“Burr aye, all ee gates be well locked oop, an’ ee walls be too ’igh furr maister Dwopple to clamber o’er. Doan’t ee fret, marm, us’ll foind ’im afore long.”

Evening came and still they searched, finding no trace of the mousebabe. Badgermum Cregga and Friar Butty questioned Wugger and Blinny patiently.

“What time of day was it when you last saw Dwopple?”

“Urr, just afore lunch, zurr, on ee norff walltop.”

“Right, now what about this mister Stickybee? Did you see him?”

“Ho no, marm, us’n’s din’t see ’im!”

“Then how do you know there is such a creature?”

“Ee’m talked to uz an’ gived D’opple a candysweet.”

Friar Butty scratched his ear distractedly with the quill pen. “But how could he do all that and you still didn’t see him?”

“’Cos ee wurr outside, zurr, back o’ ee likkle wallgate. Stickybee slided D’opple a candyfruit unner d’door. Stickybee say ee give us’n’s a gurt bag o’ candyfruits if’n uz go oop to walltops.”

“But you two never went up there, only Dwopple did, right?”

Both molebabes nodded. Butty tried to hold his patience. “Why did you not tell us all this before?”

“’Cos you’m never axed uz, zurr.”

Cregga could not help smiling, despite her anxiety. “Well, Friar, there’s a bit of true mole logic. Wugger’s right, though, we should have thought to ask them a lot earlier. Come on, you two, ’tis dark out and way past your bedtime.”

Friar Butty walked back to the Abbey with them. “Cregga, marm, I don’t like the sound of this. Sounds like the Marlfoxes to me. Remember the night of the storm? These two practically described Marlfoxes to us, but nobeast believed them.”

Cregga felt for the Abbey door handle. “Aye, that’s true, Friar. But I want no mention of what they’ve told us made to anybeast yet. There’s no need to cause alarm. Dwopple may be found hiding somewhere before morning. We’ll just have to keep searching.”

“But what if we can’t find him?”

“Then we’ll just have to search the whole of Mossflower.” Mokkan and the other Marlfoxes sat around a fire on the creek edge, roasting a couple of plump waterfowl. The rats sat farther away, cooking fish over their own fires. Mokkan blew a feather from his muzzle tip and watched it float off into the night.

“Plenty of good vittles in this part of Mossflower. Nothing like a roasted bird after a good day’s work, eh!”

The cloak, with its top tied securely, hung from the bough of a beech tree close by, bobbing about as Dwopple kicked and protested from inside his prison. “You fibba liars, where mista Stickabee? Lemme go, I wanna bag o’ candysweets, you let Dwopple go!”

Gelltor slapped the bag lightly. “Quiet in there, or I’ll give you something to shout about!”