was something
to take comfort from.


p.312:
   

Then they were nuzzling each other, snouting softly at each other and whether
the sounds they made were of tears or joy, sobs or laughter, Mekkins could not
tell. They were the sounds of discovered love.
[NP]
(*'It's Longest Night!' THOUGHT Mekkins TO HIMSELF,*) filled suddenly with a
sense of its joyous mystery and witnessing for himself the power of the Stone
to make moles see each other. 'It's Longest Night!' Involuntarily he began to
sing a little song to himself and wander around the clearing to get a view of
the Stone on the side that was lit by the moon.
[NP]
Beneath it, Rebecca and Bracken seemed almost still, for Rebecca's nuzzlings
were of the gentlest, quietest sort, while Bracken's paw caresses were of the
softest and most tender.


 


p.313:

[NP]
He answered with a Marsh End ditty, and Rebecca started to laugh with a hint
of the old freedom Mekkins had thought he would never hear again, the laughter
that put hope into a mole's heart. But it was deeper and quieter than it had
once been. She stopped suddenly and turned again to Bracken and just looked at
him. And he looked at her. (* 'Why, she understands!' HE WAS THINKING. 'He
knows!' SHE SAID TO HERSELF.*)
[NP]
'Where are the worms, then?' said Mekkins. 'Where's the
feast? I don't know about you, Rebecca, but I ain't come all the way up 'ere
just to sing a song and get no food. Where is it, then?'
 



p.314:
                                       

And to see that there was something between these two young moles that gave joy
to an older mole like him to see, and which anymole with half a heart would
want to cherish and protect. But he wondered if it was just something that had
happened on Longest Night and which, in the morning, might not seem quite so
powerful as it did now. (* 'Still, a mole mustn't go spoiling the present by
fearing the future', HE THOUGHT TO HIMSELF,*) and so, more than content with
the joy of the night, he finally fell asleep.
[NP]
Bracken, on one side of the main burrow, and Rebecca on the other, both with
their snouts between their paws, (* FELL INTO THINKING THE WARM, RANDOM THOUGHTS
of the contented tired. Mekkins laughing, spring, dangers past, Rose, Rune,
Rue, echoing tunnels. Curlew's eyes, Comfrey, Cairn, Cairn, oh Cairn, the
Stone, what a time it'd been and how much had happened.*)




p.315:

[NP]
(* HE DID NOT THINK ABOUT THE ANSWER BUT RATHER WALLOWED WITH IT IN AN IMAGE OF
THE STONE, WONDERING WHAT THE QUESTION MEANT.*) He could say he didn't know,
and that was true; but it wasn't really, because he knew there was something
there. Why, there was so much he hadn't told them. He had got as far as the
circular tunnel with the seven entrances into the central part, but after that
he had felt it unwise to go on and had steered the conversation away.
[NP]
'I don't know', he said finally. 'Do you?'
[NP]
She wanted to say 'No', to shout 'No!' because she didn't, she couldn't, it had
let her litter die, it had let those talons come down, there was no Stone,
there was nothing, nothing; except that an image of Comfrey came to her
suddenly and she saw that there was something. (* There was so much they hadn't
talked about, she and Bracken, SHE THOUGHT TO HERSELF.*)
[NP]
She raised her head off her paws and looked at him, and found that he was
looking at her so deeply that her body seemed to fall away and only her heart
or her soul was there; while it seemed to Bracken, when she raised her head to
look at him, that there was nothing he could not tell her if she wanted to
know, and that most of all, he would like to tell her about the Stone, for that
was finally where everything, for good or ill, seemed to be.
[NP]
He started to say her name again and to move a little towards her, but then
he looked beyond her to the entrance to the burrow and (* THOUGHT BEYOND THAT TO
THE TUNNELS HE HAD CREATED, AND BEYOND THEM to the secret way he had made to
the circular tunnel, and ON BEYOND, racing along left and right, into the
labyrinths with echoes all around and his skin and fur, his whole body, calling
to the Stone, and great shadows of roots, great falls and rises of roots,
silent and completely motionless, while BEYOND THEM, calling him, BEYOND THEM *)
...[dots in text]




p.334:

[NP]
Mandrake's massive body moved uncomfortably in the (* DARK, HIS OWN DARK,
ACHING WITH THE LIFELONG EFFORT OF SEEING BEYOND THE WHIRLING BLIZZARD IN HIS
MIND AND FAILING, ALWAYS NOT QUITE SEEING,*) but remembering that he might have,
with Sarah, who surely could hear him calling when he took her and he tried to
say something but his body and the darkness wouldn't let him. Yes, she heard
him calling out of the blizzard, oh Sarah, she heard him out of the Siabod
ice.He membered that. Or was it Rebecca? With Rebecea. On and in Rebecca when
she heard him . . . yes, she did! She heard him. 'Where is she now? Where is
she?'


p.353:

[NP]

Violet started to protest, but Bracken gazed at her with such strength and love
that she simply retreated back to Rebecca's flank and waited for once for the
adults to do whatever they had to do. 'Rebecca will take care of you and I'll
be back', Bracken said gently to her. 'And don't you chatter so much this
time!'
[NP]
For a moment Rebecca and Bracken stared across the burrow at each other and the
light that seemed to have gone from them shone again, and time was not
important.(* 'Why it's there and always will be', THOUGHT REBECCA, KNOWING IT
WAS TRUE.*)
[NP]
'I'm not going either', said Curlew suddenly. 'These are my tunnels and
they've served me well, and I'll defend them.  I couldn't live anywhere else,
anyway.' Her mind was quite made up so that, with a shake of his head in
puzzlement, Mekkins led Rebecca and the youngsters away, and the burrow was
suddenly silent of them.




p.361:

Despite his overt weakness he seemed quite unafraid,
although a semblance of fear--very like that he had shown
before the other mole--would sometimes cross his face.
Bracken soon realised that this was a guise, a kind of mask he
wore to appear so pathetic that nomole would wish to persist
in tracking. (* 'Perhaps that's why he's managed to survive',
THOUGHT Bracken,*) whose only knowledge of crippled moles
was that they never survived their first summer because they
could not get territory of their own.



p.385:

[NP]
Bracken thought of the Stone, the Duncton Stone, and looked automatically
towards where he knew, without knowing, it must be. Its pull had been there all
the time, only he had not bothered to think of it before. But he did not face
it directly --- it made him feel too desolate and lost to do that.
[NP]
He turned his back to it and snouted out again, seeing if he could feel any
other pulls. Well, of course, there was Uffington; he could feel that. Deep and
distant but always strong. He crouched silent and still, (* LETTING HIS MIND
WANDER OUT OF HIS BODY AND AROUND THE HORIZON IN THE CIRCLE.*) It was hard not
to be continually pulled by Duncton and Uffington, the two Stone pulls with
which he was familiar, (* BUT SLOWLY HE FORGOT THEM, PUTTING THEM IN THE
BACKGROUND OF HIS BODY AND MIND AND SEEING WHAT ELSE HE COULD FEEL.*)
[NP]
Nuneham. He tried to reach out to it somehow. If it had a Stone, then surely he
would feel it as well! But he suddenly grew tired and ran back for cover again.
[NP]




p.397-398:

[NP]
She taught Rebecca by instinct rather than by design, for her mind was as
delightfully illogical as her burrow. Rhymes and sayings, thoughts and words,
ideas and laughter, all came at their own pace and in their own way, and
Rebecca was barely conscious that she was learning anything. Like the old
flower rhyme that Rose taught her one day to illustrate the herbs that give a
burrow a nice, long-lasting scent, and which Rebecca only discovered she
remembered many moleyears later:
[p.398]
                 Germander and marjoram,
                 Basl, meadowlweet,
                 Datsy-tops and tansies,
                 Fennel with brnet;
                 Roses in August,               
                 Lavender in June,              
                 Maudlin and red mint--
                 None will go too soon.

[NP]
They talked about a thousand things, but (* WHAT Rose MOST PUT INTO REBECCA'S
MIND WERE SEEDS OF THOUGHT TO GROW RATHER THAN FINISHED PLANTS TO FADE.*) And
she waited for Rebecca to ask the questions.




p.411-412:

[NP]
The dream seemed to continue. As Bracken watched, still half conscious, he
heard a fifth mole slowly enter the chamber on his left. He turned his
throbbing head towards it, and there he saw Mullion standing open-mouthed,
taking in the scene before him. (* Bracken could almost hear Mullion's thoughts
think themselves.*)
[NP]
Three moles lying around the chamber walls as if swept aside by a raging storm
and in the centre an old mole crouched still and peaceful, aged paws stretched
harmlessly before him, snout settling down comfortably on to them.
[p.412]
[NP]
(* 'Impossible!' Mullion WAS THINKING.              
[NP]
'Oh no, it's not', THOUGHT Bracken. AND THEN, 'Oh no,you don't!' *) as Mullion
started angrily towards the old mole. But he got up, turned his snout to
Mullion, seemed suddenly more powerful than anything Bracken had ever seen in
his life, and without so much as flexing a talon, brought Mullion to a
respectful halt.
[NP]


p.412:

He turned to the big mole at the side of the chamber, who raised his snout,
shook it, and said 'My name is Stonecrop, also of the Pasture system.'
[NP]
At this, both Bracken and Mullion started with surprise.
(* 'Stonecrop!' THOUGHT Bracken. 'Stonecrop. Brother of Cairn.
Known to Rebecca. So __that__[ital] was why ...'*)



p.418:
        

[NP]
Experience like this also taught Bracken to appreciate that a fight between
moles is not, at root, a physical thing at all but a spiritual confrontation.
The very idea of spirit was new one to him and he only learned of it in himself
by being made to observe it in other moles.  (* Mullion for example, had a
friendly, weak spirit with no 'hardness' or 'force' to it,*) and it was only
when Bracken himself sensed this that he understood Medlar's immediate
rejection of Mullion as a fighter.
[NP]
'But it is his real spirit,' said Medlar, 'and it is therefore a
powerful one, but it is not the spirit of a fighter. Win the loyalty of his
spirit, however, and you are strong indeed.'
[NP]
Bracken found that Stonecrop, on the other hand, (* HAD A VERY HARD AND
POWERFUL SPIRIT, THOUGH ONE THAT WAS INFLEXIBLE AND THEREFORE, IN MEDLAR'S
TERMS, FAIRLY EASY TO GET ROUND.*) (* IN HIS OWN MIND, Bracken came to
understand this by thinking of Stonecrop as a series of burrows and tunnels,
not unlike the Barrow Vale, where, if a mole kept his head and spirit firm, he
would eventually find a way through.*) It was understanding this that (*
CLEARED BRACKEN OF HIS FEAR *) of Stonecrop --- and simultaneously made
Stonecrop more respectful of Bracken.
[NP]
(* AS THESE INSIGHTS ABOUT FIGHTING CAME TO Bracken,*) he began to understand
other things that Medlar had taught.  One of them was the idea that there is no
such thing as a talon lunge by itelf: a proper fighter lunges with his whole
body, which for Medlar meant with his whole spirit.






p.431:

This mute exchange surprised Brome and he looked at Rebecca more closely, (*
his curiosity sliding very quickly into a kind of uneasy awe.*) Never before
had he been in the presence of a mole who gave him the impression that she knew
exactly what he was feeling. He saw as well that she was very beautiful, with a
coat of dark, silvery grey, whose sheen held the light of a clear sky after
rain.
[NP]
(* HE HAD A DOZEN THINGS IN HIS MIND TO SAY, BUT THEY ALL FELL AWAY BEFORE HER
STILL GAZE *) and (* HE SAID WHAT WAS IN HIS HEART: 'What are we going to do,
Rebecca?' *) She came forward and touched him for a second, a touch that
reassured him, and then she led the way back to Rose's tunnels where, without
another word, they sealed the tunnels together, soil falling on their fur as
with burrowing sweeps of their paws they retreated before it. It was the
Pasture way of doing things.



p.439:

[NP]
'It's all right', she said. 'I will go to the Marsh End-- let's
hope Mekkins is still secure. I want to go. Things are happening down there, I
think. Here too. It's all changing, Brome and whatever you try to do, there's
nothing you can do--but you must try.' She laughed at his bewilderment at her
words and added: 'I only half understand what I'm saying myself. It's all
right!'
[NP]
As Brome watched her leave, (* HE THOUGHT TO HIMSELF THAT *) there were times
when she spoke with the same mysterious certainty Rose had sometimes had. As if
she saw a world he could not see and there were no words to describe the
realities within it. Yet as she left alone, how vulnerable she seemed, and for
the first time (* HE SAW VERY CLEARLY *) how much in need of protection she really
was.
[NP]



p.459:

[NP]
Near Rune, Nightshade slipped her body among the contorted and twisted shadows
of the smaller roots of a beech tree--shapes it fitted perfectly. Her talons
wound and wove with continuous movement as if she were caressing the night air
into dangerous shapes as she snouted out the Stone beyond the darkness. She was
casting spells for victory.
[NP]
'When the moon is at its peak, Rune, I want to be free
with the Stone, yes . . . mm . . . to wipe the blood of the young into its
holes and crevices and make a curse on all the Marshenders unfortunate enough
to survive. What a pity if they all died. Yes . . . mm . . .'
[NP]
Her voice was slimy, like a dying worm, (* BUT IT CLUNG TO THE MIND OF ANY WHO
HEARD IT, SUFFOCATING ANY THOUGHT OF LOVE OR LIGHT OR COLOUR THAT MIGHT ALREADY
BE THERE AND ABORTING ANY ABOUT TO BE BORN.*) Rune, however, wallowed in its
sound.  Nightshade had waited a long time for this night, as had the dark and
treacherous generations whose dark endeavours had produced her, and other moles
like her who had lived on the edge of the system until the darkness of Rune
sucked them inside it, and to the very heart of Barrow Vale. Yes . . .  mm . .
.  -




p.559:

[NP]
The mole shook his head and said 'That is not possible. If the Holy Mole has
not told you what today is, then I certainly may not do so. Trust in the Stone
and go back to your burrow and meditate in peace.'
[NP]
(* 'Stuff this', THOUGHT BRACKEN TO HIMSELF,*) now thoroughly annoyed and
resisting the impulse to attack the scribemole.  He turned back the way he had
come, nodding his head as if in agreement with the scribemole and thinking that
rather than have a confrontation he would simply find some other way past the
chamber. (* THE THOUGHT TURNED INTO ACTION *) as soon as he got back to the
tunnel down which the two scribemoles who had ignored him had gone. He paused
there, crouched down, and for the first time since he had come to Uffington
felt his way into the tunnels about him.



p.572:

As Skeat had begun to curse Bracken, he stepped forward towards him, and
Bracken automatically stepped back to the very edge of the massive drop into
the chamber, for what mole dares raise a paw to such a holy mole as Skeat?
Everything was confused in Bracken's mind, for he could not understand Skeat's
words, or from where this terror had come to disturb the world of peace to
which the song had carried him. He felt like a pup suddenly and violently
cuffed by a mother or sibling who, until that moment, had only ever loved him.
So he began to sob in unbelieving fear, weak with confusion, and retreating
before a nightmare force. For his part, Skeat was quite as confused, for a Holy
Mole is, as he himself had always said, only another mole at heart. What
Bracken had done, or seemed to have done, had appalled him as nothing had ever
in his life appalled him before. He had run through the tunnels, round to this
second viewing point the sound of the song echoing in his ears and (* THE
PICTURE OF THE INTRUDING Bracken IN HIS MIND, BUT WITH WHAT INTENT HE HAD NO
IDEA.*)
[NP]
When he saw Bracken, the curse came from him as if he had no control over it,
and his confusion increased, growing even worse as Bracken retreated towards
the void of the chamber behind, looking not like a guilty mole or one who
thinks he has done something wrong, but like a pup who has lost his mother and
needs help.




p.575:

Eventually, he [Bracken], too, fell into a kind of trance and began to think of
Skeat, of what little Boswell had told him and what little he had seen of him
when they had talked. It was as he did so that (* AN IDEA CAME TO HIM, A
SUGGESTION, A POSSIBILITY, THAT GREW IN HIS MIND ONLY SLOWLY AS LIGHT GROWS AT
DAWN ON A WINTER'S MORNING.*..) He broke the silence around him with it,
speaking it out almost (..* BEFORE THE THOUGHT WAS CLEARLY INTO HIS MIND:*)
[NP]
'There is one thing I could do, or try to do if the Stone
would give me strength', he began, speaking in such a weak and broken voice
that it was hard to hear him. There was a murmur among the chosen moles, and
they looked up from their prayers at him.
[NP]







p.578:
                            
Well, perhaps it could, perhaps it would, and 'perhaps' became a word Rebecca
grew tired of using. A mole must live where a Stone has put her, or him, and
with those moles who happen by circumstance or fate to be living in the same
system. And nomole was more aware than Rebecca, healer now to the system of
Duncton, that (* HOPES AND MEMORIES ARE LIKE WINTER ACONITE, A SOURCE OF HEALTH
AND JOY IF USED ONE WAY, A DEBILITATING POISON IF USED ANOTHER.*) So, as the
summer advanced, (* SHE PUT HER Bracken FROM HER MIND *) and concentrated all
her energies on helping the moles about her.
[NP]



p.583:

The young who had been pups in spring now became adults, settling into their
own territory in the wide and expansive Ancient System and putting their life
into finding today's food rather than talking about yesterday's battles.
[NP]
(* Bracken, too, BECAME A MEMORY,*) an especially romantic and dramatic one it is
true, but a memory all the same. (* IN THE MINDS OF THE YOUNG, his leadership
against Rune and Mandrake was more legend than contemporary history,*) and
though many a youngster crouched by the Stone and gazed towards the west just
as Bracken was said to have done, few could really believe he still existed, or
could now come back.




p.583-584:
  
Some say now that it was a sudden vicious autumn hailstorm that reminded her of
the blizzard that Mandrake had once dragged her into on the pastures, when she
was a pup. Others, that it was simply that special sense she had always had of
where her healing was needed. Whatever it was, she knew that one day soon she
must leave Duncton and
[p.584]                     
seek out Siabod, where her father had come from. Oh, she remembered the
blizzard now, and understood again the terrible cry from Mandrake she had
heard, and which all her life with him she had never learned how to answer so
that he could trust her love.
[NP]
But the very absurdity of making such a journey, the inevitability of her dying
on the way, was so great that for days (* SHE DARED NOT EVEN ADMIT the
possibility of doing it TO HERSELF.*)
                                      



p.604:

Therefore the Stones themselves mean nothing. He
wanted to show that the Stone all moles worship and Siabod
moles have always revered is nothing. He wanted at once to
show how he despised our fears and mocked our belief.
Remember, in those days before the plague, all moles were
made to worship the Stone, but Y Wrach taught him not to,
at least she told him to take no part in our rituals. But then
Mandrake said, What Stone can exist when such suffering as
was wrought by his own birth can exist? And after the plague
came a lot of us came to see he was right, see?'
[NP]
(* THE THOUGHT HUNG ABOUT THEM, EACH CONSIDERING IT IN A 
DIFFERENT WAY.*) For Boswell the answer was as simple and as
peaceful as sitting still; for Bracken, who had seen plenty of
suffering in his own tlme, it was a questlon he had never been
able to answer. For Bran, it was not much worth thinking
about. They could not tell what Celyn thought at all.
[NP]


p.611:

[NP]
As the chanting music of her voice fell away, Celyn spoke the final words and
then there was a long silence, Bracken never taking his eyes from her as (* THE
IMAGES she had invoked of age, and of quest, and of Mandrake, to whom she spoke
as if he were still alive, MELDED IN HIS MIND AND SOARED TO THE Stones of
Siabod *) where he knew he must go.[EP]




p.619:

There was a kind of courage Boswell had seen in moles many times that was born
of ignorance and stupidity. Give such a mole a task, tell him to get on with
it, and off he goes.  But Bracken? He was not stupid, he had so many things he
understood and sought to live for, and yet on he went in the wake of this
fearful odour.
[NP]
(* 'Truly the Stone was wise to have bound me to Bracken', THOUGHT BOSWELL,*)
following with something near a rueful grin.
[NP]
They very soon found they had good cause to fear, for as the path took them
nearer to the stark rock face at the end of Cwmoer, leaving the lake now some
way behind and below them, they moved straight into the terrible smell again,
this time finding as well the awesome tracks of the creature that had made it.




p.627:


There had been another mole here, the only other mole that had dared venture in
his lifetime into Cwmoer. No good pretending he [a hound] had (* forgotten,*)
though many killings had (* ASSUAGED THE MEMORY.*) A bigger, darker mole than
either of these two, with talons as strong as a badger's.

That mole had faced him as well and not run away. Its odour was the fiercest of
any creature he had ever faced.  Faced! Does a hound talk of facing a mole! In
his nightmares he did, when he remembered the power in the mole who had faced
him contemptuously somewhere among these slate tips. He knew where.  (* SLOWLY
HE ADMITTED THE MEMORY TO HIS MIND *) and (* SAW AGAIN THE GREAT MOLE *) who
had snarled back at him near this very spot, talons as ready to kill as his
own, and had finally passed him dismissively by, turning its back
contemptuously on him and ignoring his howls.

Gelert's baleful eyes searched the great cliffs about him, feeling that
something was there and was staring at him, wishing him ill and robbing him of
his pleasure and will. He began to howl, while beneath the slate, Bracken began
to move, stirring himself into the action which he knew he must take and
which now (* NO LONGER CAST A SINGLE SHADOW OF FEAR INTO HIS HEART.*)




p.636:

[NP]
The first thing Bracken noticed about Rebecca was that she was with litter, and
not his litter. The second was that she was (* NOT THE MOLE, THE FICTITIOUS
FEMALE, HE HAD CREATED IN HIS IMAGINATION *) in the long moleyears of their
separation. This was not the mole he had prayed for, whose memory had comforted
him, (* WHOSE CARESS HAD BECOME IN HIS MIND LIKE THE MUSIC OF WATER OR WIND.*)
She was tired, she was older, she was worried.
[EP]



p.637:

[NP]
But there was an air of distrust about Bracken's contact with Rebecca
which put an impassable barrier between them so that, although both ached for
an expression of love, neither knew how it could be given. (* THE FACT THAT SHE
WAS WITH LITTER MADE HIM ANGRY AND TURNED AND TWISTED IN HIS MIND AND PUT A
BARRIER OF SUSPICION AND JEALOUSY BEFORE HIS EYES.*)
[EP]



p.687:

[NP]
Bracken watched indifferently--names didn't mean much to him. In fact, he was
thinking of something else, as fathers often do when faced by the wonder of new
life they have not borne themselves yet have helped to create and before which
they may often feel a curious impotence. (* `Can these pups really live to be
adult?' THEY THINK,*) as they gaze in awe at the weak, blind things that carry
life in every single movement they make.
[NP]
The four rolled and tangled up before him and (* Bracken's MIND TOOK HIM BACK
TO THE BLIZZARD *) on Moel Siabod and he wondered how such tiny things--for
Rebecca's Siabod litter could have been no bigger-- could ever have survived
conditions in which he himself had nearly died. The thought was horrifying.


p.702:

[NP]
How big he was now, how strong and young, and Rebecca could not help smiling
with love at the contrast he made with Bracken, whose face and sides were
scarred with the fights he had been in but whose eyes held the clear light of
peace Tryfan's did not yet have. But how hard-won had Bracken's peace been, and
how much courage a mole needed to hold on to it! Rebecca knew that the times
Bracken spent with the Stone were not always easy for him. They weren't for
her.
[NP]
It was at that moment, as Tryfan gazed on their love together,  and perhaps
(* WITH THEIR WORDS DURING THEIR LONG CONVERSATIONS ABOUT the Stillstone STILL IN
HIS MIND, that the FIRST DEFINITE MEMORIES of the Midsummer Night when he had
got lost BEGAN TO STIR IN HIS MIND.*)
[NP]
Soon after, he went up to the Stone and crouched by it in silence as the cold
evening darkened about him and wind stirred at the leaf litter, wet from
afternoon drizzle, as (* THOSE MEMORIES BECAME CLEARER AND HE SAW AGAIN, IN HIS
MIND, THE GLIMMER OF the Stillstone.*) Then he began to talk to the Stone,
seeking its guidance and help, as so many moles of so many generations had done
before him.
a