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to think about things a bit by myself.”
    “Aye, lad,” said Chater heavily, “you take the watch, but if you get tired rouse me and I’ll take over from you.”
    So ended their last conversation together us a group, and they went below into the shelter of the temporary burrow they had organized earlier, while Maple stared at the drifting mist, and wondered in his own way if love, personal or divine, would ever come to a mole such as he. For love was... what?
    Maple sighed and scratched himself, and watched the night bring out the stars and moon above, soft through the slight mist, as he listened to the rustles and calls of the creatures of the dark.

    By next mid-morning, after a trek over low, drear, marshy ground, they had reached the cross-over of Swinford, where decades before the Stone Mole himself had crossed the Thames. How huge and inexorable the grey flow of the great river seemed, as unremitting as the tide of change that had brought them to this place to part. How reluctant they were to move, knowing that once they did their true journeys would begin, whose outcome none could guess, but all must doubt.
    Fieldfare said her goodbyes on the near side of the crossover, preferring to wait below the roaring owl way along which Chater had to lead the others. She had hoped that the weather might clear and that together they might all have a last glimpse of Duncton Wood, which rose somewhere north-east of them. But that was not to be, and their home system now seemed almost as far away as the places to which their different tasks were sending them.
    “You have become my dearest friend,” whispered Fieldfare to Privet as they embraced a final time, “and you brought new thoughts, new ambitions, to my life. Why, I’d not be bound for Avebury but for you!”
    “Nor parted from the place you love!” replied Privet ruefully.
    “’Tis moles that matter most, not places, though I daresay I’ll miss Duncton almost as much as I’ll miss you!” Fieldfare sniffed a bit, and held Privet closer, her generous paws warm and firm on Privet’s thin back. “A lot goes with you, my dear Privet, something of our future I think, so look after yourself well, and remember that this mole who holds you now loves you as sister, as mother, and as friend all at once! And you, Whillan, and you too. Maple” she said, pulling back from Privet and going to the others, “you look after her for me and see she comes to no harm.”
    “We will!” they said, as each in turn was enfolded in Fieldfare’s embrace.
    “And you look after Chater!” they said to her.
    “Look after my beloved! Why, the Stone itself could not put us apart now. Look after him? I’ll not let my Chater suffer harm, and he’ll never see me hurt! Will you, beloved?”
    “Wouldn’t dare!” said Chater with a grin, adding gruffly, “now, come on, the time’s marching on and we better get across.”
    So up an embankment on to the roaring owl way they went, out of sight of Fieldfare, but never out of mind.
    “Don’t be long, my love!” called Fieldfare after them, for want of anything else to say, “don’t be long!”
    And if she shed a tear or two as she dolefully watched the Thames flow by, and sniffled a bit, and frowned and looked cross, it was all gone when, but a short time later, her Chater came back.
    “Well!” he said, that’s safely done. Now it’s just you and I, my love, on a journey into the unknown! Are you nervous?”
    “Course I am,” sniffed Fieldfare, “course I am, my dear. But remember when you and I first met, when we were no more than pups?”
    “I do, my sweet,” said Chater.
    “Well, I was nervous then. That was a journey we began then, wasn’t it? We had adventures aplenty on the way, even if together we never set a paw out of Duncton Wood. There were our tunnels to make, our pups to raise, our friends to learn to know and love. We said at the start that if we had troubles our love would see us through.”
    “Aye, we