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
'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
Then Sir Beaumains… rode all that ever he might ride through marshes and fields and great dales, that many times… he plunged over the head in deep mires, for he knew not the way, but took the gainest way in that woodness… And at the last him happened to come to a fair green way.
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
'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,
