Watership Down

1. The Notice Board

The primroses were over. Toward the edge of the wood, where the ground became open and sloped down to an old fence and a brambly ditch beyond, only a few fading patches of pale yellow still showed among the dog's mercury and oak-tree roots. On the other side of the fence, the upper part of the field was full of rabbit holes. In places the grass was gone altogether and everywhere there were clusters of dry droppings, through which nothing but the ragwort would grow. A hundred yards away, at the bottom of the slope, ran the brook, no more than three feet wide, half choked with kingcups, watercress and blue brooklime. The cart track crossed by a brick culvert and climbed the opposite slope to a five-barred gate in the thorn hedge. The gate led into the lane.

The May sunset was red in clouds, and there was still half an hour to twilight. The dry slope was dotted with rabbits-some nibbling at the thin grass near their holes, others pushing further down to look for dandelions or perhaps a cowslip that the rest had missed. Here and there one sat upright on an ant heap and looked about, with ears erect and nose in the wind. But a blackbird, singing undisturbed on the outskirts of the wood, showed that there was nothing alarming there, and in the other direction, along the brook, all was plain to be seen, empty and quiet. The warren was at peace.

At the top of the bank, close to the wild cherry where the blackbird sang, was a little group of holes almost hidden by brambles. In the green half-light, at the mouth of one of these holes, two rabbits were sitting together side by side. At length, the larger of the two came out, slipped along the bank under cover of the brambles and so down into the ditch and up into the field. A few moments later the other followed.

The first rabbit stopped in a sunny patch and scratched his ear with rapid movements of his hind leg. Although he was a yearling and still below full weight, he had not the harassed look of most "outskirters"-that is, the rank and file of ordinary rabbits in their first year who, lacking either aristocratic parentage or unusual size and strength, get sat on by their elders and live as best they can-often in the open-on the edge of their warren. He looked as though he knew how to take care of himself. There was a shrewd, buoyant air about him as he sat up, looked around and rubbed both front paws over his nose. As soon as he was satisfied that all was well, he laid back his ears and set to work on the grass.

His companion seemed less at ease. He was small, with wide, staring eyes and a way of raising and turning his head which suggested not so much caution as a kind of ceaseless, nervous tension. His nose moved continually, and when a bumblebee flew humming to a thistle bloom behind him, he jumped and spun round with a start that sent two nearby rabbits scurrying for holes before the nearest, a buck with black-tipped ears, recognized him and returned to feeding.

"Oh, it's only Fiver," said the black-tipped rabbit, "jumping at bluebottles again. Come on, Buckthorn, what were you telling me?"

"Fiver?" said the other rabbit. "Why's he called that?"

"Five in the litter, you know: he was the last-and the smallest. You'd wonder nothing had got him by now. I always say a man couldn't see him and a fox wouldn't want him. Still, I admit he seems to be able to keep out of harm's way[1]."

The small rabbit came closer to his companion, lolloping on long hind legs.

"Let's go a bit further, Hazel," he said. "You know, there's something queer about the warren this evening, although I can't tell exactly what it is. Shall we go down to the brook?"

"All right," answered Hazel, "and you can find me a cowslip. If you can't find one, no one can."

He led the way down the slope, his shadow stretching behind him on the grass. They reached the brook and began nibbling and searching close beside the wheel ruts of the track.

It was not long before Fiver found what they were looking for. Cowslips are a delicacy among rabbits, and as a rule there are very few left by late May in the neighborhood of even a small warren. This one had not bloomed and its flat spread of leaves was almost hidden under the long grass. They were just starting on it when two larger rabbits came running across from the other side of the nearby cattle wade.

"Cowslip?" said one. "All right-just leave it to us. Come on, hurry up," he added, as Fiver hesitated. "You heard me, didn't you?"

"Fiver found it, Toadflax," said Hazel.

"And we'll eat it," replied Toadflax. "Cowslips are for Owsla[2] -don't you know that? If you don't, we can easily teach you."

Fiver had already turned away. Hazel caught him up by the culvert.

"I'm sick and tired of it," he said. "It's the same all the time. 'These are my claws, so this is my cowslip. 'These are my teeth, so this is my burrow. I'll tell you, if ever I get into the Owsla, I'll treat outskirters with a bit of decency."

"Well, you can at least expect to be in the Owsla one day," answered Fiver. "You've got some weight coming and that's more than I shall ever have."

"You don't suppose I'll leave you to look after yourself, do you?" said Hazel. "But to tell you the truth, I sometimes feel like clearing out of this warren altogether. Still, let's forget it now and try to enjoy the evening. I tell you what-shall we go across the brook? There'll be fewer rabbits and we can have a bit of peace. Unless you feel it isn't safe?" he added.

The way in which he asked suggested that he did in fact think that Fiver was likely to know better than himself, and it was clear from Fiver's reply that this was accepted between them.

"No, it's safe enough," he answered. "If I start feeling there's anything dangerous I'll tell you. But it's not exactly danger that I seem to feel about the place. It's-oh, I don't know-something oppressive, like thunder: I can't tell what; but it worries me. All the same, I'll come across with you."

They ran over the culvert. The grass was wet and thick near the stream and they made their way up the opposite slope, looking for drier ground. Part of the slope was in shadow, for the sun was sinking ahead of them, and Hazel, who wanted a warm, sunny spot, went on until they were quite near the lane. As they approached the gate he stopped, staring.

"Fiver, what's that? Look!"

A little way in front of them, the ground had been freshly disturbed. Two piles of earth lay on the grass. Heavy posts, reeking of creosote and paint, towered up as high as the holly trees in the hedge, and the board they carried threw a long shadow across the top of the field. Near one of the posts, a hammer and a few nails had been left behind.

The two rabbits went up to the board at a hopping run and crouched in a patch of nettles on the far side, wrinkling their noses at the smell of a dead cigarette end somewhere in the grass. Suddenly Fiver shivered and cowered down.

"Oh, Hazel! This is where it comes from! I know now-something very bad! Some terrible thing-coming closer and closer."

He began to whimper with fear.

"What sort of thing-what do you mean? I thought you said there was no danger?"

"I don't know what it is," answered Fiver wretchedly. "There isn't any danger here, at this moment. But it's coming-it's coming. Oh, Hazel, look! The field! It's covered with blood!"

"Don't be silly, it's only the light of the sunset. Fiver, come on, don't talk like this, you're frightening me!"

Fiver sat trembling and crying among the nettles as Hazel tried to reassure him and to find out what it could be that had suddenly driven him beside himself. If he was terrified, why did he not run for safety, as any sensible rabbit would? But Fiver could not explain and only grew more and more distressed. At last Hazel said,

"Fiver, you can't sit crying here. Anyway, it's getting dark. We'd better go back to the burrow."

"Back to the burrow?" whimpered Fiver. "It'll come there-don't think it won't! I tell you, the field's full of blood-"

"Now stop it," said Hazel firmly. "Just let me look after you for a bit. Whatever the trouble is, it's time we got back."

He ran down the field and over the brook to the cattle wade. Here there was a delay, for Fiver-surrounded on all sides by the quiet summer evening-became helpless and almost paralyzed with fear. When at last Hazel had got him back to the ditch, he refused at first to go underground and Hazel had almost to push him down the hole.

The sun set behind the opposite slope. The wind turned colder, with a scatter of rain, and in less than an hour it was dark. All color had faded from the sky: and although the big board by the gate creaked slightly in the night wind (as though to insist that it had not disappeared in the darkness, but was still firmly where it had been put), there was no passer-by to read the sharp, hard letters that cut straight as black knives across its white surface. They said:

THIS IDEALLY SITUATED ESTATE, COMPRISING SIX ACRES OF EXCELLENT BUILDING LAND, IS TO BE DEVELOPED WITH HIGH CLASS MODERN RESIDENCES BY SUTCH AND MARTIN, LIMITED, OF NEWBURY, BERKS.

2. The Chief Rabbit

In the darkness and warmth of the burrow Hazel suddenly woke, struggling and kicking with his back legs. Something was attacking him. There was no smell of ferret or weasel. No instinct told him to run. His head cleared and he realized that he was alone except for Fiver. It was Fiver who was clambering over him, clawing and grabbing like a rabbit trying to climb a wire fence in a panic.

"Fiver! Fiver, wake up, you silly fellow! It's Hazel. You'll hurt me in a moment. Wake up!"

He held him down. Fiver struggled and woke.

"Oh, Hazel! I was dreaming. It was dreadful. You were there. We were sitting on water, going down a great, deep stream, and then I realized we were on a board-like that board in the field-all white and covered with black lines. There were other rabbits there-bucks and does. But when I looked down, I saw the board was all made of bones and wire; and I screamed and you said, 'Swim-everybody swim'; and then I was looking for you everywhere and trying to drag you out of a hole in the bank. I found you, but you said, 'The Chief Rabbit must go alone, and you floated away down a dark tunnel of water."

"Well, you've hurt my ribs, anyway. Tunnel of water indeed! What rubbish! Can we go back to sleep now?"

"Hazel-the danger, the bad thing. It hasn't gone away. It's here-all round us. Don't tell me to forget about it and go to sleep. We've got to go away before it's too late."

"Go away? From here, you mean? From the warren?"

"Yes. Very soon. It doesn't matter where."

"Just you and I?"

"No, everyone."

"The whole warren? Don't be silly. They won't come. They'll say you're out of your wits."

"Then they'll be here when the bad thing comes. You must listen to me, Hazel. Believe me, something very bad is close upon us and we ought to go away."

"Well, I suppose we'd better go and see the Chief Rabbit and you can tell him about it. Or I'll try to. But I don't expect he'll like the idea at all."

Hazel led the way down the slope of the run and up toward the bramble curtain. He did not want to believe Fiver, and he was afraid not to.

It was a little after ni-Frith, or noon. The whole warren were underground, mostly asleep. Hazel and Fiver went a short way above ground and then into a wide, open hole in a sand patch and so down, by various runs, until they were thirty feet into the wood, among the roots of an oak. Here they were stopped by a large, heavily built rabbit-one of the Owsla. He had a curious, heavy growth of fur on the crown of his head, which gave him an odd appearance, as though he were wearing a kind of cap. This had given him his name, Thlayli, which means, literally, «Furhead» or, as we might say, "Bigwig."

"Hazel?" said Bigwig, sniffing at him in the deep twilight among the tree roots. "It is Hazel, isn't it? What are you doing here? And at this time of day?" He ignored Fiver, who was waiting further down the run.

"We want to see the Chief Rabbit," said Hazel. "It's important, Bigwig. Can you help us?"

"We?" said Bigwig. "Is he going to see him, too?"

"Yes, he must. Do trust me, Bigwig. I don't usually come and talk like this, do I? When did I ever ask to see the Chief Rabbit before?"

"Well, I'll do it for you, Hazel, although I'll probably get my head bitten off. I'll tell him I know you're a sensible fellow. He ought to know you himself, of course, but he's getting old. Wait here, will you?"

Bigwig went a little way down the run and stopped at the entrance to a large burrow. After speaking a few words that Hazel could not catch, he was evidently called inside. The two rabbits waited in silence, broken only by the continual nervous fidgeting of Fiver.

The Chief Rabbit's name and style was Threarah, meaning "Lord Rowan Tree." For some reason he was always referred to as "The Threarah"-perhaps because there happened to be only one threar, or rowan, near the warren, from which he took his name. He had won his position not only by strength in his prime, but also by level-headedness and a certain self-contained detachment, quite unlike the impulsive behavior of most rabbits. It was well known that he never let himself become excited by rumor or danger. He had coolly-some even said coldly-stood firm during the terrible onslaught of the myxomatosis, ruthlessly driving out every rabbit who seemed to be sickening. He had resisted all ideas of mass emigration and enforced complete isolation on the warren, thereby almost certainly saving it from extinction. It was he, too, who had once dealt with a particularly troublesome stoat by leading it down among the pheasant coops and so (at the risk of his own life) onto a keeper's gun. He was now, as Bigwig said, getting old, but his wits were still clear enough. When Hazel and Fiver were brought in, he greeted them politely. Owsla like Toadflax might threaten and bully. The Threarah had no need.

"Ah, Walnut. It is Walnut, isn't it?"

"Hazel," said Hazel.

"Hazel, of course. How very nice of you to come and see me. I knew your mother well. And your friend-"

"My brother."

"Your brother," said the Threarah, with the faintest suggestion of "Don't correct me any more, will you?" in his voice. "Do make yourselves comfortable. Have some lettuce?"

The Chief Rabbit's lettuce was stolen by the Owsla from a garden half a mile away across the fields. Outskirters seldom or never saw lettuce. Hazel took a small leaf and nibbled politely. Fiver refused, and sat blinking and twitching miserably.

"Now, how are things with you?" said the Chief Rabbit. "Do tell me how I can help you."

"Well, sir," said Hazel rather hesitantly, "it's because of my brother-Fiver here. He can often tell when there's anything bad about, and I've found him right again and again. He knew the flood was coming last autumn and sometimes he can tell where a wire's been set. And now he says he can sense a bad danger coming upon the warren."

"A bad danger. Yes, I see. How very upsetting," said the Chief Rabbit, looking anything but upset. "Now, what sort of danger, I wonder?" He looked at Fiver.

"I don't know," said Fiver. "B-but it's bad. It's so b-bad that-it's very bad," he concluded miserably.

The Threarah waited politely for a few moments and then he said, "Well, now, and what ought we to do about it, I wonder?"

"Go away," said Fiver instantly. "Go away. All of us. Now. Threarah, sir, we must all go away."

The Threarah waited again. Then, in an extremely understanding voice, he said, "Well, I never did! That's rather a tall order, isn't it? What do you think yourself?"

"Well, sir," said Hazel, "my brother doesn't really think about these feelings he gets. He just has the feelings, if you see what I mean. I'm sure you're the right person to decide what we ought to do."

"Well, that's very nice of you to say that. I hope I am. But now, my dear fellows, let's just think about this a moment, shall we? It's May, isn't it? Everyone's busy and most of the rabbits are enjoying themselves. No elil for miles, or so they tell me. No illness, good weather. And you want me to tell the warren that young-er-young-er-your brother here has got a hunch and we must all go traipsing across country to goodness knows where and risk the consequences, eh? What do you think they'll say? All delighted, eh?"

"They'd take it from you," said Fiver suddenly.

"That's very nice of you," said the Threarah again. "Well, perhaps they would, perhaps they would. But I should have to consider it very carefully indeed. A most serious step, of course. And then-"

"But there's no time, Threarah, sir," blurted out Fiver. "I can feel the danger like a wire round my neck-like a wire-Hazel, help!" He squealed and rolled over in the sand, kicking frantically, as a rabbit does in a snare. Hazel held him down with both forepaws and he grew quieter.

"I'm awfully sorry, Chief Rabbit," said Hazel. "He gets like this sometimes. He'll be all right in a minute."

"What a shame! What a shame! Poor fellow, perhaps he ought to go home and rest. Yes, you'd better take him along now. Well, it's really been extremely good of you to come and see me, Walnut. I appreciate it very much indeed. And I shall think over all you've said most carefully, you can be quite sure of that. Bigwig, just wait a moment, will you?"

As Hazel and Fiver made their way dejectedly down the run outside the Threarah's burrow, they could just hear, from inside, the Chief Rabbit's voice assuming a rather sharper note, interspersed with an occasional "Yes, sir," "No, sir."

Bigwig, as he had predicted, was getting his head bitten off.

3. Hazel's Decision

"But, Hazel, you didn't really think the Chief Rabbit would act on your advice, did you? What were you expecting?"

It was evening once more and Hazel and Fiver were feeding outside the wood with two friends. Blackberry, the rabbit with tipped ears who had been startled by Fiver the night before, had listened carefully to Hazel's description of the notice board, remarking that he had always felt sure that men left these things about to act as signs or messages of some kind, in the same way that rabbits left marks on runs and gaps. It was another neighbor, Dandelion, who had now brought the talk back to the Threarah and his indifference to Fiver's fear.

"I don't know what I expected," said Hazel. "I'd never been near the Chief Rabbit before. But I thought, 'Well, even if he won't listen, at least no one cay say afterward that we didn't do our best to warn him. »

"You're sure, then, that there's really something to be afraid of?"

"I'm quite certain. I've always known Fiver, you see."

Blackberry was about to reply when another rabbit came noisily through the thick dog's mercury in the wood, blundered down into the brambles and pushed his way up from the ditch. It was Bigwig.

"Hello, Bigwig," said Hazel. "You're off duty?"

"Off duty" said Bigwig, "and likely to remain off duty."

"How do you mean?"

"I've left the Owsla, that's what I mean."

"Not on our account?"

"You could say that. The Threarah's rather good at making himself unpleasant when he's been woken up at ni-Frith for what he considers a piece of trivial nonsense. He certainly knows how to get under your skin. I dare say a good many rabbits would have kept quiet and thought about keeping on the right side of the Chief, but I'm afraid I'm not much good at that. I told him that the Owsla's privileges didn't mean all that much to me in any case and that a strong rabbit could always do just as well by leaving the warren. He told me not to be impulsive and think it over, but I shan't stay. Lettuce-stealing isn't my idea of a jolly life, nor sentry duty in the burrow. I'm in a fine temper, I can tell you."

"No one will steal lettuces soon," said Fiver quietly.

"Oh, that's you, Fiver, is it?" said Bigwig, noticing him for the first time. "Good, I was coming to look for you. I've been thinking about what you said to the Chief Rabbit. Tell me, is it a sort of tremendous hoax to make yourself important, or is it true?"

"It is true," said Fiver. "I wish it weren't."

"Then you'll be leaving the warren?"

They were all startled by the bluntness with which Bigwig went to the point. Dandelion muttered, "Leave the warren, Frithrah!" while Blackberry twitched his ears and looked very intently, first at Bigwig and then at Hazel.

It was Hazel who replied. "Fiver and I will be leaving the warren tonight," he said deliberately. "I don't know exactly where we shall go, but we'll take anyone who's ready to come with us."

"Right," said Bigwig, "then you can take me."

The last thing Hazel had expected was the immediate support of a member of the Owsla. It crossed his mind that although Bigwig would certainly be a useful rabbit in a tight corner, he would also be a difficult one to get on with. He certainly would not want to do what he was told-or even asked-by an outskirter. "I don't care if he is in the Owsla," thought Hazel. "If we get away from the warren, I'm not going to let Bigwig run everything, or why bother to go?" But he answered only, "Good. We shall be glad to have you."

He looked round at the other rabbits, who were all staring either at Bigwig or at himself. It was Blackberry who spoke next.

"I think I'll come," he said. "I don't quite know whether it's you who've persuaded me, Fiver. But anyway, there are too many bucks in this warren, and it's pretty poor fun for any rabbit that's not in the Owsla. The funny thing is that you feel terrified to stay and I feel terrified to go. Foxes here, weasels there, Fiver in the middle, begone dull care!"

He pulled out a burnet leaf and ate it slowly, concealing his fear as best he could; for all his instincts were warning him of the dangers in the unknown country beyond the warren.

"If we believe Fiver," said Hazel, "it means that we think no rabbits at all ought to stay here. So between now and the time when we go, we ought to persuade as many as we can to join us."

"I think there are one or two in the Owsla who might be worth sounding," said Bigwig. "If I can talk them over, they'll be with me when I join you tonight. But they won't come because of Fiver. They'll be juniors, discontented fellows like me. You need to have heard Fiver yourself to be convinced by him. He's convinced me. It's obvious that he's been sent some kind of message, and I believe in these things. I can't think why he didn't convince the Threarah."

"Because the Threarah doesn't like anything he hasn't thought of for himself," answered Hazel. "But we can't bother with him any more now. We've got to try to collect some more rabbits and meet again here, fu Inlé. And we'll start fu Inlé, too: we can't wait longer. The danger's coming closer all the time-whatever it is-and, besides, the Threarah isn't going to like it if he finds out that you've been trying to get at rabbits in the Owsla, Bigwig. Neither is Captain Holly, I dare say. They won't mind odds and ends like us clearing off, but they won't want to lose you. If I were in your place, I'd be careful whom I picked to talk to."

4. The Departure

Fu Inlé means "after moonrise." Rabbits, of course, have no idea of precise time or of punctuality. In this respect they are much the same as primitive people, who often take several days over assembling for some purpose and then several more to get started. Before such people can act together, a kind of telepathic feeling has to flow through them and ripen to the point when they all know that they are ready to begin. Anyone who has seen the martins and swallows in September, assembling on the telephone wires, twittering, making short flights singly and in groups over the open, stubbly fields, returning to form longer and even longer lines above the yellowing verges of the lanes-the hundreds of individual birds merging and blending, in a mounting excitement, into swarms, and these swarms coming loosely and untidily together to create a great, unorganized flock, thick at the center and ragged at the edges, which breaks and re-forms continually like clouds or waves-until that moment when the greater part (but not all) of them know that the time has come: they are off, and have begun once more that great southward flight which many will not survive; anyone seeing this has seen at work the current that flows (among creatures who think of themselves primarily as part of a group and only secondarily, if at all, as individuals) to fuse them together and impel them into action without conscious thought or will: has seen at work the angel which drove the First Crusade into Antioch and drives the lemmings into the sea.

It was actually about an hour after moonrise and a good while before midnight when Hazel and Fiver once more came out of their burrow behind the brambles and slipped quietly along the bottom of the ditch. With them was a third rabbit, Hlao-Pipkin-a friend of Fiver. (Hlao means any small concavity in the grass where moisture may collect-e.g., the dimple formed by a dandelion or thistle cup.) He too was small, and inclined to be timid, and Hazel and Fiver had spent the greater part of their last evening in the warren in persuading him to join them. Pipkin had agreed rather hesitantly. He still felt extremely nervous about what might happen once they left the warren, and had decided that the best way to avoid trouble would be to keep close to Hazel and do exactly what he said.

The three were still in the ditch when Hazel heard a movement above. He looked up quickly.

"Who's there?" he said. "Dandelion?"

"No, I'm Hawkbit," said the rabbit who was peering over the edge. He jumped down among them, landing rather heavily. "Do you remember me, Hazel? We were in the same burrow during the snow last winter. Dandelion told me you were going to leave the warren tonight. If you are, I'll come with you."

Hazel could recall Hawkbit-a rather slow, stupid rabbit whose company for five snowbound days underground had been distinctly tedious. Still, he thought, this was no time to pick and choose. Although Bigwig might succeed in talking over one or two, most of the rabbits they could expect to join them would not come from the Owsla. They would be outskirters who were getting a thin time and wondering what to do about it. He was running over some of these in his mind when Dandelion appeared.

"The sooner we're off the better, I reckon," said Dandelion. "I don't much like the look of things. After I'd persuaded Hawkbit here to join us, I was just starting to talk to a few more, when I found that Toadflax fellow had followed me down the run. 'I want to know what you're up to, he said, and I don't think he believed me when I told him I was only trying to find out whether there were any rabbits who wanted to leave the Warren. He asked me if I was sure I wasn't working up some kind of plot against the Threarah and he got awfully angry and suspicious. It put the wind up me, to tell you the truth, so I've just brought Hawkbit along and left it at that."

"I don't blame you," said Hazel. "Knowing Toadflax, I'm surprised he didn't knock you over first and ask questions afterward. All the same, let's wait a little longer. Blackberry ought to be here soon."

Time passed. They crouched in silence while the moon shadows moved northward in the grass. At last, just as Hazel was about to run down the slope to Blackberry's burrow, he saw him come out of his hole, followed by no less than three rabbits. One of these, Buckthorn, Hazel knew well. He was glad to see him, for he knew him for a tough, sturdy fellow who was considered certain to get into the Owsla as soon as he reached full weight.

"But I dare say he's impatient," thought Hazel, "or he may have come off worst in some scuffle over a doe and taken it hard. Well, with him and Bigwig, at least we shan't be too badly off if we run into any fighting."

He did not recognize the other two rabbits and when Blackberry told him their names-Speedwell and Acorn-he was none the wiser. But this was not surprising, for they were typical outskirters-thin-looking six-monthers, with the strained, wary look of those who are only too well used to the thin end of the stick. They looked curiously at Fiver. From what Blackberry had told them, they had been almost expecting to find Fiver foretelling doom in a poetic torrent. Instead, he seemed more calm and normal than the rest. The certainty of going had lifted a weight from Fiver.

More time went slowly by. Blackberry scrambled up into the fern and then returned to the top of the bank, fidgeting nervously and half inclined to bolt at nothing. Hazel and Fiver remained in the ditch, nibbling halfheartedly at the dark grass. At last Hazel heard what he was listening for; a rabbit-or was it two? — approaching from the wood.

A few moments later Bigwig was in the ditch. Behind him came a hefty, brisk-looking rabbit something over twelve months old. He was well known by sight to all the warren, for his fur was entirely gray, with patches of near-white that now caught the moonlight as he sat scratching himself without speaking. This was Silver, a nephew of the Threarah, who was serving his first month in the Owsla.

Hazel could not help feeling relieved that Bigwig had brought only Silver-a quiet, straightforward fellow who had not yet really found his feet among the veterans. When Bigwig had spoken earlier of sounding out the Owsla, Hazel had been in two minds. It was only too likely that they would encounter dangers beyond the warren and that they would stand in need of some good fighters. Again, if Fiver was right and the whole warren was in imminent peril, then of course they ought to welcome any rabbit who was ready to join them. On the other hand, there seemed no point in taking particular pains to get hold of rabbits who were going to behave like Toadflax.

"Wherever we settle down in the end," thought Hazel, "I'm determined to see that Pipkin and Fiver aren't sat on and cuffed around until they're ready to run any risk just to get away. But is Bigwig going to see it like that?"

"You know Silver, don't you?" asked Bigwig, breaking in on his thoughts. "Apparently some of the younger fellows in the Owsla have been giving him a thin time-teasing him about his fur, you know, and saying he only got his place because of the Threarah. I thought I was going to get some more, but I suppose nearly all the Owsla feel they're very well off as they are."

He looked about him. "I say, there aren't many here, are there? Do you think it's really worth going on with this idea?"

Silver seemed about to speak when suddenly there was a pattering in the undergrowth above and three more rabbits came over the bank from the wood. Their movement was direct and purposeful, quite unlike the earlier, haphazard approach of those who were now gathered in the ditch. The largest of the three newcomers was in front and the other two followed him, as though under orders. Hazel, sensing at once that they had nothing in common with himself and his companions, started and sat up tensely. Fiver muttered in his ear, "Oh, Hazel, they've come to-" but broke off short. Bigwig turned toward them and stared, his nose working rapidly. The three came straight up to him. "Thlayli?" said the leader.

"You know me perfectly well," replied Bigwig, "and I know you, Holly. What do you want?"

"You're under arrest."

"Under arrest? What do you mean? What for?"

"Spreading dissension and inciting to mutiny. Silver, you're under arrest too, for failing to report to Toadflax this evening and causing your duty to devolve on a comrade. You're both to come with me."

Immediately Bigwig fell upon him, scratching and kicking. Holly fought back. His followers closed in, looking for an opening to join the fight and pin Bigwig down. Suddenly, from the top of the bank, Buckthorn flung himself headlong into the scuffle, knocked one of the guards flying with a kick from his back legs and then closed with the other. He was followed a moment later by Dandelion, who landed full on the rabbit whom Buckthorn had kicked. Both guards broke clear, looked round for a moment and then leaped up the bank into the wood. Holly struggled free of Bigwig and crouched on his haunches, scuffling his front paws and growling, as rabbits will when angry. He was about to speak when Hazel faced him.

"Go," said Hazel, firmly and quietly, "or we'll kill you."

"Do you know what this means?" replied Holly. "I am Captain of Owsla. You know that, don't you?"

"Go," repeated Hazel, "or you will be killed."

"It is you who will be killed," replied Holly. Without another word he, too, went back up the bank and vanished into the wood.

Dandelion was bleeding from the shoulder. He licked the wound for a few moments and then turned to Hazel.

"They won't be long coming back, you know, Hazel," he said. "They've gone to turn out the Owsla, and then we'll be for it right enough."

"We ought to go at once," said Fiver.

"Yes, the time's come now, all right," replied Hazel. "Come on, down to the stream. Then we'll follow the bank-that'll help us to keep together."

"If you'll take my advice-" began Bigwig.

"If we stay here any longer I shan't be able to," answered Hazel.

With Fiver beside him, he led the way out of the ditch and down the slope. In less than a minute the little band of rabbits had disappeared into the dim, moonlit night.

5. In the Woods

It was getting on toward moonset when they left the fields and entered the wood. Straggling, catching up with one another, keeping more or less together, they had wandered over half a mile down the fields, always following the course of the brook. Although Hazel guessed that they must now have gone further from the warren than any rabbit he had ever talked to, he was not sure whether they were yet safely away: and it was while he was wondering-not for the first time-whether he could hear sounds of pursuit that he first noticed the dark masses of the trees and the brook disappearing among them.

Rabbits avoid close woodland, where the ground is shady, damp and grassless and they feel menaced by the undergrowth. Hazel did not care for the look of the trees. Still, he thought, Holly would no doubt think twice before following them into a place like that, and to keep beside the brook might well prove safer than wandering about the fields in one direction and another, with the risk of finding themselves, in the end, back at the warren. He decided to go straight into the wood without consulting Bigwig, and to trust that the rest would follow.

"If we don't run into any trouble and the brook takes us through the wood," he thought, "we really shall be clear of the warren and then we can look for somewhere to rest for a bit. Most of them still seem to be more or less all right, but Fiver and Pipkin will have had as much as they can stand before long."

From the moment he entered it, the wood seemed full of noises. There was a smell of damp leaves and moss, and everywhere the splash of water went whispering about. Just inside, the brook made a little fall into a pool, and the sound, enclosed among the trees, echoed as though in a cave. Roosting birds rustled overhead; the night breeze stirred the leaves; here and there a dead twig fell. And there were more sinister, unidentified sounds from further away; sounds of movement.

To rabbits, everything unknown is dangerous. The first reaction is to startle, the second to bolt. Again and again they startled, until they were close to exhaustion. But what did these sounds mean and where, in this wilderness, could they bolt to?

The rabbits crept, closer together. Their progress grew slower. Before long they lost the course of the brook, slipping across the moonlit patches as fugitives and halting in the bushes with raised ears and staring eyes. The moon was low now and the light, wherever it slanted through the trees, seemed thicker, older and more yellow.

From a thick pile of dead leaves beneath a holly tree, Hazel looked down a narrow path lined on either side with fern and sprouting fireweed. The fern moved slightly in the breeze, but along the path there was nothing to be seen except a scatter of last year's fallen acorns under an oak. What was in the bracken? What lay round the further bend? And what would happen to a rabbit who left the shelter of the holly tree and ran down the path? He turned to Dandelion beside him.

"You'd better wait here," he said. "When I get to the bend I'll stamp. But if I run into trouble, get the others away."

Without waiting for an answer, he ran into the open and down the path. A few seconds brought him to the oak. He paused a moment, staring about him, and then ran on to the bend. Beyond, the path was the same-empty in the darkening moonlight and leading gently downhill into the deep shadow of a grove of ilex trees. Hazel stamped, and a few moments later Dandelion was beside him in the bracken. Even in the midst of his fear and strain it occurred to him that Dandelion must be very fast: he had covered the distance in a flash.

"Well done," whispered Dandelion. "Running our risks for us, are you-like El-ahrairah?[3]"

Hazel gave him a quick, friendly glance. It was warm praise and cheered him. What Robin Hood is to the English and John Henry to the American Negroes, Elil-Hrair-Rah, or El-ahrairah-The Prince with a Thousand Enemies-is to rabbits. Uncle Remus might well have heard of him, for some of El-ahrairah's adventures are those of Brer Rabbit. For that matter, Odysseus himself might have borrowed a trick or two from the rabbit hero, for he is very old and was never at a loss for a trick to deceive his enemies. Once, so they say, he had to get home by swimming across a river in which there was a large and hungry pike. El-ahrairah combed himself until he had enough fur to cover a clay rabbit, which he pushed into the water. The pike rushed at it, bit it and left it in disgust. After a little, it drifted to the bank and El-ahrairah dragged it out and waited a while before pushing it in again. After an hour of this, the pike left it alone, and when it had done so for the fifth time, El-ahrairah swam across himself and went home. Some rabbits say he controls the weather, because the wind, the damp and the dew are friends and instruments to rabbits against their enemies.

"Hazel, we'll have to stop here," said Bigwig, coming up between the panting, crouching bodies of the others. "I know it's not a good place, but Fiver and this other half-sized fellow you've got here-they're pretty well all in. They won't be able to go on if we don't rest."

The truth was that every one of them was tired. Many rabbits spend all their lives in the same place and never run more than a hundred yards at a stretch. Even though they may live and sleep above ground for months at a time, they prefer not to be out of distance of some sort of refuge that will serve for a hole. They have two natural gaits-the gentle, lolloping forward movement of the warren on a summer evening and the lightning dash for cover that every human has seen at some time or other. It is difficult to imagine a rabbit plodding steadily on: they are not built for it. It is true that young rabbits are great migrants and capable of journeying for miles, but they do not take to it readily.

Hazel and his companions had spent the night doing everything that came unnaturally to them, and this for the first time. They had been moving in a group, or trying to: actually, they had straggled widely at times. They had been trying to maintain a steady pace, between hopping and running, and it had come hard. Since entering the wood they had been in severe anxiety. Several were almost tharn-that is, in that state of staring, glazed paralysis that comes over terrified or exhausted rabbits, so that they sit and watch their enemies-weasels or humans-approach to take their lives. Pipkin sat trembling under a fern, his ears drooping on either side of his head. He held one paw forward in an awkward, unnatural way and kept licking it miserably. Fiver was little better off. He still looked cheerful, but very weary. Hazel realized that until they were rested they would all be safer where they were than stumbling along in the open with no strength left to run from an enemy. But if they lay brooding, unable to feed or go underground, all their troubles would come crowding into their hearts, their fears would mount and they might very likely scatter, or even try to return to the warren. He had an idea.

"Yes, all right, we'll rest here," he said, "Let's go in among this fern. Come on, Dandelion, tell us a story. I know you're handy that way. Pipkin here can't wait to hear it."

Dandelion looked at Pipkin and realized what it was that Hazel was asking him to do. Choking back his own fear of the desolate, grassless woodland, the before-dawn-returning owls that they could hear some way off, and the extraordinary, rank animal smell that seemed to come from somewhere rather nearer, he began.

6. The Story of the Blessing of El-ahrairah

"Long ago, Frith made the world. He made all the stars, too, and the world is one of the stars. He made them by scattering his droppings over the sky and this is why the grass and the trees grow so thick on the world. Frith makes the rivers flow. They follow him as he goes through the sky, and when he leaves the sky they look for him all night Frith made all the animals and birds, but when he first made them they were all the same. The sparrow and the kestrel were friends and they both ate seeds and flies. And the fox and the rabbit were friends and they both ate grass. And there was plenty of grass and plenty of flies, because the world was new and Frith shone down bright and warm all day.

"Now, El-ahrairah was among the animals in those days and he had many wives. He had so many wives that there was no counting them, and the wives had so many young that even Frith could not count them, and they ate the grass and the dandelions and the lettuces and the clover, and El-ahrairah was the father of them all." (Bigwig growled appreciatively.) "And after a time," went on Dandelion, "after a time the grass began to grow thin and the rabbits wandered everywhere, multiplying and eating as they went.

"Then Frith said to El-ahrairah, 'Prince Rabbit, if you cannot control your people, I shall find ways to control them. So mark what I say. But El-ahrairah would not listen and he said to Frith, 'My people are the strongest in the world, for they breed faster and eat more than any of the other people. And this shows how much they love Lord Frith, for of all the animals they are the most responsive to his warmth and brightness. You must realize, my lord, how important they are and not hinder them in their beautiful lives.

"Frith could have killed El-ahrairah at once, but he had a mind to keep him in the world, because he needed him to sport and jest and play tricks. So he determined to get the better of him, not by means of his own great power but by means of a trick. He gave out that he would hold a great meeting and that at that meeting he wouid give a present to every animal and bird, to make each one different from the rest. And all the creatures set out to go to the meeting place. But they all arrived at different times, because Frith made sure that it would happen so. And when the blackbird came, he gave him his beautiful song, and when the cow came, he gave her sharp horns and the strength to be afraid of no other creature. And so in their turn came the fox and the stoat and the weasel. And to each of them Frith gave the cunning and the fierceness and the desire to hunt and slay and eat the children of El-ahrairah. And so they went away from Frith full of nothing but hunger to kill the rabbits.

"Now, all this time El-ahrairah was dancing and mating and boasting that he was going to Frith's meeting to receive a great gift. And at last he set out for the meeting place. But as he was going there, he stopped to rest on a soft, sandy hillside. And while he was resting, over the hill came flying the dark swift, screaming as he went, 'News! News! News! For you know, this is what he has said ever since that day. So El-ahrairah called up to him and said, 'What news? 'Why, said the swift, 'I would not be you, El-ahrairah. For Frith has given the fox and the weasel cunning hearts and sharp teeth, and to the cat he has given silent feet and eyes that can see in the dark, and they are gone away from Frith's place to kill and devour all that belongs to El-ahrairah. And he dashed on over the hills. And at that moment El-ahrairah heard the voice of Frith calling, 'Where is El-ahrairah? For all the others have taken their gifts and gone and I have come to look for him.

"Then El-ahrairah knew that Frith was too clever for him and he was frightened. He thought that the fox and the weasel were coming with Frith and he turned to the face of the hill and began to dig. He dug a hole, but he had dug only a little of it when Frith came over the hill alone. And he saw El-ahrairah's bottom sticking out of the hole and the sand flying out in showers as the digging went on. When he saw that, he called out, 'My friend, have you seen El-ahrairah, for I am looking for him to give him my gift? 'No, answered El-ahrairah, without coming out, 'I have not seen him. He is far away. He could not come. So Frith said, 'Then come out of that hole and I will bless you instead of him. 'No, I cannot, said El-ahrairah, 'I am busy. The fox and the weasel are coming. If you want to bless me you can bless my bottom, for it is sticking out of the hole."

All the rabbits had heard the story before: on winter nights, when the cold draft moved down the warren passages and the icy wet lay in the pits of the runs below their burrows; and on summer evenings, in the grass under the red may and the sweet, carrion-scented elder bloom. Dandelion was telling it well, and even Pipkin forgot his weariness and danger and remembered instead the great indestructibility of the rabbits. Each one of them saw himself as El-ahrairah, who could be impudent to Frith and get away with it.

"Then," said Dandelion, "Frith felt himself in friendship with El-ahrairah, who would not give up even when he thought the fox and the weasel were coming. And he said, 'Very well, I will bless your bottom as it sticks out of the hole. Bottom, be strength and warning and speed forever and save the life of your master. Be it so! And as he spoke, El-ahrairah's tail grew shining white and flashed like a star: and his back legs grew long and powerful and he thumped the hillside until the very beetles fell off the the grass stems. He came out of the hole and tore across the hill faster than any creature in the world. And Frith called after him, 'El-ahrairah, your people cannot rule the world, for I will not have it so. All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed. And El-ahrairah knew then that although he would not be mocked, yet Frith was his friend. And every evening, when Frith has done his day's work and lies calm and easy in the red sky, El-ahrairah and his children and his children's children come out of their holes and feed and play in his sight, for they are his friends and he has promised them that they can never be destroyed."

7. The Lendri and the River

As Dandelion ended, Acorn, who was on the windward side of the little group, suddenly started and sat back, with ears up and nostrils twitching. The strange, rank smell was stronger than ever and after a few moments they all heard a heavy movement close by. Suddenly, on the other side of the path, the fern parted and there looked out a long, dog-like head, striped black and white. It was pointed downward, the jaws grinning, the muzzle close to the ground. Behind, they could just discern great, powerful paws and a shaggy black body. The eyes were peering at them, full of savage cunning. The head moved slowly, taking in the dusky lengths of the wood ride in both directions, and then fixed them once more with its fierce, terrible stare. The jaws opened wider and they could see the teeth, glimmering white as the stripes along the head. For long moments it gazed and the rabbits remained motionless, staring back without a sound. Then Bigwig, who was nearest to the path, turned and slipped back among the others.

"A lendri," he muttered as he passed through them. "It may be dangerous and it may not, but I'm taking no chances with it. Let's get away."

They followed him through the fern and very soon came upon another, parallel path. Bigwig turned into it and broke into a run. Dandelion overtook him and the two disappeared among the ilex trees. Hazel and the others followed as best they could, with Pipkin limping and staggering behind, his fear driving him on in spite of the pain in his paw.

Hazel came out on the further side of the ilexes and followed the path round a bend. Then he stopped dead and sat back on his haunches. Immediately in front of him, Bigwig and Dandelion were staring out from the sheer edge of a high bank, and below the bank ran a stream. It was in fact the little river Enborne, twelve to fifteen feet wide and at this time of year two or three feet deep with spring rain, but to the rabbits it seemed immense, such a river as they had never imagined. The moon had almost set and the night was now dark, but they could see the water faintly shining as it flowed and could just make out, on the further side, a thin belt of nut trees and alders. Somewhere beyond, a plover called three or four times and was silent.

One by one, most of the others came up, stopped at the bank and looked at the water without speaking. A chilly breeze was moving and several of them trembled where they sat.

"Well, this is a nice surprise, Hazel," said Bigwig at length. "Or were you expecting this when you took us into the wood?"

Hazel realized wearily that Bigwig was probably going to be troublesome. He was certainly no coward, but he was likely to remain steady only as long as he could see his way clear and be sure of what to do. To him, perplexity was worse than danger; and when he was perplexed he usually grew angry. The day before, Fiver's warning had troubled him, and he had spoken in anger to the Threarah and left the Owsla. Then, while he was in an uncertain mood about the idea of leaving the warren, Captain Holly had appeared in capital time to be attacked and to provide a perfect reason for their departure. Now, at the sight of the river, Bigwig's assurance was leaking again and unless he, Hazel, could restore it in some way, they were likely to be in for trouble. He thought of the Threarah and his wily courtesy.

"I don't know what we should have done without you just now, Bigwig," he said. "What was that animal? Would it have killed us?"

"A lendri," said Bigwig. "I've heard about them in the Owsla. They're not really dangerous. They can't catch a rabbit that runs, and nearly always you can smell them coming. They're funny things: I've heard of rabbits living almost on top of them and coming to no harm. But they're best avoided, all the same. They'll dig out rabbit kittens and they'll kill an injured rabbit if they find one. They're one of the Thousand, all right. I ought to have guessed from the smell, but it was new to me."

"It had killed before it met us," said Blackberry with a shudder. "I saw the blood on its lips."

"A rat, perhaps, or pheasant chicks. Lucky for us it had killed, otherwise it might have been quicker. Still, fortunately we did the right thing. We really came out of it very well," said Bigwig.

Fiver came limping down the path with Pipkin. They, too, checked and stared at the sight of the river.

"What do you think we ought to do now, Fiver?" asked Hazel.

Fiver looked down at the water and twitched his ears.

"We shall have to cross it," he said. "But I don't think I can swim, Hazel. I'm worn out, and Pipkin's a good deal worse than I am."

"Cross it?" cried Bigwig. "Cross it? Who's going to cross it? What do you want to cross it for? I never heard such nonsense."

Like all wild animals, rabbits can swim if they have to: and some even swim when it suits them. Rabbits have been known to live on the edge of a wood and regularly swim a brook to feed in the fields beyond. But most rabbits avoid swimming, and certainly an exhausted rabbit could not swim the Enborne.

"I don't want to jump in there," said Speedwell.

"Why not just go along the bank?" asked Hawkbit.

Hazel suspected that if Fiver felt they ought to cross the river, it might be dangerous not to. But how were the others to be persuaded? At this moment, as he was still wondering what to say to them, he suddenly realized that something had lightened his spirits. What could it be? A smell? A sound? Then he knew. Nearby, across the river, a lark had begun to twitter and climb. It was morning. A blackbird called one or two deep, slow notes and was followed by a wood pigeon. Soon they were in a gray twilight and could see that the stream bordered the further edge of the wood. On the other side lay open fields.

8. The Crossing

The top of the sandy bank was a good six feet above the water. From where they sat, the rabbits could look straight ahead upstream, and downstream to their left. Evidently there were nesting holes in the sheer face below them, for as the light grew they saw three or four martins dart out over the stream and away into the fields beyond. In a short time one returned with his beak full, and they could hear the nestlings squeaking as he flew out of sight beneath their feet. The bank did not extend far in either direction. Upstream, it sloped down to a grassy path between the trees and the water. This followed the line of the river, which ran straight from almost as far away as they could see, flowing smoothly without fords, gravel shallows or plank bridges. Immediately below them lay a wide pool and here the water was almost still. Away to their left, the bank sloped down again into clumps of alder, among which the stream could be heard chattering over gravel. There was a glimpse of barbed wire stretched across the water and they guessed that this must surround a cattle wade, like the one in the little brook near the home warren.

Hazel looked at the path upstream. "There's grass down there," he said. "Let's go and feed."

They scrambled down the bank and set to nibbling beside the water. Between them and the stream itself stood half-grown clumps of purple loosestrife and fleabane, which would not flower for nearly two months yet. The only blooms were a few early meadowsweet and a patch of pink butterbur. Looking back at the face of the bank, they could see that it was in fact dotted thickly with martins' holes. There was a narrow foreshore at the foot of the little cliff and this was littered with the rubbish of the colony-sticks, droppings, feathers, a broken egg and a dead nestling or two. The martins were now coming and going in numbers over the water.

Hazel moved close to Fiver and quietly edged him away from the others, feeding as he went. When they were a little way off, and half concealed by a patch of reeds, he said, "Are you sure we've got to cross the river, Fiver? What about going along the bank one way or the other?"

"No, we need to cross the river, Hazel, so that we can get into those fields-and on beyond them too. I know what we ought to be looking for-a high, lonely place with dry soil, where rabbits can see and hear all round and men hardly ever come. Wouldn't that be worth a journey?"

"Yes, of course it would. But is there such a place?"

"Not near a river-I needn't tell you that. But if you cross a river you start going up again, don't you? We ought to be on the top-on the top and in the open."

"But, Fiver, I think they may refuse to go much further. And then again, you say all this and yet you say you're too tired to swim?"

"I can rest, Hazel, but Pipkin's in a pretty bad way. I think he's injured. We may have to stay here half the day."

"Well, let's go and talk to the others. They may not mind staying. It's crossing they're not going to fancy, unless something frightens them into it."

As soon as they had made their way back, Bigwig came across to them from the bushes at the edge of the path.

"I was wondering where you'd got to," he said to Hazel. "Are you ready to move on?"

"No, I'm not," answered Hazel firmly. "I think we ought to stay here until ni-Frith. That'll give everyone a chance to rest and then we can swim across to those fields."

Bigwig was about to reply, but Blackberry spoke first.

"Bigwig," he said, "why don't you swim over now, and then go out into the field and have a look round? The wood may not stretch very far one way or the other. You could see from there; and then we might know which would be the best way to go."

"Oh, well," said Bigwig rather grudgingly, "I suppose there's some sense in that. I'll swim the embleer[4] river as many times as you like. Always glad to oblige."

Without the slightest hesitation, he took two hops to the water, waded in and swam across the deep, still pool. They watched him pull himself out beside a flowering clump of figwort, gripping one of the tough stems in his teeth, shake a shower of drops out of his fur and scutter into the alder bushes. A moment later, between the nut trees, they saw him running off into the field.

"I'm glad he's with us," said Hazel to Silver. Again he thought wryly of the Threarah. "He's the fellow to find out all we need to know. Oh, I say, look, he's coming back already."

Bigwig was racing back across the field, looking more agitated than he had at any time since the encounter with Captain Holly. He ran into the water almost headlong and paddled over fast, leaving an arrowhead ripple on the calm brown surface. He was speaking as he jerked himself out on the sandy foreshore.

"Well, Hazel, if I were you I shouldn't wait until ni-Frith. I should go now. In fact, I think you'll have to."

"Why?" asked Hazel.

"There's a large dog loose in the wood."

Hazel started. "What?" he said. "How do you know?"

"When you get into the field you can see the wood sloping down to the river. Parts of it are open. I saw the dog crossing a clearing. It was trailing a chain, so it must have broken loose. It may be on the lendri's scent, but the lendri will be underground by now. What do you think will happen when it picks up our scent, running from one side of the wood to the other, with dew on it? Come on, let's get over quickly,"

Hazel felt at a loss. In front of him stood Bigwig, sodden wet, undaunted, single-minded-the very picture of decision. At his shoulder was Fiver, silent and twitching. He saw Blackberry watching him intently, waiting for his lead and disregarding Bigwig's. Then he looked at Pipkin, huddled into a fold of sand, more panic-stricken and helpless than any rabbit he had ever seen. At this moment, up in the wood, there broke out an excited yelping and a jay began to scold.

Hazel spoke through a kind of light-headed trance. "Well, you'd better get on, then," he said, "and anyone else who wants to. Personally, I'm going to wait until Fiver and Pipkin are fit to tackle it."

"You silly blockhead!" cried Bigwig. "We'll all be finished! We'll-"

"Don't stamp about," said Hazel, "You may be heard. What do you suggest, then?"

"Suggest? There's no suggesting to be done. Those who can swim, swim. The others will have to stay here and hope for the best. The dog may not come."

"I'm afraid that won't do for me. I got Pipkin into this and I'm going to get him out."

"Well, you didn't get Fiver into it, did you? He got you into it."

Hazel could not help noticing, with reluctant admiration, that although Bigwig had lost his temper, he was apparently in no hurry on his own account and seemed less frightened than any of them. Looking round for Blackberry, he saw that he had left them and was up at the top of the pool, where the narrow beach tailed away into a gravel spit. His paws were half buried in the wet gravel and he was nosing at something large and flat on the waterline. It looked like a piece of wood.

"Blackberry," he said, "can you come back here a moment?"

Blackberry looked up, tugged out his paws and ran back.

"Hazel," he said quickly, "that's a piece of flat wood-like that piece that closed the gap by the Green Loose above the warren-you remember? It must have drifted down the river. So it floats. We could put Fiver and Pipkin on it and make it float again. It might go across the river. Can you understand?"

Hazel had no idea what he meant. Blackberry's flood of apparent nonsense only seemed to draw tighter the mesh of danger and bewilderment. As though Bigwig's angry impatience, Pipkin's terror and the approaching dog were not enough to contend with, the cleverest rabbit among them had evidently gone out of his mind. He felt close to despair.

"Frithrah, yes, I see!" said an excited voice at his ear. It was Fiver. "Quick, Hazel, don't wait! Come on, and bring Pipkin!"

It was Blackberry who bullied the stupefied Pipkin to his feet and forced him to limp the few yards to the gravel spit. The piece of wood, hardly bigger than a large rhubarb leaf, was lightly aground. Blackberry almost drove Pipkin onto it with his claws. Pipkin crouched shivering and Fiver followed him aboard.

"Who's strong?" said Blackberry. "Bigwig! Silver! Push it out!"

No one obeyed him. All squatted, puzzled and uncertain. Blackberry buried his nose in the gravel under the landward edge of the board and raised it, pushing. The board tipped. Pipkin squealed and Fiver lowered his head and splayed his claws. Then the board righted itself and drifted out a few feet into the pool with the two rabbits hunched upon it, rigid and motionless. It rotated slowly and they found themselves staring back at their comrades.

"Frith and Inlé!" said Dandelion. "They're sitting on the water! Why don't they sink?"

"They're sitting on the wood and the wood floats, can't you see?" said Blackberry. "Now we swim over ourselves. Can we start, Hazel?"

During the last few minutes Hazel had been as near to losing his head as he was ever to come. He had been at his wits' end, with no reply to Bigwig's scornful impatience except his readiness to risk his own life in company with Fiver and Pipkin. He still could not understand what had happened, but at least he realized that Blackberry wanted him to show authority. His head cleared.

"Swim," he said. "Everybody swim."

He watched them as they went in. Dandelion swam as well as he ran, swiftly and easily. Silver, too, was strong. The others paddled and scrambled over somehow, and as they began to reach the other side, Hazel plunged. The cold water penetrated his fur almost at once. His breath came short and as his head went under he could hear a faint grating of gravel along the bottom. He paddled across awkwardly, his head tilted high out of the water, and made for the figwort. As he pulled himself out, he looked round among the sopping rabbits in the alders.

"Where's Bigwig?" he asked.

"Behind you," answered Blackberry, his teeth chattering.

Bigwig was still in the water, on the other side of the pool. He had swum to the raft, put his head against it and was pushing it forward with heavy thrusts of his back legs. "Keep still," Hazel heard him say in a quick, gulping voice. Then he sank. But a moment later he was up again and had thrust his head over the back of the board. As he kicked and struggled, it tilted and then, while the rabbits watched from the bank, moved slowly across the pool and grounded on the opposite side. Fiver pushed Pipkin onto the stones and Bigwig waded out beside them, shivering and breathless.

"I got the idea once Blackberry had shown us," he said. "But it's hard to push it when you're in the water. I hope it's not long to sunrise. I'm cold. Let's get on."

There was no sign of the dog as they made haste through the alders and up the field to the first hedgerow. Most of them had not understood Blackberry's discovery of the raft and at once forgot it. Fiver, however, came over to where Blackberry was lying against the stem of a blackthorn in the hedge.

"You saved Pipkin and me, didn't you?" he said. "I don't think Pipkin's got any idea what really happened; but I have."

"I admit it was a good idea," replied Blackberry. "Let's remember it. It might come in handy again sometime."

9. The Crow and the Beanfield

The sun rose while they were still lying in the thorn. Already several of the rabbits were asleep, crouched uneasily between the thick stems, aware of the chance of danger but too tired to do more than trust to luck. Hazel, looking at them, felt almost as insecure as he had on the riverbank. A hedgerow in open fields was no place to remain all day. But where could they go? He needed to know more about their surroundings. He moved along the hedge, feeling the breeze from the south and looking for some spot where he could sit and scent it without too much risk. The smells that came down from the higher ground might tell him something.

He came to a wide gap which had been trodden into mud by cattle. He could see them grazing in the next field, further up the slope. He went cautiously out into the field, squatted down against a clump of thistles and began to smell the wind. Now that he was clear of the hawthorn scent of the hedge and the reek of cattle dung, he became fully aware of what had already been drifting into his nostrils while he was lying among the thorn. There was only one smell on the wind and it was new to him: a strong, fresh, sweet fragrance that filled the air. It was healthy enough. There was no harm in it. But what was it and why was it so strong? How could it exclude every other smell, in open country on a south wind? The source must be close by. Hazel wondered whether to send one of the rabbits to find out. Dandelion would be over the top and back almost as fast as a hare. Then his sense of adventure and mischief prompted him. He would go himself and bring back some news before they even knew that he had gone. That would give Bigwig something to bite on.

He ran easily up the meadow toward the cows. As he came they raised their heads and gazed at him, all together, for a moment, before returning to their feeding. A great black bird was flapping and hopping a little way behind the herd. It looked rather like a large rook, but, unlike a rook, it was alone. He watched its greenish, powerful beak stabbing the ground, but could not make out what it was doing. It so happened that Hazel had never seen a crow. It did not occur to him that it was following the track of a mole, in the hope of killing it with a blow of its beak and then pulling it out of its shallow run. If he had realized this, he might not have classed it light-heartedly as a "Not-hawk"-that is, anything from a wren to a pheasant-and continued on his way up the slope.

The strange fragrance was stronger now, coming over the top of the rise in a wave of scent that struck him powerfully-as the scent of orange blossom in the Mediterranean strikes a traveler who smells it for the first time. Fascinated, he ran to the crest. Nearby was another hedgerow and beyond, moving gently in the breeze, stood a field of broad beans in full flower.

Hazel squatted on his haunches and stared at the orderly forest of small, glaucous trees with their columns of black-and-white bloom. He had never seen anything like this. Wheat and barley he knew, and once he had been in a field of turnips. But this was entirely different from any of those and seemed, somehow, attractive, wholesome, propitious. True, rabbits could not eat these plants: he could smell that. But they could lie safely among them for as long as they liked, and they could move through them easily and unseen. Hazel determined then and there to bring the rabbits up to the beanfield to shelter and rest until the evening. He ran back and found the others where he had left them. Bigwig and Silver were awake, but all the rest were still napping uneasily.

"Not asleep, Silver?" he said.

"It's too dangerous, Hazel," replied Silver. "I'd like to sleep as much as anyone, but if we all sleep and something comes, who's going to spot it?"

"I know. I've found a place where we can sleep safely for as long as we like."

"A burrow?"

"No, not a burrow. A great field of scented plants that will cover us, sight and smell, until we're rested. Come out here and smell it, if you like."

Both rabbits did so. "You say you've seen these plants?" said Bigwig, turning his ears to catch the distant rustling of the beans."

"Yes, they're only just over the top. Come on, let's get the others moving before a man comes with a hrududu[5] or they'll scatter all over the place."

Silver roused the others and began to coax them into the field. They stumbled out drowsily, responding with reluctance to his repeated assurance that it was "only a little way."

They became widely separated as they straggled up the slope. Silver and Bigwig led the way, with Hazel and Buckthorn a short distance behind. The rest idled along, hopping a few yards and then pausing to nibble or to pass droppings on the warm, sunny grass. Silver was almost at the crest when suddenly, from halfway up, there came a high screaming-the sound a rabbit makes, not to call for help or to frighten an enemy, but simply out of terror. Fiver and Pipkin, limping behind the others, and conspicuously undersized and tired, were being attacked by the crow. It had flown low along the ground. Then, pouncing, it had aimed a blow of its great bill at Fiver, who just managed to dodge in time. Now it was leaping and hopping among the grass tussocks, striking at the two rabbits with terrible darts of its head. Crows aim at the eyes and Pipkin, sensing this, had buried his head in a clump of rank grass and was trying to burrow further in. It was he who was screaming.

Hazel covered the distance down the slope in a few seconds. He had no idea what he was going to do, and if the crow had ignored him he would probably have been at a loss. But by dashing up he distracted its attention and it turned on him. He swerved past it, stopped and, looking back, saw Bigwig come racing in from the opposite side. The crow turned again, struck at Bigwig and missed. Hazel heard its beak hit a pebble in the grass with a sound like a snail shell when a thrush beats it on a stone. As Silver followed Bigwig, it recovered itself and faced him squarely. Silver stopped short in fear and the crow seemed to dance before him, its great black wings flapping in a horrible commotion. It was just about to stab when Bigwig ran straight into it from behind and knocked it sideways, so that it staggered across the turf with a harsh, raucous cawing of rage.

"Keep at it!" cried Bigwig. "Come in behind it! They're cowards! They only attack helpless rabbits."

But already the crow was making off, flying low with slow, heavy wing beats. They watched it clear the further hedge and disappear into the wood beyond the river. In the silence there was a gentle, tearing sound as a grazing cow moved nearer.

Bigwig strolled over to Pipkin, muttering a ribald Owsla lampoon.

"Come on, Hlao-roo," he said. "You can get your head out now. Having quite a day, aren't we?"

He turned away and Pipkin tried to follow him. Hazel remembered that Fiver had said he thought he was injured. Now, as he watched him limping and staggering up the slope, it occurred to him that he might actually be wounded in some way. He kept trying to put his near-side front paw to the ground and then drawing it up again, hopping on three legs.

"I'll have a look at him as soon as they're settled under cover," he thought. "Poor little chap, he won't be able to get much further like that."

At the top of the slope Buckthorn was already leading the way into the beanfield. Hazel reached the hedge, crossed a narrow turf verge on the other side and found himself looking straight down a long, shadowy aisle between two rows of beans. The earth was soft and crumbling, with a scattering of the weeds that are found in cultivated fields-fumitory, charlock, pimpernel and mayweed, all growing in the green gloom under the bean leaves. As the plants moved in the breeze, the sunlight dappled and speckled back and forth over the brown soil, the white pebbles and weeds. Yet in this ubiquitous restlessness there was nothing alarming, for the whole forest took part in it and the only sound was the soft, steady movement of the leaves. Far along the bean row Hazel glimpsed Buckthorn's back and followed him into the depths of the field.

Soon after, all the rabbits had come together in a kind of hollow. Far around, on all sides, stood the orderly rows of beans, securing them against hostile approach, roofing them over and covering their scent. They could hardly have been safer underground. Even a little food could be had at a pinch, for here and there were a few pale twists of grass and here and there a dandelion.

"We can sleep here all day," said Hazel. "But I suppose one of us ought to stay awake; and if I take the first turn it'll give me a chance to have a look at your paw, Hlao-roo. I think you've got something in it."

Pipkin, who was lying on his left side, breathing quickly and heavily, rolled over and stretched out his front paw, underside turned upward. Hazel peered closely into the thick, coarse hair (a rabbit's foot has no pads) and after a few moments saw what he had expected-the oval shank of a snapped-off thorn sticking out through the skin. There was a little blood and the flesh was torn.

"You've got a big thorn in there, Hlao," he said. "No wonder you couldn't run. We'll have to get it out."

Getting the thorn out was not easy, for the foot had become so tender that Pipkin winced and pulled away even from Hazel's tongue. But after a good deal of patient effort Hazel succeeded in working out enough of the stump to get a grip with his teeth. The thorn came out smoothly and the wound bled. The spine was so long and thick that Hawkbit, who happened to be close by, woke Speedwell to have a look at it.

"Frith above, Pipkin!" said Speedwell, sniffing at the thorn where it lay on a pebble. "You'd better collect a few more like that: then you can make a notice board and frighten Fiver. You might have poked the lendri's eye out for us, if you'd only known."

"Lick the place, Hlao," said Hazel. "Lick it until it feels better and then go to sleep."

10. The Road and the Common

After some time, Hazel woke Buckhorn. Then he scratched a shallow nest in the earth and slept. One watch succeeded another through the day, though how the rabbits judged the passing of the time is something that civilized human beings have lost the power to feel. Creatures that have neither clocks nor books are alive to all manner of knowledge about time and the weather; and about direction, too, as we know from their extraordinary migratory and homing journeys. The changes in the warmth and dampness of the soil, the falling of the sunlight patches, the altering movement of the beans in the light wind, the direction and strength of the air currents along the ground-all these were perceived by the rabbit awake.

The sun was beginning to set when Hazel woke to see Acorn listening and sniffing in the silence, between two white-skinned flints. The light was thicker, the breeze had dropped and the beans were still. Pipkin was stretched out a little way away. A yellow-and-black burying beetle, crawling across the white fur of his belly, stopped, waved its short, curved antennae and then moved on again. Hazel grew tense with sudden misgiving. He knew that these beetles come to dead bodies, on which they feed and lay their eggs. They will dig away the earth from under the bodies of small creatures, such as shrew mice and fallen fledglings, and then lay their eggs on them before covering them with soil. Surely Pipkin could not have died in his sleep? Hazel sat up quickly. Acorn started and turned toward him and the beetle scurried away over the pebbles as Pipkin moved and woke.

"How's the paw?" said Hazel.

Pipkin put it to the ground. Then he stood on it.

"It feels much better," he said. "I think I shall be able to go as well as the others now. They won't leave me behind, will they?"

Hazel rubbed his nose behind Pipkin's ear. "No one's going to leave anyone else behind," he said. "If you had to stay, I'd stay with you. But don't pick up any more thorns, Hlao-roo, because we may have to go a long way."

The next moment all the rabbits leaped up in panic. From close at hand the sound of a shot tore across the fields. A peewit rose screaming. The echoes came back in waves, like a pebble rolling round a box, and from the wood across the river came the clattering of wood pigeons' wings among the branches. In an instant the rabbits were running in all directions through the bean rows, each one tearing by instinct toward holes that were not there.

Hazel stopped short on the edge of the beans. Looking about him, he could see none of the others. He waited, trembling, for the next shot: but there was silence. Then he felt, vibrating along the ground, the steady tread of a man going away beyond the crest over which they had come that morning. At that moment Silver appeared, pushing his way through the plants close by.

"I hope it's the crow, don't you?" said Silver.

"I hope no one's been silly enough to bolt out of this field," answered Hazel. "They're all scattered. How can we find them?"

"I don't think we can," said Silver. "We'd better go back to where we were. They'll come in time."

It was in fact a long time before all the rabbits had come back to the hollow in the middle of the field. As he waited, Hazel realized more fully than ever how dangerous was their position, without holes, wandering in country they did not know. The lendri, the dog, the crow, the marksman-they had been lucky to escape them. How long would their luck hold? Would they really be able to travel on as far as Fiver's high place-wherever it might be?

"I'd settle for any decent, dry bank, myself," he thought, "as long as there was some grass and no men with guns. And the sooner we can find one the better."

Hawkbit was the last to return and as he came up Hazel set off at once. He looked cautiously out from among the beans and then darted into the hedgerow. The wind, as he stopped to sniff it, was reassuring, carrying only the scents of evening dew, may and cow dung. He led the way into the next field, a pasture: and here they all fell to feeding, nibbling their way over the grass as easily as though their warren were close by.

When he was halfway across the field, Hazel became aware of a hrududu approaching very fast on the other side of the further hedge. It was small and less noisy than the farm tractor which he had sometimes watched from the edge of the primrose wood at home. It passed in a flash of man-made, unnatural color, glittering here and there and brighter than a winter holly tree. A few moments later came the smells of petrol and exhaust. Hazel stared, twitching his nose. He could not understand how the hrududu could move so quickly and smoothly through the fields. Would it return? Would it come through the fields faster than they could run, and hunt them down?

As he paused, wondering what was best to be done, Bigwig came up.

"There's a road there, then," he said. "That'll give some of them a surprise, won't it?"

"A road?" said Hazel, thinking of the lane by the notice board. "How do you know?"

"Well, how do you suppose a hrududu can go that fast? Besides, can't you smell it?"

The smell of warm tar was now plain on the evening air.

"I've never smelled that in my life," said Hazel with a touch of irritation.

"Ah," said Bigwig, "but then you were never sent out stealing lettuces for the Threarah, were you? If you had been, you'd have learned about roads. There's nothing to them, really, as long as you let them alone by night. They're elil then, all right."

"You'd better teach me, I think," said Hazel. "I'll go up with you and we'll let the others follow."

They ran on and crept through the hedge. Hazel looked down at the road in astonishment. For a moment he thought that he was looking at another river-black, smooth and straight between its banks. Then he saw the gravel embedded in the tar and watched a spider running over the surface.

"But that's not natural," he said, sniffing the strange, strong smells of tar and oil. "What is it? How did it come there?"

"It's a man thing," said Bigwig. "They put that stuff there and then the hrududil run on it-faster than we can; and what else can run faster than we?"

"It's dangerous, then? They can catch us?"

"No, that's what's so odd. They don't take any notice of us at all. I'll show you, if you like."

The other rabbits were beginning to reach the hedge as Bigwig hopped down the bank and crouched on the verge of the road. From beyond the bend came the sound of another approaching car. Hazel and Silver watched tensely. The car appeared, flashing green and white, and raced down toward Bigwig. For an instant it filled the whole world with noise and fear. Then it was gone and Bigwig's fur was blowing in the whack of wind that followed it down the hedges. He jumped back up the bank among the staring rabbits.

"See? They don't hurt you," said Bigwig. "As a matter of fact, I don't think they're alive at all. But I must admit I can't altogether make it out."

As on the riverbank, Blackberry had moved away and was already down on the road on his own account, sniffing out toward the middle, halfway between Hazel and the bend. They saw him start and jump back to the shelter of the bank.

"What is it?" said Hazel.

Blackberry did not answer, and Hazel and Bigwig hopped toward him along the verge. He was opening and shutting his mouth and licking his lips, much as a cat does when something disgusts it.

"You say they're not dangerous, Bigwig," he said quietly. "But I think they must be, for all that."

In the middle of the road was a flattened, bloody mass of brown prickles and white fur, with small black feet and snout crushed round the edges. The flies crawled upon it, and here and there the sharp points of gravel pressed up through the flesh.

"A yona," said Blackberry. "What harm does a yona do to anything but slugs and beetles? And what can eat a yona?"

"It must have come at night," said Bigwig.

"Yes, of course. The yonil always hunt by night. If you see them by day, they're dying."

"I know. But what I'm trying to explain is that at night the hrududil have great lights, brighter than Frith himself. They draw creatures toward them, and if they shine on you, you can't see or think which way to go. Then the hrududu is quite likely to crush you. At least, that's what we were taught in the Owsla. I don't intend to try it."

"Well, it will be dark soon," said Hazel. "Come on, let's get across. As far as I can see, this road's no good to us at all. Now that I've learned about it, I want to get away from it as soon as I can."

By moonrise they had made their way through Newtown churchyard, where a little brook runs between the lawns and under the path. Wandering on, they climbed a hill and came to Newtown Common-a country of peat, gorse and silver birch. After the meadows they had left, this was a strange, forbidding land. Trees, herbage, even the soil-all were unfamiliar. They hesitated among the thick heather, unable to see more than a few feet ahead. Their fur became soaked with the dew. The ground was broken by rifts and pits of naked black peat, where water lay and sharp white stones, some as big as a pigeon's, some as a rabbit's skull, glimmered in the moonlight. Whenever they reached one of these rifts the rabbits huddled together, waiting for Hazel or Bigwig to climb the further side and find a way forward. Everywhere they came upon beetles, spiders and small lizards which scurried away as they pushed through the fibrous, resistant heather. Once Buckthorn disturbed a snake, and leaped into the air as it whipped between his paws to vanish down a hole at the foot of a birch.

The very plants were unknown to them-pink lousewort with its sprays of hooked flowers, bog asphodel and the thin-stemmed blooms of the sundews, rising above their hairy, fly-catching mouths, all shut fast by night. In this close jungle all was silence. They went more and more slowly, and made long halts in the peat cuts. But if the heather itself was silent, the breeze brought distant night sounds across the open common. A cock crowed. A dog ran barking and a man shouted at it. A little owl called "Kee-wik, kee-wik" and something-a vole or a shrew-gave a sudden squeal. There was not a noise but seemed to tell of danger.

Late in the night, toward moonset, Hazel was looking up from a cut where they were crouching to a little bank above. As he was wondering whether to climb up to it, to see whether he could get a clear view ahead, he heard a movement behind him and turned to find Hawkbit at his shoulder. There was something furtive and hesitant about him and Hazel glanced at him sharply, wondering for a moment whether he could have sickness or poison on him. "Er-Hazel," said Hawkbit, looking past him into the face of the dreary black cliff. "I-er-that is to say we-er-feel that we-well, that we can't go on like this. We've had enough of it."

He stopped. Hazel now saw that Speedwell and Acorn were behind him, listening expectantly. There was a pause.

"Go on, Hawkbit," said Speedwell, "or shall I?"

"More than enough," said Hawkbit, with a kind of foolish importance.

"Well, so have I," answered Hazel, "and I hope there won't be much more. Then we can all have a rest."

"We want to stop now," said Speedwell. "We think it was stupid to come so far."

"It gets worse and worse the further we go," said Acorn. "Where are we going and how long will it be before some of us stop running for good and all?"

"It's the place that worries you," said Hazel. "I don't like it myself, but it won't go on forever."

Hawkbit looked sly and shifty. "We don't believe you know where we are going," he said. "You didn't know about the road, did you? And you don't know what there is in front of us."

"Look here," said Hazel, "suppose you tell me what you want to do and I'll tell you what I think about it."

"We want to go back," said Acorn. "We think Fiver was wrong."

"How can you go back through all we've come through?" replied Hazel. "And probably get killed for wounding an Owsla officer, if you ever do get back? Talk sense, for Frith's sake."

"It wasn't we who wounded Holly," said Speedwell.

"You were there and Blackberry brought you there. Do you think they won't remember that? Besides-"

Hazel stopped as Fiver approached, followed by Bigwig.

"Hazel," said Fiver, "could you come up on the bank with me for a few moments? It's important."

"And while you're there," said Bigwig, scowling round at the others from under the great sheaf of fur on his head, "I'll just have a few words with these three. Why don't you get washed, Hawkbit? You look like the end of a rat's tail left in a trap. And as for you, Speedwell-"

Hazel did not wait to hear what Speedwell looked like. Following Fiver, he scrambled up the lumps and shelves of peat to the overhang of gravelly earth and thin grass that topped them. As soon as Fiver had found a place to clamber out, he led the way along the edge to the bank which Hazel had been looking at before Hawkbit spoke to him. It stood a few feet above the nodding, windy heather and was open and grassy at the top. They climbed it and squatted down. To their right the moon, smoky and yellow in thin night cloud, stood over a clump of distant pine trees. They looked southward across the dismal waste. Hazel waited for Fiver to speak, but he remained silent.

"What was it you wanted to say to me?" asked Hazel at last.

Fiver made no reply and Hazel paused in perplexity. From below, Bigwig was just audible.

"And you, Acorn, you dog-eared, dung-faced disgrace to a gamekeeper's gibbet, if I only had time to tell you-"

The moon sailed free of the cloud and lit the heather more brightly, but neither Hazel nor Fiver moved from the top of the bank. Fiver was looking far out beyond the edge of the common. Four miles away, along the southern skyline, rose the seven-hundred-and-fifty-foot ridge of the downs. On the highest point, the beech trees of Cottington's Clump were moving in a stronger wind than that which blew across the heather.

"Look!" said Fiver suddenly. "That's the place for us, Hazel. High, lonely hills, where the wind and the sound carry and the ground's as dry as straw in a barn. That's where we ought to be. That's where we have to get to."

Hazel looked at the dim, far-off hills. Obviously, the idea of trying to reach them was out of the question. It might well prove to be all they could do to find their way across the heather to some quiet field or copse bank like those they had been used to. It was lucky that Fiver had not come out with this foolish notion in front of any of the others, especially as there was trouble enough already. If only he could be persuaded to drop it here and now, there would be no harm done-unless, indeed, he had already said anything to Pipkin.

"I don't think we could get the others to go as far as that, Fiver," he said. "They're frightened and tired as it is, you know. What we need is to find a safe place soon, and I'd rather succeed in doing what we can than fail to do what we can't."

Fiver gave no sign of having heard him. He seemed to be lost in his own thoughts. When he spoke again, it was as though he were talking to himself. "There's a thick mist between the hills and us. I can't see through it, but through it we shall have to go. Or into it, anyway."

"A mist?" said Hazel. "What do you mean?"

"We're in for some mysterious trouble," whispered Fiver, "and it's not elil. It feels more like-like mist. Like being deceived and losing our way."

There was no mist around them. The May night was clear and fresh. Hazel waited in silence and after a time Fiver said, slowly and expressionlessly, "But we must go on, until we reach the hills." His voice sank and became that of a sleep-talker. "Until we reach the hills. The rabbit that goes back through the gap will run his head into trouble. That running-not wise. That running-not safe. Running-not-" He trembled violently, kicked once or twice and became quiet.

In the hollow below, Bigwig seemed to be drawing to a close. "And now, you bunch of mole-snouted, muck-raking, hutch-hearted sheep ticks, get out of my sight sharp. Otherwise I'll-" He became inaudible again.

Hazel looked once more at the faint line of the hills. Then, as Fiver stirred and muttered beside him, he pushed him gently with one forepaw and nuzzled his shoulder.

Fiver started. "What was I saying, Hazel?" he asked. "I'm afraid I can't remember. I meant to tell you-"

"Never mind," answered Hazel. "We'll go down now. It's time we were getting them on again. If you have any more queer feelings like that, keep close to me. I'll look after you."

11. Hard Going

When Hazel and Fiver reached the floor of the hollow they found Blackberry wailing for them, crouching on the peat and nibbling at a few brown stalks of sedge grass.

"Hello," said Hazel. "What's happened? Where are the others?"

"Over there," answered Blackberry. "There's been a fearful row. Bigwig told Hawkbit and Speedwell that he'd scratch them to pieces if they didn't obey him. And when Hawkbit said he wanted to know who was Chief Rabbit, Bigwig bit him. It seems a nasty business. Who is Chief Rabbit, anyway-you or Bigwig?"

"I don't know," answered Hazel, "but Bigwig's certainly the strongest. There was no need to go biting Hawkbit: he couldn't have gone back if he'd tried. He and his friends would have seen that if they'd been allowed to talk for a bit. Now Bigwig's put their backs up, and they'll think they've got to go on because he makes them. I want them to go on because they can see it's the only thing to do. There are too few of us for giving orders and biting people. Frith in a fog! Isn't there enough trouble and danger already?"

They went over to the far end of the pit. Bigwig and Silver were talking with Buckthorn under an overhanging broom. Nearby, Pipkin and Dandelion were pretending to feed on a patch of scrub. Some way away, Acorn was making a great business of licking Hawkbit's throat, while Speedwell watched.

"Keep still if you can, poor old chap," said Acorn, who obviously wanted to be overheard. "Just let me clean the blood out. Steady, now!" Hawkbit winced in an exaggerated manner and backed away. As Hazel came up, all the rabbits turned and stared at him expectantly.

"Look," said Hazel, "I know there's been some trouble, but the best thing will be to try to forget it. This is a bad place, but we'll soon get out of it."

"Do you really think we will?" asked Dandelion.

"If you'll follow me now," replied Hazel desperately, "I'll have you out of it by sunrise."

"If I don't," he thought, "they'll very likely tear me to bits: and much good may it do them."

For the second time he made his way out of the pit, and the others followed. The weary, frightening journey began again, broken only by alarms. Once a white owl swept silently overhead, so low that Hazel saw its dark, searching eyes looking into his own. But either it was not hunting or he was too big to tackle, for it disappeared over the heather; and although he waited motionless for some time, it did not return. Once Dandelion struck the smell of a stoat and they all joined him, whispering and sniffing over the ground. But the scent was old and after a time they went on again. In this low undergrowth their disorganized progress and uneven, differing rhythms of movement delayed them still more than in the wood. There were continual stampings of alarm, pausing, freezing to the spot at the sound of movement real or imagined. It was so dark that Hazel seldom knew for certain whether he was leading or whether Bigwig or Silver might not be ahead. Once, hearing an unaccountable noise in front of him, which ceased on the instant, he kept still for a long time; and when at last he moved cautiously forward, found Silver crouching behind a tussock of cocksfoot for fear of the sound of his own approach. All was confusion, ignorance, clambering and exhaustion. Throughout the bad dream of the night's journey, Pipkin seemed to be always close beside him. Though each of the others vanished and reappeared like fragments floating round a pool, Pipkin never left him; and his need for encouragement became at last Hazel's only support against his own weariness.

"Not far now, Hlao-roo, not far now," he kept muttering, until he realized that what he said had become meaningless, a mere refrain. He was not speaking to Pipkin or even to himself. He was talking in his sleep, or something very near it.

At last he saw the first of the dawn, like light faintly perceived round a corner at the far end of an unknown burrow; and in the same moment a yellowhammer sang. Hazel's feelings were like those which might pass through the mind of a defeated general. Where were his followers exactly? He hoped, not far away. But were they? All of them? Where had he led them? What was he going to do now? What if an enemy appeared at this moment? He had answers to none of these questions and no spirit left to force himself to think about them. Behind him, Pipkin shivered in the damp, and he turned and nuzzled him-much as the general, with nothing left to do, might fall to considering the welfare of his servant, simply because the servant happened to be there.

The light grew stronger and soon he could see that a little way ahead there was an open track of bare gravel. He limped out of the heather, sat on the stones and shook the wet from his fur. He could see Fiver's hills plainly now, greenish-gray and seeming close in the rain-laden air. He could even pick out the dots of furze bushes and stunted yew trees on the steep slopes. As he gazed at them, he heard an excited voice further down the track.

"He's done it! Didn't I tell you he'd do it?"

Hazel turned his head and saw Blackberry on the path. He was bedraggled and exhausted, but it was he who was speaking. Out of the heather behind him came Acorn, Speedwell and Buckthorn. All four rabbits were now staring straight at him. He wondered why. Then, as they approached, he realized that they were looking not at him, but past him at something further off. He turned round. The gravel track led downhill into a narrow belt of silver birch and rowan. Beyond was a thin hedge; and beyond that, a green field between two copses. They had reached the other side of the common.

"Oh, Hazel," said Blackberry, coming up to him round a puddle in the gravel. "I was so tired and confused, I actually began to wonder whether you knew where you were going. I could hear you in the heather, saying 'Not far now' and it was annoying me. I thought you were making it up. I should have known better. Frithrah, you're what I call a Chief Rabbit!"

"Well done, Hazel!" said Buckthorn. "Well done!"

Hazel did not know what to reply. He looked at them in silence and it was Acorn who spoke next.

"Come on!" he said. "Who's going to be first into that field? I can still run." He was off, slowly enough, down the slope, but when Hazel stamped for him to stop he did so at once.

"Where are the others?" said Hazel. "Dandelion? Bigwig?"

At that moment Dandelion appeared out of the heather and sat on the path, looking at the field. He was followed first by Hawkbit and then by Fiver. Hazel was watching Fiver as he took in the sight of the field, when Buckthorn drew his attention back to the foot of the slope.

"Look, Hazel," he said, "Silver and Bigwig are down there. They're waiting for us."

Silver's light-gray fur showed up plainly against a low spray of gorse, but Hazel could not see Bigwig until he sat up and ran toward them.

"Splendid, Hazel," he said. "Everybody's here. Let's get them into that field."

A few moments later they were under the silver birches and as the sun rose, striking flashes of red and green from the drops on ferns and twigs, they scrambled through the hedge, across a shallow ditch and into the thick grass of the meadow.

12. The Stranger in the Field

To come to the end of a time of anxiety and fear! To feel the cloud that hung over us lift and disperse-the cloud that dulled the heart and made happiness no more than a memory! This at least is one joy that must have been known by almost every living creature.

Here is a boy who was waiting to be punished. But then, unexpectedly, he finds that his fault has been overlooked or forgiven and at once the world reappears in brilliant colors, full of delightful prospects. Here is a soldier who was waiting, with a heavy heart, to suffer and die in battle. But suddenly the luck has changed. There is news! The war is over and everyone bursts out singing! He will go home after all! The sparrows in the plowland were crouching in terror of the kestrel. But she has gone; and they fly pell-mell up the hedgerow, frisking, chattering and perching where they will. The bitter winter had all the country in its grip. The hares on the down, stupid and torpid with cold, were resigned to sinking further and further into the freezing heart of snow and silence. But now-who would have dreamed it? — the thaw is trickling, the great tit is ringing his bell from the top of a bare lime tree, the earth is scented; and the hares bound and skip in the warm wind. Hopelessness and reluctance are blown away like a fog and the dumb solitude where they crept, a place desolate as a crack in the ground, opens like a rose and stretches to the hills and the sky.

The tired rabbits fed and basked in the sunny meadow as though they had come no further than from the bank at the edge of the nearby copse. The heather and the stumbling darkness were forgotten as though the sunrise had melted them. Bigwig and Hawkbit chased each other through the long grass. Speedwell jumped over the little brook that ran down the middle of the field and when Acorn tried to follow him and fell short, Silver joked with him as he scrambled out and rolled him in a patch of dead oak leaves until he was dry. As the sun rose higher, shortening the shadows and drawing the dew from the grass, most of the rabbits came wandering back to the sun-flecked shade among the cow parsley along the edge of the ditch. Here, Hazel and Fiver were sitting with Dandelion under a flowering wild cherry. The white petals spun down around them, covering the grass and speckling their fur, while thirty feet above a thrush sang, "Cherry dew, cherry dew. Knee deep, knee deep, knee deep."

"Well, this is the place all right, isn't it, Hazel?" said Dandelion lazily. "I suppose we'd better start having a look along the banks soon, although I must say I'm in no particular hurry. But I've got an idea it may be going to rain before much longer."

Fiver looked as though he were about to speak, but then shook his ears and turned to nibbling at a dandelion.

"That looks a good bank, along the edge of the trees up there," answered Hazel. "What do you say, Fiver? Shall we go up there now or shall we wait a bit longer?"

Fiver hesitated and then replied, "Just as you think, Hazel."

"Well, there's no need to do any serious digging, is there?" said Bigwig. "That sort of thing's all right for does, but not for us."

"Still, we'd better make one or two scrapes, don't you think?" said Hazel. "Something to give us shelter at a pinch. Let's go up to the copse and look round. We might as well take our time and make quite sure where we'd like to have them. We don't want to have to do the work twice."

"Yes, that's the style," said Bigwig. "And while you're doing that, I'll take Silver and Buckthorn here and have a run down the fields beyond, just to get the lie of the land and make sure there isn't anything dangerous."

The three explorers set off beside the brook, while Hazel led the other rabbits across the field and up to the edge of the woodland. They went slowly along the foot of the bank, pushing in and out of the clumps of red campion and ragged robin. From time to time one or another would begin to scrape in the gravelly bank, or venture a little way in among the trees and nut bushes to scuffle in the leaf mold. After they had been searching and moving on quietly for some time, they reached a place from which they could see that the field below them broadened out. Both on their own side and opposite, the wood edges curved outward, away from the brook. They also noticed the roofs of a farm, but some distance off. Hazel stopped and they gathered round him.

"I don't think it makes much difference where we do a bit of scratching," he said. "It's all good, so far as I can see. Not the slightest trace of elil-no scent or tracks or droppings. That seems unusual, but it may be just that the home warren attracted more elil than other places. Anyway, we ought to do well here. Now I'll tell you what seems the right thing to me. Let's go back a little way, between the woods, and have a scratch near that oak tree there-just by that white patch of stitchwort. I know the farm's a long way off, but there's no point in being nearer to it than we need. And if we're fairly close to the wood opposite, the trees will help to break the wind a bit in winter."

"Splendid," said Blackberry. "It's going to cloud over, do you see? Rain before sunset and we'll be in shelter. Well, let's make a start. Oh, look! There's Bigwig coming back along the bottom, and the other two with him."

The three rabbits were returning down the bank of the stream and had not yet seen Hazel and the others. They passed below them, into the narrower part of the field between the two copses, and it was not until Acorn had been sent halfway down the slope to attract their attention that they turned and came up to the ditch.

"I don't think there's going to be much to trouble us here, Hazel," said Bigwig. "The farm's a good way away and the fields between don't show any signs of elil at all. There's a man track-in fact, there are several-and they look as though they were used a good deal. Scent's fresh and there are the ends of those little white sticks that they burn in their mouths. But that's all for the best, I reckon. We keep away from the men and the men frighten the elil away."

"Why do the men come, do you suppose?" asked Fiver.

"Who knows why men do anything? They may drive cows or sheep in the fields, or cut wood in the copses. What does it matter? I'd rather dodge a man than a stoat or a fox."

"Well, that's fine," said Hazel. "You've found out a lot, Bigwig, and all to the good. We were just going to make some scrapes along the bank there. We'd better start. The rain won't be long now, if I know anything about it."

Buck rabbits on their own seldom or never go in for serious digging. This is the natural job of a doe making a home for her litter before they are born, and then her buck helps her. All the same, solitary bucks-if they can find no existing holes to make use of-will sometimes scratch out short tunnels for shelter, although it is not work that they tackle at all seriously. During the morning the digging proceeded in a light-hearted and intermittent way. The bank on each side of the oak tree was bare and consisted of a light, gravelly soil. There were several false starts and fresh choices, but by ni-Frith they had three scrapes of a sort. Hazel, watching, lent help here and there and encouraged the others. Every so often he slipped back to look out over the field and make sure that all was safe. Only Fiver remained solitary. He took no part in the digging but squatted on the edge of the ditch, fidgeting backward and forward, sometimes nibbling and then starting up suddenly as though he could hear some sound in the wood. After speaking to him once or twice and receiving no reply, Hazel thought it best to let him alone. The next time he left the digging he kept away from Fiver and sat looking at the bank, as though entirely concerned with the work.

A little while after ni-Frith the sky clouded over thickly. The light grew dull and they could smell rain approaching from the west. The blue tit that had been swinging on a bramble, singing "Heigh ho, go-and-get-another-bit-of-moss," stopped his acrobatics and flew into the wood. Hazel was just wondering whether it would be worthwhile starting a side passage to link Bigwig's hole to Dandelion's, when he felt a stamp of warning from somewhere close by. He turned quickly. It was Fiver who had stamped and he was now staring intently across the field.

Beside a tussock of grass a little way outside the opposite copse, a rabbit was sitting and gazing at them. Its ears were erect and it was evidently giving them the full attention of sight, smell and hearing. Hazel rose on his hind legs, paused, and then sat back on his haunches, in full view. The other rabbit remained motionless. Hazel, never taking his eyes off it, heard three or four of the others coming up behind him. After a moment he said,

"Blackberry?"

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

"Go and get him."

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

"You wanted me, Hazel?"

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

"Can I come?" asked Pipkin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cowslip listened gravely. Then he answered,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Fiver?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I think you're right."

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

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

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

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

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

13. Hospitality

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"How many of us?" asked Hazel.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I'm called Strawberry. This is my doe, Nildro-hain.[7] Some of the best empty burrows are quite close. I'll show you, in case your friends want to settle into them. The great burrow is a splendid place, don't you think? I'm sure there can't be many warrens where all the rabbits can meet together underground. The roofs all tree roots, you know, and of course the tree outside keeps the rain from coming through. It's a wonder the tree's alive, but it is."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Do you like it?" asked Strawberry.

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

"What are they for?" he asked again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I expect you'll be hungry now. I know I am. It's going on raining all night, I'm certain of that, but we can feed underground here, you know. And then you can sleep in the great burrow, or in my place if you prefer. We can go back more quickly than we came. There's a run that goes almost straight. Actually, it passes across-"

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

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

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

14. 'Like Trees in November"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"One or two of us are just going to silflay,[8]" said Hazel.

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

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

Cowslip seemed taken aback for a moment Then he laughed.

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

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

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

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

"They do what?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Flayrah! Flayrah!"

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

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

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

"Why actually wake everybody, though?"

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

"I don't understand,"

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

Other rabbits were making their way along the run and Strawberry spoke to several of them, more than once remarking that he would enjoy taking their new friends across the field. Hazel began to realize that he liked Strawberry. On the previous day he had been too tired and bewildered to size him up. But now that he had had a good sleep, he could see that Strawberry was really a harmless, decent sort of fellow. He was touchingly devoted to the beautiful Nildro-hain; and he evidently had moods of gaiety and a great capacity for enjoyment. As they came up into the May morning he hopped over the ditch and skipped into the long grass as blithe as a squirrel. He seemed quite to have lost the preoccupied air that had troubled Hazel the night before. Hazel himself paused in the mouth of the hole, as he always had behind the bramble curtain at home, and looked out across the valley.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I wasn't," said Fiver.

"What? Where were you, then?"

"Here."

"All night?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, no-not many."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Which one, though?" said Dandelion.

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

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

"We shall enjoy that," replied Cowslip immediately.

"He'd better," muttered Bigwig.

Dandelion began.

15. The Story of the King's Lettuce

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

" 'I cannot believe it, said the King.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

16. Silverweed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

17. The Shining Wire

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

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

"Fiver!" said Hazel in the dark.

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

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

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

"Fiver's gone."

"Where's he gone?"

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

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

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

Bigwig listened and sniffed for a few moments.

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

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

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

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

"It's moving away," said Hazel.

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

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

"Shall we look under the yew tree first?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But where are you going, Fiver?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why, you said yourself-" began Bigwig.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dandelion turned and raced back as Pipkin came up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Fiver, go in," said Hazel.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was silence. Then, from between two great tussocks of hair grass came Fiver, his eyes blazing with a frantic urgency. He growled and gibbered at them like a witch hare and those nearest to him fell back in fear. Even Hazel could not have said a word for his life. They realized that he was speaking.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"To the hills," he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It's Strawberry!" cried Dandelion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The wires."

Silver was about to answer, but Hazel spoke first.

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

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