At the foot of the turf cliff, Hazel and his companions were crouching under the low branches of two or three spindle trees. Since the previous morning they had journeyed nearly three miles. Their luck had been good, for everyone who had left the warren was still alive. They had splashed through two brooks and wandered fearfully in the deep woodlands west of Ecchinswell. They had rested in the straw of a starveall, or lonely barn, and woken to find themselves attacked by rats. Silver and Buckthorn, with Bigwig helping them, had covered the retreat until, once all were together outside, they had taken to flight. Buckthorn had been bitten in the foreleg, and the wound, in the manner of a rat bite, was irritant and painful. Skirting a small lake, they had stared to see a great gray fisher bird that stabbed and paddled in the sedge, until a flight of wild duck had frightened them away with their clamor. They had crossed more than half a mile of open pasture without a trace of cover, expecting every moment some attack that did not come. They had heard the unnatural humming of a pylon in the summer air; and had actually gone beneath it, on Fiver's assurance that it could do them no harm. Now they lay under the spindle trees and sniffed in weariness and doubt at the strange, bare country round them.

        Since leaving the warren of the snares they had become warier, shrewder, a tenacious band who understood each other and worked together. There was no more quarreling. The truth about the warren had been a grim shock. They had come closer together, relying on and valuing each other's capacities. They knew now that it was on these and on nothing else that their lives depended, and they were not going to waste anything they possessed between them. In spite of Hazel's efforts beside the snare, there was not one of them who had not turned sick at heart to think that Bigwig was dead and wondered, like Blackberry, what would become of them now. Without Hazel, without Blackberry, Buckthorn and Pipkin--Bigwig would have died. Without himself he would have died, for which else, of them all, would not have stopped running after such punishment? There was no more questioning of Bigwig's strength, Fiver's insight, Blackberry's wits or Hazel's authority. When the rats came, Buckthorn and Silver had obeyed Bigwig and stood their ground. The rest had followed Hazel when he roused them and, without explanation, told them to go quickly outside the barn. Later, Hazel had said that there was nothing for it but to cross the open pasture and under Silver's direction they had crossed it, with Dandelion running ahead to reconnoiter. When Fiver said the iron tree was harmless they believed him.

        Strawberry had had a bad time. His misery made him slow-witted and careless and he was ashamed of the part he had played at the warren. He was soft and more used than he dared admit to indolence and good food. But he made no complaint and it was plain that he was determined to show what he could do and not to be left behind. He had proved useful in the woodland, being better accustomed to thick woods than any of the others. "He'll be all right, you know, if we give him a chance," said Hazel to Bigwig by the lake. "So he darned well ought to be," replied Bigwig, "the great dandy"--for by their standards Strawberry was scrupulously clean and fastidious. "Well, I won't have him brow-beaten, Bigwig, mind. That won't help him." This Bigwig had accepted, though rather sulkily. Yet he himself had become less overbearing. The snare had left him weak and overwrought. It was he who had given the alarm in the barn, for he could not sleep and at the sound of scratching had started up at once. He would not let Silver and Buckthorn fight alone, but he had felt obliged to leave the worst of it to them. For the first time in his life, Bigwig had found himself driven to moderation and prudence.

        As the sun sank lower and touched the edge of the cloud belt on the horizon, Hazel came out from under the branches and looked carefully round the lower slope. Then he stared upward over the anthills, to the open down rising above. Fiver and Acorn followed him out and fell to nibbling at a patch of sainfoin. It was new to them, but they did not need to be told that it was good and it raised their spirits. Hazel turned back and joined them among the big, rosy-veined, magenta flower spikes.

        "Fiver," he said, "let me get this right. You want us to climb up this place, however far it is, and find shelter

on the top. Is that it?"

        "Yes, Hazel."

        "But the top must be very high. I can't even see it from here. It'll be open and cold."

        "Not in the ground:  and the soil's so light that we shall be able to scratch some shelter easily when we find

the right place."

        Hazel considered again. "It's getting started that bothers me. Here we are, all tired out. I'm sure it's dangerous to stay here. We've nowhere to run to. We don't know the country and we can't get underground. But it seems out

of the question for everybody to climb up there tonight. We should be even less safe."

        "We shall be forced to dig, shan't we?" said Acorn. "This place is almost as open as that heather we crossed,

and the trees won't hide us from anything hunting on four feet."

        "It would have been the same any time we came," said Fiver.

        "I'm not saying anything against it, Fiver," replied Acorn, "but we need holes. It's a bad place not to be able to get underground."

        "Before everyone goes up to the top," said Hazel, "we ought to find out what it's like. I'm going up myself to have a look round. I'll be as quick as I can and you'll have to hope for the best until I get back. You can rest and feed, anyway."

        "You're not going alone," said Fiver firmly.

        Since each one of them was ready to go with him in spite of their fatigue, Hazel gave in and chose Dandelion and Hawkbit, who seemed less weary than the others. They set out up the hillside, going slowly, picking their way from one bush and tussock to another and pausing continually to sniff and stare along the great expanse of grass, which stretched on either side as far as they could see.

        A man walks upright. For him it is strenuous to climb a steep hill, because he has to keep pushing his own vertical mass upward and cannot gain any momentum. The rabbit is better off. His forelegs support his horizontal body and the great back legs do the work. They are more than equal to thrusting uphill the light mass in front of them. Rabbits can go fast uphill. In fact, they have so much power behind that they find going downhill awkward, and sometimes, in flight down a steep place, they may actually go head over heels. On the other hand, the man is five or six feet above the hillside and can see all round. To him the ground may be steep and rough but on the whole it is even, and he can pick his direction easily from the top of his moving, six-foot tower. The rabbits' anxieties and strain in climbing the down were different, therefore, from those which you, reader, will experience if you go there. Their main trouble was not bodily fatigue. When Hazel had said that they were all tired out, he had meant that they were feeling the strain of prolonged insecurity and fear.

        Rabbits above ground, unless they are in proved, familiar surroundings close to their holes, live in continual fear. If it grows intense enough they can become glazed and paralyzed by it--"tharn," to use their own word. Hazel and his companions had been on the jump for nearly two days. Indeed, ever since they had left their home warren, five days before, they had faced one danger after another. They were all on edge, sometimes starting at nothing and, again, lying down in any patch of long grass that offered. Bigwig and Buckthorn smelled of blood and everyone else knew they did. What bothered Hazel, Dandelion and Hawkbit was the openness and strangeness of the down and their inability to see very far ahead. They climbed not over but through the sun-red grass, among the awakened insect movement and the light ablaze. The grass undulated about them. They peered over anthills and looked cautiously round clumps of teazle. They could not tell how far away the ridge might be. They topped each short slope only to find another above it. To Hazel, it seemed a likely place for a weasel: or the white owl, perhaps, might fly along the escarpment at twilight, looking inward with its stony eyes, ready to turn a few feet sideways and pick off the shelf anything that moved. Some elil wait for their prey, but the white owl is a seeker and he comes in silence.

        As Hazel still went up, the south wind began to blow and the June sunset reddened the sky to the zenith. Hazel, like nearly all wild animals, was unaccustomed to look up at the sky. What he thought of as the sky was the horizon, usually broken by trees and hedges. Now, with his head pointing upward, he found himself gazing at the ridge, as over the skyline came the silent, moving, red-tinged cumuli. Their movement was disturbing, unlike that of trees or grass or rabbits. These great masses moved steadily, noiselessly and always in the same direction. They were not of his world.

        "O Frith," thought Hazel, turning his head for a moment to the bright glow in the west, "are you sending us to live among the clouds? If you spoke truly to Fiver, help me to trust him." At this moment he saw Dandelion, who had run well ahead, squatting on an anthill clear against the sky. Alarmed, he dashed forward.

        "Dandelion, get down!" he said. "Why are you sitting up there?"

        "Because I can see," replied Dandelion, with a kind of excited joy. "Come and look! You can see the whole world."

        Hazel came up to him. There was another anthill nearby and he copied Dandelion, sitting upright on his hind legs and looking about him. He realized now that they were almost on level ground. Indeed, the slope was no more than gentle for some way back along the line by which they had come; but he had been preoccupied with the idea of danger in the open and had not noticed the change. They were on top of the down. Perched above the grass, they could see far in every direction. Their surroundings were empty. If anything had been moving they would have seen it immediately: and where the turf ended, the sky began. A man, a fox--even a rabbit--coming over the down would be conspicuous. Fiver had been right. Up here, they would have clear warning of any approach.

        The wind ruffled their fur and tugged at the grass, which smelled of thyme and self-heal. The solitude seemed like a release and a blessing. The height, the sky and the distance went to their heads and they skipped in the sunset. "O Frith on the hills!" cried Dandelion. "He must have made it for us!"

        "He may have made it, but Fiver thought of it for us," answered Hazel. "Wait till we get him up here! Fiver-rah!"

        "Where's Hawkbit?" said Dandelion suddenly.

        Although the light was still clear, Hawkbit was not to be seen anywhere on the upland. After staring about for some time, they ran across to a little mound some way away and looked again. But they saw nothing except a field mouse, which came out of its hole and began furricking in a path of seeded grasses.

        "He must have gone down," said Dandelion.

        "Well, whether he has or not," said Hazel, "we can't go on looking for him. The others are waiting and they may be in danger. We must go down ourselves."

        "What a shame to lose him, though," said Dandelion, "just when we'd reached Fiver's hills without losing anyone. He's such a duffer; we shouldn't have brought him up. But how could anything have got hold of him here, without our seeing?"

        "No, he's gone back, for sure," said Hazel. "I wonder what Bigwig will say to him? I hope he won't bite him again. We'd better get on."

        "Are you going to bring them up tonight?" asked Dandelion.

        "I don't know," said Hazel. "It's a problem. Where's the shelter to be found?"

        They made for the steep edge. The light was beginning to fail. They picked their direction by a clump of stunted trees which they had passed on their way up. These formed a kind of dry oasis--a little feature common on the downs. Half a dozen thorns and two or three elders grew together above and below a bank. Between them the ground was bare and the naked chalk showed a pallid, dirty white under the cream-colored elder bloom. As they approached, they suddenly saw Hawkbit sitting among the thorn trunks, cleaning his face with his paws.

        "We've been looking for you," said Hazel. "Where in the world have you been?"

        "I'm sorry, Hazel," replied Hawkbit meekly. "I've been looking at these holes. I thought they might be some good

to us."

        In the low bank behind him were three rabbit holes. There were two more flat on the ground, between the thick, gnarled roots. They could see no footmarks and no droppings. The holes were clearly deserted.

        "Have you been down?" asked Hazel, sniffing round.

        "Yes, I have," said Hawkbit. "Three of them, anyway. They're shallow and rather rough, but there's no smell of death or disease and they're perfectly sound. I thought they might do for us--just for the moment, anyway."

        In the twilight a swift flew screaming overhead and Hazel turned to Dandelion.

        "News! News!" he said. "Go and get them up here."

        Thus it fell to one of the rank and file to make a lucky find that brought them at last to the downs: and probably saved a life or two, for they could hardly have spent the night in the open, either on or under the hill, without being attacked by some enemy or other.

19.    Fear in the Dark

"Who's in the next room?--who?

        A figure wan

With a message to one in there of something due?

        Shall I know him anon?"

"Yea, he; and he brought such; and you'll know him anon."

Thomas Hardy, Who's in the Next Room?

The holes certainly were rough--"Just right for a lot of vagabonds* like us," said Bigwig--but the exhausted and those who wander in strange country are not particular about therr quarters. At least there was room for twelve rabbits and the burrows were dry. Two of the runs--the ones among the thorn trees--led straight down to burrows scooped out of the top of the chalk subsoil. Rabbits do not line their sleeping places and a hard, almost rocky floor is uncomfortable for those not accustomed to it. The holes in the bank, however, had runs of the usual bow shape, leading down to the chalk and then curving up again to burrows with floors of trampled earth. There were no connecting passages, but the rabbits were too weary to care. They slept four to a burrow, snug and secure. Hazel remained awake for some time, licking Buckthorn's leg, which was stiff and tender. He was reassured to find no smell of infection, but all that he had ever heard about rats decided him to see that Buckthorn got a good deal of rest and was kept out of the dirt until the wound was better. "That's the third one of us to get hurt: still, all in all, things could have been far worse," he thought, as he fell asleep.

        The short June darkness slipped by in a few hours. The light returned early to the high down, but the rabbits did not stir. Well after dawn they were still sleeping, undisturbed in a silence deeper than they had ever known. Nowadays, among fields and woods, the noise level by day is high--too high for some kinds of animal to tolerate. Few places are far from human noise--cars, buses, motorcycles, tractors, lorries. The sound of a housing estate in the morning is audible a long way off. People who record birdsong generally do it very early--before six o'clock--if they can. Soon after that, the invasion of distant noise in most woodland becomes too constant and too loud. During the last fifty years the silence of much of the country has been destroyed. But here, on Watership Down, there floated up only faint traces of the daylight noise below.

        The sun was well up, though not yet as high as the down, when Hazel woke. With him in the burrow were Buckthorn, Fiver and Pipkin. He was nearest to the mouth of the hole and did not wake them as he slipped up the run. Outside, he stopped to pass hraka and then hopped through the thorn patch to the open grass. Below, the country was covered with early-morning mist which was beginning to clear. Here and there, far off, were the shapes of trees and roofs, from which streamers of mist trailed down like broken waves pouring from rocks. The sky was cloudless and deep blue, darkening to mauve along the whole rim of the horizon. The wind had dropped and the spiders had already gone well down into the grass. It was going to be a hot day.

        Hazel rambled about in the usual way of a rabbit feeding--five or six slow, rocking hops through the grass; a pause to look round, sitting up with ears erect; then busy nibbling for a short time, followed by another move of a few yards. For the first time for many days he felt relaxed and safe. He began to wonder whether they had much to learn about their new home.

        "Fiver was right," he thought. "This is the place for us. But we shall need to get used to it and the fewer mistakes we make the better. I wonder what became of the rabbits who made these holes? Did they stop running or did they just move away? If we could only find them they could tell us a lot."

        At this moment he saw a rabbit come rather hesitantly out of the hole furthest from himself. It was Blackberry. He, too, passed hraka, scratched himself and then hopped into the full sunlight and combed his ears. As he began to feed, Hazel came up and fell in with him, nibbling among the grass tussocks and wandering on wherever his friend pleased. They came to a patch of milkwort--a blue as deep as that of the sky--with long stems creeping through the grass and each minute flower spreading its two upper petals like wings. Blackberry sniffed at it, but the leaves were tough and unappetizing.

        "What is this stuff, do you know?" he asked.

        "No, I don't," said Hazel. "I've never seen it before."

        "There's a lot we don't know," said Blackberry. "About this place, I mean. The plants are new, the smells are new. We're going to need some new ideas ourselves."

        "Well, you're the fellow for ideas," said Hazel. "I never know anything until you tell me."

        "But you go in front and take the risks first," answered Blackberry. "We've all seen that. And now our journey's over, isn't it? This place is as safe as Fiver said it would be. Nothing can get near us without our knowing: that is, as long as we can smell and see and hear."

        "We can all do that."

        "Not when we're asleep: and we can't see in the dark."

        "It's bound to be dark at night," said Hazel, "and rabbits have got to sleep."

        "In the open?"

        "Well, we can go on using these holes if we want to, but I expect a good many will lie out. After all, you can't expect a bunch of bucks to dig. They might make a scrape or two--like that day after we came over the heather--but they won't do more than that."

        "That's what I've been thinking about," said Blackberry. "Those rabbits we left--Cowslip and the rest--a lot of the things they did weren't natural to rabbits--pushing stones into the earth and carrying food underground and Frith knows what."

        "The Threarah's lettuce was carried underground, if it comes to that."

        "Exactly. Don't you see, they'd altered what rabbits do naturally because they thought they could do better? And if they altered their ways, so can we if we like. You say buck rabbits don't dig. Nor they do. But they could, if they wanted to. Suppose we had deep, comfortable burrows to sleep in? To be out of bad weather and underground at night? Then we would be safe. And there's nothing to stop us having them, except that buck rabbits won't dig. Not can't--won't."

        "What's your idea, then?" asked Hazel, half interested and half reluctant. "Do you want us to try to turn these holes into a regular warren?"

        "No, these holes won't do. It's easy to see why they've been deserted. Only a little way down and you come to this hard white stuff that no one can dig. They must be bitterly cold in winter. But there's a wood just over the top of the hill. I got a glimpse of it last night when we came. Suppose we go up higher now, just you and I, and have a look at it?"

        They ran uphill to the summit. The beech hanger lay some little way off to the southeast, on the far side of a grassy track that ran along the ridge.

        "There are some big trees there," said Blackberry. "The roots must have broken up the ground pretty deep. We could dig holes and be as well off as ever we were in the old warren. But if Bigwig and the others won't dig or say they can't--well, it's bare and bleak here. That's why it's lonely and safe, of course; but when bad weather comes we shall be driven off the hills for sure."

        "It never entered my head to try to make a lot of bucks dig regular holes," said Hazel doubtfully, as they returned down the slope. "Rabbit kittens need holes, of course; but do we?"

        "We were all born in a warren that was dug before our mothers were born," said Blackberry. "We're used to holes and not one of us has ever helped to dig one. And if ever there was a new one, who dug it? A doe. I'm quite sure, myself, that if we don't change our natural ways we shan't be able to stay here very long. Somewhere else, perhaps; but not here."

        "It'll mean a lot of work."

        "Look, there's Bigwig come up now and some of the others with him. Why not put it to them and see what they say?"

        During silflay, however, Hazel mentioned Blackberry's idea to no one but Fiver. Later on, when most of the rabbits had finished feeding and were either playing in the grass or lying in the sunshine, he suggested that they might go across to the hanger--"Just to see what sort of a wood it is." Bigwig and Silver agreed at once and in the end no one stayed behind.

        It was different from the meadow copses they had left: a narrow belt of trees, four or five hundred yards long but barely fifty wide; a kind of windbreak common on the downs. It consisted almost entirely of well-grown beeches. The great, smooth trunks stood motionless in their green shade, the branches spreading flat, one above another in crisp, light-dappled tiers. Between the trees the ground was open and offered hardly any cover. The rabbits were perplexed. They could not make out why the wood was so light and still and why they could see so far between the trees. The continuous, gentle rustling of the beech leaves was unlike the sounds to be heard in a copse of nut bushes, oak and silver birch.

        Moving uncertainly in and out along the edge of the hanger, they came to the northeast corner. Here there was a bank from which they looked out over the empty stretches of grass beyond. Fiver, absurdly small beside the hulking Bigwig, turned to Hazel with an air of happy confidence.

        "I'm sure Blackberry's right, Hazel," he said. "We ought to do our best to make some holes here. I'm ready to try, anyway."

        The others were taken aback. Pipkin, however, readily joined Hazel at the foot of the bank and soon two or three more began scratching at the light soil. The digging was easy and although they often broke off to feed or merely to sit in the sun, before midday Hazel was out of sight and tunneling between the tree roots.

        The hanger might have little or no undergrowth but at least the branches gave cover from the sky: and kestrels, they soon realized, were common in this solitude. Although kestrels seldom prey on anything bigger than a rat, they will sometimes attack young rabbits. No doubt this is why most grown rabbits will not remain under a hovering kestrel. Before long, Acorn spotted one as it flew up from the south. He stamped and bolted into the trees, followed by the other rabbits who were in the open. They had not long come out and resumed digging when they saw another--or perhaps the same one--hovering some way off, high over the very fields that they had crossed the previous morning. Hazel placed Buckthorn as a sentry while the day's haphazard work went on, and twice more during the afternoon the alarm was given. In the early evening they were disturbed by a horseman cantering along the ridge track that passed the north end of the wood. Otherwise they saw nothing larger than a pigeon all day.

        After the horseman had turned south near the summit of Watership and disappeared in the distance, Hazel returned to the edge of the wood and looked out northward toward the bright, still fields and the dim pylon line stalking away into the distance north of Kingsclere. The air was cooler and the sun was beginning once more to reach the north escarpment.

        "I think we've done enough," he said, "for today, anyway. I should like to go down to the bottom of the hill and find some really good grass. This stuff's all right in its way but it's rather thin and dry. Does anyone feel like coming with me?"

        Bigwig, Dandelion and Speedwell were ready, but the others preferred to graze their way back to the thorn trees and go underground with the sun. Bigwig and Hazel picked the line that offered most cover and, with the others following, set out on the four or five hundred yards to the foot of the hill. They met no trouble and were soon feeding in the grass at the edge of the wheatfield, the very picture of rabbits in an evening landscape. Hazel, tired though he was, did not forget to look for somewhere to bolt if there should be an alarm. He was lucky enough to come upon a short length of old, overgrown ditch, partly fallen in and so heavily overhung with cow parsley and nettles that it was almost as sheltered as a tunnel; and all four of them made sure that they could reach it quickly from the open.

        "That'll be good enough at a pinch," said Bigwig, munching clover and sniffing at the fallen bloom from a wayfaring tree. "My goodness, we've learned a few things since we left the old warren, haven't we? More than we'd have learned in a lifetime back there. And digging! It'll be flying next, I suppose. Have you noticed that this soil's quite different from the soil in the old warren? It smells differently and it slides and falls quite differently, too."

        "That reminds me," said Hazel. "I meant to ask you. There was one thing at that terrible warren of Cowslip's that I admired very much--the great burrow. I'd like to copy it. It's a wonderful idea to have a place underground where everybody can be together--talk and tell stories and so on. What do you think? Could it be done?"

        Bigwig considered. "I know this," he said. "If you make a burrow too big the roof starts falling in. So if you want a place like that you'll need something to hold the roof up. What did Cowslip have?"

        "Tree roots."

        "Well, there are those where we're digging. But are they the right sort?"

        "We'd better get Strawberry to tell us what he knows about the great burrow; but it may not be much, I'm sure he wasn't alive when it was dug."

        "He may not be dead when it falls in either. That warren's tharn as an owl in daylight. He was wise to leave when he did."

        Twilight had fallen over the cornfield, for although long red rays still lit the upper down, the sun had set below. The uneven shadow of the hedge had faded and disappeared. There was a cool smell of moisture and approaching darkness. A cockchafer droned past. The grasshoppers had fallen silent.

        "Owls'll be out," said Bigwig. "Let's go up again."

        At this moment, from out in the darkening field, there came the sound of a stamp on the ground. It was followed by another, closer to them,  and they caught a glimpse of a white tail. They both immediately ran to the ditch. Now that they had to use it in earnest, they found it even narrower than they had thought. There was just room to turn round at the far end and as they did so Speedwell and Dandelion tumbled in behind them.

        "What is it?" asked Hazel. "What did you hear?"

        "There's something coming up the line of the hedge," replied Speedwell. "An animal. Making a lot of noise, too."

        "Did you see it?"

        "No, and I couldn't smell it either. It's downwind. But I heard it plainly enough."

        "I heard it, too," said Dandelion. "Something fairly big--as big as a rabbit, anyway--moving clumsily but trying to keep concealed, or so it seemed to me."

        "Homba?"

        "No, that we should have smelled," said Bigwig, "wind or no wind. From what you say, it sounds like a cat. I hope it's not a stoat. Hoi, hoi, u embleer hrair! What a nuisance! We'd better sit tight for a bit. But get ready to bolt if it spots us."

        They waited. Soon it grew dark. Only the faintest light came through the tangled summer growth above them. The far end of the ditch was so much overgrown that they could not see out of it, but the place where they had come in showed as a patch of sky--an arc of very dark blue. As the time passed, a star crept out from among the overhanging grasses. It seemed to pulsate in a rhythm as faint and uneven as that of the wind. At length Hazel turned his eyes away from watching it.

        "Well, we can snatch some sleep here," he said. "The night's not cold. Whatever it was you heard, we'd better not risk going out."

        "Listen," said Dandelion. "What's that?"

        For a moment Hazel could hear nothing. Then he caught a distant but clear sound--a kind of wailing or crying, wavering and intermittent. Although it did not sound like any sort of hunting call, it was so unnatural that it filled him with fear. As he listened, it ceased.

        "What in Frith's name makes a noise like that?" said Bigwig, his great fur cap hackling between his ears.

        "A cat?" said Speedwell, wide-eyed.

        "That's no cat!" said Bigwig, his lips drawn back in a stiffened, unnatural grimace, "That's no cat! Don't you know what it is? Your mother--" He broke off. Then he said, very low, "Your mother told you, didn't she?"

        "No!" cried Dandelion. "No! It's some bird--some rat--wounded--"

        Bigwig stood up. His back was arched and his head nodded on his stiffened neck.

        "The Black Rabbit of Inlé," he whispered, "What else--in a place like this?"

        "Don't talk like that!" said Hazel. He could feel himself trembling, and braced his legs against the sides of the narrow cut.

        Suddenly the noise sounded again, nearer: and now there could be no mistake. What they heard was the voice of a rabbit, but changed out of all recognition. It might have come from the cold spaces of the dark sky outside, so unearthly and desolate was the sound. At first there was only a wailing. Then, distinct and beyond mistaking, they heard--they all heard--words.

        "Zorn! Zorn!"* cried the dreadful, squealing voice. "All dead! O zorn!"

        Dandelion whimpered. Bigwig was scuffling into the ground.

        "Be quiet!" said Hazel. "And stop kicking that earth over me! I want to listen,"

        At that moment, quite distinctly, the voice cried, "Thlayli! O Thlayli!"

        At this, all four rabbits felt the trance of utter panic. They grew rigid. Then Bigwig, his eyes set in a fixed, glazed stare, began to jerk his way up the ditch toward the opening. "You have to go," he muttered, so thickly that Hazel could hardly catch the words. "You have to go when he calls you."

        Hazel felt so much frightened that he could no longer collect his wits. As on the riverbank, his surroundings became unreal and dream-like. Who--or what--was calling Bigwig by name? How could any living creature in this place know his name? Only one idea remained to him--Bigwig must be prevented from going out, for he was helpless. He scrambled past him, pressing him against the side of the ditch.

        "Stay where you are," he said, panting, "Whatever sort of rabbit it is, I'm going to see for myself." Then, his legs almost giving way beneath him, he pulled himself out into the open.

        For a few moments he could see little or nothing; but the smells of dew and elder bloom were unchanged and his nose brushed against cool grass blades. He sat up and looked about him. There was no creature nearby.

        "Who's there?" he said.

        There was silence, and he was about to speak again when the voice replied, "Zorn! O zorn!"

        It came from the hedge along the side of the field. Hazel turned toward the sound and in a few moments made out, under a clump of hemlock, the hunched shape of a rabbit. He approached it and said, "Who are you?" but there was no reply. As he hesitated, he heard a movement behind him.

        "I'm here, Hazel," said Dandelion, in a kind of choking gasp.

        Together they went closer. The figure did not move as they came up. In the faint starlight they both saw a rabbit as real as themselves: a rabbit in the last stages of exhaustion, its back legs trailing behind its flattened rump as though paralyzed: a rabbit that stared, white-eyed, from one side to the other, seeing nothing, yet finding no respite from its fear, and then fell to licking wretchedly at one ripped and bloody ear that drooped across its face: a rabbit that suddenly cried and wailed as though entreating the Thousand to come from every quarter to rid it of a misery too terrible to be borne.

        It was Captain Holly of the Sandleford Owsla.

 

* Bigwig's word was hlessil, which I have rendered in various places in the story as wanderers, scratchers, vagabonds. A hlessi is a rabbit living in the open, without a hole. Solitary bucks and unmated rabbits who are wandering do this for quite long periods, especially in summer. Bucks do not usually dig much in any case, although they will scratch shallow shelters or make use of existing holes where these are available. Real digging is done for the most part by does preparing for litters.

*Zorn means "finished" or "destroyed," in the sense of some terrible catastrophe.

20.    A Honeycomb and a Mouse

His face was that of one who has undergone a long journey.

 

The Epic of Gilgamesh

In the Sandleford warren, Holly had been a rabbit of consequence. He was greatly relied upon by the Threarah and had more than once carried out difficult orders with a good deal of courage. During the early spring, when a fox had moved into a neighboring copse, Holly, with two or three volunteers, had kept it steadily under observation for several days and reported all its movements, until one evening it left as suddenly as it had come. Although he had decided on his own initiative to arrest Bigwig, he had not the reputation of being vindictive. He was, rather, a stander of no nonsense who knew when duty was done and did it himself. Sound, unassuming, conscientious, a bit lacking in the rabbit sense of mischief, he was something of the born second-in-command. There could have been no question of trying to persuade him to leave the warren with Hazel and Fiver. To find him under Watership Down at all, therefore, was astonishing enough. But to find him in such a condition was all but incredible.

        In the first moments after they had recognized the poor creature under the hemlock, Hazel and Dandelion felt completely stupefied, as though they had come upon a squirrel underground or a stream that flowed uphill. They could not trust their senses. The voice in the dark had proved not to be supernatural, but the reality was frightening enough. How could Captain Holly be here, at the foot of the down? And what could have reduced him--of all rabbits--to this state?

        Hazel pulled himself together. Whatever the explanation might be, the immediate need was to take first things first. They were in open country, at night, away from any refuge but an overgrown ditch, with a rabbit who smelled of blood, was crying uncontrollably and looked as though he could not move. There might very well be a stoat on his trail at this moment. If they were going to help him they had better be quick.

        "Go and tell Bigwig who it is," he said to Dandelion, "and come back with him. Send Speedwell up the hill to the others and tell him to make it clear that no one is to come down. They couldn't help and it would only add to the risk."

        Dandelion had no sooner gone than Hazel became aware that something else was moving in the hedge. But he had no time to wonder what it might be, for almost immediately another rabbit appeared and limped to where Holly was lying.

        "You must help us if you can," he said to Hazel. "We've had a very bad time and my master's ill. Can we get underground here?"

        Hazel recognized him as one of the rabbits who had come to arrest Bigwig, but he did not know his name.

        "Why did you stay in the hedge and leave him to crawl about in the open?" he asked.

        "I ran away when I heard you coming," replied the other rabbit. "I couldn't get the captain to move. I thought you were elil and there was no point in staying to be killed. I don't think I could fight a field mouse."

        "Do you know me?" said Hazel. But before the other could answer, Dandelion and Bigwig came out of the darkness. Bigwig stared at Holly for a moment and then crouched before him and touched noses.

        "Holly, this is Thlayli," he said. "You were calling me."

        Holly did not answer, but only stared fixedly back at him. Bigwig looked up. "Who's that who came with him?" he said. "Oh, it's you, Bluebell. How many more of you?"

        "No more," said Bluebell. He was about to go on when Holly spoke.

        "Thlayli," he said. "So we have found you."

        He sat up with difficulty and looked around at them.

        "You're Hazel, aren't you?" he asked. "And that's--oh, I should know, but I'm in very poor shape, I'm afraid."

        "It's Dandelion," said Hazel. "Listen--I can see that you're exhausted, but we can't stay here. We're in danger. Can you come with us to our holes?"

        "Captain," said Bluebell, "do you know what the first blade of grass said to the second blade of grass?"

        Hazel looked at him sharply, but Holly replied, "Well?"

        "It said, 'Look, there's a rabbit! We're in danger!' "

        "This is no time--" began Hazel.

        "Don't silence him," said Holly. "We wouldn't be here at all without his blue tit's chatter. Yes, I can go now. Is it far?"

        "Not too far," said Hazel, thinking it all too likely that Holly would never get there.

        It took a long time to climb the hill. Hazel made them separate, himself remaining with Holly and Bluebell while Bigwig and Dandelion went out to either side. Holly was forced to stop several times and Hazel, full of fear, had hard work to suppress his impatience. Only when the moon began to rise--the edge of its great disc growing brighter and brighter on the skyline below and behind them--did he at last beg Holly to hurry. As he spoke he saw, in the white light, Pipkin coming down to meet them.

        "What are you doing?" he said sternly. "I told Speedwell no one was to come down."

        "It isn't Speedwell's fault," said Pipkin. "You stood by me at the river, so I thought I'd come and look for you, Hazel. Anyway, the holes are just here. Is it really Captain Holly you've found?"

        Bigwig and Dandelion approached.

        "I'll tell you what," said Bigwig. "These two will need to rest for a good long time. Suppose Pipkin here and Dandelion take them to an empty burrow and stay with them as long as they want? The rest of us had better keep away until they feel better."

        "Yes, that's best," said Hazel. "I'll go up with you now."

        They ran the short distance to the thorn trees. All the other rabbits were above ground, waiting and whispering together.

        "Shut up," said Bigwig, before anyone had asked a question. "Yes, it is Holly, and Bluebell is with him--no one else. They're in a bad way and they're not to be troubled. We'll leave this hole empty for them. Now I'm going underground myself and so will you if you've got any sense."

        But before he went, Bigwig turned to Hazel and said, "You got yourself out of that ditch down there instead of me, didn't you, Hazel? I shan't forget that."

        Hazel remembered Buckthorn's leg and took him down with him. Speedwell and Silver followed them.

        "I say, what's happened, Hazel?" asked Silver. "It must be something very bad. Holly would never leave the Threarah."

        "I don't know," replied Hazel, "and neither does anyone else yet. We'll have to wait until tomorow. Holly may stop running, but I don't think Bluebell will. Now let me alone to do this leg of Buckthorn's."

        The wound was a great deal better and soon Hazel fell asleep.

        The next day was as hot and cloudless as the last. Neither Pipkin nor Dandelion was at morning silflay; and Hazel relentlessly took the others up to the beech hanger to go on with the digging. He questioned Strawberry about the great burrow and learned that its ceiling, as well as being vaulted with a tangle of fibers, was strengthened by roots going vertically down into the floor. He remarked that he had not noticed these.

        "There aren't many, but they're important," said Strawberry. "They take a lot of the load. If it weren't for those roots the ceiling would fall after heavy rain. On stormy nights you could sense the extra weight in the earth above, but there was no danger."

        Hazel and Bigwig went underground with him. The beginnings of the new warren had been hollowed out among the roots of one of the beech trees. It was still no more than a small, irregular cave with one entrance. They set to work to enlarge it, digging between the roots and tunneling upward to make a second run that would emerge inside the wood. After a time Strawberry stopped digging and began moving about between the roots, sniffing, biting and scuffling in the soil with his front paws. Hazel supposed that he was tired and pretending to be busy while he had a rest, but at length he came back to them and said that he had some suggestions.

        "It's this way," he explained. "There isn't a big spread of fine roots above here. That was a lucky chance in the great burrow and I don't think you can expect to find it again. But, all the same, we can do pretty well with what we've got."

        "And what have we got?" asked Blackberry, who had come down the run while he was talking.

        "Well, we've got several thick roots that go straight down--more than there were in the great burrow. The best thing will be to dig round them and leave them. They shouldn't be gnawed through and taken out. We shall need them if we're going to have a hall of any size."

        "Then our hall will be full of these thick, vertical roots?" asked Hazel. He felt disappointed.

        "Yes, it will," said Strawberry, "but I can't see that it's going to be any the worse for that. We can go in and out among them and they won't hinder anyone who's talking or telling a story. They'll make the place warmer and they'll help to conduct sound from above, which might be useful some time or other."

        The excavation of the hall (which came to be known among them as the Honeycomb) turned out to be something of a triumph for Strawberry. Hazel contented himself with organizing the diggers and left it to Strawberry to say what was actually to be done. The work went on in shifts and the rabbits took it in turns to feed, play and lie in the sun above ground. Throughout the day the solitude remained unbroken by noise, men, tractors, or even cattle, and they began to feel still more deeply what they owed to Fiver's insight. By the late afternoon the big burrow was beginning to take shape. At the north end, the beech roots formed a kind of irregular colonnade. This gave way to a more open central space: and beyond, where there were no supporting roots, Strawberry left blocks of the earth untouched, so that the south end consisted of three or four separate bays. These narrowed into low-roofed runs that led away into sleeping burrows.

        Hazel, much better pleased now that he could see for himself how the business was going to turn out, was sitting with Silver in the mouth of the run when suddenly there was a stamping of "Hawk! Hawk!" and a dash for cover by the rabbits outside. Hazel, safe where he was, remained looking out past the shadow of the wood to the open, sunlit grass beyond. The kestrel sailed into view and took up station, the black-edged flange of its tail bent down and its pointed wings beating rapidly as it searched the down below.

        "But do you think it would attack us?" asked Hazel, watching it drop lower and recommence its poised fluttering. "Surely it's too small?"

        "You're probably right," replied Silver. "All the same, would you care to go out there and start feeding?"

        "I'd like to try standing up to some of these elil," said Bigwig, who had come up the run behind them. "We're afraid of too many. But a bird from the air would be awkward, especially if it came fast. It might get the better of even a big rabbit if it took him by surprise."

        "See the mouse?" said Silver suddenly. "There, look. Poor little beast."

        They could all see the field mouse, which was exposed in a patch of smooth grass. It had evidently strayed too far from its hole and now could not tell what to do. The kestrel's shadow had not passed over it, but the rabbits' sudden disappearance had made it uneasy and it was pressed to the ground, looking uncertainly this way and that. The kestrel had not yet seen it, but could hardly fail to do so as soon as it moved.

        "Any moment now," said Bigwig callously.

        On an impulse, Hazel hopped down the bank and went a little way into the open grass. Mice do not speak Lapine, but there is a very simple, limited lingua franca of the hedgerow and woodland. Hazel used it now.

        "Run," he said. "Here; quick."

        The mouse looked at him, but did not move. Hazel spoke again and the mouse began suddenly to run toward him as the kestrel turned and slid sideways and downward. Hazel hastened back to the hole. Looking out, he saw the mouse following him. When it had almost reached the foot of the bank it scuttered over a fallen twig with two or three green leaves. The twig turned, one of the leaves caught the sunlight slanting through the trees and Hazel saw it flash for an instant. Immediately the kestrel came lower in an oblique glide, closed its wings and dropped.

        Before Hazel could spring back from the mouth of the hole, the mouse had dashed between his front paws and was pressed to the ground between his back legs. At the same moment the kestrel, all beak and talons, hit the loose earth immediately outside like a missile thrown from the tree above. It scuffled savagely and for an instant the three rabbits saw its round, dark eyes looking straight down the run. Then it was gone. The speed and force of the pounce, not a length away, were terrifying and Hazel leaped backward, knocking Silver off his balance. They picked themselves up in silence.

        "Like to try standing up to that one?" said Silver, looking round at Bigwig. "Let me know when. I"ll come and

watch."

        "Hazel," said Bigwig, "I know you're not stupid, but what did we get out of that? Are you going in for protecting every mole and shrew that can't get underground?"

        The mouse had not moved. It was still crouching a little inside the run, on a level with their heads and outlined against the light. Hazel could see it watching him.

        "Perhaps hawk not gone," he said. "You stay now. Go later."

        Bigwig was about to speak again when Dandelion appeared in the mouth of the hole. He looked at the mouse, pushed it gently aside and came down the run.

        "Hazel," he said, "I thought I ought to come and tell you about Holly. He's much better this evening, but he had a very bad night and so did we. Every time he seemed to be going to sleep, he kept starting up and crying. I thought he was going out of his mind. Pipkin kept talking to him--he was first-rate--and he seems to set a lot of store by Bluebell. Bluebell kept on making jokes. He was worn out before the morning and so were the lot of us--we've been sleeping all day. Holly's been more or less himself since he woke up this afternoon, and he's been up to silflay. He asked where you and the others would be tonight and, as I didn't know, I came to ask."

        "Is he fit to talk to us, then?" asked Bigwig.

        "I think so. It would be the best thing for him, if I'm any judge: and if he was with all of us together he'd be less likely to have another bad night."

        "Well, where are we going to sleep?" said Silver.

        Hazel considered. The Honeycomb was still rough-dug and half finished, but it would probably be as comfortable as the holes under the thorn trees. Besides, if it proved otherwise, they would have all the more inducement to improve it. To know that they were actually making use of their day's hard work would please everybody and they were likely to prefer this to a third night in the chalk holes.

        "I should think here," he said. "But we'll see how the others feel."

        "What's this mouse doing in here?" asked Dandelion.

        Hazel explained. Dandelion was as puzzled as Bigwig had been.

        "Well, I'll admit I hadn't any particular idea when I went out to help it," said Hazel. "I have now, though, and I'll explain later what it is. But, first of all, Bigwig and I ought to go and talk to Holly. And, Dandelion, you go and tell the rest what you told me, will you, and see what they want to do tonight?"

        They found Holly with Bluebell and Pipkin, on the turf by the anthill where Dandelion had first looked over the down. Holly was sniffing at a purple orchis. The head of mauve blooms rocked gently on its stem as he pushed his nose against it.

        "Don't frighten it, master," said Bluebell. "It might fly away. After all, it's got a lot of spots to choose from. Look at them all over the leaves."

"Oh, get along with you, Bluebell," answered Holly, good-humoredly. "We need to learn about the ground here. Half the plants are strange to me. This isn't one to eat, but at least there's plenty of burnet and that's always good." A fly settled on his wounded ear and he winced and shook his head.

        Hazel was glad to see that Holly was evidently in better spirits. He began to say that he hoped he felt well enough to join the others, but Holly soon interrupted him with questions.

        "Are there many of you?" he asked.

        "Hrair," said Bigwig.

        "All that left the warren with you?"

        "Every one," replied Hazel proudly.

        "No one hurt?"

        "Oh, several have been hurt, one way and another."

        "Never a dull moment, really," said Bigwig.

        "Who's this coming? I don't know him."

        Strawberry came running down from the hanger and as he joined them began to make the same curious dancing gesture of head and forepaws which they had first seen in the rainy meadow before they entered the great burrow. He checked himself in some confusion and, to forestall Bigwig's rebuke, spoke to Hazel at once.

        "Hazel-rah," he said (Holly looked startled, but said nothing), "everyone wants to stay in the new warren tonight: and they're all hoping that Captain Holly will feel able to tell them what's happened and how he came here."

        "Well, naturally, we all want to know," said Hazel to Holly. "This is Strawberry. He joined us on our journey and we've been glad to have him. But do you think you can manage it?"

        "I can manage it," said Holly. "But I must warn you that it will strike the frost into the heart of every rabbit that hears it."

        He himself looked so sad and dark as he spoke that no one made any reply, and after a few moments all six rabbits made their way up the slope in silence. When they reached the corner of the wood, they found the others feeding or basking in the evening sun on the north side of the beech trees. After a glance round among them Holly went up to Silver, who was feeding with Fiver in a patch of yellow trefoil.

        "I'm glad to see you here, Silver," he said. "I hear you've had a rough time."

        "It hasn't been easy," answered Silver. "Hazel's done wonders and we owe a lot to Fiver here as well."

        "I've heard of you," said Holly, turning to Fiver. "You're the rabbit who saw it all coming. You talked to the Threarah, didn't you?"

        "He talked to me," said Fiver.

        "If only he'd listened to you! Well, it can't be changed now, till acorns grow on thistles. Silver, there's something I want to say and I can say it more easily to you than to Hazel or Bigwig. I'm not out to make any trouble here--trouble for Hazel, I mean. He's your Chief Rabbit now, that's plain. I hardly know him, but he must be good or you'd all be dead; and this is no time to be squabbling. If any of the other rabbits are wondering whether I might want to alter things, will you let them know that I shan't?"

        "Yes, I will," said Silver.

        Bigwig came up. "I know it's not owl time yet," he said, "but everyone's so eager to hear you, Holly, that they want to go underground at once. Will that suit you?"

        "Underground?" replied Holly. "But how can you all hear me underground? I was expecting to talk here."

        "Come and see," said Bigwig.

        Holly and Bluebell were impressed by the Honeycomb.

        "This is something quite new," said Holly. "What keeps the roof up?"

        "It doesn't need to be kept up," said Bluebell. "It's right up the hill already."

        "An idea we found on the way," said Bigwig.

        "Lying in a field," said Bluebell. "It's all right, master, I'll be quiet while you're speaking."

        "Yes, you must," said Holly. "Soon no one will want jokes."

        Almost all the rabbits had followed them down. The Honeycomb, though big enough for everybody, was not so airy as the great burrow and on this June evening it seemed somewhat close.

        "We can easily make it cooler, you know," said Strawberry to Hazel. "In the great burrow they used to open tunnels for the summer and close them for the winter. We can dig another run on the evening side tomorrow and pick up the breeze."

        Hazel was just going to ask Holly to begin when Speedwell came down the eastern run. "Hazel," he said, "your--er--visitor--your mouse. He wants to speak to you."

        "Oh, I'd forgotten him," said Hazel. "Where is he?"

        "Up the run."

        Hazel went up. The mouse was waiting at the top.

        "You go now?" said Hazel. "You think safe?"

        "Go now," said the mouse. "No wait owl. But a what I like a say. You 'elp a mouse. One time a mouse 'elp a you. You want 'im 'e come."

        "Frith in a pond!" muttered Bigwig, further down the run. "And so will all his brothers and sisters. I dare say the place'll be crawling. Why don't you ask them to dig us a burrow or two, Hazel?"

        Hazel watched the mouse make off into the long grass. Then he returned to the Honeycomb and settled down near Holly, who had just begun to speak.

21.    "For El-ahrairah to Cry"

Love the animals. God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Don't trouble it, don't harass them, don't deprive them of their happiness, don't work against God's intent.

Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Acts of injustice done

Between the setting and the rising sun

In history lie like bones, each one.

W.H. Auden, The Ascent of F.6

"The night you left the warren, the Owsla were turned out to look for you. How long ago it seems now! We followed your scent down to the brook, but when we told the Threarah that you appeared to have set off downstream, he said there was no point in risking lives by following you. If you were gone, you were gone. But anyone who came back was to be arrested. So then I called off the search.

        "Nothing unusual happened the next day. There was a certain amount of talk about Fiver and the rabbits who'd gone with him. Everyone knew that Fiver had said that something bad was going to happen and all sorts of rumors started. A lot of rabbits said there was nothing in it, but some thought that Fiver might have foreseen men with guns and ferrets. That was the worst thing anyone could think of--that or the white blindness.

        "Willow and I talked things over with the Threarah. 'These rabbits,' he said, 'who claim to have the second sight--I've known one or two in my time. But it's not usually advisable to take much notice of them. For one thing, many are just plain mischievous. A weak rabbit who can't hope to get far by fighting sometimes tries to make himself important by other means and prophecy is a favorite. The curious thing is that when he turns out to be wrong, his friends seldom seem to notice, as long as he puts on a good act and keeps talking. But then again, you may get a rabbit who really has this odd power, for it does exist. He foretells a flood perhaps, or ferrets and guns. All right; so a certain number of rabbits will stop running. What's the alternative? To evacuate a warren is a tremendous business. Some refuse to go. The Chief Rabbit leaves with as many as will come. His authority is likely to be put to the most severe test and if he loses it he won't get it back in a hurry. At the best, you've got a big bunch of hlessil trailing round in the open, probably with does and kittens tacked on. Elil appear in hordes. The remedy's worse than the disease. Almost always, it's better for the warren as a whole if rabbits sit tight and do their best to dodge their dangers underground.' "

        "Of course, I never sat down and thought," said Fiver. "It would take the Threarah to think all that out. I simply had the screaming horrors. Great golden Frith, I hope I never have them like that again! I shall never forget it--that and the night I spent under the yew tree. There's terrible evil in the world."

        "It comes from men," said Holly. "All other elil do what they have to do and Frith moves them as he moves us. They live on the earth and they need food. Men will never rest till they've spoiled the earth and destroyed the animals. But I'd better go on with this tale of mine.

        "The next day in the afternoon, it began to rain.

        ("Those scrapes we dug in the bank," whispered Buckthorn to Dandelion.)

        "Everyone was underground, just chewing pellets or sleeping. I'd gone up for a few minutes to pass hraka. I was on the edge of the wood, quite near the ditch, when I saw some men come through the gate at the top of the opposite slope, up by that board thing. I don't know how many there were--three or four, I suppose. They had long black legs and they were burning white sticks in their mouths. They didn't seem to be going anywhere. They began walking slowly about in the rain, looking at the hedges and the brook. After a time they crossed the brook and came clumping up toward the warren. Whenever they came to a rabbit hole, one of them would prod at it; and they kept talking all the time. I remember the smell of the elder bloom in the rain and the smell of the white sticks. Later, when they came closer, I slipped underground again. I could hear them for some time, thumping about and talking. I kept thinking, 'Well, they've got no guns and no ferrets.' But somehow I didn't like it."

        "What did the Threarah say?" asked Silver.

        "I've no idea. I didn't ask him and neither did anyone else, as far as I know. I went to sleep and when I woke there was no sound up above. It was evening and I decided to silflay. The rain had settled in, but I pottered round and fed for a while all the same. I couldn't see that anything was altered, except that here and there the mouth of a hole had been poked in.

        "The next morning was clear and fine. Everyone was out for silflay as usual. I remember Nightshade told the Threarah that he ought to be careful not to tire himself now that he was getting on in years: and the Threarah said he'd show him who was getting on in years and cuffed him and pushed him down the bank. It was all quite good-humored, you know, but he did it just to show Nightshade that the Chief Rabbit was still a match for him. I was going out for lettuces that morning and for some reason or other I'd decided to go alone."

        "Three's the usual number for a lettuce party," said Bigwig.

        "Yes, I know three used to be the usual number, but there was some special reason why I went alone that day. Oh, yes, I remember--I wanted to see if there were any early carrots. I thought they might just be ready, and I reckoned that if I was going hunting about in a strange part of the garden I'd be better off by myself. I was out most of the morning and it can't have been long before ni-Frith when I came back through the wood. I was coming down Silent Bank--I know most rabbits preferred the Green Loose, but I nearly always went by Silent Bank. I'd got into the open part of the wood, where it comes down, toward the old fence, when I noticed a hrududu in the lane at the top of the opposite slope. It was standing at the gate by the board and a lot of men were getting out. There was a boy with them and he had a gun. They took down some big, long things--I don't know how to describe them to you--they were made of the same sort of stuff as a hrududu and they must have been heavy, because it took two men to carry one of them. The men carried these things into the field and the few rabbits who were above ground went down. I didn't. I'd seen the gun and I thought they were probably going to use ferrets and perhaps nets. So I stayed where I was and watched. I thought, 'As soon as I'm sure what they're up to, I'll go and warn the Threarah.'

        "There was more talking and more white sticks. Men never hurry, do they? Then one of them got a spade and began filling in the mouths of all the holes he could find. Every hole he came to, he cut out the turf above and pushed it into the hole. That puzzled me, because with ferrets they want to drive the rabbits out. But I was expecting that they'd leave a few holes open and net them: although that would have been a foolish way to ferret, because a rabbit that went up a blocked run would be killed underground and then the man wouldn't get his ferret back very easily, you know."

        "Don't make it too grim, Holly," said Hazel, for Pipkin was shuddering at the thought of the blocked run and the pursuing ferret.

        "Too grim?" replied Holly bitterly. "I've hardly started yet. Would anyone like to go away?" No one moved and after a few moments he continued.

        "Then another of the men fetched some long, thin, bending things. I haven't got words for all these men things, but they were something like lengths of very thick bramble. Each of the men took one and put it on one of the heavy things. There was a kind of hissing noise and--and--well, I know you must find this difficult to understand, but the air began to turn bad. For some reason I got a strong scent of this stuff that came out of the bramble things, even though I was some way off: and I couldn't see or think. I seemed to be falling. I tried to jump up and run, but I didn't know where I was and I found I'd run down to the edge of the wood, toward the men. I stopped just in time. I was bewildered and I'd lost all idea of warning the Threarah. After that I just sat where I was.

        "The men put a bramble into each hole they'd left open and after that nothing happened for a little while. And then I saw Scabious--you remember Scabious? He came out of a hole along the hedge--one they hadn't noticed. I could see at once that he'd smelled this stuff. He didn't know what he was doing. The men didn't see him for a few moments and then one of them stuck out his arm to show where he was and the boy shot him. He didn't kill him--Scabious began to scream--and one of the men went over and picked him up and hit him. I really believe he may not have suffered very much, because the bad air had turned him silly: but I wish I hadn't seen it. After that, the man stopped up the hole that Scabious had come out of.

        "By this time the poisoned air must have been spreading through the runs and burrows underground. I can imagine what it must have been like--"

        "You can't," said Bluebell. Holly stopped and after a pause Bluebell went on.

        "I heard the commotion beginning before I smelled the stuff myself. The does seemed to get it first and some of them began trying to get out. But the ones who had litters wouldn't leave the kittens and they were attacking any rabbit who came near them. They wanted to fight--to protect the kittens, you know. Very soon the runs were crammed with rabbits clawing and clambering over each other. They went up the runs they were accustomed to use and found them blocked. Some managed to turn round, but they couldn't get back because of the rabbits coming up. And then the runs began to be blocked lower down with dead rabbits and the live rabbits tore them to pieces.

        "I shall never know how I got away with what I did. It was a chance in a thousand. I was in a burrow near one of the holes that the men were using. They made a lot of noise putting the bramble thing in and I've got an idea it wasn't working properly. As soon as I picked up the smell of the stuff I jumped out of the burrow, but I was still fairly clear-headed. I came up the run just as the men were taking the bramble out again. They were all looking at it and talking and they didn't see me. I turned round, actually in the mouth of the hole, and went down again.

        "Do you remember the Slack Run? I suppose hardly a rabbit went down there in our lifetime--it was so very deep and it didn't lead anywhere in particular. No one knows even who made it. Frith must have guided me, for I went straight down into the Slack Run and began creeping along it. I was actually digging at times. It was all loose earth and fallen stones. There were all sorts of forgotten shafts and drops that led in from above, and down those were coming the most terrible sounds--cries for help, kittens squealing for their mothers, Owsla trying to give orders, rabbits cursing and fighting each other. Once a rabbit came tumbling down one of the shafts and his claws just scratched me, like a horse-chestnut bur falling in autumn. It was Celandine and he was dead. I had to tear at him before I could get over him--the place was so low and narrow--and then I went on. I could smell the bad air, but I was so deep down that I must have been beyond the worst of it.

        "Suddenly I found there was another rabbit with me. He was the only one I met in the whole length of the Slack Run. It was Pimpernel and I could tell at once that he was in a bad way. He was spluttering and gasping, but he was able to keep going. He asked if I was all right, but all I said was, 'Where do we get out?' 'I can show you that,' he said, 'if you can help me along.' So I followed him and every time he stopped--he kept forgetting where we were--I shoved him hard. I even bit him once. I was terrified that he was going to die and block the run. At last we began to come up and I could smell fresh air. We found we'd got into one of those runs that led out into the wood."

        "The men had done their work badly," resumed Holly. "Either they didn't know about the wood holes or they couldn't be bothered to come and block them. Almost every rabbit that came up in the field was shot, but I saw two get away. One was Nose-in-the-Air, but I don't remember who the other was. The noise was very frightening and I would have run myself, but I kept waiting to see whether the Threarah would come. After a while I began to realize that there were a few other rabbits in the wood. Pine Needles was there, I remember, and Butterbur and Ash. I got hold of all I could and told them to sit tight under cover.

        "After a long time the men finished. They took the bramble things out of the holes and the boy put the bodies on a stick--"

        Holly stopped and pressed his nose under Bigwig's flank.

        "Well, never mind about that bit," said Hazel in a steady voice. "Tell us how you came away."

        "Before that happened," said Holly, "a great hrududu came into the field from the lane. It wasn't the one the men came in. It was very noisy and it was yellow--as yellow as charlock: and in front there was a great silver, shining thing that it held in its huge front paws. I don't know how to describe it to you. It looked like Inlé, but it was broad and not so bright. And this thing--how can I tell you--it tore the field to bits. It destroyed the field."

        He stopped again.

        "Captain," said Silver, "we all know you've seen things bad beyond telling. But surely that's not quite what you mean?"

        "Upon my life," said Holly, trembling, "it buried itself in the ground and pushed great masses of earth in front of it until the field was destroyed. The whole place became like a cattle wade in winter and you could no longer tell where any part of the field had been, between the wood and the brook. Earth and roots and grass and bushes it pushed before it and--and other things as well, from underground.

        "After a long time I went back through the wood. I'd forgotten any idea of collecting other rabbits, but there were three who joined me all the same--Bluebell here and Pimpernel and young Toadflax. Toadflax was the only member of the Owsla I'd seen and I asked him about the Threarah, but he couldn't talk any kind of sense. I never found out what happened to the Threarah. I hope he died quickly.

        "Pimpernel was light-headed--chattering nonsense--and Bluebell and I weren't much better. For some reason all I could think of was Bigwig. I remembed how I'd gone to arrest him--to kill him, really--and I felt I had to find him and tell him I'd been wrong: and this idea was all the sense I had left. The four of us went wandering away and we must have gone almost in a half-circle, because after a long time we came to the brook, below what had been our field. We followed it down into a big wood; and that night, while we were still in the wood, Toadflax died. He was clear-headed for a short time before and I remember something he said. Bluebell had been saying that he knew the men hated us for raiding their crops and gardens, and Toadflax answered, 'That wasn't why they destroyed the warren. It was just because we were in their way. They killed us to suit themselves.' Soon after that he went to sleep, and a little later, when we were alarmed by some noise or other, we tried to wake him and realized he was dead.

        "We left him lying where he was and went on until we reached the river. I needn't describe it because I know you were all there. It was morning by this time. We thought you might be somewhere near and we began to go along the bank, upstream, looking for you. It wasn't long before we found the place where you must have crossed. There were tracks--a great many--in the sand under a steep bank, and hraka about three days old. The tracks didn't go upstream or downstream, so I knew you must have gone over. I swam across and found more tracks on the other side: so then the others came over, too. The river was high. I suppose you must have had it easier, before all the rain.

        "I didn't like the fields on the other side of the river. There was a man with a gun who kept walking everywhere. I took the other two on, across a road, and soon we came to a bad place--all heather and soft black earth. We had a hard time there, but again I came upon hraka about three days old and no sign of holes or rabbits, so I thought there was a chance that they were yours. Bluebell was all right, but Pimpernel was feverish and I was afraid he was going to die, too.

        "Then we had a bit of luck--or so we thought at the time. That night we fell in with a hlessi on the edge of the heather--an old, tough rabbit with his nose all scratched and scarred--and he told us that there was a warren not far off and showed us which way to go. We came to woods and fields again, but we were so much exhausted that we couldn't start looking for the warren. We crept into a ditch and I hadn't the heart to tell one of the others to keep awake. I tried to keep awake myself, but I couldn't."

        "When was this?" asked Hazel.

        "The day before yesterday," said Holly, "early in the morning. When I woke it was still some time before ni-Frith. Everything was quiet and all I could smell was rabbit, but I felt at once that something was wrong. I woke Bluebell and I was just going to wake Pimpernel when I realized that there was a whole bunch of rabbits all round us. They were great, big fellows and they had a very odd smell. It was like--well, like--"

        "We know what it was like," said Fiver.

        "I thought you probably did. Then one of them said, 'My name's Cowslip. Who are you and what are you doing here?' I didn't like the way he spoke, but I couldn't see that they had any reason to wish us harm, so I told him that we'd had a bad time and come a long way and that we were looking for some rabbits from our warren--Hazel, Fiver and Bigwig. As soon as I said those names this rabbit turned to the others and cried, 'I knew it! Tear them to pieces!' And they all set on us. One of them got me by the ear and ripped it up before Bluebell could pull him off. We were fighting the lot of them. I was so much taken by surprise that I couldn't do a great deal at first. But the funny thing was that although they were so big and yelling for our blood, they couldn't fight at all: they obviously didn't know the first thing about fighting. Bluebell knocked down a couple twice his size, and although my ear was pouring with blood I was never really in danger. All the same, they were too many for us, and we had to run. Bluebell and I had just got clear of the ditch when we realized that Pimpernel was still there. He was ill, as I told you, and he didn't wake in time. So after all he'd been through, poor Pimpernel was killed by rabbits. What do you think of that?"

        "I think it was a damned shame," said Strawberry, before anyone else could speak.

        "We were running down the fields, beside a little stream," Holly went on. "Some of these rabbits were still chasing us and suddenly I thought, 'Well, I'll have one of them anyway.' I didn't care for the idea of doing nothing more than just run away to save our skins--not after Pimpernel. I saw that this Cowslip was ahead of the others and out on his own, so I let him catch me up and then I suddenly turned and went for him. I had him down and I was just going to rip him up when he squealed out, 'I can tell you where your friends have gone.' 'Hurry up, then,' I said, with my back legs braced in his stomach. 'They've gone to the hills,' he panted. 'The high hills you can see away over there. They went yesterday morning.' I pretended not to believe him and acted as though I was going to kill him. But he didn't alter his story, so I scratched him and let him go and away we came. It was clear weather and we could see the hills plainly enough.

        "After that we had the worst time of all. If it hadn't been for Bluebell's jokes and chatter we'd have stopped running for certain."

        "Hraka one end, jokes the other," said Bluebell. "I used to roll a joke along the ground and we both followed it. That was how we kept going."

        "I can't really tell you much about the rest of it," said Holly. "My ear was terribly painful and all the time I kept thinking that Pimpernel's death was my fault. If I hadn't gone to sleep he wouldn't have died. Once we tried to sleep again, but my dreams were more than I could bear. I was out of my mind, really. I had only this one idea--to find Bigwig and tell him that he'd been right to leave the warren.

        "At last we reached the hills, just at nightfall of the next day. We were past caring--we came over the flat, open land at owl time. I don't know what I'd been expecting. You know how you let yourself think that everything will be all right if you can only get to a certain place or do a certain thing. But when you get there you find it's not that simple. I suppose I'd had some sort of foolish notion that Bigwig would be waiting to meet us. We found the hills were enormous--bigger than anything we'd ever seen. No woods, no cover, no rabbits: and night setting in. And then everything seemed to go to pieces. I saw Scabious, as plain as grass--and heard him crying, too: and I saw the Threarah and Toadflax and Pimpernel. I tried to talk to them. I was calling Bigwig, but I didn't really expect him to hear because I was sure he wasn't there. I can remember coming out from a hedge into the open and I know I was really hoping that the elil would come and make an end of me. But when I came to my senses, there was Bigwig. My first thought was that I must be dead, but then I began to wonder whether he was real or not. Well, you know the rest. It's a pity I frightened you so much. But if I wasn't the--the Black Rabbit, there's hardly a living creature that can ever have been closer to him than we have."

        After a silence, he added, "You can imagine what it means to Bluebell and me to find ourselves underground, among friends. It wasn't I who tried to arrest you, Bigwig--that was another rabbit, long, long ago."

22.    The Story of the Trial of El-ahrairah

Has he not a rogue's face? ... Has a damn'd Tyburn-face, without the benefit of the clergy.

Congreve, Love for Love

Rabbits (says Mr. Lockley) are like human beings in many ways. One of these is certainly their staunch ability to withstand disaster and to let the stream of their life carry them along, past reaches of terror and loss. They have a certain quality which it would not be accurate to describe as callousness or indifference. It is, rather, a blessedly circumscribed imagination and an intuitive feeling that Life is Now. A foraging wild creature, intent above all upon survival, is as strong as the grass. Collectively, rabbits rest secure upon Frith's promise to El-ahrairah. Hardly a full day had elapsed since Holly had come crawling in delirium to the foot of Watership Down. Yet already he was near recovery, while the more light-hearted Bluebell seemed even less the worse for the dreadful catastrophe that he had survived. Hazel and his companions had suffered extremes of grief and horror during the telling of Holly's tale. Pipkin had cried and trembled piteously at the death of Scabious, and Acorn and Speedwell had been seized with convulsive choking as Bluebell told of the poisonous gas that murdered underground. Yet, as with primitive humans, the very strength and vividness of their sympathy brought with it a true release. Their feelings were not false or assumed. While the story was being told, they heard it without any of the reserve or detachment that the kindest of civilized humans retains as he reads his newspaper. To themselves, they seemed to struggle in the poisoned runs and to blaze with rage for poor Pimpernel in the ditch. This was their way of honoring the dead. The story over, the demands of their own hard, rough lives began to re-assert themselves in their hearts, in their nerves, their blood and appetites. Would that the dead were not dead! But there is grass that must be eaten, pellets that must be chewed, hraka that must be passed, holes that must be dug, sleep that must be slept. Odysseus brings not one man to shore with him. Yet he sleeps sound beside Calypso and when he wakes thinks only of Penelope.

        Even before Holly had finished his story, Hazel had fallen to sniffing at his wounded ear. He had not previously been able to get a good look at it, but now that he did, he realized that terror and fatigue had probably not been the principal causes of Holly's collapse. He was badly wounded--worse than Buckthorn. He must have lost a lot of blood. His ear was in ribbons and there was any amount of dirt in it. Hazel felt annoyed with Dandelion. As several of the rabbits began to silflay, attracted by the mild June night and the full moon, he asked Blackberry to wait. Silver, who had been about to leave by the other run, returned and joined them.

        "Dandelion and the other two seem to have cheered you up, all right," said Hazel to Holly. "It's a pity they didn't clean you up as well. That dirt's dangerous."

        "Well, you see--" began Bluebell, who had remained beside Holly.

        "Don't make a joke," said Hazel. "You seem to think--"

        "I wasn't going to," said Bluebell. "I was only going to say that I wanted to clean the captain's ear, but it's too tender to be touched."

        "He's quite right," said Holly. "I'm afraid I made them neglect it, but do as you think best, Hazel, I'm feeling much better now."

        Hazel began on the ear himself. The blood had caked black and the task needed patience. After a while the long, jagged wounds bled again as they slowly became clean. Silver took over. Holly, bearing it as well as he could, growled and scuffled, and Silver cast about for something to occupy his attention.

        "Hazel," he asked, "what was this idea you had--about the mouse? You said you'd explain it later. How about trying it out on us now?"

        "Well," said Hazel, "the idea is simply that in our situation we can't afford to waste anything that might do us good. We're in a strange place we don't know much about and we need friends. Now, elil can't do us good, obviously, but there are many creatures that aren't elil--birds, mice, yonil and so on. Rabbits don't usually have much to do with them, but their enemies are our enemies, for the most part. I think we ought to do all we can to make these creatures friendly. It might turn out to be well worth the trouble."

        "I can't say I fancy the idea myself," said Silver, wiping Holly's blood out of his nose. "These small animals are more to be despised than relied upon, I reckon. What good can they do us? They can't dig for us, they can't get food for us, they can't fight for us. They'd say they were friendly, no doubt, as long as we were helping them; but that's where it would stop. I heard that mouse tonight--'You want 'im, 'e come.' You bet he will, as long as there's any grub or warmth going, but surely we're not going to have the warren overrun with mice and--and stag beetles, are we?"

        "No, I didn't mean quite that," said Hazel. "I'm not suggesting we should go about looking for field mice and inviting them to join us. They wouldn't thank us for that, anyway. But that mouse tonight--we saved his life--"

        "You saved his life," said Blackberry.

        "Well, his life was saved. He'll remember that."

        "But how's it going to help us?" asked Bluebell.

        "To start with, he can tell us what he knows about the place--"

        "What mice know. Not what rabbits need to know."

        "Well, I admit a mouse might or might not come in handy," said Hazel. "But I'm sure a bird would, if we could only do enough for it. We can't fly, but some of them know the country for a long way round. They know a lot about the weather, too. All I'm saying is this. If anyone finds an animal or bird, that isn't an enemy, in need of help, for goodness' sake don't miss the opportunity. That would be like leaving carrots to rot in the ground."

        "What do you think?" said Silver to Blackberry.

        "I think it's a good idea, but real opportunities of the kind Hazel has in mind aren't likely to come very often."

        "I think that's about right," said Holly, wincing as Silver resumed licking. "The idea's all right as far as it goes, but it won't come to a great deal in practice."

        "I'm ready to give it a try," said Silver. "I reckon it'll be worth it, just to see Bigwig telling bedtime stories to a

mole."

        "El-ahrairah did it once," said Bluebell, "and it worked. Do you remember?"

        "No," said Hazel, "I don't know that story. Let's have it."

        "Let's silflay first," said Holly. "This ear's had all I can stand for the time being."

        "Well, at least it's clean now," said Hazel. "But I'm afraid it'll never be as good as the other, you know. You'll have a ragged ear."

        "Never mind," said Holly. "I'm still one of the lucky ones."

        The full moon, well risen in a cloudless eastern sky, covered the high solitude with its light. We are not conscious of daylight as that which displaces darkness. Daylight, even when the sun is clear of clouds, seems to us simply the natural condition of the earth and air. When we think of the downs, we think of the downs in daylight, as we think of a rabbit with its fur on. Stubbs may have envisaged the skeleton inside the horse, but most of us do not: and we do not usually envisage the downs without daylight, even though the light is not a part of the down itself as the hide is part of the horse itself. We take daylight for granted. But moonlight is another matter. It is inconstant. The full moon wanes and returns again. Clouds may obscure it to an extent to which they cannot obscure daylight. Water is necessary to us, but a waterfall is not. Where it is to be found it is something extra, a beautiful ornament. We need daylight and to that extent it is utilitarian, but moonlight we do not need. When it comes, it serves no necessity. It transforms. It falls upon the banks and the grass, separating one long blade from another; turning a drift of brown, frosted leaves from a single heap to innumerable flashing fragments; or glimmering lengthways along wet twigs as though light itself were ductile. Its long beams pour, white and sharp, between the trunks of trees, their clarity fading as they recede into the powdery, misty distance of beech woods at night. In moonlight, two acres of coarse bent grass, undulant and ankle deep, tumbled and rough as a horse's mane, appear like a bay of waves, all shadowy troughs and hollows. The growth is so thick and matted that even the wind does not move it, but it is the moonlight that seems to confer stillness upon it. We do not take moonlight for granted. It is like snow, or like the dew on a July morning. It does not reveal but changes what it covers. And its low intensity--so much lower than that of daylight--makes us conscious that it is something added to the down, to give it, for only a little time, a singular and marvelous quality that we should admire while we can, for soon it will be gone again.

        As the rabbits came up by the hole inside the beech wood, a swift gust of wind passed through the leaves, checkering and dappling the ground beneath, stealing and giving light under the branches. They listened, but beyond the rustle of the leaves there came from the open down outside no sound except the monotonous tremolo of a grasshopper warbler, far off in the grass.

        "What a moon!" said Silver. "Let's enjoy it while it's here."

        As they went over the bank they met Speedwell and Hawkbit returning.

        "Oh, Hazel," said Hawkbit, "we've been talking to another mouse. He'd heard about the kestrel this evening and was very friendly. He told us about a place just the other side of the wood where the grass has been cut short--something to do with horses, he said. 'You like a nice a grass? 'E very fine grass.' So we went there. It's first-rate."

        The gallop turned out to be a good forty yards wide, mown to less than six inches. Hazel, with a delightful sense of having been proved right by events, set to work on a patch of clover. They all munched for some time in silence.

        "You're a clever chap, Hazel," said Holly at last "You and your mouse. Mind you, we'd have found the place ourselves sooner or later, but not as soon as this."

        Hazel could have pressed his chin glands for satisfaction, but he replied merely, "We shan't need to go down the hill so much, after all." Then he added, "But, Holly, you smell of blood, you know. It may be dangerous, even here. Let's go back to the wood. It's such a beautiful night that we can sit near the holes to chew pellets and Bluebell can tell us his story."

        They found Strawberry and Buckthorn on the bank; and when everyone was comfortably chewing, with ears laid fiat, Bluebell began.

*      *      *

        "Dandelion was telling me last night about Cowslip's warren and how he told the story of the King's Lettuce. That's what put me in mind of this tale, even before Hazel explained his idea. I used to hear it from my grandfather and he always said that it happened after El-ahrairah had got his people out of the marshes of Kelfazin. They went to the meadows of Fenlo and there they dug their holes. But Prince Rainbow had his eye on El-ahrairah; and he was determined to see that he didn't get up to any more of his tricks.

        "Now one evening, when El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle were sitting on a sunny bank, Prince Rainbow came through the meadows and with him was a rabbit that El-ahrairah had never seen before.

        " 'Good evening, El-ahrairah,' said Prince Rainbow. 'This is a great improvement on the marshes of Kelfazin. I see all your does are busy digging holes along the bank. Have they dug a hole for you?'

        " 'Yes,' said El-ahrairah. 'This hole here belongs to Rabscuttle and myself. We liked the look of this bank as soon as we saw it.'

        " 'A very nice bank,' said Prince Rainbow. 'But I am afraid I have to tell you, El-ahrairah, that I have strict orders from Lord Frith himself not to allow you to share a hole with Rabscuttle.'

        " 'Not share a hole with Rabscuttle?' said El-ahrairah. 'Why ever not?'

        " 'El-ahrairah,' said Prince Rainbow, 'we know you and your tricks: and Rabscuttle is nearly as slippery as you are. Both of you in one hole would be altogether too much of a good thing. You would be stealing the clouds out of the sky before the moon had changed twice. No--Rabscuttle must go and look after the holes at the other end of the warren. Let me introduce you. This is Hufsa. I want you to be his friend and look after him.'

        " 'Where does he come from?' asked El-ahrairah. 'I certainly haven't seen him before.'

        " 'He comes from another country,' said Prince Rainbow, 'but he is no different from any other rabbit. I hope you will help him to settle down here. And while he is getting to know the place, I'm sure you will be glad to let him share your hole.'

        "El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle felt desperately annoyed that they were not to be allowed to live together in their hole. But it was one of El-ahrairah's rules never to let anyone see when he was angry and, besides, he felt sorry for Hufsa because he supposed that he was feeling lonely and awkward, being far away from his own people. So he welcomed him and promised to help him settle down. Hufsa was perfectly friendly and seemed anxious to please everyone; and Rabscuttle moved down to the other end of the warren.

        "After a time, however, El-ahrairah began to find that something was always going wrong with his plans. One night, in the spring, when he had taken some of his people to a cornfield to eat the green shoots, they found a man with a gun walking about in the moonlight and were lucky to get away without trouble. Another time, after El-ahrairah had reconnoitered the way to a cabbage garden and scratched a hole under the fence, he arrived the next morning to find it blocked with wire, and he began to suspect that his plans were leaking out to people who were not intended to learn them.

        "One day he determined to set a trap for Hufsa, to find out whether it was he who was at the bottom of the trouble. He showed him a path across the fields and told him that it led to a lonely barn full of swedes and turnips: and he went on to say that he and Rabscuttle meant to go there the next morning. In fact El-ahrairah had no such plans and took care not to say anything about the path or the barn to anyone else. But next day, when he went cautiously along the path, he found a wire set in the grass.

        "This made El-ahrairah really angry, for any of his people might have been snared and killed. Of course he did not suppose that Hufsa was setting wires himself, or even that he had known that a wire was going to be set. But evidently Hufsa was in touch with somebody who did not stick at setting a wire. In the end, El-ahrairah decided that probably Prince Rainbow was passing on Hufsa's information to a farmer or a gamekeeper and not bothering himself about what happpened as a result. His rabbits' lives were in danger because of Hufsa--to say nothing of all the lettuces and cabbages they were missing. After this, El-ahrairah tried not to tell Hufsa anything at all. But it was difficult to prevent him from hearing things because, as you all know, rabbits are very good at keeping secrets from other animals, but no good at keeping secrets from each other. Warren life doesn't make for secrecy. He considered killing Hufsa. But he knew that if he did, Prince Rainbow would come and they would end in more trouble. He felt decidedly uneasy even about keeping things from Hufsa, because he thought that if Hufsa realized that they knew he was a spy, he would tell Prince Rainbow and Prince Rainbow would probably take him away and think of something worse.

        "El-ahrairah thought and thought. He was still thinking the next evening, when Prince Rainbow paid one of his visits to the warren.

        " 'You are quite a reformed character these days, El-ahrairah,' said Prince Rainbow. 'If you are not careful, people will begin to trust you. Since I was passing by, I thought I would just stop to thank you for your kindness in looking after Hufsa. He seems quite at home with you.'

        " 'Yes, he does, doesn't he?' said El-ahrairah. 'We grow in beauty side by side; we fill one hole with glee. But I always say to my people, "Put not your trust in princes, nor in any--" '

        " 'Well, El-ahrairah,' said Prince Rainbow, interrupting him, 'I am sure I can trust you. And to prove it, I have decided that I will grow a nice crop of carrots in the field behind the hill. It is an excellent bit of ground and I am sure they will do well. Especially as no one would dream of stealing them. In fact, you can come and watch me plant them, if you like.'

        " 'I will,' said El-ahrairah. 'That will be delightful.'

        "El-ahrairah, Rabscuttle, Hufsa and several other rabbits accompanied Prince Rainbow to the field behind the hill; and they helped him to sow it with long rows of carrot seed. It was a light, dry sort of soil--just the thing for carrots--and the whole business infuriated El-ahrairah, because he was certain that Prince Rainbow was doing it to tease him and to show that he felt sure that he had clipped his claws at last.

        " 'That will do splendidly,' said Prince Rainbow when they had finished. 'Of course, I know that no one would dream of stealing my carrots. But if they did--if they did steal them, El-ahrairah--I should be very angry indeed. If King Darzin stole them, for instance, I feel sure that Lord Frith would take away his kingdom and give it to someone else.'

        "El-ahrairah knew that Prince Rainbow meant that if he caught him stealing the carrots he would either kill him or else banish him and put some other rabbit over his people: and the thought that the other rabbit would probably be Hufsa made him grind his teeth. But he said, 'Of course, of course. Very right and proper.' And Prince Rainbow went away.

        "One night, in the second moon after the planting, El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle went to look at the carrots. No one had thinned them out and the tops were thick and green. El-ahrairah judged that most of the roots would be a little thinner than a forepaw. And it was while he was looking at them in the moonlight that his plan came to him. He had become so cautious about Hufsa--and indeed no one ever knew where Hufsa would be next--that on the way back he and Rabscuttle made for a hole in a lonely bank and went down it to talk together. And there El-ahrairah promised Rabscuttle not only that he would steal Prince Rainbow's carrots, but also that between them they would see the back of Hufsa into the bargain. They came out of the hole and Rabscuttle went to the farm to steal some seed corn. El-ahrairah spent the rest of the night gathering slugs; and a nasty business it was.

        "The next evening El-ahrairah went out early and after a little while found Yona the hedgehog pottering along the hedge.

        " 'Yona,' he said, "would you like a whole lot of nice, fat slugs?'

        " 'Yes, I would, El-ahrairah,' said Yona, 'but they're not so easily found. You'd know that if you were a hedgehog.'

        " 'Well, here are some nice ones,' said El-ahrairah, 'and you can have them all. But I can give you a great many more if you will do what I say and ask no questions. Can you sing?'

        " 'Sing, El-ahrairah? No hedgehog can sing.'

        " 'Good,' said El-ahrairah. 'Excellent. But you will have to try if you want those slugs. Ah! There is an old, empty box, I see, that the farmer has left in the ditch. Better and better. Now you listen to me.'

        "Meanwhile, in the wood, Rabscuttle was talking to Hawock the pheasant.

        " 'Hawock,' he said, 'can you swim?'

        " 'I never go near water if I can avoid it, Rabscuttle,' said Hawock. 'I dislike it very much. But I suppose if I had to, I could make shift to keep afloat for a little while.'

        " 'Splendid,' said Rabscuttle. 'Now attend. I have a whole lot of corn--and you know how scarce it is at this time of year--and you can have it all, if only you will do a little swimming in the pond on the edge of the wood. Just let me explain as we go down there.' And off they went through the wood.

        "Fu Inlé, El-ahrairah strolled into his hole and found Hufsa chewing pellets. 'Ah, Hufsa, you're here,' he said. 'That's fine. I can't trust anyone else, but you'll come with me, won't you? Just you and I--no one else must know.'

        " 'Why, what's to be done, El-ahrairah?' asked Hufsa.

        " 'I've been looking at those carrots of Prince Rainbow's,' replied El-ahrairah. 'I can't stand it any longer. They're the best I've ever seen. I'm determined to steal them--or most of them, anyway. Of course, if I took a lot of rabbits on an expedition of this kind we'd soon be in trouble. Things would leak out and Prince Rainbow would be sure to get to hear. But if you and I go alone, no one will ever know who did it.'

        " 'I'll come,' said Hufsa. 'Let's go tomorrow night.' For he thought that that would give him time to tell Prince Rainbow.

        " 'No,' said El-ahrairah, 'I'm going now. At once.'

        "He wondered whether Hufsa would try to turn him against this idea, but when he looked at him he could see that Hufsa was thinking that this would be the end of El-ahrairah and that he himself would be made king of the rabbits.

        "They set out together in the moonlight.

        "They had gone a good way along the hedge when they came upon an old box lying in the ditch. Sitting on top of the box was Yona the hedgehog. His prickles were stuck all over with dog-rose petals and he was making an extraordinary squeaking, grunting noise and waving his black paws. They stopped and looked at him.

        " 'Whatever are you doing, Yona?' asked Hufsa in astonishment.

        " 'Singing to the moon,' answered Yona. 'All hedgehogs have to sing to the moon to make the slugs come. Surely you know that?

                " 'O Slug-a-Moon, O Slug-a-Moon,

                   O grant thy faithful hedgehog's boon!'

        " 'What a frightful noise!' said El-ahrairah and indeed it was. 'Let's get on quickly before he brings all the elil round us.' And on they went.

        "After a time they drew near the pond on the edge of the wood. As they approached it they heard a squawking and splashing and then they saw Hawock the pheasant scuttering about in the water, with his long tail feathers floating out behind him.

        " 'Whatever has happened?' said Hufsa. 'Hawock, have you been shot?'

        " 'No, no,' replied Hawock. 'I always go swimming in the full moon. It makes my tail grow longer and, besides, my head wouldn't stay red, white and green without swimming. But you must know that, Hufsa, surely? Everyone knows that.'

        " 'The truth is, he doesn't like other animals to catch him at it,' whispered El-ahrairah. 'Let's go on.'

        "A little further on they came to an old well by a big oak tree. The farmer had filled it up long ago, but the mouth looked very deep and black in the moonlight.

        " 'Let's have a rest,' said El-ahrairah, 'just for a short time.'

        "As he spoke, a most curious-looking creature came out of the grass. It looked something like a rabbit, but even in the moonlight they could see that it had a red tail and long green ears. In its mouth it was carrying the end of one of the white sticks that men burn. It was Rabscuttle, but not even Hufsa could recognize him. He had found some sheep-dip powder at the farm and sat in it to make his tail red. His ears were festooned with trails of bryony and the white stick was making him feel ill.

        " 'Frith preserve us!' said El-ahrairah. 'What can it be? Let's only hope it isn't one of the Thousand!' He leaped up, ready to run. 'Who are you?' he asked, trembling.

        "Rabscuttle spat out the white stick.

        " 'So!' he said commandingly. 'So you have seen me, El-ahrairah! Many rabbits live out their lives and die, but few see me. Few or none! I am one of the rabbit messengers of Lord Frith, who go about the earth secretly by day and return nightly to his golden palace! He is even now awaiting me on the other side of the world and I must go to him swiftly, through the heart of the earth! Farewell, El-ahrairah!'

        "The strange rabbit leaped over the edge of the well and disappeared into the darkness below.

        " 'We have seen what we should not!' said El-ahrairah in an awe-stricken voice. 'How dreadful is this place! Let us go quickly!'

        "They hurried on and presently they came to Prince Rainbow's field of carrots. How many they stole I cannot say; but of course, as you know, El-ahrairah is a great prince and no doubt he used powers unknown to you and me. But my grandfather always said that before morning the field was stripped bare. The carrots were hidden down a deep hole in the bank beside the wood and El-ahrairah and Hufsa made their way home. El-ahrairah collected two or three followers and stayed underground with them all day, but Hufsa went out in the afternoon without saying where he was going.

        "That evening, as El-ahrairah and his people began to silflay under a fine red sky, Prince Rainbow came over the fields. Behind him were two great black dogs.

        " 'El-ahrairah,' he said, 'you are under arrest.'

        " 'What for?' asked El-ahrairah.

        " 'You know very well what for,' said Prince Rainbow. 'Let me have no more of your tricks and insolence, El-ahrairah. Where are the carrots?'

        " 'If I am under arrest,' said El-ahrairah, 'may I be told what for? It is not fair to tell me I am under arrest and then to ask me questions.'

        " 'Come, come, El-ahrairah,' said Prince Rainbow, 'you are merely wasting time. Tell me where the carrots are and I will only send you to the great North and not kill you.'

        " 'Prince Rainbow,' said El-ahrairah, 'for the third time, may I know for what I am under arrest?'

        " 'Very well,' said Prince Rainbow, 'if this is the way you want to die, El-ahrairah, you shall have the full process of law. You are under arrest for stealing my carrots. Are you seriously asking for a trial? I warn you that I have direct evidence and it will go ill with you.'

        "By this time all El-ahrairah's people were crowding round, as near as they dared for the dogs. Only Rabscuttle was nowhere to be seen. He had spent the whole day moving the carrots to another secret hole and he was now hiding because he could not get his tail white again.

        " 'Yes, I would like a trial,' said El-ahrairah, 'and I would like to be judged by a jury of animals. For it is not right, Prince Rainbow, that you should both accuse me and be the judge as well.'

        " 'A jury of animals you shall have,' said Prince Rainbow. 'A jury of elil, El-ahrairah. For a jury of rabbits would refuse to convict you, in spite of the evidence.'

        "To everyone's surprise, El-ahrairah immediately replied that he would be content with a jury of elil: and Prince Rainbow said that he would bring them that night. El-ahrairah was sent down his hole and the dogs were put on guard outside. None of his people was allowed to see him, although many tried.

        "Up and down the hedges and copses the news spread that El-ahrairah was on trial for his life and that Prince Rainbow was going to bring him before a jury of elil. Animals came crowding in. Fu Inlé, Prince Rainbow returned with the elil--two badgers, two foxes, two stoats, an owl and a cat. El-ahrairah was brought up and placed between the dogs. The elil sat staring at him and their eyes glittered in the moon. They licked their lips: and the dogs muttered that they had been promised the task of carrying out the sentence. There were a great many animals--rabbits and others--and every one of them felt sure that this time it was all up with El-ahrairah.

        " 'Now,' said Prince Rainbow, 'let us begin. It will not take long. Where is Hufsa?'

        "Then Hufsa came out, bowing and bobbing his head, and he told the elil that El-ahrairah had come the night before, when he was quietly chewing pellets, and terrified him into going with him to steal Prince Rainbow's carrots. He had wanted to refuse, but he had been too much frightened. The carrots were hidden in a hole that he could show them. He had been forced to do what he did, but the next day he had gone as quickly as possible to tell Prince Rainbow, whose loyal servant he was.

        " 'We will recover the carrots later,' said Prince Rainbow. 'Now, El-ahrairah, have you any evidence to call or anything to say? Make haste.'

        " 'I would like to ask the witness some questions,' said El-ahrairah; and the elil agreed that this was only fair.

        " 'Now, Hufsa,' said El-ahrairah, 'can we hear a little more about this journey that you and I are supposed to have made? For really I can remember nothing about it at all. You say we went out of the hole and set off in the night. What happened then?'

        " 'Why, El-ahrairah,' said Hufsa, 'you can't possibly have forgotten. We came along by the ditch, and don't you remember that we saw a hedgehog sitting on a box singing a song to the moon?'

        " 'A hedgehog doing what?' said one of the badgers.

        " 'Singing a song to the moon,' said Hufsa eagerly. They do that, you know, to make the slugs come. He had rose petals stuck all over him and he was waving his paws and--'

        " 'Now, steady, steady,' said El-ahrairah kindly, 'I wouldn't like you to say anything you don't mean. Poor fellow,' he added to the jury, 'he really believes these things he says, you know. He doesn't mean any harm, but--'

        " 'But he was,' shouted Hufsa. 'He was singing, "O Slug-a-Moon! O Slug-a-Moon! O grant--" '

        " 'What the hedgehog sang is not evidence,' said El-ahrairah. 'Really, one is inclined to wonder what is. Well, all right. We saw a hedgehog covered with roses, singing a song on a box. What happened then?'

        " 'Well,' said Hufsa, 'then we went on and came to the pond, where we saw a pheasant.'

        " 'Pheasant, eh?' said one of the foxes. 'I wish I'd seen it. What was it doing?'

        " 'It was swimming round and round in the water,' said Hufsa.

        " 'Wounded, eh?' said the fox.

        " 'No, no,' said Hufsa. 'They all do that, to make their tails grow longer. I'm surprised you don't know.'

        " 'To make what?' said the fox.

        " 'To make their tails grow longer,' said Hufsa sulkily. 'He said so himself.'

        " 'You've only had this stuff for a very short time,' said El-ahrairah to the elil. 'It takes a bit of getting used to. Look at me. I've been forced to live with it for the last two months, day in and day out. I've been as kind and understanding as I can, but apparently just to my own harm.'

        "A silence fell. El-ahrairah, with an air of fatherly patience, turned back to the witness.

        " 'My memory is so bad,' he said. 'Do go on.'

        " 'Well, El-ahrairah,' said Hufsa, 'you're pretending very cleverly, but even you won't be able to say you've forgotten what happened next. A huge, terrifying rabbit, with a red tail and green ears, came out of the grass. He had a white stick in his mouth and he plunged into the ground down a great hole. He told us he was going through the middle of the earth to see Lord Frith on the other side.'

        "This time not one of the elil said a word. They were staring at Hufsa and shaking their heads.

        " 'They're all mad, you know,' whispered one of the stoats, 'nasty little beasts. They'll say anything when they're cornered. But this one is the worst I've ever heard. How much longer have we got to stay here? I'm hungry.'

        "Now El-ahrairah had known beforehand that while elil detest all rabbits, they would dislike most the one who looked the biggest fool. That was why he had agreed to a jury of elil. A jury of rabbits might have tried, to get to the bottom of Hufsa's story; but not the elil, for they hated and despised the witness and wanted to be off hunting as soon as they could.

        " 'So it comes to this,' said El-ahrairah. 'We saw a hedgehog covered with roses, singing a song: and then we saw a perfectly healthy pheasant swimming round and round the pond: and then we saw a rabbit with a red tail, green ears and a white stick, and he jumped straight down a deep well. Is that right?'

        " 'Yes,' said Hufsa.

        " 'And then we stole the carrots?'

        " 'Yes.'

        " 'Were they purple with green spots?'

        " 'Were what purple with green spots?'

        " 'The carrots.'

        " 'Well, you know they weren't, El-ahrairah. They were the ordinary color. They're down the hole!' shouted Hufsa desperately. 'Down the hole! Go and look!'

        "The court adjourned while Hufsa led Prince Rainbow to the hole. They found no carrots and returned.

        " 'I've been underground all day,' said El-ahrairah, 'and I can prove it. I ought to have been asleep, but it's very difficult when m'learned friend--well, never mind. I simply mean that obviously I couldn't have been out moving carrots or anything else. If there ever were any carrots,' he added. 'But I've nothing more to say.'

        " 'Prince Rainbow,' said the cat, 'I hate all rabbits. But I don't see how we can possibly say that it's been proved that that rabbit took your carrots. The witness is obviously out of his mind--mad as the mist and snow--and the prisoner will have to be released.' They all agreed.

        " 'You had better go quickly,' said Prince Rainbow to El-ahrairah. 'Go down your hole, El-ahrairah, before I hurt you myself.'

        " 'I will, my lord,' said El-ahrairah. 'But may I beg you to remove that rabbit you sent among us, for he troubles us with his foolishness?'

        "So Hufsa went away with Prince Rainbow and El-ahrairah's people were left in peace, apart from indigestion brought on by eating too many carrots. But it was a long time before Rabscuttle could get his tail white again, so my grandfather always said."

23.    Kehaar

The wing trails like a banner in defeat,

No more to use the sky for ever but live with

        famine and pain a few days.

He is strong and pain is worse to the strong

        incapacity is worse.

No one but death the redeemer will humble that head,

The intrepid readiness, the terrible eyes.

Robinson Jeffers, Hurt Hawks

Human beings say, "It never rains but it pours." This is not very apt, for it frequently does rain without pouring. The rabbits' proverb is better expressed. They say, "One cloud feels lonely": and indeed it is true that the appearance of a single cloud often means that the sky will soon be overcast. However that may be, the very next day provided a dramatic second opportunity to put Hazel's idea into practice.

        It was early morning and the rabbits were beginning to silflay, coming up into clear gray silence. The air was still chilly. There was a good deal of dew and no wind. Five or six wild duck flew overhead in a swiftly moving V, intent on some far-off destination. The sound made by their wings came down distinctly, diminishing as they went away southward. The silence returned. With the melting of the last of the twilight there grew a kind of expectancy and tension, as though it were thawing snow about to slide from a sloping roof. Then the whole down and all below it, earth and air, gave way to the sunrise. As a bull, with a slight but irresistible movement, tosses its head from the grasp of a man who is leaning over the stall and idly holding its horn, so the sun entered the world in smooth, gigantic power. Nothing interrupted or obscured its coming. Without a sound, the leaves shone and the grass coruscated along the miles of the escarpment.

        Outside the wood, Bigwig and Silver combed their ears, sniffed the air and hopped away, following their own long shadows to the grass of the gallop. As they moved over the short turf--nibbling, sitting up and looking round them--they approached a little hollow, no more than three feet across. Before they reached the edge Bigwig, who was ahead of Silver, checked and crouched, staring. Although he could not see into the hollow, he knew that there was some creature in it--something fairly big. Peering through the blades of grass round his head, he could see the curve of a white back. Whatever the creature was, it was nearly as big as himself. He waited, stock still, for some little time, but it did not move.

        "What has a white back, Silver?" whispered Bigwig.

        Silver considered. "A cat?"

        "No cats here."

        "How do you know?"

        At that moment they both heard a low, breathy hissing from the hollow. It lasted for a few moments. Then there was silence once more.

        Bigwig and Silver had a good opinion of themselves. Apart from Holly, they were the only survivors of the Sandleford Owsla and they knew that their comrades looked up to them. The encounter with the rats in the barn had been no joke and had proved their worth. Bigwig, who was generous and honest, had never for a moment resented Hazel's courage on the night when his own superstitious fear had got the better of him. But the idea of going back to the Honeycomb and reporting that he had glimpsed an unknown creature in the grass and left it alone was more than he could swallow. He turned his head and looked at Silver. Seeing that he was game, he took a final look at the strange white back and then went straight up to the edge of the hollow. Silver followed.

        It was no cat. The creature in the hollow was a bird--a big bird, nearly a foot long. Neither of them had ever seen a bird like it before. The white part of its back, which they had glimpsed through the grass, was in fact only the shoulders and neck. The lower back was light gray and so were the wings, which tapered to long, black-tipped primaries folded together over the tail. The head was very dark brown--almost black--in such sharp contrast to the white neck that the bird looked as though it were wearing a kind of hood. The one dark red leg that they could see ended in a webbed foot and three powerful, taloned toes. The beak, hooked slightly downward at the end, was strong and sharp. As they stared, it opened, disclosing a red mouth and throat. The bird hissed savagely and tried to strike, but still it did not move.

        "It's hurt," said Bigwig.

        "Yes, you can tell that," replied Silver. "But it's not wounded anywhere that I can see. I'll go round--"

        "Look out!" said Bigwig. "He'll have you!"

        Silver, as he started to move round the hollow, had come closer to the bird's head. He jumped back just in time to avoid a quick, darting blow of the beak.

        "That would have broken your foot," said Bigwig.

        As they squatted, looking at the bird--for they both sensed intuitively that it would not rise--it suddenly burst into loud, raucous cries--"Yark! Yark! Yark!"--a tremendous sound at close quarters--that split the morning and carried far across the down. Bigwig and Silver turned and ran.

        They collected themselves sufficiently to pull up short of the wood and make a more dignified approach to the bank. Hazel came to meet them in the grass. There was no mistaking their wide eyes and dilated nostrils.

        "Elil?" asked Hazel.

        "Well, I'm blessed if I know, to tell you the truth," replied Bigwig. "There's a great bird out there, like nothing I've ever seen."

        "How big? As big as a pheasant?"

        "Not quite so big," admitted Bigwig, "but bigger than a wood pigeon: and a lot fiercer."

        "Is that what cried?"

        "Yes. It startled me, all right. We were actually beside it. But for some reason or other it can't move."

        "Dying?"

        "I don't think so."

        "I'll go and have a look at it," said Hazel.

        "It's savage. For goodness' sake be careful."

        Bigwig and Silver returned with Hazel. The three of them squatted outside the bird's reach as it looked sharply and desperately from one to the other. Hazel spoke in the hedgerow patois.

        "You hurt? You no fly?"

        The answer was a harsh gabbling which they all felt immediately to be exotic. Wherever the bird came from, it was somewhere far away. The accent was strange and guttural, the speech distorted. They could catch only a word here and there.

        "Come keel--kah! kah!--you come keel--yark!--t'ink me finish--me no finish--'urt you damn plenty--" The dark brown head flickered from side to side. Then, unexpectedly, the bird began to drive its beak into the ground. They noticed for the first time that the grass in front of it was torn and scored with lines. For some moments it stabbed here and there, then gave up, lifted its head and watched them again.

        "I believe it's starving," said Hazel. "We'd better feed it. Bigwig, go and get some worms or something, there's a good fellow."

        "Er--what did you say, Hazel?"

        "Worms."

        "Me dig for worms?"

        "Didn't the Owsla teach--oh, all right, I'll do it," said Hazel. "You and Silver wait here."

        After a few moments, however, Bigwig followed Hazel back to the ditch and began to join him in scratching at the dry ground. Worms are not plentiful on the downs and there had been no rain for days. After a time Bigwig looked up.

        "What about beetles? Wood lice? Something like that?"

        They found some rotten sticks and carried them back. Hazel pushed one forward cautiously.

        "Insects."

        The bird split the stick three ways in as many seconds and snapped up the few insects inside. Soon there was a small pile of debris in the hollow as the rabbits brought anything from which it could get food. Bigwig found some horse dung along the track, dug the worms out of it, overcame his disgust and carried them one by one. When Hazel praised him, he muttered something about "the first time any rabbit's done this and don't tell the blackbirds." At last, long after they had all grown weary, the bird stopped feeding and looked at Hazel.