"Blackberry?"

        "He's down the hole," replied Pipkin.

        "Go and get him."

        Still the strange rabbit made no move. The wind rose and the long grass began to flutter and ripple in the dip between them. From behind, Blackberry said,

        "You wanted me, Hazel?"

        "I'm going over to speak to that rabbit," said Hazel. "I want you to come with me."

        "Can I come?" asked Pipkin.

        "No, Hlao-roo. We don't want to frighten him. Three's too many."

        "Be careful," said Buckthorn, as Hazel and Blackberry set off down the slope. "He may not be the only one."

        At several points the brook was narrow--not much wider than a rabbit run. They jumped it and went up the opposite slope.

        "Just behave as if we were back at home," said Hazel. "I don't see how it can be a trap, and anyway we can always run."

        As they approached, the other rabbit kept still and watched them intently. They could see now that he was a big fellow, sleek and handsome. His fur shone and his claws and teeth were in perfect condition. Nevertheless, he did not seem aggressive. On the contrary, there was a curious, rather unnatural gentleness about the way in which he waited for them to come nearer. They stopped and looked at him from a little distance.

        "I don't think he's dangerous," whispered Blackberry. "I'll go up to him first if you like."

        "We'll both go," replied Hazel. But at this moment the other rabbit came toward them of his own accord. He and Hazel touched their noses together, sniffing and questioning silently. The stranger had an unusual smell, but it was certainly not unpleasant. It gave Hazel an impression of good feeding, of health and of a certain indolence, as though the other came from some rich, prosperous country where he himself had never been. He had the air of an aristocrat and as he turned to gaze at Blackberry from his great brown eyes, Hazel began to see himself as a ragged wanderer, leader of a gang of vagabonds. He had not meant to be the first to speak, but something in the other's silence compelled him.

        "We've come over the heather," he said.

        The other rabbit made no reply, but his look was not that of an enemy. His demeanor had a kind of melancholy which was perplexing.

        "Do you live here?" asked Hazel, after a pause.

        "Yes," replied the other rabbit; and then added, "We saw you come."

        "We mean to live here, too," said Hazel firmly.

        The other rabbit showed no concern. He paused and then answered, "Why not? We supposed you would. But I don't think there are enough of you, are there, to live very comfortably on your own?"

        Hazel felt puzzled. Apparently the stranger was not worried by the news that they meant to stay. How big was his warren? Where was it? How many rabbits were concealed in the copse and watching them now? Were they likely to be attacked? The stranger's manner told nothing. He seemed detached, almost bored, but perfectly friendly. His lassitude, his great size and beautiful, well-groomed appearance, his unhurried air of having all he wanted and of being unaffected by the newcomers one way or the other--all these presented Hazel with a problem unlike anything he had had to deal with before. If there was some kind of trick, he had no idea what it might be. He decided that he himself, at any rate, would be perfectly candid and plain.

        "There are enough of us to protect ourselves," he said. "We don't want to make enemies, but if we meet with any kind of interference--"

        The other interrupted smoothly. "Don't get upset--you're all very welcome. If you're going back now, I'll come over with you: that is, unless you have any objection."

        He set off down the slope. Hazel and Blackberry, after looking at each other for a moment, caught him up and went beside him. He moved easily, without haste and showed less caution than they in crossing the field. Hazel felt more mystified than ever. The other rabbit evidently had no fear that they might set upon him, hrair to one, and kill him. He was ready to go alone among a crowd of suspicious strangers, but what he stood to gain from this risk it was impossible to guess. Perhaps, thought Hazel wryly, teeth and claws would make no impression on that great, firm body and shining pelt.

        When they reached the ditch, all the other rabbits were squatting together, watching their approach. Hazel stopped in front of them but did not know what to say. If the stranger had not been there, he would have given them an account of what had happened. If Blackberry and he had driven the stranger across the field by force, he could have handed him over for safekeeping to Bigwig or Silver. But to have him sitting beside him, looking his followers over in silence and courteously waiting for someone else to speak first--this was a situation beyond Hazel's experience. It was Bigwig, straightforward and blunt as always, who broke the tension.

        "Who is this, Hazel?" he said. "Why has he come back with you?"

        "I don't know," answered Hazel, trying to look frank and feeling foolish. "He came of his own accord."

        "Well, we'd better ask him, then," said Bigwig, with something like a sneer. He came close to the stranger and sniffed, as Hazel had done. He, too, was evidently affected by the peculiar smell of prosperity, for he paused as though in uncertainty. Then, with a rough, abrupt air, he said, "Who are you and what do you want?"

        "My name is Cowslip," said the other. "I don't want anything. I hear you've come a long way."

        "Perhaps we have," said Bigwig. "We know how to defend ourselves, too."

        "I'm sure you do," said Cowslip, looking round at the mud-stained, bedraggled rabbits with an air of being too polite to comment. "But it can be hard to defend oneself against the weather. There's going to be rain and I don't think your scrapes are finished." He looked at Bigwig, as though waiting for him to ask another question. Bigwig seemed confused. Clearly, he could make no more of the situation than Hazel. There was silence except for the sound of the rising wind. Above them, the branches of the oak tree were beginning to creak and sway. Suddenly, Fiver came forward.

        "We don't understand you," he said. "It's best to say so and try to get things clear. Can we trust you? Are there many other rabbits here? Those are the things we want to know."

        Cowslip showed no more concern at Fiver's tense manner than he had at anything that had gone before. He drew a forepaw down the back of one ear and then replied,

        "I think you're puzzling yourselves unnecessarily. But if you want the answers to your questions, then I'd say yes, you can trust us: we don't want to drive you away. And there is a warren here, but not as big a one as we should like. Why should we want to hurt you? There's plenty of grass, surely?"

        In spite of his strange, clouded manner, he spoke so reasonably that Hazel felt rather ashamed.

        "We've been through a lot of danger," he said. "Everything new seems like danger to us. After all, you might be afraid that we were coming to take your does or turn you out of your holes."

        Cowslip listened gravely. Then he answered,

        "Well, as to holes, that was something I thought I might mention. These scrapes aren't very deep or comfortable, are they? And although they're facing out of the wind now, you ought to know that this isn't the usual wind we get here. It's blowing up this rain from the south. We usually have a west wind and it'll go straight into these holes. There are plenty of empty burrows in our warren and if you want to come across you'll be welcome. And now if you'll excuse me, I won't stay any longer. I hate the rain. The warren is round the corner of the wood opposite."

        He ran down the slope and over the brook. They watched him leap the bank of the further copse and disappear through the green bracken. The first scatters of rain were beginning to fall, pattering into the oak leaves and pricking the bare pink skin inside their ears.

        "Fine, big fellow, isn't he?" said Buckthorn. "He doesn't look as though he had much to bother about, living here."

        "What should we do, Hazel, do you think?" asked Silver. "It's true what he said, isn't it? These scrapes--well, we can crouch in them out of the weather, but no more than that. And as we can't all get into one, we shall have to split up."

        "We'll join them together," said Hazel, "and while we're doing that I'd like to talk about what he said. Fiver, Bigwig and Blackberry, can you come with me? The rest of you split how you like."

        The new hole was short, narrow and rough. There was no room for two rabbits to pass. Four were like beans in a pod. For the first time, Hazel began to realize how much they had left behind. The holes and tunnels of an old warren become smooth, reassuring and comfortable with use. There are no snags or rough corners. Every length smells of rabbit--of that great, indestructible flood of Rabbitry in which each one is carried along, sure-footed and safe. The heavy work has all been done by countless great-grandmothers and their mates. All the faults have been put right and everything in use is of proved value. The rain drains easily and even the wind of midwinter cannot penetrate the deeper burrows. Not one of Hazel's rabbits had ever played any part in real digging. The work they had done that morning was trifling and all they had to show for it was rough shelter and little comfort.

        There is nothing like bad weather to reveal the shortcomings of a dwelling, particularly if it is too small. You are, as they say, stuck with it and have leisure to feel all its peculiar irritations and discomforts. Bigwig, with his usual brisk energy, set to work. Hazel, however, returned and sat pensive at the lip of the hole, looking out at the silent, rippling veils of rain that drifted across and across the little valley between the two copses. Closer, before his nose, every blade of grass, every bracken frond was bent, dripping and glistening. The smell of last year's oak leaves filled the air. It had turned chilly. Across the field the bloom of the cherry tree under which they had sat that morning hung sodden and spoiled. While Hazel gazed, the wind slowly veered round into the west, as Cowslip had said it would, and brought the rain driving into the mouth of the hole. He backed down and rejoined the others. The pattering and whispering of the rain sounded softly but distinctly outside. The fields and woods were shut in under it, emptied and subdued. The insect life of the leaves and grass was stilled. The thrush should have been singing, but Hazel could hear no thrush. He and his companions were a muddy handful of scratchers, crouching in a narrow, drafty pit in lonely country. They were not out of the weather. They were waiting, uncomfortably, for the weather to change.

        "Blackberry," said Hazel, "what did you think of our visitor and how would you like to go to his warren?"

        "Well," replied Blackberry, "what I think is this. There's no way of finding out whether he's to be trusted except to try it. He seemed friendly. But then, if a lot of rabbits were afraid of some newcomers and wanted to deceive them--get them down a hole and attack them--they'd start--wouldn't they?--by sending someone who was plausible. They might want to kill us. But then again, as he said, there's plenty of grass and as for turning them out or taking their does, if they're all up to his size and weight they've nothing to fear from a crowd like us. They must have seen us come. We were tired. Surely that was the time to attack us? Or while we were separated, before we began digging? But they didn't. I reckon they're more likely to be friendly than otherwise. There's only one thing beats me. What do they stand to get from asking us to join their warren?"

        "Fools attract elil by being easy prey," said Bigwig, cleaning the mud out of his whiskers and blowing through his long front teeth. "And we're fools until we've learned to live here. Safer to teach us, perhaps. I don't know--give it up. But I'm not afraid to go and find out. If they do try any tricks, they'll find I know a few as well. I wouldn't mind taking a chance, to sleep somewhere more comfortable than this. We haven't slept since yesterday afternoon."

        "Fiver?"

        "I think we ought to have nothing to do with that rabbit or his warren. We ought to leave this place at once. But what's the good of talking?"

        Cold and damp, Hazel felt impatient. He had always been accustomed to rely on Fiver and now, when he really needed him, he was letting them down. Blackberry's reasoning had been first-rate and Bigwig had at least shown which way any sound-hearted rabbit would be likely to lean. Apparently the only contribution Fiver could make was this beetle-spirited vaporing. He tried to remember that Fiver was undersized and that they had had an anxious time and were all weary. At this moment the soil at the far end of the burrow began to crumble inward: then it fell away and Silver's head and front paws appeared.

        "Here we are," said Silver cheerfully. "We've done what you wanted, Hazel: and Buckthorn's through next door. But what I'd like to know is, how about What's-His-Name? Cowpat--no--Cowslip? Are we going to his warren or not? Surely we're not going to sit cowering in this place because we're frightened to go and see him. Whatever will he think of us?"

        "I'll tell you," said Dandelion, from over his shoulder. "If he's not honest, he'll know we're afraid to come: and if he is, he'll think we're suspicious, cowardly skulkers. If we're going to live in these fields, we'll have to get on terms with his lot sooner or later, and it goes against the grain to hang about and admit we daren't visit them."

        "I don't know how many of them there are," said Silver, "but we're quite a crowd. Anyhow, I hate the idea of just keeping away. How long have rabbits been elil? Old Cowslip wasn't afraid to come into the middle of us, was he?"

        "Very well," said Hazel. "That's how I feel myself. I just wanted to know whether you did. Would you like Bigwig and me to go over there first, by ourselves, and report back?"

        "No," said Silver. "Let's all go. If we're going at all, for Frith's sake let's do it as though we weren't afraid. What do you say, Dandelion?"

        "I think you're right."

        "Then we'll go now," said Hazel. "Get the others and follow me."

        Outside, in the thickening light of the late afternoon, with the rain trickling into his eyes and under his scut, he watched them as they joined him. Blackberry, alert and intelligent, looking first up and then down the ditch before he crossed it. Bigwig, cheerful at the prospect of action. The steady, reliable Silver. Dandelion, the dashing storyteller, so eager to be off that he jumped the ditch and ran a little way into the field before stopping to wait for the rest. Buckthorn, perhaps the most sensible and staunch of them all. Pipkin, who looked round for Hazel and then came over to wait beside him. Acorn, Hawkbit and Speedwell, decent enough rank-and-filers as long as they were not pushed beyond their limits. Last of all came Fiver, dejected and reluctant as a sparrow in the frost. As Hazel turned from the hole, the clouds in the west broke slightly and there was a sudden dazzle of watery, pale gold light.

        "O El-ahrairah!" thought Hazel. "These are rabbits we're going to meet. You know them as well as you know us. Let it be the right thing that I'm doing."

        "Now, brace up, Fiver!" he said aloud. "We're waiting for you, and getting wetter every moment."

        A soaking bumblebee crawled over a thistle bloom, vibrated its wings for a few seconds and then flew away down the field. Hazel followed, leaving a dark track behind him over the silvered grass.

13.    Hospitality

In the afternoon they came unto a land

In which it seemed always afternoon.

All round the coast the languid air did swoon,

Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.

Tennyson, The Lotus-Eaters

The corner of the opposite wood turned out to be an acute point. Beyond it, the ditch and trees curved back again in a re-entrant, so that the field formed a bay with a bank running all the way round. It was evident now why Cowslip, when he left them, had gone among the trees. He had simply run in a direct line from their holes to his own, passing on his way through the narrow strip of woodland that lay between. Indeed, as Hazel turned the point and stopped to look about him, he could see the place where Cowslip must have come out. A clear rabbit track led from the bracken, under the fence and into the field. In the bank on the further side of the bay the rabbit holes were plain to see, showing dark and distinct in the bare ground. It was as conspicuous a warren as could well be imagined.

        "Sky above us!" said Bigwig. "Every living creature for miles must know that's there! Look at all the tracks in the grass, too! Do you think they sing in the morning, like the thrushes?"

        "Perhaps they're too secure to bother about concealing themselves," said Blackberry. "After all, the home warren was fairly plain to be seen."

        "Yes, but not like that! A couple of hrududil could go down some of those holes."

        "So could I," said Dandelion. "I'm getting dreadfully wet."

        As they approached, a big rabbit appeared over the edge of the ditch, looked at them quickly and vanished into the bank. A few moments later two others came out and waited for them. They, too, were sleek and unusually large.

        "A rabbit called Cowslip offered us shelter here," said Hazel. "Perhaps you know that he came to see us?"

        Both rabbits together made a curious, dancing movement of the head and front paws. Apart from sniffing, as Hazel and Cowslip had done when they met, formal gestures--except between mating rabbits--were unknown to Hazel and his companions. They felt mystified and slightly ill at ease. The dancers paused, evidently waiting for some acknowledgment or reciprocal gesture, but there was none.

        "Cowslip is in the great burrow," said one of them at length. "Would you like to follow us there?"

        "How many of us?" asked Hazel.

        "Why, all of you," answered the other, surprised. "You don't want to stay out in the rain, do you?"

        Hazel had supposed that he and one or two of his comrades would be taken to see the Chief Rabbit--who would probably not be Cowslip, since Cowslip had come to see them unattended--in his burrow, after which they would all be given different places to go to. It was this separation of which he had been afraid. He now realized with astonishment that there was apparently a part of the warren underground which was big enough to contain them all together. He felt so curious to visit it that he did not stop to make any detailed arrangements about the order in which they should go down. However, he put Pipkin immediately behind him. "It'll warm his little heart for once," he thought, "and if the leaders do get attacked, I suppose we can spare him easier than some." Bigwig he asked to bring up the rear. "If there's any trouble, get out of it," he said, "and take as many as you can with you." Then he followed their guides into one of the holes in the bank.

        The run was broad, smooth and dry. It was obviously a highway, for other runs branched off it in all directions. The rabbits in front went fast and Hazel had little time to sniff about as he followed. Suddenly he checked. He had come into an open place. His whiskers could feel no earth in front and none was near his sides. There was a good deal of air ahead of him--he could feel it moving--and there was a considerable space above his head. Also, there were several rabbits near him. It had not occurred to him that there would be a place underground where he would be exposed on three sides. He backed quickly and felt Pipkin at his tail. "What a fool I was!" he thought. "Why didn't I put Silver there?" At this moment he heard Cowslip speaking. He jumped, for he could tell that he was some way away. The size of the place must be immense.

        "Is that you, Hazel?" said Cowslip. "You're welcome, and so are your friends. We're glad you've come."

        No human beings, except the courageous and experienced blind, are able to sense much in a strange place where they cannot see, but with rabbits it is otherwise. They spend half their lives underground in darkness or near-darkness, and touch, smell and hearing convey as much or more to them than sight. Hazel now had the clearest knowledge of where he was. He would have recognized the place if he had left at once and come back six months later. He was at one end of the largest burrow he had ever been in; sandy, warm and dry, with a hard, bare floor. There were several tree roots running across the roof and it was these that supported the unusual span. There was a great number of rabbits in the place--many more than he was bringing. All had the same rich, opulent smell as Cowslip.

        Cowslip himself was at the other end of the hall and Hazel realized that he was waiting for him to reply. His own companions were still coming out of the entrance burrow one by one and there was a good deal of scrabbling and shuffling. He wondered if he ought to be very formal. Whether or not he could call himself a Chief Rabbit, he had had no experience of this sort of thing. The Threarah would no doubt have risen to the occasion perfectly. He did not want to appear at a loss or to let his followers down. He decided that it would be best to be plain and friendly. After all, there would be plenty of time, as they settled down in the warren, to show these strangers that they were as good as themselves, without risking trouble by putting on airs at the start.

        "We're glad to be out of the bad weather," he said. "We're like all rabbits--happiest in a crowd. When you came over to see us in the field, Cowslip, you said your warren wasn't large, but judging by the holes we saw along the bank, it must be what we'd reckon a fine, big one."

        As he finished he sensed that Bigwig had just entered the hall, and knew that they were all together again. The stranger rabbits seemed slightly disconcerted by his little speech and he felt that for some reason or other he had not struck the right note in complimenting them on their numbers. Perhaps there were not very many of them after all? Had there been disease? There was no smell or sign of it. These were the biggest and healthiest rabbits he had ever met. Perhaps their fidgeting and silence had nothing to do with what he had said? Perhaps it was simply that he had not spoken very well, being new to it, and they felt that he was not up to their fine ways? "Never mind," he thought. "After last night I'm sure of my own lot. We wouldn't be here at all if we weren't handy in a pinch. These other fellows will just have to get to know us. They don't seem to dislike us, anyway."

        There were no more speeches. Rabbits have their own conventions and formalities, but these are few and short by human standards. If Hazel had been a human being he would have been expected to introduce his companions one by one and no doubt each would have been taken in charge as a guest by one of their hosts. In the great burrow, however, things happened differently. The rabbits mingled naturally. They did not talk for talking's sake, in the artificial manner that human beings--and sometimes even their dogs and cats--do. But this did not mean that they were not communicating; merely that they were not communicating by talking. All over the burrow, both the newcomers and those who were at home were accustoming themselves to each other in their own way and their own time; getting to know what the strangers smelled like, how they moved, how they breathed, how they scratched, the feel of their rhythms and pulses. These were their topics and subjects of discussion, carried on without the need of speech. To a greater extent than a human in a similar gathering, each rabbit, as he pursued his own fragment, was sensitive to the trend of the whole. After a time, all knew that the concourse was not going to turn sour or break up in a fight. Just as a battle begins in a state of equilibrium between the two sides, which gradually alters one way or the other until it is clear that the balance has tilted so far that the issue can no longer be in doubt--so this gathering of rabbits in the dark, beginning with hesitant approaches, silences, pauses, movements, crouchings side by side and all manner of tentative appraisals, slowly moved, like a hemisphere of the world into summer, to a warmer, brighter region of mutual liking and approval, until all felt sure that they had nothing to fear. Pipkin, some way away from Hazel, crouched at his ease between two huge rabbits who could have broken his back in a second, while Buckthorn and Cowslip started a playful scuffle, nipping each other like kittens and then breaking off to comb their ears in a comical pretense of sudden gravity. Only Fiver sat alone and apart. He seemed either ill or very much depressed, and the strangers avoided him instinctively.

        The knowledge that the gathering was safely round the corner came to Hazel in the form of a recollection of Silver's head and paws breaking through gravel. At once, he felt warm and relaxed. He had already crossed the whole length of the hall and was pressed close to two rabbits, a buck and a doe, each of whom was fully as large as Cowslip. When both together took a few slow hops down one of the runs nearby, Hazel followed and little by little they all three moved out of the hall. They came to a smaller burrow, deeper underground. Evidently this belonged to the couple, for they settled down as though at home and made no objection when Hazel did the same. Here, while the mood of the great hall slowly passed from them, all three were silent for a time.

        "Is Cowslip the Chief Rabbit?" asked Hazel at length.

        The other replied with a question. "Are you called Chief Rabbit?"

        Hazel found this awkward to answer. If he replied that he was, his new friends might address him so for the future, and he could imagine what Bigwig and Silver would have to say about that. As usual, he fell back on plain honesty.

        "We're only a few," he said. "We left our warren in a hurry to escape from bad things. Most stayed behind and the Chief Rabbit was one of them. I've been trying to lead my friends, but I don't know whether they'd care to hear me called Chief Rabbit."

        "That'll make him ask a few questions," he thought. " 'Why did you leave? Why didn't the rest come? What were you afraid of?' And whatever am I going to say?"

        When the other rabbit spoke, however, it was clear that either he had no interest in what Hazel had said, or else he had some other reason for not questioning him.

        "We don't call anyone Chief Rabbit," he said. "It was Cowslip's idea to go and see you this afternoon, so he was the one who went."

        "But who decides what to do about elil? And digging and sending out scouting parties and so on?"

        "Oh, we never do anything like that. Elil keep away from here. There was a homba last winter, but the man who comes through the fields, he shot it with his gun."

        Hazel stared. "But men won't shoot a homba."

        "Well, he killed this one, anyway. He kills owls too. We never need to dig. No one's dug in my lifetime. A lot of the burrows are lying empty, you know: rats, live in one part, but the man kills them as well, when he can. We don't need expeditions. There's better food here than anywhere else. Your friends will be happy living here."

        But he himself did not sound particularly happy and once again Hazel felt oddly perplexed. "Where does the man--" he began. But he was interrupted.

        "I'm called Strawberry. This is my doe, Nildro-hain.* Some of the best empty burrows are quite close. I'll show you, in case your friends want to settle into them. The great burrow is a splendid place, don't you think? I'm sure there can't be many warrens where all the rabbits can meet together underground. The roofs all tree roots, you know, and of course the tree outside keeps the rain from coming through. It's a wonder the tree's alive, but it is."

        Hazel suspected that Strawberry's talking had the real purpose of preventing his own questions. He was partly irritated and partly mystified.

        "Never mind," he thought. "If we all get as big as these chaps, we shall do pretty well. There must be some good food round here somewhere. His doe's a beautiful creature, too. Perhaps there are some more like her in the warren."

        Strawberry moved out of the burrow and Hazel followed him into another run, leading deeper down below the wood. It was certainly a warren to admire. Sometimes, when they crossed a run that led upward to a hole, he could hear the rain outside, still falling in the night. But although it had now been raining for several hours, there was not the least damp or cold either in the deep runs or in the many burrows that they passed. Both the drainage and the ventilation were better than he had been accustomed to. Here and there other rabbits were on the move. Once they came upon Acorn, who was evidently being taken on a tour of the same kind. "Very friendly, aren't they?" he said to Hazel as they passed one another. "I never dreamed we'd reach a place like this. You've got wonderful judgment, Hazel." Strawberry waited politely for him to finish speaking and Hazel could not help feeling pleased that he must have heard.

        At last, after skirting carefully round some openings from which there was a distinct smell of rats, they halted in a kind of pit. A steep tunnel led up into the air. Rabbit runs tend to be bow-shaped; but this was straight, so that above them, through the mouth of the hole, Hazel could see leaves against the night sky. He realized that one wall of the pit was convex and made of some hard substance. He sniffed at it uncertainly.

        "Don't you know what those are?" said Strawberry. "They're bricks; the stones that men make their houses and barns out of. There used to be a well here long ago, but it's filled up now--the men don't use it any more. That's the outer side of the well shaft. And this earth wall here is completely flat because of some man thing fixed behind it in the ground, but I'm not sure what."

        "There's something stuck on it," said Hazel. "Why, they're stones, pushed into the surface! But what for?"

        "Do you like it?" asked Strawberry.

        Hazel puzzled over the stones. They were all the same size, and pushed at regular intervals into the soil. He could make nothing of them.

        "What are they for?" he asked again.

        "It's El-ahrairah," said Strawberry. "A rabbit called Laburnum did it, some time ago now. We have others, but this is the best. Worth a visit, don't you think?"

        Hazel was more at a loss than ever. He had never seen a laburnum and was puzzled by the name, which in Lapine is "Poison Tree." How could a rabbit be called Poison? And how could stones be El-ahrairah? What, exactly, was it that Strawberry was saying was El-ahrairah? In confusion he said, "I don't understand."

        "It's what we call a Shape," explained Strawberry. "Haven't you seen one before? The stones make the shape of El-ahrairah on the wall. Stealing the King's lettuce. You know?"

        Hazel had not felt so much bewildered since Blackberry had talked about the raft beside the Enborne. Obviously, the stones could not possibly be anything to do with El-ahrairah. It seemed to him that Strawberry might as well have said that his tail was an oak tree. He sniffed again and then put a paw up to the wall.

        "Steady, steady," said Strawberry. "You might damage it and that wouldn't do. Never mind. We'll come again some other time."

        "But where are--" Hazel was beginning, when Strawberry once more interrupted him.

        "I expect you'll be hungry now. I know I am. It's going on raining all night, I'm certain of that, but we can feed

underground here, you know. And then you can sleep in the great burrow, or in my place if you prefer. We can go back more quickly than we came. There's a run that goes almost straight. Actually, it passes across--"

        He chatted on relentlessly, as they made their way back. It suddenly occurred to Hazel that these desperate interruptions seemed to follow any question beginning "Where?" He thought he would put this to the proof. After a while Strawberry ended by saying, "We're nearly at the great burrow now, but we're coming in by a different way."

        "And where--" said Hazel. Instantly Strawberry turned into a side run and called, "Kingcup? Are you coming down to the great burrow?" There was silence, "That's odd!" said Strawberry, returning and once more leading the way. "He's generally there about this time. I often call for him, you know."

        Hazel, hanging back, made a quick search with nose and whiskers. The threshold of the burrow was covered with a day-old fall of soft soil from the roof above. Strawberry's prints had marked it plainly and there were no others whatsoever.

*Song of the Blackbird."

14.    ''Like Trees in November"

Courts and camps are the only places to learn the world in. ... Take the tone of the company that you are in.

The Earl of Chesterfield, Letters to His Son

The great burrow was less crowded than when they had left it. Nildro-hain was the first rabbit they met. She was among a group of three or four fine does who were talking quietly together and seemed to be feeding as well. There was a smell of greenstuff. Evidently some kind of food was available underground, like the Threarah's lettuce. Hazel stopped to speak to Nildro-hain. She asked whether he had gone as far as the well pit and the El-ahrairah of Laburnum.

        "Yes, we did," said Hazel. "It's something quite strange to me, I'm afraid. But I'd rather admire you and your friends than stones on a wall."

        As he said this, he noticed that Cowslip had joined them and that Strawberry was talking to him quietly. He caught the words "never been near a Shape" and a moment later Cowslip replied, "Well, it makes no difference from our point of view."

        Hazel suddenly felt tired and depressed. He heard Blackberry behind Cowslip's sleek, heavy shoulder and went across to him.

        "Come out into the grass," he said quietly. "Bring anyone else who'll come."

        At that moment Cowslip turned to him and said, "You'll be glad of something to eat now. I'll show you what we've got down here."

        "One or two of us are just going to silflay,"* said Hazel.

        "Oh, it's still raining much too hard for that," said Cowslip,, as though there could be no two ways about it. "We'll feed you here."

        "I should be sorry to quarrel over it," said Hazel firmly, "but some of us need to silflay. We're used to it, and rain doesn't bother us."

        Cowslip seemed taken aback for a moment Then he laughed.

        The phenomenon of laughter is unknown to animals; though it is possible that dogs and elephants may have some inkling of it. The effect on Hazel and Blackberry was overwhelming. Hazel's first idea was that Cowslip was showing the symptom of some kind of disease. Blackberry clearly thought that he might be going to attack them and backed away. Cowslip said nothing, but his eerie laughter continued. Hazel and Blackberry turned and scuttled up the nearest run as though he had been a ferret. Halfway up they met Pipkin, who was small enough first to let them pass and then to turn round and follow them.

        The rain was still falling steadily. The night was dark and, for May, cold. They all three hunched themselves in the grass and nibbled while the rain ran off their fur in streams.

        "My goodness, Hazel," said Blackberry, "did you really want to silflay? This is terrible! I was just going to eat whatever it is they have and then go to sleep. What's the idea?"

        "I don't know," replied Hazel. "I suddenly felt I had to get out and I wanted your company. I can see what's troubling Fiver; though he'll get over it, I dare say. There is something strange about these rabbits. Do you know they push stones into the wall?"

        "They do what?"

        Hazel explained. Blackberry was as much at a loss as he had been himself. "But I'll tell you another thing," he said. "Bigwig wasn't so far wrong. They do sing like the birds. I was in a burrow belonging to a rabbit called Betony. His doe has a litter and she was making a noise over them rather like a robin in autumn. To send them to sleep, she said. It made me feel queer, I can tell you."

        "And what do you think of them, Hlao-roo?" asked Hazel.

        "They're very nice and kind," answered Pipkin, "but I'll tell you how they strike me. They all seem terribly sad. I can't think why, when they're so big and strong and have this beautiful warren. But they put me in mind of trees in November. I expect I'm being silly, though, Hazel. You brought us here and I'm sure it must be a fine, safe place."

        "No, you're not being silly. I hadn't realized it, but you're perfectly right. They all seem to have something on their minds."

        "But after all," said Blackberry, "we don't know why they're so few. They don't fill the warren, anything like. Perhaps they've had some sort of trouble that's left them sad."

        "We don't know because they don't tell us. But if we're going to stay here we've got to learn to get on with them. We can't fight them: they're too big. And we don't want them fighting us."

        "I don't believe they can fight, Hazel," said Pipkin. "Although they're so big, they don't seem like fighters to me. Not like Bigwig and Silver."

        "You notice a lot, don't you, Hlao-roo?" said Hazel. "Do you notice it's raining harder than ever? I've got enough grass in my stomach for a bit. We'll go down again now, but let's keep to ourselves for a while."

        "Why not sleep?" said Blackberry. "It's over a night and a day now and I'm dropping."

        They returned down a different hole and soon found a dry, empty burrow, where they curled up together and slept in the warmth of their own tired bodies.

        When Hazel woke he perceived at once that it was morning--some time after sunrise, by the smell of it. The scent of apple blossom was plain enough. Then he picked up the fainter smells of buttercups and horses. Mingled with these came another. Although it made him uneasy, he could not tell for some moments what it was. A dangerous smell, an unpleasant smell, a totally unnatural smell--quite close outside: a smoke smell--something was burning. Then he remembered how Bigwig, after his reconnaissance on the previous day, had spoken of the little white sticks in the grass. That was it. A man had been walking over the ground outside. That must have been what had awakened him.

        Hazel lay in the warm, dark burrow with a delightful sense of security. He could smell the man. The man could not smell him. All the man could smell was the nasty smoke he was making. He fell to thinking of the Shape in the well pit, and then dropped into a drowsy half-dream, in which El-ahrairah said that it was all a trick of his to disguise himself as Poison Tree and put the stones in the wall, to engage Strawberry's attention while he himself was getting acquainted with Nildro-hain.

        Pipkin stirred and turned in his sleep, murmuring, "Sayn lay narn, Marli?" ("Is groundsel nice, Mother?") and Hazel, touched to think that he must be dreaming of old days, rolled over on his side to give him room to settle again. At that moment, however, he heard a rabbit approaching down some run close by. Whoever it was, he was calling--and stamping as well, Hazel noticed--in an unnatural way. The sound, as Blackberry had said, was not unlike birdsong. As he came closer, Hazel could distinguish the word.

        "Flayrah! Flayrah!"

        The voice was Strawberry's. Pipkin and Blackberry were waking, more at the stamping than the voice, which was thin and novel, not striking through their sleep to any deep instinct. Hazel slipped out of the burrow into the run and at once came upon Strawberry busily thumping a hind leg on the hard earth floor.

        "My mother used to say, 'If you were a horse the ceiling would fall down,' " said Hazel. "Why do you stamp underground?"

        "To wake everyone," answered Strawberry. "The rain went on nearly all night, you know. We generally sleep right through the early morning if it's rough weather. But it's turned fine now."

        "Why actually wake everybody, though?"

        "Well, the man's gone by and Cowslip and I thought the flayrah ought not to lie about for long. If we don't go and get it the rats and rooks come and I don't like fighting rats. I expect it's all in the day's work to an adventurous lot like you."

        "I don't understand,"

        "Well, come along with me. I'm just going back along this run for Nildro-hain. We haven't got a litter at present, you see, so she'll come out with the rest of us."

        Other rabbits were making their way along the run and Strawberry spoke to several of them, more than once remarking that he would enjoy taking their new friends across the field. Hazel began to realize that he liked Strawberry. On the previous day he had been too tired and bewildered to size him up. But now that he had had a good

sleep, he could see that Strawberry was really a harmless, decent sort of fellow. He was touchingly devoted to the beautiful Nildro-hain; and he evidently had moods of gaiety and a great capacity for enjoyment. As they came up into the May morning he hopped over the ditch and skipped into the long grass as blithe as a squirrel. He seemed quite to have lost the preoccupied air that had troubled Hazel the night before. Hazel himself paused in the mouth of the hole, as he always had behind the bramble curtain at home, and looked out across the valley.

        The sun, risen behind the copse, threw long shadows from the trees southwestward across the field. The wet grass glittered and nearby a nut tree sparkled iridescent, winking and gleaming as its branches moved in the light wind. The brook was swollen and Hazel's ears could distinguish the deeper, smoother sound, changed since the day before. Between the copse and the brook, the slope was covered with pale lilac lady's-smocks, each standing separately in the grass, a frail stalk of bloom above a spread of cressy leaves. The breeze dropped and the little valley lay completely still, held in long beams of light and enclosed on either side by the lines of the woods. Upon this clear stillness, like feathers on the surface of a pool, fell the calling of a cuckoo.

        "It's quite safe, Hazel," said Cowslip behind him in the hole. "I know you're used to taking a good look round when you silflay, but here we generally go straight out."

        Hazel did not mean to alter his ways or take instructions from Cowslip. However, no one had pushed him and there was no point in bickering over trifles. He hopped across the ditch to the further bank and looked round him again. Several rabbits were already running down the field toward a distant hedge dappled white with great patches of maybloom. He saw Bigwig and Silver and went to join them, flicking the wet off his front paws step by step, like a cat.

        "I hope your friends have been looking after you as well as these fellows have looked after us, Hazel," said

Bigwig. "Silver and I really feel at home again. If you ask me, I reckon we've all made a big change for the better. Even if Fiver's wrong and nothing terrible has happened back at the old warren, I'd still say we're better off here. Are you coming along to feed?"

        "What is this business about going to feed, do you know?" asked Hazel.

        "Haven't they told you? Apparently there's flayrah to be had down the fields. Most of them go every day."

        (Rabbits usually eat grass, as everyone knows. But more appetizing food--e.g., lettuce or carrots, for which they will make an expedition or rob a garden--is flayrah.)

        "Flayrah? But isn't it rather late in the morning to raid a garden?" said Hazel, glancing at the distant roofs of the farm behind the trees.

        "No, no," said one of the warren rabbits, who had overheard him. "The flayrah's left in the field, usually near the place where the brook rises. We either eat it there or bring it back--or both. But we'll have to bring some back today. The rain was so bad last night that no one went out and we ate almost everything in the warren."

        The brook ran through the hedgerow, and there was a cattle wade in the gap. After the rain the edges were a swamp, with water standing in every hoofprint. The rabbits gave them a wide berth and came through by another gap further up, close to the gnarled trunk of an old crab-apple tree. Beyond, surrounding a thicket of rushes, stood an enclosure of posts and rails half as high as a man. Inside it, the kingcups bloomed and the brook whelmed up from its source.  

        On the pasture nearby Hazel could see scattered, russet-and-orange-colored fragments, some with feathery light green foliage showing up against the darker grass. They gave off a pungent, horsy smell, as if freshly cut. It attracted him. He began to salivate and stopped to pass hraka. Cowslip, coming up nearby, turned toward him with his unnatural smile. But now Hazel, in his eagerness, paid no attention. Powerfully drawn, he ran out of the hedgerow toward the scattered ground. He came to one of the fragments, sniffed it and tasted it. It was carrot.

        Hazel had eaten various roots in his life, but only once before had he tasted carrot, when a cart horse had spilled a nose bag near the home warren. These were old carrots, some half eaten already by mice or fly. But to the rabbits they were redolent with luxury, a feast to drive all other feelings out of mind. Hazel sat nibbling and biting, the rich, full taste of the cultivated roots filling him with a wave of pleasure. He hopped about the grass, gnawing one piece after another, eating the green tops along with the slices. No one interrupted him. There seemed to be plenty for all. From time to time, instinctively, he looked up and sniffed the wind, but his caution was half-hearted. "If elil come, let them," he thought. "I'll fight the lot. I couldn't run, anyway. What a country! What a warren! No wonder they're all as big as hares and smell like princes!" "Hello, Pipkin! Fill yourself up to the ears! No more shivering on the banks of streams for you, old chap!"

        "He won't know how to shiver in a week or two," said Hawkbit, with his mouth full. "I feel so much better for this! I'd follow you anywhere, Hazel. I wasn't myself in the heather that night. It's bad when you know you can't get underground. I hope you understand."

        "It's all forgotten," answered Hazel. "I'd better ask Cowslip what we're supposed to do about taking some of this stuff back to the warren."

        He found Cowslip near the spring. He had evidently finished feeding and was washing his face with his front paws.

        "Are there roots here every day?" asked Hazel. "Where--" He checked himself just in time. "I'm learning," he thought.

        "Not always roots," replied Cowslip. "These are last year's, as you'll have noticed. I suppose the remains are being cleared out. It may be anything--roots, greenstuff, old apples: it all depends. Sometimes there's nothing at all, especially in good summer weather. But in hard weather, in winter, there's nearly always something. Big roots, usually, or kale, or sometimes corn. We eat that too, you know."

        "Food's no problem, then. The whole place ought to be full of rabbits. I suppose--"

        "If you really have finished," interrupted Cowslip, "--and there's no hurry; do take your time--you could try carrying. It's easy with these roots--easier than anything except lettuce. You simply bite onto one, take it back to the warren and put it in the great burrow. I generally take two at a time, but then I've had a lot of practice. Rabbits don't usually carry food, I know, but you'll learn. It's useful to have a store. The does need some for their young when they're getting bigger; and it's particularly convenient for all of us in bad weather. Come back with me and I'll help if you find the carrying difficult at first."

        It took Hazel some trouble to leam to grip half a carrot in his mouth and carry it, like a dog, across the field and back to the warren. He had to put it down several times. But Cowslip was encouraging and he was determined to keep up his position as the resourceful leader of the newcomers. At his suggestion they both waited at the mouth of one of the larger holes to see how his companions were shaping. They all seemed to be making an effort and doing their best, although the smaller rabbits--especially Pipkin--clearly found the task an awkward one.

        "Cheer up, Pipkin," said Hazel. "Think how much you'll enjoy eating it tonight. Anyway, I'm sure Fiver must find it as hard as you: he's just as small."

        "I don't know where he is," said Pipkin. "Have you seen him?"

        Now that Hazel thought about it, he had not. He became a little anxious and, as he returned across the field with Cowslip, did his best to explain something of Fiver's peculiar temperament. "I do hope he's all right," he said. "I think perhaps I'll go and look for him when we've carried this next lot. Have you any idea where he might be?"

        He waited for Cowslip to reply, but he was disappointed. After a few moments Cowslip said, "Look, do you see those jackdaws hanging round the carrots? They've been a nuisance for several days now. I must get someone to try to keep them off until we've finished carrying. But they're really too big for a rabbit to tackle. Now, sparrows--"

        "What's that got to do with Fiver?" asked Hazel sharply.

        "In fact," said Cowslip, breaking into a run, "I'll go myself."

        But he did not engage the jackdaws and Hazel saw him pick up another carrot and start back with it. Annoyed, he joined Buckthorn and Dandelion and the three of them returned together. As they came up to the warren bank he suddenly caught sight of Fiver. He was sitting half concealed under the low spread of a yew tree on the edge of the copse, some way from the holes of the warren. Putting down his carrot, Hazel ran across, scrambled up the bank and joined him on the bare ground under the low, close boughs. Fiver said nothing and continued to stare over the field.

        "Aren't you coming to learn to carry, Fiver?" asked Hazel at length. "It's not too difficult once you get the hang of it."

        "I'll have nothing to do with it," answered Fiver in a low voice. "Dogs--you're like dogs carrying sticks."

        "Fiver! Are you trying to make me angry? I'm not going to get angry because you call me stupid names. But you're letting the others do all the work."

        "I'm the one who ought to get angry," said Fiver. "But I'm no good at it, that's the trouble. Why should they listen to me? Half of them think I'm mad. You're to blame, Hazel, because you know I'm not and still you won't listen."

        "So you don't like this warren any better even now? Well, I think you're wrong. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes. Why shouldn't you make a mistake, like everybody else? Hawkbit was wrong in the heather and you're wrong now."

        "Those are rabbits down there, trotting along like a lot of squirrels with nuts. How can that be right?"

        "Well, I'd say they've copied a good idea from the squirrels and that makes them better rabbits."

        "Do you suppose the man, whoever he is, puts the roots out there because he has a kind heart? What's he up to?"

        "He's just throwing away rubbish. How many rabbits have had a good meal off men's rubbish heaps? Shot lettuces, old turnips? You know we all do, when we can. It's not poisoned, Fiver, I can tell you that. And if he wanted to shoot rabbits he's had plenty of chances this morning. But he hasn't done it."

        Fiver seemed to grow even smaller as he flattened himself on the hard earth. "I'm a fool to try to argue," he said miserably. "Hazel--dear old Hazel--it's simply that I know there's something unnatural and evil twisted all round this place. I don't know what it is, so no wonder I can't talk about it. I keep getting near it, though. You know how you poke your nose against wire netting and push it up against an apple tree, but you still can't bite the bark because of the wire. I'm close to this--whatever it is--but I can't grip it. If I sit here alone I may reach it yet."

        "Fiver, why not do as I say? Have a meal on those roots and then go underground and sleep. You'll feel all the better for it."

        "I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place," said Fiver. "As for going underground, I'd rather go back over the heather. The roof of that hall is made of bones."

        "No, no--tree roots. But, after all, you were underground all night."

        "I wasn't," said Fiver.

        "What? Where were you, then?"

        "Here."

        "All night?"

        "Yes. A yew tree gives good shelter, you know."

        Hazel was now seriously worried. If Fiver's horrors had kept him above ground all night in the rain, oblivious of cold and prowling elil, then clearly it was not going to be easy to talk him out of them. He was silent for some time. At last he said, "What a shame! I still think you'd do better to come and join us. But I'll let you alone now and come and see how you're feeling later. Don't go eating the yew tree, either."

        Fiver made no reply and Hazel went back to the field.

        The day was certainly not one to encourage foreboding. By ni-Frith it was so hot that the lower part of the field was humid. The air was heavy with thick, herbal smells, as though it were already late June; the water mint and marjoram, not yet flowering, gave off scent from their leaves and here and there an early meadowsweet stood in bloom. The chiffchaff was busy all morning, high in a silver birch near the abandoned holes across the dip; and from deep in the copse, somewhere by the disused well, came the beautiful song of the blackcap. By early afternoon there was a stillness of heat, and a herd of cows from the higher fields slowly grazed their way down into the shade. Only a few of the rabbits remained above ground. Almost all were asleep in the burrows. But still Fiver sat alone under the yew tree.

        In the early evening Hazel sought out Bigwig and together they ventured into the copse behind the warren. At first they moved cautiously, but before long they grew confident at finding no trace of any creature larger than a mouse.

        "There's nothing to smell," said Bigwig, "and no tracks. I think Cowslip's told us no more than the truth. There really aren't any elil here. Different from that wood where we crossed the river. I don't mind telling you, Hazel, I was scared stiff that night, but I wasn't going to show it."

        "So was I," answered Hazel. "But I agree with you about this place. It seems completely clear. If we--"

        "This is odd, though," interrupted Bigwig. He was in a clump of brambles, in the middle of which was a rabbit hole that led up from one of the warren passages below. The ground was soft and damp, with old leaves thick in the mold. Where Bigwig had stopped there were signs of commotion. The rotten leaves had been thrown up in showers. Some were hanging on the brambles and a few flat, wet clots were lying well out in open ground beyond the clump. In the center the earth had been laid bare and was scored with long scratches and furrows, and there was a narrow, regular hole, about the same size as one of the carrots they had carried that morning. The two rabbits sniffed and stared, but could make nothing of it.

        "The funny thing is there's no smell," said Bigwig.

        "No--only rabbit, and that's everywhere, of course. And man--that's everywhere, too. But that smell might very well have nothing to do with it. All it tells us is that a man walked through the wood and threw a white stick down. It wasn't a man that tore up this ground."

        "Well, these mad rabbits probably dance in the moonlight or something."

        "I wouldn't be surprised," said Hazel. "It would be just like them. Let's ask Cowslip."

        "That's the only silly thing you've said so far. Tell me, since we came here has Cowslip answered any question you've asked him?"

        "Well, no--not many."

        "Try asking him where he dances in the moonlight. Say 'Cowslip, where--' "

        "Oh, you've noticed that, too, have you? He won't answer 'Where' anything. Neither will Strawberry. I think they may be nervous of us. Pipkin was right when he said they weren't fighters. So they're keeping up a mystery to stay even with us. It's best just to put up with it. We don't want to upset them and it's bound to smooth itself out in time."

        "There's more rain coming tonight," said Bigwig. "Soon, too, I think. Let's go underground and see if we can get them to talk a bit more freely."

        "I think that's something we can only wait for. But I agree about going underground now. And for goodness' sake let's get Fiver to come with us. He troubles me. Do you know he was out all night in the rain?"

        As they went back through the copse Hazel recounted his talk with Fiver that morning. They found him under the yew tree and after a rather stormy scene, during which Bigwig grew rough and impatient, he was bullied rather than persuaded into going down with them into the great burrow.

        It was crowded, and as the rain began to fall more rabbits came down the runs. They pushed about, cheerful and chattering. The carrots which had been brought in were eaten between friends or carried away to does and families in burrows all over the warren. But when they were finished the hall remained full. It was pleasantly warm with the heat of so many bodies. Gradually the talkative groups settled into a contented silence, but no one seemed disposed to go to sleep. Rabbits are lively at nightfall, and when evening rain drives them underground they still feel gregarious. Hazel noticed that almost all his companions seemed to have become friendly with the warren rabbits. Also, he found that whenever he moved into one group or another, the warren rabbits evidently knew who he was and treated him as the leader of the newcomers. He could not find Strawberry, but after a time Cowslip came up to him from the other end of the hall.

        "I'm glad you're here, Hazel," he said. "Some of our lot are suggesting a story from somebody. We're hoping one of your people would like to tell one, but we can begin ourselves, if you'd prefer."

        There is a rabbit saying, "In the warren, more stories than passages"; and a rabbit can no more refuse to tell a story than an Irishman can refuse to fight. Hazel and his friends conferred. After a short time Blackberry announced, "We've asked Hazel to tell you about our adventures: how we made our journey here and had the good luck to join you."

        There was an uncomfortable silence, broken only by shuffling and whispering. Blackberry, dismayed, turned back to Hazel and Bigwig.

        "What's the matter?" he asked in a low voice. "Surely there's no harm in that?"

        "Wait," replied Hazel quietly. "Let them tell us if they don't like it. They have their own ways here."

        However, the silence continued for some time, as though the other rabbits did not care to mention what they thought was wrong.

        "It's no good," said Blackberry at last. "You'll have to say something yourself, Hazel. No, why should you? I'll do it." He spoke up again. "On second thoughts, Hazel remembers that we have a good storyteller among us. Dandelion will tell you a story of El-ahrairah. That can't go wrong, anyway," he whispered.

        "Which one, though?" said Dandelion.

        Hazel remembered the stones by the well pit. "The King's Lettuce," he answered. "They think a lot of that, I believe."

        Dandelion took up his cue with the same plucky readiness that he had shown in the wood. "I'll tell the story of the King's Lettuce," he said aloud.

        "We shall enjoy that," replied Cowslip immediately.

        "He'd better," muttered Bigwig.

        Dandelion began.

*Go above ground to feed.

15.    The Story of the King's Lettuce

Don Alfonso : "Eccovi il medico, signore belle."

Ferrando and Guglielmo : "Despina in maschera, che triste pelle!"

Lorenzo da Ponte, Così fan Tutte

"They say that there was a time when El-ahrairah and his followers lost all their luck. Their enemies drove them out and they were forced to live down in the marshes of Kelfazin. Now, where the marshes of Kelfazin may be I do not know, but at the time when El-ahrairah and his followers were living there, of all the dreary places in the world they were the dreariest. There was no food but coarse grass and even the grass was mixed with bitter rushes and docks. The ground was too wet for digging: the water stood in any hole that was made. But all the other animals had grown so suspicious of El-ahrairah and his tricks that they would not let him out of that wretched country and every day Prince Rainbow used to come walking through the marshes to make sure that El-ahrairah was still there. Prince Rainbow had the power of the sky and the power of the hills and Frith had told him to order the world as he thought best.

        "One day, when Prince Rainbow was coming through the marshes, El-ahrairah went up to him and said, 'Prince Rainbow, my people are cold and cannot get underground because of the wet. Their food is so dull and poor that they will be ill when the bad weather comes. Why do you keep us here against our will? We do no harm.'

        " 'El-ahrairah,' replied Prince Rainbow, 'all the animals know that you are a thief and a trickster. Now your tricks have caught up with you and you have to live here until you can persuade us that you will be an honest rabbit.'

        " 'Then we shall never get out,' said El-ahrairah, 'for I would be ashamed to tell my people to stop living on their wits. Will you let us out if I can swim across a lake full of pike?'

        " 'No,' said Prince Rainbow, 'for I have heard of that trick of yours, El-ahrairah, and I know how it is done.'

        " 'Will you let us go if I can steal the lettuces from King Darzin's garden?' asked El-ahrairah.

        "Now, King Darzin ruled over the biggest and richest of the animal cities in the world at that time. His soldiers were very fierce and his lettuce garden was surrounded by a deep ditch and guarded by a thousand sentries day and night. It was near his palace, on the edge of the city where all his followers lived. So when El-ahrairah talked of stealing King Darzin's lettuces, Prince Rainbow laughed and said,

        " 'You can try, El-ahrairah, and if you succeed I will multiply your people everywhere and no one will be able to keep them out of a vegetable garden from now till the end of the world. But what will really happen is that you will be killed by the soldiers and the world will be rid of a smooth, plausible rascal.'

        " 'Very well,' said El-ahrairah. 'We shall see.'

        "Now, Yona the hedgehog was nearby, looking for slugs and snails in the marshes, and he heard what passed between Prince Rainbow and El-ahrairah. He slipped away to the great palace of King Darzin and begged to be rewarded for warning him against his enemies.

        " 'King Darzin,' he sniffled, 'that wicked thief El-ahrairah has said he will steal your lettuces and he is coming to trick you and get into the garden.'

        "King Darzin hurried down to the lettuce garden and sent for the captain of the guard.

        " 'You see these lettuces?' he said. 'Not one of them has been stolen since the seed was sown. Very soon now they will be ready and then I mean to hold a great feast for all my people. But I have heard that that scoundrel Eh-ahrairah means to come and steal them if he can. You are to double the guards: and all the gardeners and weeders are to be examined every day. Not one leaf is to go out of the garden until either I or my chief taster gives the order.'

        "The captain of the guard did as he was told. That night El-ahrairah came out of the marshes of Kelfazin and went secretly up to the great ditch. With him was his trusty Captain of Owsla, Rabscuttle. They squatted in the bushes and watched the doubled guards patrolling up and down. When the morning came they saw all the gardeners and weeders coming up to the wall and every one was looked at by three guards. One was new and had come instead of his uncle who was ill, but the guards would not let him in because they did not know him by sight and they nearly threw him into the ditch before they would even let him go home. El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle came away in perplexity and that day, when Prince Rainbow came walking through the fields, he said, 'Well, well, Prince with the Thousand Enemies, where are the lettuces?'

        " 'I am having them delivered,' answered El-ahrairah. 'There will be rather too many to carry.' Then he and Rabscuttle went secretly down one of their few holes where there was no water, put a sentry outside and thought and talked for a day and a night.

        "On the top of the hill near King Darzin's palace there was a garden and here his many children and his chief followers' children used to be taken to play by their mothers and nursemaids. There was no wall round the garden. It was guarded only when the children were there: at night it was empty, because there was nothing to steal and no one to be hunted. The next night Rabscuttle, who had been told by El-ahrairah what he had to do, went to the garden and dug a scrape. He hid in the scrape all night; and the next morning, when the children were brought to play, he slipped out and joined them. There were so many children that each one of the mothers and nursemaids thought that he must belong to somebody else, but as he was about the same size as the children and not much different to look at, he was able to make friends with some of them. Rabscuttle was full of tricks and games and quite soon he was running and playing just as if he had been one of the children himself. When the time came for the children to go home, Rabscuttle went, too. They came up to the gate of the city and the guards saw Rabscuttle with King Darzin's son. They stopped him and asked which was his mother, but the King's son said, 'You let him alone. He's my friead,' and Rabscuttle went in with all the others.

        "Now, as soon as Rabscuttle got inside the King's palace, he scurried off and went into one of the dark burrows; and here he hid all day. But in the evening he came out and made his way to the royal storerooms, where the food was being got ready for the King and his chief followers and wives. There were grasses and fruits and roots and even nuts and berries, for King Darzin's people went everywhere in those days, through the woods and fields. There were no soldiers in the storerooms and Rabscuttle hid there in the dark. And he did all he could to make the food bad, except what he ate himself.

        "That evening King Darzin sent for the chief taster and asked him whether the lettuces were ready. The chief taster said that several of them were excellent and that he had already had some brought into the stores.

        " 'Good,' said the King. 'We will have two or three tonight.'

        "But the next morning the King and several of his people were taken ill with bad stomachs. Whatever they ate, they kept on getting ill, because Rabscuttle was hiding in the storerooms and spoiling the food as fast as it was brought in. The King ate several more lettuces, but he got no better. In fact, he got worse.

        "After five days Rabscuttle slipped out again with the children and came back to El-ahrairah. When he heard that the King was ill and that Rabscuttle had done all he wanted, El-ahrairah set to work to disguise himself. He clipped his white tail and made Rabscuttle nibble his fur short and stain it with mud and blackberries. Then he covered himself all over with trailing strands of goose grass and big burdocks and he even found ways to alter his smell. At last even his own wives could not recognize him, and El-ahrairah told Rabscuttle to follow some way behind and off he went to King Darzin's palace. But Rabscuttle waited outside, on the top of the hill.

        "When he got to the palace, El-ahrairah demanded to see the captain of the guard. 'You are to take me to the King,' he said. 'Prince Rainbow has sent me. He has heard that the King is ill and he has sent for me, from the distant land beyond Kelfazin, to find the cause of his sickness. Be quick! I am not accustomed to be kept waiting.'

        " 'How do I know this is true?' asked the captain of the guard.

        " 'It is all one to me,' replied El-ahrairah. 'What is the sickness of a little king to the chief physician of the land beyond the golden river of Frith? I will return and tell Prince Rainbow that the King's guard were foolish and gave me such treatment as one might expect from a crowd of flea-bitten louts.'

        "He turned and began to go away, but the captain of the guard became frightened and called him back. El-ahrairah allowed himself to be persuaded and the soldiers took him to the King.

        "After five days of bad food and bad stomach, the King was not inclined to be suspicious of someone who said that Prince Rainbow had sent him to make him better. He begged El-ahrairah to examine him and promised to do all he said.

        "El-ahrairah made a great business of examining the King. He looked at his eyes and his ears and his teeth and his droppings and the ends of his claws and he inquired what he had been eating. Then he demanded to see the royal storerooms and the lettuce garden. When he came back he looked very grave and said, 'Great King, I know well what sorry news it will be to you, but the cause of your sickness is those very lettuces by which you set such store.'

        " 'The lettuces?' cried King Darzin. 'Impossible! They are all grown from good, healthy seed and guarded day and night.'

        " 'Alas!' said Eh-ahrairah. 'I know it well! But they have been infected by the dreaded Lousepedoodle, that flies in ever decreasing circles through the Gunpat of the Cludge--a deadly virus--dear me, yes!--isolated by the purple Avvago and maturing in the gray-green forests of the Okey Pokey. This, you understand, is to put the matter for you in simple terms, insofar as I can. Medically speaking, there are certain complexities with which I will not weary you.'

        " 'I cannot believe it,' said the King.

        " 'The simplest course,' said El-ahrairah, will be to prove it to you. But we need not make one of your subjects ill. Tell the soldiers to go out and take a prisoner.'

        "The soldiers went out and the first creature they found was Rabscuttle, grazing on the hilltop. They dragged him through the gates and into the King's presence.

        " 'Ah, a rabbit,' said El-ahrairah. 'Nasty creature! So much the better. Disgusting rabbit, eat that lettuce!'

        "Rabscuttle did so and soon afterward he began to moan and thrash about. He kicked in convulsions and rolled his eyes. He gnawed at the floor and frothed at the mouth.

        " 'He is very ill,' said El-ahrairah. 'He must have got an exceptionally bad one. Or else, which is more probable, the infection is particularly deadly to rabbits. But, in any event, let us be thankful it was not Your Majesty. Well, he has served our purpose. Throw him out! I would strongly advise Your Majesty,' went on El-ahrairah, 'not to leave the lettuces where they are, for they will shoot and flower and seed. The infection will spread. I know it is disappointing, but you must get rid of them.'

        "At that moment, as luck would have it, in came the captain of the guard, with Yona the hedgehog.

        " 'Your Majesty,' he cried, 'this creature returns from the marshes of Kelfazin. The people of El-ahrairah are mustering for war. They say they are coming to attack Your Majesty's garden and steal the royal lettuces. May I have Your Majesty's order to take out the soldiers and destroy them?'

        " 'Aha!' said the King. 'I have thought of a trick worth two of that. "Particularly deadly to rabbits." Well! Well! Let them have all the lettuces they want. In fact, you are to take a thousand down to the marshes of Kelfazin and leave them there. Ho! Ho! What a joke! I feel all the better for it!'

        " 'Ah, what deadly cunning!' said El-ahrairah. 'No wonder Your Majesty is ruler of a great people. I believe you are already recovering. As with many illnesses, the cure is simple, once perceived. No, no, I will accept no reward. In any case, there is nothing here that would be thought of value in the shining land beyond the golden river of Frith. I have done as Prince Rainbow required. It is sufficient. Perhaps you will be so good as to tell your guards to accompany me to the foot of the hill?' He bowed, and left the palace.

        "Later that evening, as El-ahrairah was urging his rabbits to growl more fiercely and run up and down in the marshes of Kelfazin, Prince Rainbow came over the river.

        " 'El-ahrairah,' he called, 'am I bewitched?'

        " 'It is quite possible,' said El-ahrairah. 'The dreaded Lousepedoodle--'

        " 'There are a thousand lettuces in a pile at the top of the marsh. Who put them there?'

        " 'I told you  they  were  being delivered,' said  El-ahrairah. 'You could hardly expect my people, weak and hungry as they are, to carry them all the way from King Darzin's garden. However, they will soon recover now, under the treatment that I shall prescribe. I am a physician, I may say, and if you have not heard as much, Prince Rainbow, you may take it that you soon will, from another quarter. Rabscuttle, go out and collect the lettuces.'

        "Then Prince Rainbow saw that El-ahrairah had been as good as his word, and that he himself must keep his promise, too. He let the rabbits out of the marshes of Kelfazin and they multiplied everywhere. And from that day to this, no power on earth can keep a rabbit out of a vegetable garden, for El-ahrairah prompts them with a thousand tricks, the best in the world."

16.    Silverweed

He said, "Dance for me" and he said,

"You are too beautiful for the wind

To pick at, or the sun to burn." He said,

"I'm a poor tattered thing, but not unkind

To the sad dancer and the dancing dead."

Sidney Keyes, Four Postures of Death

"Well done," said Hazel, as Dandelion ended.

        "He's very good, isn't he?" said Silver. "We're lucky to have him with us. It raises your spirits just to hear him."

        "That's put their ears flat for them," whispered Bigwig. "Let's just see them find a storyteller to beat him."

        They were all in no doubt that Dandelion had done them credit. Ever since their arrival most of them had felt out of their depth among these magnificent, well-fed strangers, with their detached manners, their Shapes on the wall, their elegance, their adroit evasion of almost all questions--above all, their fits of un-rabbitlike melancholy. Now, their own storyteller had shown that they were no mere bunch of tramps. Certainly, no reasonable rabbit could withhold admiration. They waited to be told as much, but after a few moments realized with surprise that their hosts were evidently less enthusiastic.

        "Very nice," said Cowslip. He seemed to be searching for something more to say, but then repeated, "Yes, very nice. An unusual tale."

        "But he must know it, surely?" muttered Blackberry to Hazel.

        "I always think these traditional stories retain a lot of charm," said another of the rabbits, "especially when they're told in the real, old-fashioned spirit."

        "Yes," said Strawberry. "Conviction, that's what it needs. You really have to believe in El-ahrairah and Prince Rainbow, don't you? Then all the rest follows."

        "Don't say anything, Bigwig," whispered Hazel: for Bigwig was scuffling his paws indignantly. "You can't force them to like it if they don't. Let's wait and see what they can do themselves." Aloud, he said, "Our stories haven't changed in generations, you know. After all, we haven't changed ourselves. Our lives have been the same as our fathers' and their fathers' before them. Things are different here. We realize that, and we think your new ideas and ways are very exciting. We're all wondering what kind of things you tell stories about."

        "Well, we don't tell the old stories very much," said Cowslip. "Our stories and poems are mostly about our own lives here. Of course, that Shape of Laburnum that you saw--that's old-fashioned now. El-ahrairah doesn't really mean much to us. Not that your friend's story wasn't very charming," he added hastily.

        "El-ahrairah is a trickster," said Buckthorn, "and rabbits will always need tricks."

        "No," said a new voice from the further end of the hall, beyond Cowslip. "Rabbits need dignity and, above all, the will to accept their fate."

        "We think Silverweed is one of the best poets we've had for many months," said Cowslip. "His ideas have a great following. Would you like to hear him now?"

        "Yes, yes," said voices from all sides. "Silverweed!"

        "Hazel," said Fiver suddenly, "I want to get a clear idea of this Silverweed, but I daren't go closer by myself. Will you come with me?"

        "Why, Fiver, whatever do you mean? What is there to be afraid of?"

        "Oh, Frith help me!" said Fiver, trembling. "I can smell him from here. He terrifies me."

        "Oh, Fiver, don't be absurd! He just smells the same as the rest of them."

        "He smells like barley rained down and left to rot in the fields. He smells like a wounded mole that can't get underground."

        "He smells like a big, fat rabbit to me, with a lot of carrots inside. But I'll come with you."

        When they had edged their way through the crowd to the far end of the burrow, Hazel was surprised to realize that Silverweed was a mere youngster. In the Sandleford warren no rabbit of his age would have been asked to tell a story, except perhaps to a few friends alone. He had a wild, desperate air and his ears twitched continually. As he began to speak, he seemed to grow less and less aware of his audience and continually turned his head, as though listening to some sound, audible only to himself, from the entrance tunnel behind him. But there was an arresting fascination in his voice, like the movement of wind and light on a meadow, and as its rhythm entered into his hearers the whole burrow became silent.

        The wind is blowing, blowing over the grass.

        It shakes the willow catkins; the leaves shine silver.

        Where are you going, wind? Far, far away

        Over the hills, over the edge of the world.

        Take me with you, wind, high over the sky.

        I will go with you, I will be rabbit-of-the-wind,

        Into the sky, the feathery sky and the rabbit.

        The stream is running, running over the gravel,

        Through the brooklime, the kingcups, the blue and gold of spring.

        Where are you going, stream? Far, far away

        Beyond the heather, sliding away all night.

        Take me with you, stream, away in the starlight.

        I will go with you, I will be rabbit-of-the-stream,

        Down through the water, the green water and the rabbit.

        In autumn the leaves come blowing, yellow and brown.

        They rustle in the ditches, they tug and hang on the hedge.

        Where are you going leaves? Far, far away

        Into the earth we go, with the rain and the berries.

        Take me, leaves, O take me on your dark journey.

        I will go with you, I will be rabbit-of-the-leaves,

        In the deep places of the earth, the earth and the rabbit.

        Frith lies in the evening sky. The clouds are red about him.

        I am here, Lord Frith, I am running through the long grass.

        O take me with you, dropping behind the woods,

        Far away, to the heart of light, the silence.

        For I am ready to give you my breath, my life,

        The shining circle of the sun, the sun and the rabbit.

        Fiver, as he listened, had shown a mixture of intense absorption and incredulous horror. At one and the same time he seemed to accept every word and yet to be stricken with fear. Once he drew in his breath, as though startled to recognize his own half-known thoughts: and when the poem was ended he seemed to be struggling to come to himself. He bared his teeth and licked his lips, as Blackberry had done before the dead hedgehog on the road.

        A rabbit in fear of an enemy will sometimes crouch stock still, either fascinated or else trusting to its natural inconspicuousness to remain unnoticed. But then, unless the fascination is too powerful, there comes the point when keeping still is discarded and the rabbit, as though breaking a spell, turns in an instant to its other resource--flight. So it seemed to be with Fiver now. Suddenly he leaped up and began to push his way violently across the great burrow. Several rabbits were jostled and turned angrily on him, but he took no notice. Then he came to a place where he could not push between two heavy warren bucks. He became hysterical, kicking and scuffling, and Hazel, who was behind him, had difficulty in preventing a fight.

        "My brother's a sort of poet, too, you know," he said to the bristling strangers. "Things affect him very strongly sometimes and he doesn't always know why."

        One of the rabbits seemed to accept what Hazel had said, but the other replied, "Oh, another poet? Let's hear him, then. That'll be some return for my shoulder, anyway. He's scratched a great tuft of fur out."

        Fiver was already beyond them and thrusting toward the further entrance tunnel. Hazel felt that he must follow him. But after all the trouble that he himself had taken to be friendly, he felt so cross at the way in which Fiver had antagonized their new friends that as he passed Bigwig, he said, "Come and help me to get some sense into him. The last thing we want is a fight now." He felt that Fiver really deserved a short touch of Bigwig.

        They followed Fiver up the run and overtook him at the entrance. Before either of them could say a word, he turned and began to speak as though they had asked him a question.

        "You felt it, then? And you want to know whether I did? Of course I did. That's the worst part of it. There isn't any trick. He speaks the truth. So as long as he speaks the truth it can't be folly--that's what you're going to say, isn't it? I'm not blaming you, Hazel. I felt myself moving toward him like one cloud drifting into another. But then at the last moment I drifted wide. Who knows why? It wasn't my own will; it was an accident. There was just some little part of me that carried me wide of him. Did I say the roof of that hall was made of bones? No! It's like a great mist of folly that covers the whole sky: and we shall never see to go by Frith's light any more. Oh, what will become of us? A thing can be true and still be desperate folly, Hazel."

        "What on earth's all this?" said Hazel to Bigwig in perplexity.

        "He's talking about that lop-eared nitwit of a poet down there," answered Bigwig. "I know that much. But why he seems to think we should want to have anything to do with him and his fancy talk--that's more than I can imagine. You can save your breath, Fiver. The only thing that's bothering us is the row you've started. As for Silverweed, all I can say is, I'll keep Silver and he can be just plain Weed."

        Fiver gazed back at him with eyes that, like a fly's, seemed larger than his head. "You think that," he said. "You believe that. But each of you, in his own way, is thick in that mist. Where is the--"

        Hazel interrupted him and as he did so Fiver started. "Fiver, I won't pretend that I didn't follow you up here to speak angrily. You've endangered our good start in this warren--"

        "Endangered?" cried Fiver. "Endangered? Why, the whole place--"

        "Be quiet. I was going to be angry, but you're obviously so much upset that it would be pointless. But what you are going to do now is to come underground with the two of us and sleep. Come on! And don't say any more for the moment."

        One respect in which rabbits' lives are less complicated than those of humans is that they are not ashamed to use force. Having no alternative, Fiver accompanied Hazel and Bigwig to the burrow where Hazel had spent the previous night. There was no one there and they lay down and slept.

17.    The Shining Wire

When the green field comes off like a lid

Revealing what was much better hid,

        Unpleasant;

And look! Behind, without a sound

The woods have come up and are standing round

        In deadly crescent.

And the bolt is sliding in its groove,

Outside the window is the black remover's van,

And now with sudden, swift emergence

Come the women in dark glasses, the hump-backed surgeons

        And the scissor-man.

W.H. Auden, The Witnesses

It was cold, it was cold and the roof was made of bones. The roof was made of the interlaced sprays of the yew tree, stiff twigs twisted in and out, over and under, hard as ice and set with dull red berries. "Come on, Hazel," said Cowslip. "We're going to carry the yew berries home in our mouths and eat them in the great burrow. Your friends must learn to do that if they want to go our way." "No! No!" cried Fiver. "Hazel, no!" But then came Bigwig, twisting in and out of the branches, his mouth full of berries. "Look," said Bigwig, "I can do it. I'm running another way. Ask me where, Hazel! Ask me where! Ask me where!" Then they were running another way, running, not to the warren but over the fields in the cold, and Bigwig dropped the berries--blood-red drops, red droppings hard as wire. "It's no good," he said. "No good biting them. They're cold."

        Hazel woke. He was in the burrow. He shivered. Why was there no warmth of rabbit bodies lying close together? Where was Fiver? He sat up. Nearby, Bigwig was stirring and twitching in his sleep, searching for warmth, trying to press against another rabbit's body no longer there. The shallow hollow in the sandy floor where Fiver had lain was not quite cold: but Fiver was gone.

        "Fiver!" said Hazel in the dark.

        As soon as he had spoken he knew there would be no reply. He pushed Bigwig with his nose, butting urgently. "Bigwig! Fiver's gone! Bigwig!"

        Bigwig was wide awake on the instant and Hazel had never felt so glad of his sturdy readiness.

        "What did you say? What's wrong?"

        "Fiver's gone."

        "Where's he gone?"

        "Silf--outside. It can only be silf. You know he wouldn't go wandering about in the warren. He hates it."

        "He's a nuisance, isn't he? He's left this burrow cold, too. You think he's in danger, don't you? You want to go and look for him?"

        "Yes, I must. He's upset and overwrought and it's not light yet. There may be elil, whatever Strawberry says."

        Bigwig listened and sniffed for a few moments.

        "It's very nearly light," he said. "There'll be light enough to find him by. Well, I'd better come with you, I suppose. Don't worry--he can't have gone far. But by the King's Lettuce! I won't half give him a piece of my mind when we catch him."

        "I'll hold him down while you kick him, if only we can find him. Come on!"

        They went up the run to the mouth of the hole and paused together. "Since our friends aren't here to push us," said Bigwig, "we may as well make sure the place isn't crawling with stoats and owls before we go out."

        At that moment a brown owl's call sounded from the opposite wood. It was the first call, and by instinct they both crouched motionless, counting four heartbeats until the second followed.

        "It's moving away," said Hazel.

        "How many field mice say that every night, I wonder? You know the call's deceptive. It's meant to be."

        "Well, I can't help it," said Hazel. "Fiver's somewhere out there and I'm going after him. You were right, anyway. It is light--just."

        "Shall we look under the yew tree first?"

        But Fiver was not under the yew tree. The light, as it grew, began to show the upper field, while the distant hedge and brook remained dark, linear shapes below. Bigwig jumped down from the bank into the field and ran in a long curve across the wet grass. He stopped almost opposite the hole by which they had come up, and Hazel joined him.

        "Here's his line, all right," said Bigwig. "Fresh, too. From the hole straight down toward the brook. He won't be far away."

        When raindrops are lying it is easy to see where grass has recently been crossed. They followed the line down the field and reached the hedge beside the carrot ground and the source of the brook. Bigwig had been right when he said the line was fresh. As soon as they had come through the hedge they saw Fiver. He was feeding, alone. A few fragments of carrot were still lying about near the spring, but he had left these untouched and was eating the grass not far from the gnarled crab-apple tree. They approached and he looked up.

        Hazel said nothing and began to feed beside him. He was now regretting that he had brought Bigwig. In the darkness before morning and the first shock of discovering that Fiver was gone, Bigwig had been a comfort and a stand-by. But now, as he saw Fiver, small and familiar, incapable of hurting anyone or of concealing what he felt, trembling in the wet grass, either from fear or from cold, his anger melted away. He felt only sorry for him and sure that, if they could stay alone together for a while, Fiver would come round to an easier state of mind. But it was probably too late to persuade Bigwig to be gentle: he could only hope for the best.

        Contrary to his fears, however, Bigwig remained as silent as himself. Evidently he had been expecting Hazel to speak first and was somewhat at a loss. For some time all three moved on quietly over the grass, while the shadows grew stronger and the wood pigeons clattered among the distant trees. Hazel was beginning to feel that all would be well and that Bigwig had more sense than he had given him credit for, when Fiver sat up on his hind legs, cleaned his face with his paws and then, for the first time, looked directly at him.

        "I'm going now," he said. "I feel very sad. I'd like to wish you well, Hazel, but there's no good to wish you in this place. So just goodbye."

        "But where are you going, Fiver?"

        "Away. To the hills, if I can get there."

        "By yourself, alone? You can't. You'd die."

        "You wouldn't have a hope, old chap," said Bigwig. "Something would get you before ni-Frith."

        "No," said Fiver very quietly. "You are closer to death than I."

        "Are you trying to frighten me, you miserable little lump of chattering chickweed?" cried Bigwig. "I've a good mind--"

        "Wait, Bigwig," said Hazel. "Don't speak roughly to him."

        "Why, you said yourself--" began Bigwig.

        "I know. But I feel differently now. I'm sorry, Bigwig. I was going to ask you to help me to make him come back to the warren. But now--well, I've always found that there was something in what Fiver had to say. For the last two days I've refused to listen to him and I still think he's out of his senses. But I haven't the heart to drive him back to the warren. I really believe that for some reason or other the place is frightening him out of his wits. I'll go with him a little way and perhaps we can talk. I can't ask you to risk it, too. Anyway, the others ought to know what we're doing and they won't unless you go and tell them. I'll be back before ni-Frith. I hope we both shall."

        Bigwig stared. Then he turned furiously on Fiver. "You wretched little black beetle," he said. "You've never learned to obey orders, have you? It's me, me, me all the time. 'Oh, I've got a funny feeling in my toe, so we must all go and stand on our heads!' And now we've found a fine warren and got into it without even having to fight, you've got to do your best to upset everyone! And then you risk the life of one of the best rabbits we've got, just to play nursey while you go wandering about like a moonstruck field mouse. Well, I'm finished with you, I'll tell you plain. And now I'm going back to the warren to make sure everyone else is finished with you as well. And they will be--don't make any mistake about that."

        He turned and dashed back through the nearest gap in the hedge. On the instant, a fearful commotion began on the farther side. There were sounds of kicking and plunging. A stick flew into the air. Then a flat, wet clod of dead leaves shot clean through the gap and landed clear of the hedge, close to Hazel. The brambles thrashed up and down. Hazel and Fiver stared at each other, both fighting against the impulse to run. What enemy was at work on the other side of the hedge? There were no cries--no spitting of a cat, no squealing of a rabbit--only the crackling of twigs and the tearing of the grass in violence.

        By an effort of courage against all instinct, Hazel forced himself forward into the gap, with Fiver following. A terrible sight lay before them. The rotten leaves had been thrown up in showers. The earth had been laid bare and was scored with long scratches and furrows. Bigwig was lying on his side, his back legs kicking and struggling. A length of twisted copper wire, gleaming dully in the first sunlight, was looped round his neck and ran taut across one forepaw to the head of a stout peg driven into the ground. The running knot had pulled tight and was buried in the fur behind his ear. The projecting point of one strand had lacerated his neck and drops of blood, dark and red as yew berries, welled one by one down his shoulder. For a few moments he lay panting, his side heaving in exhaustion. Then again began the struggling and fighting, backward and forward, jerking and falling, until he choked and lay quiet.

        Frenzied with distress, Hazel leaped out of the gap and squatted beside him. Bigwig's eyes were closed and his lips pulled back from the long front teeth in a fixed snarl. He had bitten his lower lip and from this, too, the blood was running. Froth covered his jaws and chest

        "Thlayli!" said Hazel, stamping. "Thlayli! Listen! You're in a snare--a snare! What did they say in the Owsla? Come on--think. How can we help you?"

        There was a pause. Then Bigwig's back legs began to kick once more, but feebly. His ears drooped. His eyes opened unseeing and the whites showed bloodshot as the brown irises rolled one way and the other. After a moment his voice came thick and low, bubbling out of the bloody spume in his mouth.

        "Owsla--no good--biting wire. Peg--got to--dig out."

        A convulsion shook him and he scrabbled at the ground, covering himself in a mask of wet earth and blood. Then he was still again.

        "Run, Fiver, run to the warren," cried Hazel. "Get the others--Blackberry, Silver. Be quick! He'll die."

        Fiver was off up the field like a hare. Hazel, left alone, tried to understand what was needed. What was the peg? How was he to dig it out? He looked down at the foul mess before him. Bigwig was lying across the wire, which came out under his belly and seemed to disappear into the ground. Hazel struggled with his own incomprehension. Bigwig had said, "Dig." That at least he understood. He began to scratch into the soft earth beside the body, until after a time his claws scraped against something smooth and firm. As he paused, perplexed, he found Blackberry at his shoulder.

        "Bigwig just spoke," he said to him, "but I don't think he can now. He said, 'Dig out the peg.' What does that mean? What have we got to do?"

        "Wait a moment," said Blackberry. "Let me think, and try not to be impatient."

        Hazel turned his head and looked down the course of the brook. Far away, between the two copses, he could see the cherry tree where two days before he had sat with Blackberry and Fiver in the sunrise. He remembered how Bigwig had chased Hawkbit through the long grass, forgetting the quarrel of the previous night in the joy of their arrival. He could see Hawkbit running toward him now and two or three of the others--Silver, Dandelion and Pipkin. Dandelion, well in front, dashed up to the gap and checked, twitching and staring.

        "What is it, Hazel? What's happened? Fiver said--"

        "Bigwig's in a wire. Let him alone till Blackberry tells us. Stop the others crowding round."

        Dandelion turned and raced back as Pipkin came up.

        "Is Cowslip coming?" said Hazel. "Perhaps he knows--"

        "He wouldn't come," replied Pipkin. "He told Fiver to stop talking about it."

        "Told him what?" asked Hazel incredulously. But at that moment Blackberry spoke and Hazel was beside him in a flash.

        "This is it," said Blackberry. "The wire's on a peg and the peg's in the ground--there, look. We've got to dig it out. Come on--dig beside it."

        Hazel dug once more, his forepaws throwing up the soft, wet soil and slipping against the hard sides of the peg. Dimly, he was aware of the others waiting nearby. After a time he was forced to stop, panting. Silver took his place, and was followed by Buckthorn. The nasty, smooth, clean, man-smelling peg was laid bare to the length of a rabbit's ear, but still it did not come loose. Bigwig had not moved. He lay across the wire, torn and bloody, with closed eyes. Buckthorn drew his head and paws out of the hole and rubbed the mud off his face.

        "The peg's narrower down there," he said. "It tapers. I think it could be bitten through, but I can't get my teeth to it."

        "Send Pipkin in," said Blackberry. "He's smaller."   

        Pipkin plunged into the hole. They could hear the wood splintering under his teeth--a sound like a mouse in a shed wainscot at midnight. He came out with his nose bleeding.

        "The splinters prick you and it's hard to breathe, but the peg's nearly through."

        "Fiver, go in," said Hazel.

        Fiver was not long in the hole. He, too, came out bleeding.

        "It's broken in two. It's free."

        Blackberry pressed his nose against Bigwig's head. As he nuzzled him gently the head rolled sideways and back again.

        "Bigwig," said Blackberry in his ear, "the peg's out."

        There was no response. Bigwig lay still as before. A great fly settled on one of his ears. Blackberry thrust at it angrily and it flew up, buzzing, into the sunshine.

        "I think he's gone," said Blackberry. "I can't feel his breathing."

        Hazel crouched down by Blackberry and laid his nostrils close to Bigwig's, but a light breeze was blowing and he could not tell whether there was breath or not. The legs were loose, the belly flaccid and limp. He tried to think of what little he had heard of snares. A strong rabbit could break his neck in a snare. Or had the point of the sharp wire pierced the windpipe?

        "Bigwig," he whispered, "we've got you out. You're free."

        Bigwig did not stir. Suddenly it came to Hazel that if Bigwig was dead--and what else could hold him silent in the mud?--then he himself must get the others away before the dreadful loss could drain their courage and break their spirit--as it would if they stayed by the body. Besides, the man would come soon. Perhaps he was already coming, with his gun, to take poor Bigwig away. They must go; and he must do his best to see that all of them--even he himself--put what had happened out of mind, forever.

        "My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today," he said to Blackberry, quoting a rabbit proverb.

        "If only it were not Bigwig," said Blackberry. "What shall we do without him?"

        "The others are waiting," said Hazel. "We have to stay alive. There has to be something for them to think about. Help me, or it will be more than I can do."

        He turned away from the body and looked for Fiver among the rabbits behind him. But Fiver was nowhere to be seen and Hazel was afraid to ask for him, in case to do so should seem like weakness and a need for comfort.

        "Pipkin," he snapped, "why don't you clean up your face and stop the bleeding? The smell of blood attracts elil. You know that, don't you?"

        "Yes, Hazel. I'm sorry. Will Bigwig--"

        "And another thing," said Hazel desperately. "What was it you were telling me about Cowslip? Did you say he told Fiver to be quiet?"

        "Yes, Hazel. Fiver came into the warren and told us about the snare, and that poor Bigwig--"

        "Yes, all right. And then Cowslip--?"

        "Cowslip and Strawberry and the others pretended not to hear. It was ridiculous, because Fiver was calling out to everybody. And then as we were running out Silver said to Cowslip, 'Surely you're coming?' And Cowslip simply turned his back. So then Fiver went up and spoke to him very quietly, but I heard what Cowslip answered. He said, 'Hills or Inlé, it's all one to me where you go. You hold your tongue.' And then he struck at Fiver and scratched his ear."

        "I'll kill him," gasped a low, choking voice behind them. They all leaped round. Bigwig had raised his head and was supporting himself on his forepaws alone. His body was twisted and his hind parts and back legs still lay along the ground. His eyes were open, but his face was such a fearful mask of blood, foam, vomit and earth that he looked more like some demon creature than a rabbit, The immediate sight of him, which should have filled them with relief and joy, brought only terror. They cringed away and none said a word.

        "I'll kill him," repeated Bigwig, spluttering through his fouled whiskers and clotted fur. "Help me, rot you! Can't anyone get this stinking wire off me?" He struggled, dragging his hind legs. Then he fell again and crawled forward, trailing the wire through the grass with the broken peg snickering behind it.

        "Let him alone!" cried Hazel, for now they were all pressing forward to help him. "Do you want to kill him? Let him rest! Let him breathe!"

        "No, not rest," panted Bigwig. "I'm all right." As he spoke he fell again and immediately struggled up on his forepaws as before. "It's my back legs. Won't move. That Cowslip! I'll kill him!"

        "Why do we let them stay in that warren?" cried Silver. "What sort of rabbits are they? They left Bigwig to die.

You all heard Cowslip in the burrow. They're cowards. Let's drive them out--kill them! Take the warren and live

there ourselves!"

        "Yes! Yes!" they all answered. "Come on! Back to the warren! Down with Cowslip! Down with Silverweed! Kill

them!"

        "O embleer Frith!" cried a squealing voice in the long grass.

        At this shocking impiety, the tumult died away. They looked about them, wondering who could have spoken.

There was silence. Then, from between two great tussocks of hair grass came Fiver, his eyes blazing with a

frantic urgency. He growled and gibbered at them like a witch hare and those nearest to him fell back in fear. Even Hazel could not have said a word for his life. They realized that he was speaking.

        "The warren? You're going to the warren? You fools! That warren's nothing but a death hole! The whole place is one foul elil's larder! It's snared--everywhere, every day! That explains everything: everything that's happened since we came here."

        He sat still and his words seemed to come crawling up the sunlight, over the grass.

        "Listen, Dandelion. You're fond of stories, aren't you? I'll tell you one--yes, one for El-ahrairah to cry at. Once there was a fine warren on the edge of a wood, overlooking the meadows of a farm. It was big, full of rabbits. Then one day the white blindness came and the rabbits fell sick and died. But a few survived, as they always do. The warren became almost empty. One day the farmer thought, 'I could increase those rabbits: make them part of my farm--their meat, their skins. Why should I bother to keep rabbits in hutches? They'll do very well where they are.' He began to shoot all elil--lendri, homba, stoat, owl. He put out food for the rabbits, but not too near the warren. For his purpose they had to become accustomed to going about in the fields and the wood. And then he snared them--not too many: as many as he wanted and not as many as would frighten them all away or destroy the warren. They grew big and strong and healthy, for he saw to it that they had all of the best, particularly in winter, and nothing to fear--except the running knot in the hedge gap and the wood path. So they lived as he wanted them to live and all the time there were a few who disappeared. The rabbits became strange in many ways, different from other rabbits. They knew well enough what was happening. But even to themselves they pretended that all was well, for the food was good, they were protected, they had nothing to fear but the one fear; and that struck here and there, never enough at a time to drive them away. They forgot the ways of wild rabbits. They forgot El-ahrairah, for what use had they for tricks and cunning, living in the enemy's warren and paying his price? They found out other marvelous arts to take the place of tricks and old stories. They danced in ceremonious greeting. They sang songs like the birds and made Shapes on the walls; and though these could help them not at all, yet they passed the time and enabled them to tell themselves that they were splendid fellows, the very flower of Rabbitry, cleverer than magpies. They had no Chief Rabbit--no, how could they?--for a Chief Rabbit must be El-ahrairah to his warren and keep them from death: and here there was no death but one, and what Chief Rabbit could have an answer to that? Instead, Frith sent them strange singers, beautiful and sick like oak apples, like robins' pincushions on the wild rose. And since they could not bear the truth, these singers, who might in some other place have been wise, were squeezed under the terrible weight of the warren's secret until they gulped out fine folly--about dignity and acquiescence, and anything else that could make believe that the rabbit loved the shining wire. But one strict rule they had; oh yes, the strictest. No one must ever ask where another rabbit was and anyone who asked 'Where?'--except in a song or a poem--must be silenced. To say 'Where?' was bad enough, but to speak openly of the wires--that was intolerable. For that they would scratch and kill."

        He stopped. No one moved. Then, in the silence, Bigwig lurched to his feet, swayed a moment, tottered a few steps toward Fiver and fell again. Fiver paid him no heed, but looked from one to another among the rabbits. Then he began speaking again.

        "And then we came, over the heather in the night. Wild rabbits, making scrapes across the valley. The warren rabbits didn't show themselves at once. They needed to think what was best to be done. But they hit on it quite soon. To bring us into the warren and tell us nothing. Don't you see? The farmer only sets so many snares at a time, and if one rabbit dies, the others will live that much longer. You suggested that Hazel should tell them our adventures, Blackberry, but it didn't go down well, did it? Who wants to hear about brave deeds when he's ashamed of his own, and who likes an open, honest tale from someone he's deceiving? Do you want me to go on? I tell you, every single thing that's happened fits like a bee in a foxglove. And kill them, you say, and help ourselves to the great burrow? We shall help ourselves to a roof of bones, hung with shining wires! Help ourselves to misery and death!"

        Fiver sank down into the grass. Bigwig, still trailing his horrible, smooth peg, staggered up to him and touched his nose with his own.

        "I'm still alive, Fiver," he said. "So are all of us. You've bitten through a bigger peg than this one I'm dragging. Tell us what to do."

        "Do?" replied Fiver. "Why, go--now. I told Cowslip we were going before I left the burrow."

        "Where?" said Bigwig. But it was Hazel who answered.

        "To the hills," he said.

        South of them, the ground rose gently away from the brook. Along the crest was the line of a cart track and beyond, a copse. Hazel turned toward it and the rest began to follow him up the slope in ones and twos.

        "What about the wire, Bigwig?" said Silver. "The peg will catch and tighten it again."

        "No, it's loose now," said Bigwig "I could shake it off if I hadn't hurt my neck."

        "Try," said Silver. "You won't get far otherwise."

        "Hazel," said Speedwell suddenly, "there's a rabbit coming down from the warren. Look!"

        "Only one?" said Bigwig. "What a pity! You take him, Silver. I won't deprive you. Make a good job of it while you're at it."

        They stopped and waited, dotted here and there about the slope. The rabbit who was coming was running in a curious, headlong manner. Once he ran straight into a thick-stemmed thistle, knocking himself sideways and rolling over and over. But he got up and came blundering on toward them.

        "Is it the white blindness?" said Buckthorn. "He's not looking where he's going."

        "Frith forbid!" said Blackberry. "Shall we run away?"

        "No, he couldn't run like that with the white blindness," said Hazel. "Whatever ails him, it isn't that."

        "It's Strawberry!" cried Dandelion.

        Strawberry came through the hedge by the crab-apple tree, looked about him and made his way to Hazel. All his urbane self-possession had vanished. He was staring and trembling and his great size seemed only to add to his air of stricken misery. He cringed before them in the grass as Hazel waited, stern and motionless, with Silver at his side.

        "Hazel," said Strawberry, "are you going away?"

        Hazel made no answer, but Silver said sharply, "What's that to you?"

        "Take me with you." There was no reply and he repeated, "Take me with you."

        "We don't care for creatures who deceive us," said Silver. "Better go back to Nildro-hain. No doubt she's less particular."

        Strawberry gave a kind of choking squeal, as though he had been wounded. He looked from Silver to Hazel and then to Fiver. At last, in a pitiful whisper, he said,

        "The wires."

        Silver was about to answer, but Hazel spoke first.

        "You can come with us," he said. "Don't say any more. Poor fellow."

        A few minutes later the rabbits had crossed the cart track and vanished into the copse beyond. A magpie, seeing some light-colored object conspicuous on the empty slope, flew closer to look. But all that lay there was a splintered peg and a twisted length of wire.

PART II  On Watership Down

18.    Watership Down

What is now proved was once only imagin'd.

William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

It was evening of the following day. The north-facing escarpment of Watership Down, in shadow since early morning, now caught the western sun for an hour before twilight. Three hundred feet the down rose vertically in a stretch of no more than six hundred--a precipitous wall, from the thin belt of trees at the foot to the ridge where the steep flattened out. The light, full and smooth, lay like a gold rind over the turf, the furze and yew bushes, the few wind-stunted thorn trees. From the ridge, the light seemed to cover all the slope below, drowsy and still. But down in the grass itself, between the bushes, in that thick forest trodden by the beetle, the spider and the hunting shrew, the moving light was like a wind that danced among them to set them scurrying and weaving. The red rays flickered in and out of the grass stems, flashing minutely on membranous wings, casting long shadows behind the thinnest of filamentary legs, breaking each patch of bare soil into a myriad individual grains. The insects buzzed, whined, hummed, stridulated and droned as the air grew warmer in the sunset. Louder yet calmer than they, among the trees, sounded the yellowhammer, the linnet and greenfinch. The larks went up, twittering in the scented air above the down. From the summit, the apparent immobility of the vast blue distance was broken, here and there, by wisps of smoke and tiny, momentary flashes of glass. Far below lay the fields green with wheat, the flat pastures grazed by horses, the darker greens of the woods. They, too, like the hillside jungle, were tumultuous with evening, but from the remote height turned to stillness, their fierceness tempered by the air that lay between.