Every creature joined in the last rousing chorus and set up a loud cheer. The echoes bounced off the homely red walls and soared to the blue summer skies above. Dingeye and Thura cheered as loud as anybeast, then they looked at each other in slight bewilderment.

“Wot’re we cheerin’ for? We don’t even know who Martin is.”

“Well, whoever ’e is, I bet ’e don’t ’ave ter wash pots ’n’ pans. Oh aye, I shouldn’t think they’d be a-sayin’, “Ey you, with the mighty sword, get those greasy ol’ pots scrubbed.’”

Samkim explained about Martin to the stoats. “Martin the Warrior is the symbol of our Abbey. He lived many many years ago.”

Dingeye waved a careless paw. “Oh, y’mean ’e’s dead. No wonder they never make ’im wash pots, heeheehee! Yowch!”

Thrugg had clipped Dingeye neatly over the ear. “Show some respect, matey. Martin is our Abbey Warrior.”

Ruefully rubbing his stinging ear, the stoat complained, “Well, ’ow was I ter know? Besides, if a creature’s dead, then ’e’s finished, an’ that’s all there is to it.”

Sister Nasturtium patted the stoat’s back. “You don’t understand. Martin may have died a long time ago, but his spirit lives on in the very stones of Redwall and its creatures. Maybe he has not been seen or felt because this is a time of peace, though in troubled times he has visited certain ones and inspired them to great deeds.”

Thura scratched his head. “Have you ever seen Martin?”

A silence fell over the company as they watched Nasturtium. She looked as if she were dreaming. With her eyes wide open fixed on the red stone walls in front of her, she started slowly to recite words they had never heard before.

“I am but an orchard shadow in the sunny tide of noon,

The dust of olden seasons on a stone.

My paw is light and silent as a waning autumn moon;

I walk the halls of memory, alone.

You may hear me as a whisper that the wind has left behind,

Or see me as the pale calm light of dawn,

Feel me take the toll of care, from off your sleeping mind,

In times of deep despair and hope forlorn.

Then I will be beside you in the corridors of dream.

A warrior’s strength I’ll give to you, my friend,

Like the waters of a storm that swell a tiny mountain stream,

A mightiness your loved ones to defend.

Injustice and evil will flee from your law,

As all about you will say,

‘There walks one touched, by the Warrior’s paw.’

So wait, I will find you one day.”

In the eerie hush that followed, little Dumble’s voice piped up. “Aaaahhh silly! I no no worra’s all about, Sista.”