Authors: Richard Adams
A spirit of happy mischief entered into Hazel. He felt as he had on the morning when they crossed the Enborne and he had set out alone and found the beanfield. He was confident and ready for adventure. But what adventure? Something worth telling to Holly and Silver on their return. Something to--well, not to diminish what they were going to do. No, of course not--but just to show them that their Chief Rabbit was up to anything that they were up to. He thought it over as he hopped down the bank and sniffed out a patch of salad burnet in the grass. What, now, would be likely to give them just a little, not unpleasant shock? Suddenly he thought, "Suppose, when they got back, that there were one or two does here already?" And in the same moment he remembered what Kehaar had said about a box full of rabbits at the farm. What sort of rabbits could they be? Did they ever come out of their box? Had they ever seen a wild rabbit? Kehaar had said that the farm was not far from the foot of the down, on a little hill. So it could easily be reached in the early morning, before its men were about. Any dogs would probably be chained, but the cats would be loose. A rabbit could outrun a cat as long as he kept in the open and saw it coming first. The important thing was not to be stalked unawares. He should be able to move along the hedgerows without attracting elil, unless he was very unlucky.
But what did he intend to do, exactly? Why was he going to the farm? Hazel finished the last of the burnet and answered himself in the starlight. "I'll just have a look round," he said, "and if I can find those box rabbits I'll try to talk to them; nothing more than that. I'm not going to take any risks--well, not real risks--not until I see whether it's worth it, anyway."
Should he go alone? It would be safer and more pleasant to take a companion; but not more than one. They must not attract attention. Who would be best? Bigwig? Dandelion? Hazel rejected them. He needed someone who would do as he was told and not start having ideas of his own. At once he thought of Pipkin. Pipkin would follow him without question and do anything he asked. At this moment he was probably asleep in the burrow which he shared with Bluebell and Acorn, down a short run leading off the Honeycomb.
Hazel was lucky. He found Pipkin close to the mouth of the burrow and already awake. He brought him out without disturbing the other two rabbits and led him up by the run that gave on the bank. Pipkin looked about him uncertainly, bewildered and half expecting some danger.
"It's all right, Hlao-roo," said Hazel. "There's nothing to be afraid of. I want you to come down the hill and help me to find a farm I've heard about. We're just going to have a look round it."
"Round a farm, Hazel-rah? What for? Won't it be dangerous? Cats and dogs and--"
"No, you'll be quite all right with me. Just you and me--I don't want anyone else. I've got a secret plan; you mustn't tell the others--for the time being, anyway. I particularly want you to come and no one else will do."
This had exactly the effect that Hazel intended. Pipkin needed no further persuasion and they set off together, over the grass track, across the turf beyond and down the escarpment. They went through the narrow belt of trees and came into the field where Holly had called Bigwig in the dark. Here Hazel paused, sniffing and listening. It was the time before dawn when owls return, usually hunting as they go. Although a full-grown rabbit is not really in danger from owls, there are few who take no account of them. Stoats and foxes might be abroad also, but the night was still and damp and Hazel, secure in his mood of gay confidence, felt sure that he would either smell or hear any hunter on four feet.
Wherever the farm might be, it must lie beyond the road that ran along the opposite edge of the field. He set
off at an easy pace, with Pipkin close behind. Moving quietly in and out of the hedgerow up which Holly and Bluebell had come and passing, on their way, under the cables humming faintly in the darkness above, they took only a few minutes to reach the road.
There are times when we know for a certainty that all is well. A batsman who has played a fine innings will say afterward that he felt he could not miss the ball, and a speaker or an actor, on his lucky day, can sense his audience carrying him as though he were swimming in miraculous, buoyant water. Hazel had this feeling now. All round him was the quiet summer night, luminous with starlight but paling to dawn on one side. There was nothing to fear and he felt ready to skip through a thousand farmyards one after the other. As he sat with Pipkin on the bank above the tar-smelling road, it did not strike him as particularly lucky when he saw a young rat scuttle across from the opposite hedge and disappear into a clump of fading stitchwort below them. He had known that some guide or other would turn up. He scrambled quickly down the bank and found the rat nosing in the ditch.
"The farm," said Hazel, "where's the farm--near here, on a little hill?"
The rat stared at him with twitching whiskers. It had no particular reason to be friendly, but there was something in Hazel's look that made a civil answer natural.
"Over road. Up lane."
The sky was growing lighter each moment. Hazel crossed the road without waiting for Pipkin, who caught him up under the hedge bordering the near side of the little lane. From here, after another listening pause, they began to make their way up the slope toward the northern skyline.
Nuthanger is like a farm in an old tale. Between Ecchinswell and the foot of Watership Down and about half a mile from each, there is a broad knoll, steeper on the north side but falling gently on the south--like the down ridge itself. Narrow lanes climb both slopes and come together in a great ring of elm trees which encircles the flat summit. Any wind--even the lightest--draws from the height of the elms a rushing sound, multifoliate and powerful. Within this ring stands the farmhouse, with its barns and outbuildings. The house may be two hundred years old or it may be older, built of brick, with a stone-faced front looking south toward the down. On the east side, in front of the house, a barn stands clear of the ground on staddle stones; and opposite is the cow byre.
As Hazel and Pipkin reached the top of the slope, the first light showed clearly the farmyard and buildings. The birds singing all about them were those to which they had been accustomed in former days. A robin on a low branch twittered a phrase and listened for another that answered him from beyond the farmhouse. A chaffinch gave its little falling song and further off, high in an elm, a chiffchaff began to call. Hazel stopped and then sat up, the better to scent the air. Powerful smells of straw and cow dung mingled with those of elm leaves, ashes and cattle feed. Fainter traces came to his nose as the overtones of a bell sound in a trained ear. Tobacco, naturally: a good deal of cat and rather less dog and then, suddenly and beyond doubt, rabbit. He looked at Pipkin and saw that he, too, had caught it.
While these scents reached them they were also listening. But beyond the light movements of birds and the first buzzing of the flies immediately around them, they could hear nothing but the continual susurration of the trees. Under the northern steep of the down the air had been still, but here the southerly breeze was magnified by the elms, with their myriads of small, fluttering leaves, just as the effect of sunlight on a garden is magnified by dew. The sound, coming from the topmost branches, disturbed Hazel because it suggested some huge approach--an approach that was never completed: and he and Pipkin remained still for some time, listening tensely to this loud yet meaningless vehemence high overhead.
They saw no cat, but near the house stood a flat-roofed dog kennel. They could just glimpse the dog asleep inside--a large, smooth-haired, black dog, with head on paws. Hazel could not see a chain; but then, after a moment, he noticed the line of a thin rope that came out through the kennel door and ended in some sort of fastening on the roof. "Why a rope?" he wondered and then thought, "Because a restless dog cannot rattle it in the night."
The two rabbits began to wander among the outbuildings. At first they took care to remain in cover and continually on the watch for cats. But they saw none and soon grew bolder, crossing open spaces and even stopping to nibble at dandelions in the patches of weeds and rough grass. Guided by scent, Hazel made his way to a low-roofed shed. The door was half open and he went through it with scarcely a pause at the brick threshold. Immediately opposite the door, on a broad wooden shelf--a kind of platform--stood a wire-fronted hutch. Through the mesh he could see a brown bowl, some greenstuff and the ears of two or three rabbits. As he stared, one of the rabbits came close to the wire, looked out and saw him.
Beside the platform, on the near side, was an up-ended bale of straw. Hazel jumped lightly on it and from there to the thick planks, which were old and soft-surfaced, dusty and covered with chaff. Then he turned back to Pipkin, waiting just inside the door.
"Hlao-roo," he said, "there's only one way out of this place. You'll have to keep watching for cats or we may be trapped. Stay at the door and if you see a cat outside, tell me at once."
"Right, Hazel-rah," said Pipkin. "It's all clear at the moment."
Hazel went up to the side of the hutch. The wired front projected over the edge of the shelf so that he could neither reach it nor look in, but there was a knothole in one of the boards facing him and on the far side he could see a twitching nose.
"I am Hazel-rah," he said. "I have come to talk to you. Can you understand me?"
The answer was in slightly strange but perfectly intelligible Lapine.
"Yes, we understand you. My name is Boxwood. Where do you come from?"
"From the hills. My friends and I live as we please, without men. We eat the grass, lie in the sun and sleep underground. How many are you?"
"Four. Bucks and does."
"Do you ever come out?"
"Yes, sometimes. A child takes us out and puts us in a pen on the grass."
"I have come to tell you about my warren. We need more rabbits. We want you to run away from the farm and join us."
"There's a wire door at the back of this hutch," said Boxwood. "Come down there: we can talk more easily."
The door was made of wire netting on a wooden frame, with two leather hinges nailed to the uprights and a hasp and staple fastened with a twist of wire. Four rabbits were crowded against the wire, pressing their noses through the mesh. Two--Laurel and Clover--were short-haired black Angoras. The others, Boxwood and his doe Haystack, were black-and-white Himalayans.
Hazel began to speak about the life of the downs and the excitement and freedom enjoyed by wild rabbits. In his usual straightforward way he told about the predicament of his warren in having no does and how he had come to look for some. "But," he said, "we don't want to steal your does. All four of you are welcome to join us, bucks and does alike. There's plenty for everyone on the hills." He went on to talk of the evening feed in the sunset and of early morning in the long grass.
The hutch rabbits seemed at once bewildered and fascinated. Clover, the Angora doe--a strong, active rabbit--was clearly excited by Hazel's description and asked several questions about the warren and the downs. It became plain that they thought of their life in the hutch as dull but safe. They had learned a good deal about elil from some source or other and seemed sure that few wild rabbits survived for long. Hazel realized that although they were glad to talk to him and welcomed his visit because it brought a little excitement and change into their monotonous life, it was not within their capacity to take a decision and act on it. They did not know how to make up their minds. To him and his companions, sensing and acting was second nature; but these rabbits had never had to act to save their lives or even to find a meal. If he was going to get any of them as far as the down, they would have to be urged. He sat quiet for a little, nibbling a patch of bran spilled on the boards outside the hutch. Then he said,
"I must go back now to my friends in the hills: but we shall return. We shall come one night, and when we do, believe me, we shall open your hutch as easily as the farmer does: and then, any of you who wish will be free to come with us."
Boxwood was about to reply when suddenly Pipkin spoke from the floor. "Hazel, there's a cat in the yard outside!"
"We're not afraid of cats," said Hazel to Boxwood, "as long as we're in the open." Trying to appear unhurried, he went back to the floor by way of the straw bale and crossed over to the door. Pipkin was looking through the hinge. He was plainly frightened.
"I think it's smelled us, Hazel," he said. "I'm afraid it knows where we are."