Read Online Duncton Found by William Horwood - Free Book Online

themselves the path they must follow.
    Betony and Bramble had become their watchers and friends, keeping them close when they were young and enjoying their company now they had grown and were nearly ready for what adulthood would bring. There was about Wharfe and Harebell a natural authority and strength, which had already begun to reveal itself. Harebell had a quality of grace and intelligence that seemed like a shining of light across her fur and in her eyes, and though there was natural cheer in her face and way yet somewhere within her, too, was a watchful sadness as if there were things in life, dark things, that she was preparing herself for.
    Wharfe was bigger than her, and stronger by far, and though he knew it not he had about his limbs that same strength which Tryfan had had when young. But more than that, he had an extra strength, checked for now, which showed only when he was angry, which was rare, and which had the hint of Mandrake of Siabod about it. Perhaps it was in the rougher edges of his fur, or the purpose of his talons, or the way his great head turned and stared, as Mandrake’s once had, at wild clouds as if in search of something lost. If this was the counterpart of Harebell’s hint of sadness it matched it well, and expressed what these two moles had suffered when, within moments of their birth, they had been taken from their mother’s teat, at her behest, and secreted far from Whern’s harmful influence.
    The sun had risen slowly that morning, and by its brightening light in leaf and dew they had taken their slow leisure. Then settling down near where the streamlet runs, and watching the sparkles in its flow, they talked again of what the future held. Each said they would travel to see the Stones of the Seven Systems, whatever grikes might say, and each agreed that of them all they wished most to see the Duncton Stone from which great Tryfan himself had come. From that way, too, the Stone Mole would surely come one day as well, to all of moledom – and certainly to Beechenhill!
    But then for a moment a chill had come to the air, the kind that Harebell knew made Wharfe uncomfortable, as, for a few seconds, nomole else but she noticed he stirred and looked northward, his eyes bleak and wild, his spirit lost. There a darker cloud moved in the sky, threatening to mar the beauty of the morning, rolling and rising in the sky. He saw it and so did she, but the others, staring and thinking of the south, had eyes only for the light of the sun.
    Wharfe crouched up, grew still, glanced briefly at his sister, and then down towards the south again as if to forget what he could not.
    “What is it, Wharfe?” asked Harebell with concern. The others became concerned as well.
    Wharfe looked at them all and smiled and said, “We are each other’s greatest friends, brother to brother, sister to sister, and wherever we may go we shall be as one. Soon, sooner than we know, we shall be apart. But a day must come when we shall be one again. Then... we shall meet at....”
    He paused and was silent.
    “The Duncton Stone!” said Bramble with excitement, liking the dream.
    “Here, on this very spot,” said Harebell, smiling.
    “I don’t know,” said Betony, capturing Harebell’s deeper concern.
    The three turned to Wharfe, for him to decide, but his question asked he seemed to have lost interest and turned back north to gaze at the dark mounting cloud that seemed to be bearing out of nothing towards them, right across the northern sky.
    Then he was wild again, staring this way and that, distressed.
    “I thought I heard....”
    “What did you hear?”
    “A note. Deep, like a calling to us all. Didn’t any of you hear it?” He seemed surprised and he looked troubled. The dark of his fur and powerful form was mirrored by the terrible approaching sky behind. Still the sun shone bright, but the day had a shadow across it.
    Then quite suddenly there was a note, deep and haunting, mournful, quite short, yet in