Watership Down Read online

  "Well, we don't tell the old stories very much," said Cowslip. "Our stories and poems are mostly about our own lives here. Of course, that Shape of Laburnum that you saw-that's old-fashioned now. El-ahrairah doesn't really mean much to us. Not that your friend's story wasn't very charming," he added hastily.

  "El-ahrairah is a trickster," said Buckthorn, "and rabbits will always need tricks."

  "No," said a new voice from the further end of the hall, beyond Cowslip. "Rabbits need dignity and, above all, the will to accept their fate."

  "We think Silverweed is one of the best poets we've had for many months," said Cowslip. "His ideas have a great following. Would you like to hear him now?"

  "Yes, yes," said voices from all sides. "Silverweed!"

  "Hazel," said Fiver suddenly, "I want to get a clear idea of this Silverweed, but I daren't go closer by myself. Will you come with me?"

  "Why, Fiver, whatever do you mean? What is there to be afraid of?"

  "Oh, Frith help me!" said Fiver, trembling. "I can smell him from here. He terrifies me."

  "Oh, Fiver, don't be absurd! He just smells the same as the rest of them."

  "He smells like barley rained down and left to rot in the fields. He smells like a wounded mole that can't get underground."

  "He smells like a big, fat rabbit to me, with a lot of carrots inside. But I'll come with you."

  When they had edged their way through the crowd to the far end of the burrow, Hazel was surprised to realize that Silverweed was a mere youngster. In the Sandleford warren no rabbit of his age would have been asked to tell a story, except perhaps to a few friends alone. He had a wild, desperate air and his ears twitched continually. As he began to speak, he seemed to grow less and less aware of his audience and continually turned his head, as though listening to some sound, audible only to himself, from the entrance tunnel behind him. But there was an arresting fascination in his voice, like the movement of wind and light on a meadow, and as its rhythm entered into his hearers the whole burrow became silent.

  The wind is blowing, blowing over the grass.

  It shakes the willow catkins; the leaves shine silver.

  Where are you going, wind? Far, far away

  Over the hills, over the edge of the world.

  Take me with you, wind, high over the sky.

  I will go with you, I will be rabbit-of-the-wind,

  Into the sky, the feathery sky and the rabbit.

  The stream is running, running over the gravel,

  Through the brooklime, the kingcups, the blue and gold of spring.

  Where are you going, stream? Far, far away

  Beyond the heather, sliding away all night.

  Take me with you, stream, away in the starlight.

  I will go with you, I will be rabbit-of-the-stream,

  Down through the water, the green water and the rabbit.

  In autumn the leaves come blowing, yellow and brown.

  They rustle in the ditches, they tug and hang on the hedge.

  Where are you going leaves? Far, far away

  Into the earth we go, with the rain and the berries.

  Take me, leaves, O take me on your dark journey.

  I will go with you, I will be rabbit-of-the-leaves,

  In the deep places of the earth, the earth and the rabbit.

  Frith lies in the evening sky. The clouds are red about him.

  I am here, Lord Frith, I am running through the long grass.

  O take me with you, dropping behind the woods,

  Far away, to the heart of light, the silence.

  For I am ready to give you my breath, my life,

  The shining circle of the sun, the sun and the rabbit.

  Fiver, as he listened, had shown a mixture of intense absorption and incredulous horror. At one and the same time he seemed to accept every word and yet to be stricken with fear. Once he drew in his breath, as though startled to recognize his own half-known thoughts: and when the poem was ended he seemed to be struggling to come to himself. He bared his teeth and licked his lips, as Blackberry had done before the dead hedgehog on the road.

  A rabbit in fear of an enemy will sometimes crouch stock still, either fascinated or else trusting to its natural inconspicuousness to remain unnoticed. But then, unless the fascination is too powerful, there comes the point when keeping still is discarded and the rabbit, as though breaking a spell, turns in an instant to its other resource-flight. So it seemed to be with Fiver now. Suddenly he leaped up and began to push his way violently across the great burrow. Several rabbits were jostled and turned angrily on him, but he took no notice. Then he came to a place where he could not push between two heavy warren bucks. He became hysterical, kicking and scuffling, and Hazel, who was behind him, had difficulty in preventing a fight.

  "My brother's a sort of poet, too, you know," he said to the bristling strangers. "Things affect him very strongly sometimes and he doesn't always know why."

  One of the rabbits seemed to accept what Hazel had said, but the other replied, "Oh, another poet? Let's hear him, then. That'll be some return for my shoulder, anyway. He's scratched a great tuft of fur out."

  Fiver was already beyond them and thrusting toward the further entrance tunnel. Hazel felt that he must follow him. But after all the trouble that he himself had taken to be friendly, he felt so cross at the way in which Fiver had antagonized their new friends that as he passed Bigwig, he said, "Come and help me to get some sense into him. The last thing we want is a fight now." He felt that Fiver really deserved a short touch of Bigwig.

  They followed Fiver up the run and overtook him at the entrance. Before either of them could say a word, he turned and began to speak as though they had asked him a question.

  "You felt it, then? And you want to know whether I did? Of course I did. That's the worst part of it. There isn't any trick. He speaks the truth. So as long as he speaks the truth it can't be folly-that's what you're going to say, isn't it? I'm not blaming you, Hazel. I felt myself moving toward him like one cloud drifting into another. But then at the last moment I drifted wide. Who knows why? It wasn't my own will; it was an accident. There was just some little part of me that carried me wide of him. Did I say the roof of that hall was made of bones? No! It's like a great mist of folly that covers the whole sky: and we shall never see to go by Frith's light any more. Oh, what will become of us? A thing can be true and still be desperate folly, Hazel."

  "What on earth's all this?" said Hazel to Bigwig in perplexity.

  "He's talking about that lop-eared nitwit of a poet down there," answered Bigwig. "I know that much. But why he seems to think we should want to have anything to do with him and his fancy talk-that's more than I can imagine. You can save your breath, Fiver. The only thing that's bothering us is the row you've started. As for Silverweed, all I can say is, I'll keep Silver and he can be just plain Weed."

  Fiver gazed back at him with eyes that, like a fly's, seemed larger than his head. "You think that," he said. "You believe that. But each of you, in his own way, is thick in that mist. Where is the-"

  Hazel interrupted him and as he did so Fiver started. "Fiver, I won't pretend that I didn't follow you up here to speak angrily. You've endangered our good start in this warren-"

  "Endangered?" cried Fiver. "Endangered? Why, the whole place-"

  "Be quiet. I was going to be angry, but you're obviously so much upset that it would be pointless. But what you are going to do now is to come underground with the two of us and sleep. Come on! And don't say any more for the moment."

  One respect in which rabbits' lives are less complicated than those of humans is that they are not ashamed to use force. Having no alternative, Fiver accompanied Hazel and Bigwig to the burrow where Hazel had spent the previous night. There was no one there and they lay down and slept.

  17. The Shining Wire

  When the green field comes off like a lid

  Revealing what was much better hid,

  Unpleasant;

&n
bsp; And look! Behind, without a sound

  The woods have come up and are standing round

  In deadly crescent.

  And the bolt is sliding in its groove,

  Outside the window is the black remover's van,

  And now with sudden, swift emergence

  Come the women in dark glasses, the hump-backed surgeons

  And the scissor-man.

  W.H. Auden, The Witnesses

  It was cold, it was cold and the roof was made of bones. The roof was made of the interlaced sprays of the yew tree, stiff twigs twisted in and out, over and under, hard as ice and set with dull red berries. "Come on, Hazel," said Cowslip. "We're going to carry the yew berries home in our mouths and eat them in the great burrow. Your friends must learn to do that if they want to go our way." "No! No!" cried Fiver. "Hazel, no!" But then came Bigwig, twisting in and out of the branches, his mouth full of berries. "Look," said Bigwig, "I can do it. I'm running another way. Ask me where, Hazel! Ask me where! Ask me where!" Then they were running another way, running, not to the warren but over the fields in the cold, and Bigwig dropped the berries-blood-red drops, red droppings hard as wire. "It's no good," he said. "No good biting them. They're cold."

  Hazel woke. He was in the burrow. He shivered. Why was there no warmth of rabbit bodies lying close together? Where was Fiver? He sat up. Nearby, Bigwig was stirring and twitching in his sleep, searching for warmth, trying to press against another rabbit's body no longer there. The shallow hollow in the sandy floor where Fiver had lain was not quite cold: but Fiver was gone.

  "Fiver!" said Hazel in the dark.

  As soon as he had spoken he knew there would be no reply. He pushed Bigwig with his nose, butting urgently. "Bigwig! Fiver's gone! Bigwig!"

  Bigwig was wide awake on the instant and Hazel had never felt so glad of his sturdy readiness.

  "What did you say? What's wrong?"

  "Fiver's gone."

  "Where's he gone?"

  "Silf-outside. It can only be silf. You know he wouldn't go wandering about in the warren. He hates it."

  "He's a nuisance, isn't he? He's left this burrow cold, too. You think he's in danger, don't you? You want to go and look for him?"

  "Yes, I must. He's upset and overwrought and it's not light yet. There may be elil, whatever Strawberry says."

  Bigwig listened and sniffed for a few moments.

  "It's very nearly light," he said. "There'll be light enough to find him by. Well, I'd better come with you, I suppose. Don't worry-he can't have gone far. But by the King's Lettuce! I won't half give him a piece of my mind when we catch him."

  "I'll hold him down while you kick him, if only we can find him. Come on!"

  They went up the run to the mouth of the hole and paused together. "Since our friends aren't here to push us," said Bigwig, "we may as well make sure the place isn't crawling with stoats and owls before we go out."

  At that moment a brown owl's call sounded from the opposite wood. It was the first call, and by instinct they both crouched motionless, counting four heartbeats until the second followed.

  "It's moving away," said Hazel.

  "How many field mice say that every night, I wonder? You know the call's deceptive. It's meant to be."

  "Well, I can't help it," said Hazel. "Fiver's somewhere out there and I'm going after him. You were right, anyway. It is light-just."

  "Shall we look under the yew tree first?"

  But Fiver was not under the yew tree. The light, as it grew, began to show the upper field, while the distant hedge and brook remained dark, linear shapes below. Bigwig jumped down from the bank into the field and ran in a long curve across the wet grass. He stopped almost opposite the hole by which they had come up, and Hazel joined him.

  "Here's his line, all right," said Bigwig. "Fresh, too. From the hole straight down toward the brook. He won't be far away."

  When raindrops are lying it is easy to see where grass has recently been crossed. They followed the line down the field and reached the hedge beside the carrot ground and the source of the brook. Bigwig had been right when he said the line was fresh. As soon as they had come through the hedge they saw Fiver. He was feeding, alone. A few fragments of carrot were still lying about near the spring, but he had left these untouched and was eating the grass not far from the gnarled crab-apple tree. They approached and he looked up.

  Hazel said nothing and began to feed beside him. He was now regretting that he had brought Bigwig. In the darkness before morning and the first shock of discovering that Fiver was gone, Bigwig had been a comfort and a stand-by. But now, as he saw Fiver, small and familiar, incapable of hurting anyone or of concealing what he felt, trembling in the wet grass, either from fear or from cold, his anger melted away. He felt only sorry for him and sure that, if they could stay alone together for a while, Fiver would come round to an easier state of mind. But it was probably too late to persuade Bigwig to be gentle: he could only hope for the best.

  Contrary to his fears, however, Bigwig remained as silent as himself. Evidently he had been expecting Hazel to speak first and was somewhat at a loss. For some time all three moved on quietly over the grass, while the shadows grew stronger and the wood pigeons clattered among the distant trees. Hazel was beginning to feel that all would be well and that Bigwig had more sense than he had given him credit for, when Fiver sat up on his hind legs, cleaned his face with his paws and then, for the first time, looked directly at him.

  "I'm going now," he said. "I feel very sad. I'd like to wish you well, Hazel, but there's no good to wish you in this place. So just goodbye."

  "But where are you going, Fiver?"

  "Away. To the hills, if I can get there."

  "By yourself, alone? You can't. You'd die."

  "You wouldn't have a hope, old chap," said Bigwig. "Something would get you before ni-Frith."

  "No," said Fiver very quietly. "You are closer to death than I."

  "Are you trying to frighten me, you miserable little lump of chattering chickweed?" cried Bigwig. "I've a good mind-"

  "Wait, Bigwig," said Hazel. "Don't speak roughly to him."

  "Why, you said yourself-" began Bigwig.

  "I know. But I feel differently now. I'm sorry, Bigwig. I was going to ask you to help me to make him come back to the warren. But now-well, I've always found that there was something in what Fiver had to say. For the last two days I've refused to listen to him and I still think he's out of his senses. But I haven't the heart to drive him back to the warren. I really believe that for some reason or other the place is frightening him out of his wits. I'll go with him a little way and perhaps we can talk. I can't ask you to risk it, too. Anyway, the others ought to know what we're doing and they won't unless you go and tell them. I'll be back before ni-Frith. I hope we both shall."

  Bigwig stared. Then he turned furiously on Fiver. "You wretched little black beetle," he said. "You've never learned to obey orders, have you? It's me, me, me all the time. 'Oh, I've got a funny feeling in my toe, so we must all go and stand on our heads! And now we've found a fine warren and got into it without even having to fight, you've got to do your best to upset everyone! And then you risk the life of one of the best rabbits we've got, just to play nursey while you go wandering about like a moonstruck field mouse. Well, I'm finished with you, I'll tell you plain. And now I'm going back to the warren to make sure everyone else is finished with you as well. And they will be-don't make any mistake about that."

  He turned and dashed back through the nearest gap in the hedge. On the instant, a fearful commotion began on the farther side. There were sounds of kicking and plunging. A stick flew into the air. Then a flat, wet clod of dead leaves shot clean through the gap and landed clear of the hedge, close to Hazel. The brambles thrashed up and down. Hazel and Fiver stared at each other, both fighting against the impulse to run. What enemy was at work on the other side of the hedge? There were no cries-no spitting of a cat, no squealing of a rabbit-only the crackling of twigs and
the tearing of the grass in violence.

  By an effort of courage against all instinct, Hazel forced himself forward into the gap, with Fiver following. A terrible sight lay before them. The rotten leaves had been thrown up in showers. The earth had been laid bare and was scored with long scratches and furrows. Bigwig was lying on his side, his back legs kicking and struggling. A length of twisted copper wire, gleaming dully in the first sunlight, was looped round his neck and ran taut across one forepaw to the head of a stout peg driven into the ground. The running knot had pulled tight and was buried in the fur behind his ear. The projecting point of one strand had lacerated his neck and drops of blood, dark and red as yew berries, welled one by one down his shoulder. For a few moments he lay panting, his side heaving in exhaustion. Then again began the struggling and fighting, backward and forward, jerking and falling, until he choked and lay quiet.

  Frenzied with distress, Hazel leaped out of the gap and squatted beside him. Bigwig's eyes were closed and his lips pulled back from the long front teeth in a fixed snarl. He had bitten his lower lip and from this, too, the blood was running. Froth covered his jaws and chest

  "Thlayli!" said Hazel, stamping. "Thlayli! Listen! You're in a snare-a snare! What did they say in the Owsla? Come on-think. How can we help you?"

  There was a pause. Then Bigwig's back legs began to kick once more, but feebly. His ears drooped. His eyes opened unseeing and the whites showed bloodshot as the brown irises rolled one way and the other. After a moment his voice came thick and low, bubbling out of the bloody spume in his mouth.

  "Owsla-no good-biting wire. Peg-got to-dig out."

  A convulsion shook him and he scrabbled at the ground, covering himself in a mask of wet earth and blood. Then he was still again.

  "Run, Fiver, run to the warren," cried Hazel. "Get the others-Blackberry, Silver. Be quick! He'll die."