Watership Down

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

'Fiver?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'I think you're right.'

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

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

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

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

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

13. Hospitality

In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.

Tennyson, The Lotus-Eaters 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'How many of us?' asked Hazel.

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

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

The run was broad, smooth and dry. It was obviously a highway, for other runs branched off it in all directions. The rabbits in front went fast and Hazel had little time to sniff about as he followed. Suddenly he checked. He had come into an open place. His whiskers could feel no earth in front and none was near his sides. There was a good deal of air ahead of him-he could feel it moving-and there was a considerable space above his