The very plants were unknown to them - pink lousewort with its sprays of hooked flowers, bog asphodel and the thin-stemmed blooms of the sun-dews, 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, towards 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 for ever.'
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.
'No, I think that's altogether too far, Fiver,' he said. 'Think of the miles of danger. Everyone's frightened and tired as it is. 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 fore-paw 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.
Malory Le Morte d' Arthur
When Hazel and Fiver reached the floor of the hollow they found Blackberry waiting for them, crouching on the peat and nibbling at a few brown stalks of sedge-grass.
'Hullo,' 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 be
cause 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. Near-by, 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 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 cock's-foot 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 yellow-hammer 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-grey 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 farther 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 farther 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-rah!' 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-rah,' he said, 'Silver and Bigwig are down there. They're waiting for us.'
Silver's light-grey fur showed up plainly against a low spray of gorse, but Hazel could not see Bigwig until he sat up and ran towards them.
'Is everybody here, Hazel?' he asked.
'Of course they are,' answered Blackberry. 'I tell you, he's what I call a Chief Rabbit. Hazel-rah, shall we -'
'Hazel-rah?' interrupted Bigwig. 'Chief Rabbit? Frith in a wasps' nest! The day I call you Chief Rabbit, Hazel, that'll be the day, that will! I'll stop fighting that day.'
It did indeed prove a momentous day - and a momentous speech as well: but it lay in a future that none could foresee, and for the moment all that poor Hazel could do was to turn aside with the disappointed feeling that after all, his part in the crossing of the heather had not really been a very important one.
'Come on, then, Acorn,' he said. 'You want to run - I'll run with you.'
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
Nevertheless, even in a crowded warren, visitors in the form of young rabbits seeking desirable dry quarters may be tolerated ... and if powerful enough they may obtain and hold a place.
R. M. Lockley The Private Life of the Rabbit
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 colours, 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 ploughland 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 dreamt it? - the thaw is trickling, the great tit is ringing his bell fro
m 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 near-by 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.'