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said, “Whoever you are you’re not coming past me. I’ve got a whole army of moles behind me. I’m their...” He looked down at his unwarlike paws and pale talons. “... er adviser. Take my advice and go away. Don’t push me too hard for I am a killer! Yes indeed!”
    “What is thy name?” asked Boswell from his more distant shadows.
    “Oh!” and then, “oh dear!” exclaimed the mole, turning and tripping over himself at this new threat. “Two of you eh! Two against the many. Brave moles indeed!” He turned and looked back over his shoulder and shouted, “Stay back, do not kill them! They are merely foolish wanderers and are retreating.” Then, turning his voice into a conspiratorial hiss, he said, “I suggest you go while you can. The moles behind me are wretched killers, every one. Murderous.”
    Boswell said, “We are both of us well aware that there is nomole behind you. We come in reverence and friendship to the Holy Burrows.”
    “A likely story, but this is as far as you come. Go away now, like the good harmless moles you appear to be.”
    He managed a sickly smile, eyeing appraisingly Tryfan’s huge shoulders and massive talons.
    For reasons of his own Boswell stayed where he was.
    “Well, we’re not going,” said Tryfan, “and we mean you no harm. So answer my friend’s question: what is your name?”
    “Courtesy demands you tell me yours first,” said the mole with as much bold dignity as he could muster, which was not much. And yet Tryfan began to see that there was about him a courage a mole should respect.
    “My name is Tryfan and I am of Duncton Wood.”
    “And whither are you bound?” asked the mole in the traditional way, speaking now less tensely. Tryfan noticed that he had a refined scholarly voice, and though it seemed nervous it was more a habit of speech than real, for the mole fixed him with a steady gaze.
    “To here were we bound.”
    “How long thy travel?”
    “Six years our travel,” said Boswell from behind Tryfan.
    The mole looked at them. “And thy name?”
    But Boswell did not reply, nor appear yet from the shadow he was in.
    “No, thy name, for you have mine,” said Tryfan firmly.
    “Spindle, that’s me,” said the mole. “Yes, Spindle.” Repeating it rather doubtfully as if he did not quite believe in his own identity any more. He looked at Tryfan and settled down on to his paws.
    “There aren’t any moles behind you are there?” said Tryfan, just to make sure.
    “No. Not one. You’re the first moles I’ve seen in three years. Since Longest Night in fact. And a fine time you’ve chosen to come. Could have done with some help in January and February. Bit late now.”
    “Impressive, that sound you made,” observed Tryfan.
    “Yes indeed, those scribemoles knew a thing or two.”
    “Knew?” said Boswell from the shadows.
    “All gone now,” said Spindle. “Gone to the Stone. Not one left. Didn’t you see them? Murdered, everymole. Terrible. Can’t move the bodies myself.”
    “You’ve been moving something,” said Tryfan. “We could see the tracks.”
    “Books,” said Spindle. “Those that are left. To safety. Before the grikes come back. Though whatmole can read them now I know not as all the scribemoles have gone.”
    “No,” said Boswell with sudden authority. “Not all gone. One or two are left.”
    “Not so,” said Spindle firmly. “The last were snouted moleyears back. You can still see their bodies on the pastures.” He added with sudden hope, “Aren’t they the last then?”
    Boswell came slowly out of the shadows and shook himself free of dust and grime. As it cleared they saw that his coat seemed yet whiter, and that there was about him, enhanced perhaps by the great sense of age and history of the burrows in which they stood, a power and holiness which nomole could deny.
    Spindle got to his paws and backed a little in awe.
    “Who art thou?” he asked, again in the old way. “From where hast thou come?”
    “We