Watership Down

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.

PART II On Watership Down

18. Watership Down

What is now proved was once only imagin'd.

 William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell